LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Taranaki Daily News, 26 February 1919, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

The emigrants during December 1913 exactly equalled the number of "immi-grants—42o.—-Press Association. The mails which left New Zealand on 7th January last arrived at London on 23rd inst. The secretary of the Central Fire Brigade has received a letter of thanks and a cheque for £HO from the New Ply. mouth Sash and Poor Companv in connection with the service rendered by tho brigade on Saturday night. A Wellington message says that while working in Cook Strait on Sunday the Hinemoa received a signal from the Brothers lighthouse asking assistance. Nothing inoro was heard of the matter yestm4»y, but newa mx came to-da#.

Tlie Royal College of Physicians is considering the exclusion of German and Austrian universities from the schools whose certificates of study are accepted bv the conjoint Examination Board. The Academies of Science and of Medicine in Paris recommend that relations with the savants of the Germanic Powers should not be resumed until reparation has been made. But, says the Lancet, the medical boycott will be found impracticable. Before the Germans dismantled and destroyed them, there were in the invaded departments of France alone nearly 20,000 factories and industrial establishments, representing more than 30 per cent of the industrial output of all of France. From these districts was furnished 00 per cent of the iron ore produced in France; 83 per cent of the pig iron, 75 per cent of the steel, 70 per cent of the coal, 94 per cent of the combed wool, 90 per cent of the linen thread, and 04 per cent of the sugar. Whilst in Gisborne Mr Mann, a Smithfield meat salesman, was asked if there was any likelihood of a big market being afforded at Home for frozen pigs from this Dominion. In reply Mr Mann said that the cost of rearing hogs for export could not be less in New Zealand than in other countries. In fact he did not see how hogs could be raised in the Dominion as cheaply as in China, for instance, where the cost of labor was a mere bagatelle, in pre-war days exporters of frozen meat from this Dominion had not, so far as he had been able to gather, made anything sensational in the way of profit. On the other hand it was generally regarded that there was nothing "hanging to" the export of hogs from the Dominion.

A remarkable academic record has been established by Alaster J. F. Landreth, who was dux of the Otago Boys' High School for 1918 (states the Otago Daily Times). Master Landreth entered from the Sandymount school with an Education Board Scholarship, and later won a Senior Board Scholarship. He attained the unusual distinction of winning a high place in the Junior University Scholarship examination before he was of age to accept such a scholarship, and also of gaining first place in mathematics in this examination. His mother was his teacher at the Sandymouth school before he joined the Otago Boys' High School. In addition to his academic interests, Master Landreth took his full share in the outdoor life of the Boys' High School while a pupil there. Two men named Wheeler and McLean, whose remains were found in the bush at Maungaturoa, near Baetihi, about a week ago, met their deaths under tragic circumstances. They were working on a survey party cutting a track through the bush from one trig station to another. Judging by the position' from which the bodies were found, they had just felled a giant rimu tree, carrying tools with them. This tree was struck by lighning about 30 feet from the ground, and the trunk bore marks where the current had travelled towards the ground, ripping the bark and burning rubbish around the foot of the tree. This was blackened and crumbled to the touch. The bodies were too decomposed to show any indications of the manner of death, but it was presumed from the position in which they were found that they were struck by lightning as they leaned against the tree. At the inquest a verdict of accidental death through being struck by lightning was returned.

