LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Taranaki Daily News, 4 November 1922, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Ngatokowha, one of the chiefs of the Maniapoto tribe, died at Te Koura Pa, near Taumarunui, at the age of seventysix' years. A large tangi is being held, and visitors are arriving from Tokaanu, Taranaki, Te Kuiti, Otorohanga, and Auckland.

The New Zealand Pig Breeders’ Association on Thursday decided to request the A. and P. societies to grant complimentary tickets to the Council of the N.Z.P.8.A., who travel long distances to attend the shows and are put to considerable expense. The question of establishing a Taranaki branch, with headquarters at Stratford, was held over for consideration. The meeting further decided to request breeders to endeavor to cater more closely to the standard in the Herd Book.

The change in the weather yesterday, indicating settled conditions to-day, means much to the children, for to-mor-row is Guy Fawkes Day. The event will be celebrated to-day, and a day of freedom in which to prepare for tne festivities of to-night will enable the small boys to make special preparations, and the customary bonfires and fireworks will fill the evening with noise and merriment. The police make it clear that the by-laws relating to setting off fireworks in public places will be strictly enforced, so boys should confine their operations to distant fields. The Taranaki Electric Power Board is negotiating with the Public Works Department for a licence to develop the suggested power scheme at Tariki, but the department is not satisfied that power can be developed at the estimated cost submitted, and has suggested that the board should negotiate further with New Plymouth for a supply on reasonable terms. So far no satisfactory arrangement has been arrived at with the New Plymouth Borough Council, and the Power Board decided yesterday to approach the Premier during his visit to Stratford on Friday, with a view to expediting the granting oi a license to develop the Tariki scheme. Our Mokau correspondent writes: Early on Thursday morning Mr. Dave Scott was awakened by a terrific thud, and going out to the ferry fbund that the overhead cable rope was down, and therefore there was no transit by punt that day, nor can be until a new rope arrives. Mr. Scott had applied for one some time ago, but the rope has not arrived. It was a good thing that no passenger or vehicle was on the punt at the time or some damage might have been done. Again we remark: “Oh! that Mokau bridge!. When, oh, when shall it span our river to the safety and speeding up of our passenger traffic?” Echo answers “When?” The casual manner in which New Zealanders smoke near benzine was commented on by an officer of the Dutch motor ship Hermes to a Daily News reporter yesterday. “When discharging bulk benzine,” he said, “there is always a haze of gas around the ship, and the smallest spark will cause a terrible explosion. Even with case benzine there is a similar danger, although not quite so great.” In European ports, he added, all the officers and crew were taken off the ship while the spirit was being discharged, and no naked lights of any description were allowed anywhere on or near the boat, even the galley fires and the furnace for heating the boiler for generating steam for the donkey engine being extinguished. At one New Zealand port, the officer said, he noticed a man standing on the wharf knocking the ashes out of his pipe over the vessel, and all the notice he took of a warning hail was to simply laugh. If, he said, that had happened anywhere else the offender would have been forcibly removed. The destruction caused by wild pigs in the back blocks of Taranaki is emphasised in a letter received from a correspondent, who says: “The wild pigs need killing off, because if something is not done very soon they will take charge of the place. I am not exaggerating when I say they will literally take charge, for already some of the farmers here have had to knock off breeding owing to the great loss in lambs, while others have lost 40 and 50 per cent. They also do great damage to fences, and from a forestry point of view they are almost as big a curse as deer. No doubt some people think that Mr. Masters has got ‘a bee in his bonnet’ when he brings up in the House the matter of Taranaki’s wild pigs, but if those people had dozens, if not hundreds, of pigs; rooting up the grass in the paddocks—and it is common to meet two or three boars ou the road every time we go out —they would realise that the wild pig is going to become a menace to the back country if something is not done soon.”

Lovers of Robert Louis Stevenson, and souvenier-hunters generally, will be interested in one of his autographs which is at present on view at the New Plymouth Carnegie Institute. It is a page from a journal kept by “R.L.5.,” and refers to the wages of Valentine, Mrs. Stevenson’s French \ maid at the time. Valentine had apparently been bothering the great author for money, for the entry says: “Wages remaining due to Valentine, £3.” Underneath .is written: “She will therefore receive nothing further until the first day of March in the year of Grace eighteen hundred eighty and seven,” and concludes with: “And may the Lord have mercy on her soul.” The entry is dated December 8. 1886, under the signature being the letters “1.P.D.,” an abbreviation of In Praesente Dominorum, a Scottish legal phrase from the Latin meaning “In the presence o-f the Lords of the Sessions.” This intimate relic of Stevenson has been donated by Mr. A. A. King, of Apia, Samoa, who, in a covering loiter, states that he came across it when clearing up Stevenson’s estate at Bournemouth, England. The journal was in an attic among some old papers which were being used for pack-

These are some of the great bargains which are keeping the Melbourne, Ltd., busy during the Great Turn of the Tide Sale: Men’s colonial wool socks, 1/3 pair; boys’ good braces, 6d pair; boys Fox Bros.’ serge shorts, sizes 2 to 6, 7/11, sizes 7 to 12 9/11, sizes 13 to 16 11/6; men’s Pennine working shirts, 7/11; men’s striped neglige shirts. 6*6; men’s 'best quality collars, 1/3; boys’ dark worsted sports suits, sizes 7 to 12, 26/6, sizes 13 to 16, 29/6. All wonderful bargains.

Attention is called to the Fitzroy Methodist Sunday .School Anniversary to-morrow. The scholars have been practicing special hymns, which they will render under the conductorship of Mr. E. Holden. The preachers will be:— Rev. Collins (11 a.m.), Mrs. Martin (2.30 p.m.), ißev. J. F. Martin (7 p.m.). On Tuesday, 7th inst., the annual tea and prize-giving will take place. All collections at the services will go toward the upkeep of the school.