LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Taranaki Daily News, 12 May 1921, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

A miner was asked at Denniston how he compared the work in the English mines with that in New Zealand. “Easy,” said he, “and better conditions all round.—'Westport Times.

The thermometer readings in the Dominion on Tuesday ranged from 63 at Cape Maria van Diemen to 42 at the Nuggets. At the reading was 59, Wanganui and Napier 56, New Plymouth and Wellington 54, Grey mouth 51, Christchurch and Dunedin 53, .Bluff 49.

Speaking on an unemployment deputation to the Wanganui Borough Council on Tuesday evening, Mr. E. J. Foster, on behalf of returned soldiers, said that they were not getting the square deal they were led to believe they would receive. In the Railway Department unskilled men over 34 were not eligible for employment, but that did not apply to skilled workers. He hoped the borough would treat the returned men better. There were wealthy men near Wanganui who employed Hindoos in preference to returned New Zealand soldiers.

According to the Timaru Herald Canterbury has half a million fewer sheep than the province ran twentyfive years ago. It -grows 33 per cent, less wheat than in 1900. For at least 20 years there has been no increase in cultivation. Compared with Otago, it has lost ground with cattle, yet it is more easily worked than any other province, and it has larger areas of flat country and of free soil. “I have to work for less, and why should not the workmen take less?” said Or. Matthews at Tuesday’s meeting of the Patea County Council. If the present crisis continued in his district they would have to dismiss the roadmen and do the work themselves. He then moved that wages be reduced 2s per day all round. The chairman: There will have to be some exceptions. On the understanding that the matter would be discussed at the next meeting, Cr. Matthews withdrew his motion.

The Supreme Court sessions at New Plymouth were continued yesterday, when the trial of Stuart Russell was concluded, the jury failing to agree af:ter a retirement of four hours. A new trial was ordered, and it will open on Monday week, the 23rd inst. The civil business was commenced yesterday and will be continued to-day. Reports of the cases appear on page 6. The first day of the Egmont Racing Club’s winter meeting took place at Hawera yesterday in wintry weather conditions. There was a large attendance and a day’s splendid sport was provided. The totalisator handled £34,428, as compared with £35,889 last year, a decrease of £1461. The Egmont Steeplechase was won by Mattock, and the Mcßae Memorial Handicap went to Malaga. Full details appear on page 3. Tlie liner City, of Winchester arrived at New Plymouth early yesterday morning from New York, via Auckland and Wellington, and berthed at 8 o’clock. She is a vessel of 7981 tons gross register, and on entering the port her draught was 21 feet forward and 23 feet 6 inches aft. The cargo from New York consists of 13,000 cases of benzine, 50*00 cases of kerosene, and a. small quantity of general cargo. The vessel will probably be in port till Saturday, when she will sail for Wellington.

Washing soda is notoriously rough on the hands; bar soap, when rubbed into the clothes, is hard to get out without incessant wringing and rinsing; washboards are hard on the fabrics. Why not abolish these old-fashioned abominations and let “Fairy Wonder” Dry Soap do your weekly wash. It’s simply marvellous stuff. Ask about it. Of all grooax&t

The retail price of eggs in Auckland is now 4s 2d per dozen. The death duties collected in- New Zealand for the year 1920-21 amounted to £1,304,836. The Auckland city has an estimated surplus of assets over liabilities of £-1,007,686. The city rates are to bo increased by threepence this year. In the Waikato, ’ share-milkers are mostly paid per lb on butter-fat produced. Fourpence is now being offered sharers, who, in some cases, have to find oil and inflations.

Rapid progress with the electrification of the district between Cambridge and Matangi has been made, all the poles and wiring being up. A4iew use has been found for whisky. A Wyndham (South Island) reside.it, in order to induce a clucking hen to sit on a nest of eggs, gave it a spoonful of, whiskey. It had the desired effect. “Football is the cheapest game to play of the lot,” said a member of the Manawatu Rugby Union the other day; “but my experience as a club secretary is that the players are the hardest to collect from.”

The matter of the damage caused to school furniture was remarked on yesterday at the meeting of the Taranaki Education Board. The chairman said that school committees had beert too easy in this matter in the past, as was evidenced by the damage caused at patriotic functions held in school buildings in recent years. Eventually a mation was carried, “that, in view -of damage caused to school furniture, unless more care is taken, the Board must reluctantly refuse to allow the use of school buildings for social gatherings.”

