LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Taranaki Daily News, 13 April 1921, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

The Arbitration Court will sit in New Plymouth on Monday, June 13.

Mails which left Wellington on March 2, per the Marama, via San Francisco, arrived in London on April 10.

The Egmont County Council yesterday deferred consideration of the question of toll-gates until next meeting. An invitation has been extended by Mr. and Mrs. C. H. Burgess, of New Plymouth, “to all returned soldiers and their officers”, to join them at a tea to be given in, the Victoria League rooms on Anzac Day.

.“Despite the depression; land business is still good,” said a leading land agent to a Te Kuiti Chronicle reporter the other day. The agent accounted for this by the fact that buyers who had been holding off purchasing for some time were now tempted by the low price of stock, and were buying in anticipation of a big rise in the spring.

At yesterday’s sitting of the'. Magistrate’s Court at Hawera, before Mr T. A. B. Bailey, S.M., a young man appeared on a charge of stealing a postal packet and two charges of opening postal packets. Detective Cooney, of New Plymouth, appeared for the prosecution. Accused was committed to the next sitting of the Supreme Court at New Plymouth, for trial. Bail was allowed in self of £5O and one surety of £5O. Under the recent legislation the name of accused was suppressed. On Saturday last (reports the Eltham Argus) a painful accident occurred to Sheila, the four-year-old daughter of Mr. and Mrs. W. Scown, of the Mountain Road. It, appears that the child was playing with her little brother when he accidentally hit her with an axe, almost severing the right arm at the wrist. The little girl was taken to the private hospital, where she was attended by Dr. Cooper, and is now progressing as well as can be expected in view of the nature of the injury. The insurances on Messrs. West Bros.’ building in New Plymouth, which was gutted by fire on Monday night, were £6OO in the Sun office and a small sum in the State office. The firm’s stock was covered by two policies of £6OO each, in the United office and Royal Exchange respectively. As a result of the fire an unfortunate loss has been sustained by Lieut. L. W. Andrew, V.C., whose papers and records in connection with the award of tlie Victoria Cross, and also a portrait of .himself, which had been specially painted in honor of his bravery, were in Mr. West’s shop, in the process of being framed, at the time of the fire.

According to the figures supplied to the Stratford Hospital Board the population of the Stratford hospital district is really less than it was in 1914. The district comprises the counties of Whangamomona and Stratford and the borough of Stratford, and the population, according tq the Government’s figures, is 10,560. The chairman (Mr. C. D. Sole) expressed his surprise at these figures, at yesterday’s meeting of the board, and stated that he hardly thought they would be borne out when the census figures came to hand. Members of the Egmont County Council briefly discussed the question of the hospital levy yesterday. Cr. O’Brien, who is one of the district’s representatives on the Hospital Board, asked the council for a guide as to the attitude their representatives were to take up when the question of a levy came forward, especially in view of the fact that it was said the expenditure was still increasing, and,.if so, a greater levy might be asked from the Egmont County. The chairman said that the only instruction that could be given was to keep the levy down. With fat cattle, and wool down, and the probability of butter and cheese being down next year, it was essential if farmers were to be able to pay the rates that they should be kept down as low as possible. It was decided that, -in view of the fall in the price of meat and wool, and the financial stringency, the council recommends the Hospital Board representatives to use every means possible to keep the hospital expenditure at a minimum during the coming year, and that no work should be done that can possibly be left