LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Taranaki Daily News, 22 April 1922, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

A Wanganui paper states that Katana’s mail is rapidly growing, and he has received some 100.000 letters.

The Vacuum Oi] Co., Ltd., has purchased a site in Buller Street, New Plymouth. where it is intended to erect a large building in concrete for oil storage purposes.

A New Plymouth man gathered some very large mushrooms in the Waverley district at Easter, some of them weighing no less than IJlbs and measuring 10 inches in diameter. Some mushrooms!

A second Masonic Lodge is beingformed in Hawera, and the opening and dedication will take place on May 3. The Grand Master Bro. T. Ross, of Dunedin, will be present. The question of rubbish removal at Ngamotu beach and the rendering of accounts was referred to the finance committee to report on by the Borough Council last night.

Answering Cr. J. Brown, the tram' ways manager (Mr. R. H. Bartley) informed last night’s meeting of the New Plymouth Borough Council that the plans in connection with the proposed tram shelter at Belt Road were now almost ready and would be submitted to the council shortly.

Through slipping from the step of a tram at Newmarket on Tuesday, Mr. Percy Johnson, the well-known horsetrainer, of New Plymouth, fractured his left leg. He took a number of racehorses to Auckland to compete in the Auckland Racing Club’s autumn meeting.

Two property auction sales were held in New Plymouth yesterday. Messrs. L. A. Nolan and Co. submitted for sale a quarter-acre section with a four-room ed house at Chilman’s, Fitzroy, the purchase price being £.580. A Fitzroy property put up for auction by Messrs. Newton King, Ltd., was passed in, the highest bid failing to reach the vendor’s

A serious fire occurred at Waverley last week, when the residence of Mr. Gilshhan was burnt to the ground. The origin of the fire, is a mystery, as nobody was home at the time. Mr. Gilshnan being out ploughing, and his wife having just taken out tea to him. On returning, she found the place in flames. The property is owned by Messrs. N. King and Barrington, and Mr. Gilshnan is a heavy loser, he only having an insurance of £l5O jn the Government office.

An application from the New Plymouth pictures for permission to hold a screening on the evening of Anzac Day was received by the Borough Council at last night’s meeting. It was stated in support of the request that the proceeds of the entertainment were to be devoted to he R.S.A. The Mayor (Mr. F. E. Wilson) remarked that according to the reports from Wellington the picture houses were threatened with prosecution if they kept open. The council decided that the application be not granted, Cr. Brown, the mover of a motion to this effect, stating that if it had been thought fit to observe the day as a Sunday he did not see why permission should be given to hold pictures.

Regarding the discussion on opossums at the Taranaki Acclimatisation meeting on Thursday evening, a suburbanite states that the marsupials have in his locality become a perfect nuisance, and hopes that any restrictions on their destruction should at once be removed. They have so increased iin numbers of laTe' that they strip orchards in the ' neighborhood of all their fruit, even now attacking the quince trees, besides eating young rose shoots and vegetablfes. A neighbor last year found that his turnips were being eaten. He blamed the hares, but watched and found that the opossums were responsible. He set a few traps and caught several, but they soon became “wise,” and the turnips continued to disappear. Restrictions or no restrictions, the suburbanite said he intended to wage war on the pest this coming winter.

At the recent meeting of the committee of the New Plymouth Carnegie Institute the following donors were accorded a vote of thanks:—Mrs. Sullivan, collection of Taranaki ferns arranged to her own design, and tapa cloth from Levuka; Captain Waller, two kakepo and one kiwi skin and an Australian duck-billed platypus; estate of late T. Kelly, two ancient French books and several historical magazines; Mr. G. N. Curtis, a revolver and holster won by him in Taranaki rifle contests in 1865; Mrs. R. Koford (Ngaere) a moth; Mrs. Newman, a book dated 1834; Mrs. E. E. Owen, old capper coins, some from a reef in the sea at New Plymouth; Mr. W. H. Haddrell, moa bones from Canterbury; Mr. Blyde, two magazines; Mr. T. Avery, copy of Christmas number of Bookman; Mr. Skinner, magazines and old New Plymouth documents; Government Statistician, copy

of year book; Mr. John McLennan, fossil sea-urchin found in England; afid Mr. Western, collection of Maori stone tools found at Bel] Blocks

About 600 names of returned men who are out of work are still on the books at the Auckland Returned Soldiers’ Club.

It is worthy of notice that at the Cambridge Bowling Tournament the competitors included three generations of one family—a father, his two sons, and a grandson.

On Good Friday two young men of the Waverley district, named Lester Nicholls and W. G. Tanden, were out shooting, when an accident occurred, and Nicholls had to be brought to town and placed in the hands of Dr. Ihwvey, who ordered his immediate removal to the Patea hospital, where several pieces of shot were extracted from his face, hand and side.

