LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Taranaki Daily News, 18 April 1918, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

The Moa Dairy Company heads thei grading list for butter at Moturoa for the past year. During March 57,695 boxes of butter were shipped from Auckland, the value being rather over £230,000. It is rumored in Manain that some, nf the mountaineers who preferred the bracing air of Mount Kgmont to that of military discipline and substantial stew have been captured and taken under escort to Hawera. A Sydney cablegram reports that hotels have raised the price of all spirits to yd a drink. The Victorian Prices Commission has fixed the prices of tobacco to be those ruling on March 1. .Icremiah O'Reilly, who was convicted and discharged for drunkenness on Tuesday morning, was again before the court yesterday morning, when Mr. H. R. Cattley, J.P., was on the bench. O'Reilly was lined 20s, in default three days' imprisonment.

Thn culvert on the road running across the railway line near the Egmont Road station appears to have collapsed. The presence of workmen and motor-cars indicated a blockage, and the quantity of loose clay showed that good progres3 was being made with the repairs. The slips which blocked the road over the Mangamingi ridge after last week's heavy rain are now partially cleared. A number of settlers were busily engaged on the road on Monday, and cleared it sufficiently to allow the passage of horse traffic.—Argiis. Three men, named Longstaff, McArthur and Jones, were charged before Mr. A. Crooke, S.M., at Waitara yesterday, with breaking and entering and stealing a quantity of wool frpm Nolan and C'o.'s store at Waitara. The. men all pleaded not guilty, and were committed for trial. Bail was allowed.

The ringing of the fire alarm at Inglewood yesterday afternoon while a passenger train was at the station was the means of speedily emptying the carriages. Those who could not reach the platform had their heads and necks out of the window looking for the tell-tale smoke. There was no smoke, but plenty of noise, but it was only a trial bell. . A single man, named Joseph Halliday, who had walked to Kltham from the Napier district, was arrested on Monday evening by Constable Townsend for failing to produce his registration papers in the National Reserve. On interrogating Halliday, the constable elicited the information that he had never been registered in the National Reserve, and he therefore iinprisond him.—Argus.

A young lad was ''wanted", by the ! Hawera police on Monday, and a constable journeyed by cur to Patea, in the hope that lie would find the boy (says the Press). On Hearing Manutahi, the party passed a boy riding a good chestnut horse. The constable remarked that the boy looked very like the one he was after, and the car was turned round to overtake the boy. The latter at once noticed that he had been '/spotted,'' and leaving the horse made off into some light scrub by the roadside. The constable, after a fruitless search, took the horse back with him as far as Mokoia. Later in the day a local farmer rang up Hie police to say that one of his horses had been stolen, and was gratified to learn that it had been recovered for him some hours before he had made his loss known.

The mortgages extension clause added to the Finance Bill the other day will have wide effects. The morito.-iuin law of 1914 provided that its provisions might be negatived by agreement between the -mortgagor and' mortgagee. Lenders have used this provision very expensively by requiring borrowers to contract themselves out of the mori'torium. The new clause provides that, except in the case of trade mortgages, all covenants and conditions excluding provisions of the principal Act shall become void. The moritorium applies to mortgages effected during the last three years, and in future, regardless of contracts to the contrary. A trade mortgage is one securing to a bank, trading company or merchant, the balance of the customer's account.

A courageous rescue of » little child from effected by a girl of 12, is reported from Onerahi. A child tbreo years of age, named Nordstrand, "whilJ playing on the jetty steps, slipped and fell into the water. A strong ebb-ti&e was swirling among the piles, and the child was carried some distance into the harbor, and had already sunk once before the occurrence was noticed. On the alarm being given, her elder sister, without a second's hesitation, ' dived, /fully clothed, from the top of the jetty, and brouglit the drowning child to the surface. The distance of rescuer and rescued from shere hod by that time considerably increased, but with one arm thrown round her small sister the brave girl battled strenuously against the tide' eventually reaching shore in a somewhat exhausted condition.

Says a Sydney journal:—"With Mr. Harry S. W. Lawson's arrival into the Premiership of Victoria, the Presbyterian Manse again comes into its own. Like Sir George Reid, in New South Wales, Mr, Lawson is a son of the manse, and was born in the shadow of the Presbyterian Church in Dunolly (Victoria), in 187u. He is the youngest of present Australian Premiers, being not ye.t 43 years old. In spite of 'his comparative youth, the new Premier is' a Parliamentary veteran. He first entered the Victorian Assembly as member for Castlemaine in 1899, when he was 24 years old, and he has kept the same Parliamentary seat ever since. When he went into Parliament the new Premier was only an articled clerk in a solicitor's office, and had Some examinations still to be passed before he qualified for his profession. But he was a member of the Borough Council, to which lie had been returned at the top of the poll only a few weeks previously. Mr. Lawson's great popularity in his town is those early days was dne in the first place to his personality as a straightforward, even-tempered, fairdealing young man, with sound talents sure to make their way. But beyond this attractive character, he was also the champion footballer of the whole district. Over Oft high, of burly build and great strength, he is still named in the Castlemaine and District Football Association as the fairest footballer they remember, and one of their best. Yet again, lie was the most notable youth in the Castlemaine Presbyterian Church. He founded a Young Men's Fellowship Association, and became its j first president. Mr- Lawson's Parliamentary career since 1899 has been of it'ho solid sort, but not eventful. He j lias been Attorney-General, Minister for 'Mines and Minister for Lands." I Woods' Great Peppermint Cure. 1/G, 2/6

A general meeting of the VogcHown Progressive Association was held on Tuesday evening. A discussion took place with reference to the urgent necessity for school buildings, and it was unanimously resolved to communicate with the Minister, pointing out the requirements of this growing district. Copies of the resolution will also be forwarded to Messrs. H. J. Okey and C. A. Wilkinson, M's.P., and to the Education Board. It was decided to communicate with Mr., S. (.!■. Smith, chairman of the Central School Committee, thanking him for the manner in which lie had advanced the claims of the district. It Was further decided to write to the Borough Council asking that repairs be effected to certain portions of the Carringtou Road, that the footpaths be formed up and gravelled and that Mill Road receive attention; also to ask what action it was prepared to take in connection with tree-planting along several of the by-streets of the I district.

