LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Taranaki Daily News, 26 September 1918, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

A London cable states that the owners have presented Stonehenge to the nation. On the present scale of national expenditure the United States could finance the war, if necessary, for 25 years, says the Philadelphia city statistician ' The following men from Eltham and the district went into camp -yesterday with the thirteenth CI draft": Messrs. R. Hill, H. Northover, T. Pennington and R. A. Priestley. It is reported that a property in th> main street, Hamilton, between Collingwood Street and Garden Place, recently changed hands at a figure working out lit over £2OO per foot (reports The Auckland. Star). A draft of men left Taranaki for CI camp yesterday. Only one man left New Plymouth—W. H. Smith—two others (W. C. Hoskiiv and R. J. Marsh) being expected' to join' the.train along the line. r "■;■ At a meeting of ladies held at Fitzroy School last night, it was decided to hold the school's animal "At Home" 011 Thursiday, Deceniber 5.. There were about 40 ladies present, and'committees were appointed to attend to the various matters con neoted. with the function, the proceeds of which will be devoted to improving Uie school grounds. Tho'Tahora, Laud and Sawmilling Company Limited has now been floated and registered. The capital of the company is £30,000. The company has secured timber-cutting rights over a large area of laud around Tahora township, about fifty miles in from Stratford, and the present head of the Main Trunk railway. Included in the British contingent at Baku, on the Caspian Sea (which place was evacuated by the British owing to the treachery of the Armenians) were a dctacTiment of New Zealanders. Amongst them was Captain Bathgate, of Wanga--11111, who, in a letter home not lorn* since mentioned tye fact that the expedition had crossed through Persia to the Caucasus, and lie and others were learning tuo Russian language. Baku, it may be slated js some distance north of the J urko-hussian frontier, north of Persia. , Time was when a 2 ounce tin of Aromatic tobacco could be had for a shilling. To-day you pay Is 3d for 1? ounces, an advance of 40 per cent, and, as even a moderate smoker will consume two or three tins a week, the added cost of indulgence in the weed is no joke. This consideration it is that is causing so many devotees of the weed to smoke our X.Z. grown tobaccos—"Uold Pouch" and "Three Diamonds," which are ■ still being retailed at ft shilling the two ounces. This tobacco is now toasted, and, as l a result, a vast improvement of the flavor has been efftcted. No moisture added, no sauce or other adulteration, you get a pure genuine arti'cle and a -'healthier smoke, because it is t,oastedj :V.''. -

Word has been received by tlie New Plymouth Borough Council tliat tfie proposed loan of £40,0(kl for electric light improvements has been approved by the Minister. Advocates for the formation of the Moa Road District into separate county an pressing the matter more strenuously than ever at present, and petitions are in circulation to which signatures are being secured asking the Government to constitute the district a county. The returning officer for the Taranaki electorate was advised yesterday morning by telegraph that the writ for the by-election had been issued. The roll therefore closed automatically at (1 p.m. yesterday. The date of the election will not be known until the writ is received by to-night's mail. Looseness, in commercial affairs was commented upon by his Honor tho Chief Justice (Sir Robert Stout) at the Supreme Court in Welington. "I cannot conceive," he said, "why business men do not put all their transactions in writing. Half the litigation, so far as business men are concerned, arise from this' trusting to memory." i Speaking at a lodge function at Onehunga on Wednesday evening, Sir Frederick Lang remarked that the t/lrie was coming when the Government would have to make provision for the rendering of financial assistance to parents, especially to those with large families. The statement was warmly applauded. "Excuse;me if this letter doea not seem too cheerful," writes a Blenheim soldier from England, "but a few days back someone beat me for my spare shirt, just after I had put in 'half an hour washing it, mind you. However, it is a matter that is easily fixed up—just a question ,of someone's • washing, my size of shujt,'and no one but me about." A Military Medical Board incident: A Palmerston boy volunteered four times but was rejected as unfit. He was called in the ballot and again rejected. He went to Christehurch, married, and commenced business, but was again raked in and sent to the Glaxo camp. After a short period he lias again been discharged. He hopes he is free this time. So far as is known, only one man from the recently-arrived transport, reached New Plymouth on Tuesday night. The deputy-mayor (Mr W. A. Collis) the deputy-chairman of the New Plymouth Patriotic Committee (Mr ,J. W. Chaney) and the Ven. Archdeacon Evans were at the station to meet the men who were expected, but Private Hodder, of Whangamomosa, was the only man to arrive. t Tn England the salaries of teachers, young and old 'have been increased recently. A minimum rate has been established, apart .from all allowance for house rent, coal or salaries paid for duties other than as a teacher of a public elementary school. There has been a great awakening of interest ,in matters educational in the Old Country, and steps have been taken, not only in the direction of increasing salaries, but in the improvement of the conditions of the teaching profession. Ordinary sewing cotton, once procurable for 2(1 a reel, is now being retailed throughout the Dominion at 5y 2 d. A retail merchant in Wellington who keeps in touch with the English market declares that the profits the cotton manufacturers arc making are staggering. A few months ago it was announced that one big firm's profits for the last' financial year amounted to over £3,000,000. The latest Drapers' Record to hand gives a resume of the balance-sheet of one of the smaller concerns. This company made £438,458 net profit, paid I shareholders a dividend of 20 per cent., carried forward .£101,410 and £50,000 to the insurance fund.

That all the "absent-minded ibeggars" are not amongst the Tommy Atkins fraternity is evident from "the lapse of a milk supplier living not a hundred miles from the Bristol road. A wedding had taken place in the family of the principal in the act, and the nes.'t morning he left to take his milk to the factory as usual. When near the factory lie was met by a fellow-supplier who saluted him ivith.- "Hullo, Mr ! Whei'e are your cans?" The man looked round at his empty waggon, and with open-faced astonishment exclaimed: "By , I've left them behind!" The incident lias been the subject of a deal of good-natured banter in the par» tioular locality. A correspondent in the Times, writing from Honolulu, says:--The Germans have had a bad time in Hawaii. The more dangerous ones have been transported to Salt Lake City, which ia scarcely flattorat by the distinction. A few are.in.goal for complicity in the Hindu sedition plot, and a few may hope soon to be there. Germans holding responsible positions as managers of important sugar plantations are being evicted and their places taken by genuine Americans—all of which, is Very disconcerting to .German ambitions iu the Pacific, for the German community in Hawaii before the entry of America into the war was a flourishing colony, well founded in "Kiiltur" and other amiable qualities. Letters received from soldiers in France show that when the Prime Minister visited the trenches he was approached by married men with the forces who complained of the inadequacy of the allowance made to, their dependents. One writer savs to his wife: "We had Bill and Jop ii'.'re to-day. They had a fairly good lie '••a after they had explained things i'. ' >l, but it was funny in places, I believe they are.going to resume the assistance again so he told us. So you ■want to see that you get it. If they turn you dewn go tp the extremes and see that you get it. I don't mind fighting hero as long as we get a fair hearing. .... I always seem to be broke over here. I would change my allotment only it would take too long—we might be coming home then." Another married soldier says furlough is no good to him because his allotment is not sufficient to allow him to go anywhere for a change. "Brown of Harvard" is in. six reels with Tom Moore and Hazel Daly in the lead. It is a bright breezy story of the famous American University—with the Harvard-Yale boat race as a prominent feature of the production. This _ excellent picture commences a three night season at the Empire to-night.