The Foxton Herald states that a kindly act was performed by several ladies of Himitangi and Orona Downs recently. It was decided to purchase an invalid chair for an old settler in that locality who has been bed-ridden for several months. A ready and generous response was made to the appeal, and the gift unostentatiously made. The old gentleman’s appreciation of the gift and the kindness which prompted it was beyond words. These are the little acts which spell Christian charity.

A Christchurch bookmaker goes to gaol. Wellington bookmakers leave the Court without a stain upon their characters. Ethically the bookmaker is a parasite, an anti-social factor and a public nuisance, and is deserving neither of encouragement nor mercy, but New Zealand is the only country in the world which has statutorily placarded him and his accessories as criminals, and at the same time has sought to make betting on horses a State monopoly! The whole thing is illogical, dishonest and shameful, and nothing that the politicians have devised could have been more calculated to besmirch our courts of justice and bring the law and the law-mak-ers into contempt.— Manawatu Times. Mr. Robert G. Struthers, writing from Onehunga to the New Zealand Herald, says: “Last week an elderly person called at my residence at Onehunga, and displayed a large assortment of books and pamphlets, and laid special emphasis on my purchasing copies of “Red Europe” and “The Communist Programme of World Revolution.” In the course of the interview, he stated that he found no difficulty in disposing of large quantities of revolutionary works, including the above books and was prepared to take the risk of prosecution, as certain individuals sympathetic to revolutionary propaganda and organisations throughout New Zealand were prepared to subscribe whatever fines and penalties might be inflicted. This information I think is very disquieting, as it shows widespread activity and organisation, and has a tendency to bring our laws into disrepute and desuetude. I. procured samples of the widely varied list of printed matter, among others being publications of the American I.W.W. Syndicalist, Anarchist, English Communist parties, and the Russian Bolsheviki, and I have no hesitation in stating that in my opinion the whole lot is highly inimical to the peace and good order of our social system.”

The unravelling of the Australian stone-throwing mystery calls to mind an eerie instance locally, in which the vagaries of two young cats were responsible for quite♦ a lot of deep thinking (says a recent Auckland Star). It was customary amongst the household for the last person to enter at night, to make all secure, one of the injunctions being to eject the feline (four-legged) members of the household. Every morning, in the small hours, however, the slumbers were disturbed by the appearance of tile animals in one or other of the bedrooms. Finally, the mistress of the household decided personally to supervise the lock-out; both felines, were accounted for, and all means of entrance downstairs barred. Thoroughly convinced that at last a good night’s sleep was assured, she retired upstairs, and there at the top, to her amazement, waited a guard of honor in the form of the two cats. Needless to say, their dispatch this time was of a hurried nature, and the puzzled one retired again to her room. Barely had she entered it than a rattle at the window attracted her attention—her four-legged visitors had ag'Lin found an entrance. Some investigation followed, and the route of invasion proved quite an ingenious one. The animals had climbed a creeper on the wall for about twenty feet, then sprung on to the roofing, whence they sought an open window. The Wanganui Herald recalls a somewhat remarkable incident which occurred in that town a few years ago. A young woman, a recent arrival from the Old Land, attended a series of spiritualistic gatherings, where she fell under the control of a medium who possessed certain hypnotic powers. The “spirits” who were called up by the medium were declared to be relatives of the young woman, and the messages they were alleged to have sent urged her to marry a member of the circle—a native of the West Indies, who had a positon as cook at a well- I known hotel in Wanganui. The marriage was duly ‘■'solemnised.” -by the registrar, but the woman stated afterwards that she could remember little or nothing about the ceremony —apparently ‘being under a hypnotic spell. A few hours after the ceremony she developed a serious illness, and was taken Io the hospital where she was examined by a local doctor, ■who gave a medical certificate to the effect that she had evidently been married while under some “spell.” The result was an action for divorce, which the Supreme Court granted, and the sequel her marriage to a man who had previously proffered her his hand, but who was working up on the Main Trunk line, and was unaware of the secret influences at work during his absence. The Farmers’ Co.-op. Society advertise in this issue a special line of horse and cow covers. Woods’ Great Peppermint Cure For Coughs and Colds* never fails. 3