LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Taranaki Daily News, 13 January 1919, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

At Pahiatua on New Year's Eve a constable in uniform was to ha seen helping to create harmony as a bandsman. An Eltham press message states that private advices from Opunake staie that several deaths occurred there from eerebro-spinal meningitis. There is no doubt as to tho nature of the disease.

A motorist pulled up his car near the bridge at the Manawatu Gorge the other day to allow a mob of cattle to pass. The bullocks crowded near the car, and one got astride the engine. It released itself without doing any damage to the car.

A story by the Marquis Albert Theodoli, speaking tor Italy at the Americaji Luncheon Club in London: —The "King of Prussia"—the Kaiser—standing on a height and seeing the immense force of American soldiers, exclaimed: "What a great fleet it must have taken to bring all these man over the Atlantic!"' "No; only one ship—the Lusitania," was the answer.

This is not a printer's bulL A stone cutter had been instructed to carve over the door of the new church this passage from the Bible:—"My house shall be called the house of prayer." In order that he might get the words correctly, the stone cutter was referred to the verse in the Bible —Matthew xxi., 13. He proceeded to his work, and cut the whole verse: "My house shall be called the house of prayer, but ye have made it a den of thieves!"

The correspondent of the British naval wireless service has one particularly striking remark in his description of the surrender to Admiral Tyrwhitt of the second instalment of German submarines. Keferring to the fact that most of the U-boats were commanded by sub-lieuten-ants, he reports one of these saying that his senior officer did not come Because lie had been mentioned in the British Press as a marked man. The reference was, raj doubt, to that list, issued by the Admiralty giving the names of ISO submarina commanders who aro to be held accountable for crimes committed against British merchant vessels, their crews and passengers. Whether it waa quite good policy to publish that list and thereby give the criminals warning that they were known, is perhaps arguable; the men themselves appear to recognise quite clearly that the threat of punishment was no idle one and to fear it accordingly.

During the recent influenza epidemic the importance of sunlight as a preventive and curative agent was stressed by the medical profession. Sunlight is being successfully employed also, in the trentment of wounded men in many of the military hospitals in France. An American, Dr. Willis Campbell, is said to have used the sun treatment for the past five years with marked success in diseases of the hones and joints, and he is of opinion that it could be usefully applied to tho treatment of other disorders, especially in military surgery Dr. Campbell is a professor of orthopaedic surgery in the University of Tenessee, and in the Journal of American Surgery (New York) he describes 127 of his cases. For tho modern development of the sun cure i 'he gives credit to Dr. Rollier, of Switzerland, who has three high-level sanatoria for sun treatment at altitudes vary-' ing from 4000 ft to 5000 ft. The ultraviolet rays are regarded by him as the curative ones, and on the high altitude these are most abundant. But Dr. Campbell has achieved good results at ordinary levels.. He says, however, that the administration of the solar rays is by uo means a simple task, and that the closest scrutiny .is necessary at all times, or the treatment will rarely, if ever, be successful.

A lot is being written lately about the alleged extravagance of ladies buying crepe ile chine blouses. This criticism can only apply to the cities where these goods are sold at from three to five guineas. The Melbourne, Ltd., are selling similar goods, splendid quality, grand wearing, at from 27s 6d to 35a. There is only one SANDER EXTRACT, and that 13 why the people reject the many inferior and harrful substitutes and just as goods. SANDER'S EXTR \CT is free from the objectionable qualities of the common eucalyptus. Sander's Extract cures all infectious diseases, all winter ailments, ulcers, burnß, sprains, eczema, etc. Insist oa the

A London cable states tliat Lever Bros., soapmakers, have decided to increase their capital to sixty millions. Fruit is tow coming in more freely, and prices for peaches, as well as Japanese plums, have declined since the Christ-mas-New Year week (says the Auckland Herald. During the last couple of days Triumph and small Wiggins peaches have fallen in fully 100 percent, Unfortunately brown spot is again in evidence, which necessitates rapid sales of fruit if retailers u/o not to loose on their purchases. A Master!czi paper states that a local i-esident v?aa leisurely wending his way along Qr-een Street at alxiut 6.50 o'clock on Sunday evening when, he was accosted by a rndn of mean appearance who asked him if ho could change half-a-crown. "I have walked in four miles in order to attend church," said the man, "but I have only lialf-a-crown in my possession, and cannot alford to put that in the collection plate." The elmnge was dujy handed over. Later in the evening the resident discovered tha coin to be a counterfeit.

"I have (removed tJse htnnan lung from the chest cavity with forceps, tied its bleeding blood vessels, cleansed its outer surface, and, while still holding it in my hands and manipulating it as you would a handkerchief, I have run thin pieces of gauze up its tracts. Feeling my way carefully along its walla I have removed a bullet or shell fragment Then, after suturing tie aperture, X have placed the respiratory organ back in the cavity of,the chest. In two-thirds of the cases upon which I have do operated the patient lived." This was one of the many amazing statements made to 1200 medical officers of the American Army at Camp Greenleaf by Colonel Pierre Duval, of the French Reserve Medical Corps early in November. Colonel Duval was pa a visit to America with ten of tho foremost surgeons of England, France, and Italy, to attend the Inter-Allied War Conference of Surgeons. A motor car accident, fortunately unattended with any serious injury to the participants, took place at the corner of Gill and Currie streets about 7 o'clock yesterday evening. A car owned by a settler of Puniho and occupied by a daughter and son, the former driving, was proceeding along Currie St. towards Mr. Newton King's garage. In crossing Gill street a motor cyclist was observed coming down the street at, it is stated, a fairly rapid speed. In order to avoid a collision the driver of the car swerved and was successful in preventing the motor cyclist from hitting the car head on. The cyclist, however, could not avoid contact with the car and was thrown to the ground, but at once remounted and left the scene. Ths car, though the engine was stopped at once, before its momentum was entirely checked, ran into the plate glass windows of Mr. Newton King's garage, two of the windows being shattered. The car, which was not damaged, was prevented from further progress by the radiator coming against the concrete division between the two windows, thereby preventing the occupants of the car from being taken through the broken glass, in which case they would probably have sustained severe cuts.

"I never believed in all tii&ss German atrocities before, but I can say si ia tie truth now," writes Driver 0. Lewis, of Palmers ton North, from somewhere in France under date November G, says the Standard. Driver Lewis, who left with the 28th Reinforcements, cites numerous instances that have coaie to hia notice of German brutality and inhumanity wreaked on the defenceless French civilian population. He. states, inter alia: "The last town we passed through was something awful after the Huns were driven out The poor 'Froggies' wero crying with joy, never seeing a British soldier for four years. The hardships they experienced have been something cruel. Here is one instance that happened in the village I am in at the present moment. As soon as •Frits' lad to retreat numbers of civilians were packed up and marched away in groups and their houses Bmashed to bits. The saddest case of all was that of a French soldier returning to hia village here. Ho had been fighting in another sector and had had no news of his family for four years. To-day he learned that before the German departure his two children lad been locked in a room while his wife was gagged and outraged by German soldiers. Sha was dead before he. arrived. This was told me by the Mayor of the town, and_ the doctor who attended 'her. The British prisoners were running round with their boots in shreds and hardly a stitch on their backs, and a civilian was bayoneted for giving a British prisoner a piece of stale bread." The writer goes on to say that in the recent advance extra guards had to be put around captured Germans confined in the village in order to stop the unhappy civilians from wreaking vengeance on them. Mention is also made in the letter of the fact that illegitimacy was rife in the villages, as a result of German occupation.