LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Taranaki Daily News, 22 February 1922, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

“How much money did you get in for Princess Mary?” asked a councillor at the Stratford Borough Council on Monday night. “Fifteen bob” replied the clerk, and added as an afterthought, “I sent it away too. It cost me 25s to advertise it.”

* The entries for the New Plymouth ‘Horticultural Society’s autumn show, to be held in the Coronation Hall on Saturday, number just short of 500, a highly satisfactory result. At a meeting of the society last night final arrangements for the show were made. With the Athenic, which arrived at Wellington on Monday from Southampton, came a. further batch of immigrants to the Dominion, numbering in all about 300. They include a number of domestics.

An unexpected interruption occurred in the proceedings at the Supreme Court, New Plymouth, yesterday, when a police officer who was giving evidence suddenly collapsed in the box. A douche of water revived him, but the constable was looking very “seedy,” and the court adjourned for about ten minutes to give him a respite from the somewhat close atmosphere of the building. He was later conveyed to the hospital. The conclusion of the criminal business at the present sessions of the Supreme Court at New Plymouth was reached yesterday, when the court finished the re-trial of the charge of breaking and entering against Bernard and Arthur Coulter, of Eltham. The calendar occupied a week, having been commenced last Tuesday, and seven cases were heard in addition to the retrial. The civil business will be commenced to-day, and is likely to occupy the court till well into next week. Business in land, which has been practically dead for many months in Hamilton, is said to be again showing signs of brightening. There have been many inquiries for land in the town during the past few weeks, and several farms have changed hands, mostly sheep country. One agent said that since the beginning of January ?ie has had no less than 13 inquiries for businesses in Hamilton, and that _ three sales have been effected. There is also a slightly stimulated activity in house sales.

With an eye ever to ipiproving the conditions of anglers in the district, the Hawera Acclimatisation Society purchased last year a large supply of ova, to the nunjber of 54,000, from Hakataramea, thus introducing a new strain into the district. Last week the president and committee spent a lot of time taking some of these, now yearlings, from two dams —8000 from one and 11,000 from another—and liberated them in the Waingongoro, from the mouth to the upper reaches. This is the beginning of a scheme by which use whole of this sew stock will be liberated in all the streams under the Hawera jurisdiction. Only brown trout are given to the streams, rainbow trout being reserved for the lakes, for it has been found by experience that they do not flourish in the streams. —Star.

Arrived by the Manuka from Sydney with a view of spending a month or two investigating market conditions in the Dominion, Mr. J. Okawa, a Japanese who has been in a commercial sphere of activity in Australia for the past three years, had a brief chat with a Wellington Times representative. Mr. Okawa hails from Tokio, and speaks very good English. He intimated that the wool position was showing still further signs of improvement in Australia. Latest sales in Australia, he said, had shown spirited bidding, Japan and America being the principal buyers. Owing to the unfavorable rate of exchange, Germany, of course, could not buy. Speaking from the Japanese point of view, he said New Zealand wool was in popular demand, but the Japanese were confronted by the difficulty of having no direct steamer service from New Zealand. The speaker was not extremely communicative, and became reticent when questioned in regard to other fields of commercial activity.

The following donors of gifts were thanked at the recent meeting of the New Plymouth Carnegie Institute: Mr. Chas. Osborne, peculiarly-shaped slab of stone from Great Barrier Island; Mr. Ellerm, kauri gum. silk; Mr. W,. B. Davies, a New Plymouth theatrical programme of the year 1857 and an embellished card recounting a detail of the Mahoetahi fight in I 860; Mr. E. W. Hancock, piece of porcelain shaped as a rabbit’s head; Miss Hempton, book puoMshed in 1848; Mr. Western (Bell Block) vines found in swamp ground and evidently put there by the Maoris to be used in making kinaki (eelpots); Mr. Cliff, a tui’s nest; Mr. S. Pelham (Raglan) three pieces tapa cloth, one Samoan axe, one lavalava for dancing, one seed necklace; Mr. W. H. Skinner,documents giving lists of emigrants to New Plymouth by the ships which ar* rived in early ’forties-