An instance, of remarkable pluck.and presence of mind on the part of some small Maori children occurred recently at Ohinemutu, Rotorua. Five children, of ages ranging from three to a little under seven years, were playing on the banks of the Utuhina stream, where they had a swing. A little boy of three was accidentally bumped by a, child who was swinging, and knocked into the water, which is there .about.Oft deep, while the banks are steep. The oldest child, a son of Lieutenant Kepa Ehau, promptly called out, "Form chain! Form chain!" His sister Heni, about five years old, threw herself down on the bank and extended her arms. He caught one of her hands and lowered himself down to the water, while the other two chldren held on to the other hand. He was just able to grasp the drowning child's hair, and callont, "Pull away. Pull away!" Exerting all their strength the children on the brink managed to drag him and the child he was grasping to safety.

The kindness and attention of the ! nursing sisters is beyond praise (says a returned Manaia soldier to the local paper). Their work is of a very trying character and their hours long, but their sympathetic natures and their anxiety to soothe and alleviate suffering carry them cheerfully through all their dispiriting and exacting labors. Very much in the same line of war business are the stretcher bearers. They are all heroes these men. Yet it is a notable fact that though they perform deeds of the highest valor, in cold blood and without any of the incitements of fury or excitement that impel the righting man to bravery, their names are very seldom seen in the honors list. I have seen them during an advance, in a perfect rain of shot and shell, calmly making for the places where men were falling thickest, picking them up and making off with them through mud and shellholes, often carrying them a distance or three or four miles. They must be men of the highest courage and of great physical strength and endurance. It is the same in a night raid. ' They go stalking about in the darkness, knee-deep in mud, and wherever a cry or groan is heard they are there, no matter what

(ha peril to themselves. An interesting letter just received from one of the New Zealand boys in Egypt gives a good account of the Turk as a tighter. The writer says: "I would like to get back to New Zealand now, but T suppose we have got to see it through now we have gone so far. From what I have seen of the Turks in this last big advance we mode, I think that Turkey is just about on her last legs. They often come into our lines in small parties and 'give themselves up. We had MO of them one day. As far as fighting goes, I don't think they can come up to our boys. They will fight all right if they are entrenched and we are attacking, but once we get to their trenches with the bayonet they always give up. They' seem to be very frightened of cold.steel. They attacked us once, and they came at us about seven to one. Wo were not entrenched, and neither were they, so it was a fair go in the open. They came at us till they got within about fifteen yards, and when they saw us waiting for them with the bayonet they wouldn't come on. It is just as well for us they didn't, if they had it would have been the end of the

lot of, ua. It cost them more by running away than it would if they had come on. We counted 450 dead, and we brought in 64 wounded next morning. We never had more than half that hum,ber up against them. We got after them again the next day, and we came to a little village full of wounded Turks. The rest of them got well out of it. When we got to Jaffa the people there told us that the Turks had. all cleared out, and burnt all their stores, as we found when we went through it. All the civilian population seemed pleased to seo the British troops." "Shell shock" (says a contemporary) is not so serious as it used to be. Science has found a novel method of restoring its victim to normality. It is a methou involving psychology of the most expert sort. "Shell shock" sufferers, who have had nervous prostration 'or something akin to it, as a result of a gigantic cvplosion, nre not taken to general military hospitals nor to insane asylums. The British have constructed special shell shock hospitals. Here their treatment varies according to the ideas held by tho man in charge, with re-education, vest, .hypnotism, isolation, etc. It has been 'definitely established that too much coddling is bad. Patients who have received attention, massaging, dictic

luxuries, motor-rides, and so on, showed practically no recoveries. These men rapidly become tiiryd and self-pitying, showed no improvement, and in short moved steadily on toward the goal of discharge and pension. On the other hand, success has attended efforts at treatment just back of the firing line in the casualty clearing station within sight and sound of battle and not out of the danger zoxe. Exercise has been found valuable, especially with the adjunct of music. But most important of all, the individual's attitude toward the war and himself must be rationised and made optimistic. The extraordinary turn of events in the great eastern country of Europe has brought Russia so prominently before the public throughout the world that a film dealing with historical exactitude in a phase ef the court life surrounding the Gzar is peculiarly appropriate. Such a picture is "Rasputin, the Black Monk." a tense human picture by the World Film Company, which will be screened at Everybody's next Saturday.

A choice lot of chintz and cretonne nuilts are being offered at the Melbourne Ltd., at 18s Cd and 19s 6d respectively. The'quilts measure six by live, so are ample size for double: beds. Only half the price of blankets and just as warm. The big attraction at Everybody's tonight will be the appearance of Elizabeth Risdon in the big London film success, "The Mother of Dartmoor," a fine heartinterest story of "mother love," adapted from the well-knowln block, "The Mother," by Eden Philpotts.