"It is a remarkable fact," said Mr Justice Chapman while summing up in the motor collision in the Supreme Court at Palmerston North, "that men who observe many things on the road will fail to observe something eke equally evident. Some tiroe ago when a number of young men where being trained as scouts they were sent on a march and instructed to observe everything on their route. The officer who followed them was a proud man when he afterwards discovered that he alone had observed a certain cow with a variegated tail. He was somewhat disconcerted, however, when it transpired that although he remembered the cow and its exact position he had no recollection of a man who was looking for the animal and had actually spoken to him about it! According to the Rev. H. J. Fletcher, Presbyterian Maori missionary in the Taupo district, who spoke at Friday night's sitting of the General Assembly, the Treaty of Waitangi has been, in some matters, treated as a mere "scrap of paper" (says the Christchurch Press.) In support of his contention he stated that the introduction of trout into the lake had resulted in the trout eating the native fish which provided the Maoris with food. When the Maoris turned round and started to catch and eat trout the Government interposed and told the Maoris they must not take trout unless they had a license. The lake belonged to the Maoris, and the Government could not show that they had any claim to it, yet the unfortunate Maoris had been prosecuted. They believed, Mr Fletcher added, that the Government should coase the prosecutions, and the question as to the ownership of the lake should be settled once and for all. Mr Fletcher also mentioned the case of a native reserve, on which there is valuable milling timber, which the Government was purchasing from the Natives for 7s Gd up to los per acre, while a miller who approached the Government for the right to cut timber off 200 acres of State land had been asked for £22,000. He urged members of Assembly to assist the work of the Church by endeavoring to get these causes of complaint amongst the Maoris removed.

At a meeting of the Canterbury Acclimatisation Society on Wednesday night (says the Press), a story of t dastardly assault on the curator (Mr Hope) was told. It is apparently the practit e of friends of patients in the isolation hospital to go into the acclimatisation grounds, clamber up the Sft. fence near the isolation ward and talkto inmates. One man some days ago, after breaking through the Acclimatisation Society's fence, began a conversation with a female patient, who met him on top of the hospital fence, and on the curatur remonstrating with him he retaliated by using very bad languarge, and defied Mr Hope to make him come off the fence. While Mr Hope was talking to the man, the woman, after picking up a log of wood, leaned over the fence and dealt Mr Hope a severe blow on the head, knocking him senseless. When he came to, his assailant had disappeared, and not being able to identify them it was found impossible to prosecute.

There is jonly one SANDER EXTRACT, and that is why the people reject the many inferior and harmful substitutes and just as goods. SANDER'S EXTRACT is free from the objectionable qualities of the common eucalyptus. Sander's Extract cures all infectious diseases, all winter ailments, uleers, burns, sprains, eczema, etc. InsUt ou the GENUINE EXTRACT.

The 'Union Steamship Company's San FTancisco mail steamer Moanu is due to arrive at Wellington from the American port to-morrow.

land agents' licenses were granted at the Magistrate's Court yesterday by Mr. A. Crooke, S.M., in favor of li. Jackson (Mr. j* C. Laury), S. J. Jackson and •J. S. S. Medley (Mr T- P. Anderson). At the Magibtrate's Court, Wellington, yesterday, George Baker, auctioneer, wa« fined £3, and Abraham Josephs anil Oreste Terrini £1 each for smoking in premises where foodstuffs were sold by auction.—Press Association.

In the Magistrate's Court yesterday, before Mr. A. Crooke, S.M., judgment was given for plaintiff by default in the case of the Imperial Motor Company (Mr A. A. Bennett) v. Pierre Chaplin, £OO lis 6d (costs £4 Is). A statutory first offender, who was remanded for medical treatment on a charge of helpless drunkenness, appeared before Mr. A. Crooke, S.M., yesterday morning. He was convicted and discharged and ordered to pay the amount of the expenses incurred—£2 3s 6d.

The police were advised on Monday night that a farmer named Joseph Harrison. r,r Auroa, had committed suicide at e pm. on Sunday, by cutting his throat with a razor. The coroner was notified, and ordered an inquest to be held befoie a J.P.

flirf total exports of dominion produeo during 1918, exclusive of gold were valued at £27,936.787.—Pre5s Association. A Wellington press mesaage states that notice lias been lodged at the Supreme Court of an application to move for a new trial in the Grierson versus Thacker libel action, on the ground that the damages of 100 guineas award' ed by jury arc inadequate. The Christchurch Sun states that the Rev. R. S. Watson, M.A., who spoke eloquently before the Presbyterian General Assembly of his exeripences with the men in France, is the first to return of four of the church's chaplains who have won the Military Cross, on service. The others are the Revs. D. C. Herron, H. Clarke, and W. M'Lean. The Rev. Mr Herron has also a bar to the Cross. The Rev. Mr Watson went to the front practically straight from Knox College, Dunediji.

