LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Taranaki Daily News, 30 April 1920, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

It is stated that draught horses suitable for country work are in great demand in the South Island. They have risen in price a good many pounds sterling during the last month. Not long ago £3O was thought to be a good price for a horse; now they are double that figure if of the right stamp. Three business premises in Gisborne have recently been purchased by Chinamen, and in one instance the purchase price is reported to be somewhere in the vicinity of £3O. Several European gardeners have been approached by Chinamen and offered high values for their gardens. A well-known grower of chrysanthemums stated to a News representative yesterday that the display of blooms made at the Horticultural Society's show in Whiteley Hall yesterday was for quality the best exhibition lie had seen in New Plymouth, and compared more than favorably with shows of a similar nature iu England. The post office has now completed arrangements for the delivery of mails. The provincial mails are nowgoing as usual, cars taking the place of trains, and outside mails are conveyed by through motors to and from Wellington daily. The department is to be complimented upon its smartness in effecting such complete arrangements. It waR the intention of the younger men of New Plymouth to entertain the Maori War veterans of the province to luncheon to-day, and afterwards to motor them to some of the scenes of their martial exploits, but the abandonment of the Prince's visit has upset the arrangements, and at a meeting of the executives of both the younger men and the veterans yesterday, it. was unanimously decided to postpone the functions sine die. If the Prince does happen to come later the functions will take place on the day of arrival. Woods' Great Peppermint Cure, ior Coughs and. Colds, never fails, 1/9, 2/9.1

The banks of New Plymouth will be closed to-day and to-morrow, notwithstanding that the Prince's visit is "off." It is notified in the Gazette that chicken pox is declared to be an infectious disease within the meaning of the Public Health Act.—Press Association. The Colonist, Nelson's morning journal, which was established in 1857, lias been incorporated with the Nelson Evening Mail, and its publication will bo discontinued after to-morrow.—Press Association. It is reported that Mr. Leigh Hunt, who has just resigned the general managership ot' the Farmers' Distributing Co., is suing a member of the directorate for £ J 0,000 damages for an alleged libel uttered at the recent sensational meeting of shareholders in Wellington. Members of the Citizens' Band and R.S.A. are notified that a military funeral will be given to the late (1. H. (Jock) Knight, ex-bandsman and returned soldier, to-day. All bandsmen who can possibly be present fall in at the bandroom at 2 o'clock, and returned men at the same hour at the Methodist Church. There is a good deal of influenza still about in the New Plymouth district. It is generally of a mild nature, though pneumonic developments have been responsible for some deaths. In some households every member has been down with the disease, and "carrying on" has been attended with no little difficulty. Local doctors have had a very busy and somewhat trying time. Several of the schools are still closed. During the last day or two a decided change for the better has taken place, indicating that the ''wave" is at last spending itself. "It's an ill wind, etc." The Prince was to have visited the High School this afternoon, but the railwaymen and Sir Wm. Fraser intervened. In preparation a new boulder stone wall has been erected, and the ground in front of the building levelled off and curbed, with provision for a rockery in the middle of the lawn. The main pathway has been asphalted, and the surroundings generally put in attractive order, providing a setting worthy of the fine new building. At the Waitnra Magistrate's Court on Wednesday, before Mr. T. A. B. Bailey, S.M., several charges of breaches of the Licensing Act were laid in connection with the Club Hotel. Charges against the licensee (K. Fairweather) and R. Butcher were dismissed. In the same connection E. J. Frost, who Was not a boarder, was fined £1 and costs for being on the premises after closing time. A similar line was imposed on E. .(. Wiseman, who was caught coming out of the back yard of the hotel at 11.2(1 p.m. For selling cigarettes to a girl under the age of. fifteen, Charlotte Garth was fined 5s and costs. There has been some discussion in our Correspondence column lately anent the constitution of the guard of honor to the Prince of Wales, the BUgge3t : on being made that it should be provided by the returned soldiers and not by the High School cadets. We have made enquiries into the matter, and find that vigorous efforts were made to secure returned soldiers for the purpose, but without success; indeed, it was found difficult to secure an adequate attendance of them for the review at the Park- The Principal of the High School was averse to the proposal to supply the guard from the school cadets, and only consented when it was found impossible to obtain others. There has been a great deal of controversy of late in connection with the manner in which penguins are killed at Macquarie Island. The subject was discussed at some length at the last meeting of the Otago Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, when several members expressed the opinion that the charges of cruelty were not justified. One of three men who was employed in pen-guin-killing when the penguin oil industry was started at the islands informed a Star reporter that he was engaged thereat for over a year and a half, and assisted to fill up the first digester. He stated that the method adopted in securing the penguins was to drive the'.'.i into a race, made in the form of an American corral. This race was about 6ft wide, with a depth of about 10ft, and then opened out about half a chain. The birds were thus driven into the pen, and their escape blocked by placing a barrier across tin mouth of the pen. One of the men would then step into the pen and kill each bird j with a single blow, and pass it along to i another man, who cut off its flappers and legs. The birds were then passed to the | third man, who cut them down the back j with a sharp axe, after which they were deposited on a platform. When the platform carried all the dead birds it could hold they were passed to a. man in the digester, who packed them until it was full. The birds were at no time subjected to any form of cruelty. "If less notice were takeu of breaches by dairymen of the antiquated law regarding the proportion of butter-fat in the milk consumed by the public, and the authorities were to make compulsory the supply of milk free from bacteria and infectious debris, the liealth of the community would benefit," said Mr. A. M. Wright, in the course of a lecture on "Applied Bacteriology," delivered in the Biological Department of Canterbury College. Mr. Wright went on to say that milk, one of the most important of all foods, was a breeding ground, by reason of its composition, for numberless kinds of bacteria, which multiplied with great rapidity, one of the chemical effects of their activity being the soufing of the milk. The milk might be quite free from bacteria as it comes from the cow, but could he polluted from outside. Typhoid bacilli, for instance, might be communicated by the handling of the milk by infected persons. Pasteurisation, however, when properly carried out, reduced the germ contents of the milk from several millions to say a few hundred, or few thousand. Three simple tests for milk in the home were given by the lecturer, the first one, known to every housewife, being boiling as a test of freshness. The test for richness was to measure the milk with a creamometer, when the correct proportion of cream should be fourteen per cent. In connection with the presence of bacteria, the lecturer stated that it was on the safe side to regard milk as dirty, when, after being allowed to stand for a couple of hours, pediment was found in the bottom of the receptacle. On Saturday, at their Mart at 11.30, Messrs. Webster Bros, are selling some really first-class oak and other furniture, on account of Mrs. E. A. Walker and Mrs. D'Arcy Robertson. A final Teminder is given of the sale of Mr. Christiansen's stock-in-trade by auction to-morrow, commencing at 12.30 o'clock. Quite a large list is to be gone 11