LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Taranaki Daily News, 20 September 1921, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Mails which left Auckland on August IV> per R.M.S. Niagara via Vancouver, arrived at London on September 17.

The gate receipts at Saturday’s football match at Pukekura Park between Otago and Taranaki amounted to £157.

A sitting of the War Pensions Medical Appeal Board will be held in New Ply; mouth on Thursday, September 29.

During the late rains lamprey eels Jiave been present in the Waiwakaiho .River in very large numbers. On a recent night the Maoris made a catch of upwards of 500 of these eels below the weir and near the main road, the eels being baulked in their passage up the river by the cement weir.

The mail train last night from Wellington was a particularly heavy one. It comprised ten passenger carriages, drawn by two engines, as far as Strat’ford. There two carriages and one engine were taken off, and when the train reached New Plymouth it comprised eight passenger oars, or three more than the normal load.

Evidently the two-up schools are paying concerns for some people, two witnesses in the Ongaroto case at Hamilton testifying to making £75 and £7O respectively on Easter Monday last, and one of these witnesses said it was a 'bad day at that. So His Honor said, “A bad day?” “Yes,” said the witness, “I was only getting some of my own back.”

Large herds of deer still continue to do extensive damage to turnip crops and pastures in the Lindis district (says the Cromwell Argus), nightly raiding the paddocks in large numbers. Settlers are at their wits’ end to meet the position, and many are heavy losers. Some settlers found it necessary to turn sheep on the turnip crops earlier than usual in order to get the benefit of the crop. The deer are rapialy increasing in numbers in this locality, and if unchecked settlers therein will have to face a very serious position. The deer there are a pest in every sense of the word.

A return gazetted concerning the vital statistics of the four metropolitan areas in August shows that the inclusion of suburban portions lowers the death rate in the following figures showing the death rate per 1000 of population, city figures being given first and figures of suburban areas in parentheses: Auckland, 1.03 (0.91); Wellington, 0.93 (0.89); Christchurch, 1.16 (1.02); Dunedin, 1.25 (1.20). The total births in the four metropolitan areas was 760, an increase of 45 on July figures. Deaths in August totalled 435, an increase of 14. Of the persons who died males numbered 214 and females 221.

After seven years’ prospecting for oil at Chertsey, it seems likely that the Canterbury Petroleum Prospecting Company will be forced to abandon its boring operations. The final stroke of ill-fortune for the company occurred in the form of quicksand, which forced its way up nearly 1000 ft. from the bottom of the bore. It has since settled somewhat, but the obstruction is considered beyond the power of the company to remove. An extraordinary meeting of shareholders has been called, when the expediency of passing a motion that the company cannot, by reason of its liabilities, continue its business, and bo ( wound up voluntarily, will be considered.

The need for some universal system of road signs for the guidance of motorists travelling through strange territory was being discussed at the . Retail Motor Traders’ Conference field in Auckland last week, when the chairman, Mr. D. Crozier, of Christchurch, recommended a system in use in California. This consisted of colored bands, J2in. wide, pointed on telegraph or electrical power poles, each route having a specified color. By this means a motorist, travelling on a route designated by, say. a blue band, was never in any doubt as to whether he was on the right road. On the chairman remarking that frequently the sign combined two colors, each Gin. wide, a delegate asked what would happen to a slightly intoxicated joy-rider on passing a barber’s pole. The chairman’s reply was lost in the resulting merriment. In reply to a letter conveying to the Minister of Education the resolutions carried at a recent meeting of ratepayers of Fitzroy in regard to the urgent need for increasing the accommodation at the local school, the Hon. C. J. Parr has written to Mr. S. G. Smith, M.P., informing him that he has authorised a grant of £125 for improving the hygienic conditions of the gymnasium, and also a further sum of £3B for increasing the toilet accommodation. The Minister adds: “I am .assured by the department’s architect that his proposals for improvement will provide a thoroughly healthy and comfortable classroom.” The proposals apparently are to line the gymnasium all round up to a height of Bft., putting in three hinged ventilators on the eastern side, and four windows on the western side, and also putting two ventilators in the roof ridge, The following donors of gifts were accorded a vote of thanks at the meeting of the New Plymouth Carnegie Institute on Thursday evening:—Mr. H. Bennett, diary of a passenger on board Mariner in 18*50; British Red Cross Society, volume of reports 1914-19; Mrs. Lusk, two fine samples of kauri gum; Mr. Curtis, four magazines; Mr. Penwarden, two skins of snakes; H.M. Trade Commissioner, volume of British industries reports, 1921; Mr. R. Day, piece of railway iron smashed near New Plymouth station during recent storm; American Issue Publication Co. (London), five books and 5 booklets on prohibition question; Mr. L. B. Webster, relic of old New Plymouth gaol; Mr. Fooke (Okato), a kiwi; Mr. V. Davies,, a greenstone eardrop found at Westown; and Mr. J. Ramson, a book dated 1679, and a copy of the first issue of the New Zealand Herald, 1863. Reporting on the managetaient of the library to the Carnegie Institute Committee, the librarian (Mr. J. H. Beattie) states: Since last meeting of the committee 19 new members have joined the library, and 12 of the old subscriptions have lapsed, leaving a net gain of 7 subscribers. During the same period 230 books have been added to the shelves, fiction and serious literature being about equally repre<sented. Donations of old magazines and newspapers .have been made to the isolation ward of t’he New Plymouth Hospital, to the Old Men’s Home, and to the seamen employed on the Home boats calling at the port. This last is a new departure and seems to meet a felt need and to be gratefully appreciated by the recipients. The reading-room continues to attract numerous patrons, but I regret to state that the habit of surreptitiously cutting clippings out of newspapers has increased recently. Museum activities have been well maintained and many new exhibits have been placed on view.