The Application Committee of the Wellington War Relief Association had, until November 30th, 1918, dealt with 8096 applications, and had authorised payment of £18,276. Of these claims 3039 were lodged during the year under review, 1370 being new cases, and 1660 reconsiderations, renewals, etc., etc., and amongst them were applications from Canadian and Australian soldiers, and French and Italian Reservists, and their dependents; 3301 in 1917, and 1756 in 191 G. Had it not been for the cessation, as at December 31st, 1917, of advances against pay, and requests to supplement the mufti allowance, the number of applications last year would have been considerably increased. Grants supplementary to pay, to pensions, for special purposes under exceptional circumstances, to soldiers proceeding to employment, for union fees, for board and lodgings, and under many other headings, are authorised by this committee, for its deals with the soldiers and their dependents from the date of enlistment, and even after resumption of civil employment, until, in fact, lielp is no longer necessary.

Thus a German fraulein, in the absence of her soldier-lover fighting his country's battles, built her hopes of his early return upon a prediction that had apparently gained currency in the district where she lived. Her feelings are touchingly portrayed in the letter, which read as follows:—"My dear, good Aloyd, —At last I set myself to write you the promised letter. According to what I have read I cannot rejoice over your leave. It is horrible that you cannot get even a few day's leave. How gladly would I have seen you after so long a separation, but unfortunately that is not granted to us. I sometimes think you should not come, as departure would be all the harder. The main thing is that very soon you should come back for always. The longest part of the war must be over by now. It has been calculated that peace will come on the eleventh day of the eleventh month; that is to say, in November. If that shall be the case remains io be seen. In the long interval many a brave soldier must give up his life." The letter appears to have been written on July 11, 1916, from a village in South-Western Germany, and within a week of its date was found by a Seaforth Highlander in the pocket of a dead German upon the field of battle 011 the Western front. Alas, for the realisation of human hopes! That ingenuous epistle, and Die circumstances of its discovery, point, to a tragic sequel, but the writer's reference to the day presaged for the end of •the war, to put no higher value upon it, is surely evidence of a remarkable example of coincidence. In this issue attention is drawn to the fifth concert of the Male Choir Society which was postponed in November in consequence of the epidemic. It will he noted that a really attractive programme has been arranged and includes some old favorites in vocal work, Including Miss Rene S. Te Au who was so well received in one of the .societies early concerts. In addition, however, the society ha< been fortunate in securing the services of Mr. W. C. Shepley, of Wanganui, who. amongst other'musical accomplishments, is a real master of the English concertina It is not thai one luts Hi." opportunity of hearing this instrument in the. hands of an expert, and his performance should draw an appreciative audience. The Loan and Mercantile notify (hat they are holding a supplementary sheep fair in Mr Thos. Hayes' yards, Puni - whali.au, by his kind permission on Saturday, 6th March. Entries are now I'eing received. THE DINKUMS. New Zealand's troops have taught \\s what sacrifice is. "Am I my brother's keeper?" asked the anti-conscription ist, and our khaki column swinging so evenly down to the transports, gave back the answer, "Surely!" Confronted to-day with the fruits of their trade in the decreased efficiency of the nation, and also with the wastage daily and hourly piling tip in our courts, jails, and charitable institutions, the liquor men blatantly shout "Continuance!" They shamelessly urge that the "moderate*" drinker must not be deprived of his "right" (v) to gratify a mere spasmodic appetite (and an admittedly dangerous one at that), no matter at what cost to the general public. Well, every drinker is a moderate—until he becomes a drunkard Then the trade says he is the biggesi curse and menace a business man can have. Exactly! New Zealand has decided at last to relieve the unhappy "trade" of its curse and menace. The date is April 10th. Incidentally, we relieve ourselves of the burden of the Trade STRIKE OUT THli TQP LB&g.