Tn reply to a letter from the New Plymouth Borough Council, the Harbor Board decided yesterday to write stating that after enquiries they could find no serious cause fori complaint as to the danger to the public by the exercise of racehorses on the beach. The chairman reported that he had made enquiries from the harbormaster and from the secretary of the beach committee, and could not see that any danger was being caused.

A baby had a ride in a flying boat at Auckland on Tuesday. Mr. C. E. Blayney, who was spending a holiday at Whangaparoa, found it necessary to return to Auckland quickly, and telephoned to Messrs. Walsh Bros.’ flying school. The super-marine flying boat was sent, and Mf. Blayney, his wife, and son. aged 18 months, with their luggage were safely landed at the Man o’ War Steps at 11 a.m. —20 minutes after leaving Whangaparoa. The baby went calmly off to sleep shortly after entering the machine, and remained wrapped in peaceful slumber until the end of the journey.

Trade conditions in the United States show signs of improvement is the report of John Dunn, Son and Co., export merchants, writing from New York under date March 3. The report states: “The remarkable increase in the value of farm products, particularly grain and live stock, is most cheering to the agricultural section and assures a. considerable increase in the purchasing power of this portion of the community. With the value of farm products rising, and at the same time prices of manufactured goods falling, the gross hardship from which the farmer has suffered in the low exchange value of his products seems in. a fair Way to be relieved and the effect of the general prosperity of the country can hardly be over-estimated.”

In a recent book, Genera.! Charles Hitchcock Sherrill, a well-known American diplomatist and traveller, records his impressions, gained during a recent tour, of European conditions to-day. O-f Germany, he says: "The German workman before the war toiled and seemed contented, although he seldom had more than one meat ration per week. Now he has three or four, and in spite of politics, in spite of the fall of the mark, and in spite of everything, he is the happiest working man in the world to-day. Labor in Germany is restricted by law to eight hours a day unless the workers unite in petitioning for .longer hours. When in Germany I kept count of the factories in which the workmen so petitioned, but gave it up when the thirtieth was reached because the movement seemed so general.... Where else in the world are to be found working men who ask for added hours of work ? This rare bird sings, it would appear, only in Germany.’’

Steady progress is being made with the sand dune reclamation work undertaken a little to the south of the Rangitikei river mouth by the State Forest Service. The first problem was to check the tremendous sand drift that flows inland from the coast through the valleys between the frontal dunes, and this is being tackled by the construction of rough barricades formed of driftwood. Vertical stakes are driven into the sand, and all sorts of logs and branches are interlaced to make a strong barrier. As the drifting sand piles against fhe obstruction and threatens to overlap it, the barricades will be built still higher, until a long unbroken dune stretches along the foreshore. Behind this front line of defence marram grass will be planted to hold the loose sand. As soon as some form of stability is reached, experimental tree-planting will be undertaken with the ultimate view of foresting the great area of waste land which at present stretches far inland, and is a constant menace to the adjoining farm lands.

The Feilding Star, in referring to the case of a Melbourne baronet who is working as a market gardener, says: There have been and still are parallel cases in New Zealand. There was file case .in the South Island of a Scots baronet of ancient lineage who married the washerwoman of a. small township. Thpir eldest son worked as a laborer on a farm in the Feilding district a few years ago. That son is the baronet to-day. But, like- his father, he does not use the title, and he earns his living by taking casual jobs. There is a resident in Feilding to-day, living a humble and retired life, whose mother was entitled to be addressed as “her ladyship,” but her neighbors did not suspect her real identity, as she dropped the title on coming to New Zealand. Scions of ancient British houses are scattered all over the Dominion, some of them bearers of titles which are hidden, whilst some of these secret aristocrats arc actually “dead seared” lest their hidden life should be disclosed. They really prefer to be commoners—most of them because they cannot afford to do otherwise.

Sensational bargains at the Melbourne’s Gigantic Sale have excited the interest of the buying public. Not since pre-war days have such low prices been offered on ‘staple goods, consequently there is a regular stampede of shoppers to share in the economies to be effect-

“Fairy Wonder” Dry Soap haa taken pride of place as tl>e premier household help by what may be termed “right of conquest.” In the battle of supremacy all other washing powders have proved so much inferior that grocers and storekeepers will tell you the public now ask for nothing but “Fairy.” It’s all right.

Some plants have become universal favorites, and the chrysanthemum is one of them, being as well fitted for the decoration of the most skilfully arranged border as for the humblest cottage garden, and as easily grown as it is acceptable. In recent, years great improvements have been made, with the I result that in most cases the very latest are the best worth cultivating, the aim being to produce better flowers, abundance of bloom, improved habit of growth, etc. The merits of these beautiful flowers have long been recognised by the New Plymouth Horticultural Society, who are . devoting a considerable amount of apace to chrysanthemum exhibits at their forthcoming show.