Local and General.

Waipukurau Press, Issue 6, 12 January 1906, Page 2

Local and General.

;0: A special meeting of the Waipukurau Town Board will be held on 22nd inst., for the purpose of determining the statutory halfholiday. A. coursing club for Waipukurau is mooted. Will cost from £l5O to £2OO to form. The latest fishing story : —A man was spearing eels in a sheet of water near Waipuk., when suddenly, a wild duck flew up from the bushes. The man immediately speared the duck while flying. Quack!

Mr G. Laurenson says:—“You may increase your wealth until you are as rich as Croesus and yet be as miserable as a bandicoot. The most miserable people I have known have been those who have made their pile.” Many people, too, are as miserable as a bandicoot when they haven’t the means to pay their wav I

The Ballance dairy company has received a cable stating that its consignment of butter for London per the Kurnara realised 119 s per cwt.

Queen Victoria is not quite forgotten. The other clay the legal luminaries of a suburban court condoled with aJ.P. on the loss of his wife, and received for answer: “ Thank yer, gentlemen ; thank yer, gentlemen ; thank yer kindly. It s a ’orrible Torse. Still, there’s the consola.tion of knowing that Hcmma —my good lady, I mean died at just the same hage, almost to a hiustant, as our late beloved Queen 1 The Health Department has not lost sight of its decision to issue to the public a pamphlet containing advice concerning the feeding and rearing of infants. Dr Valintine has forwarded to prominent medical men throughout the colony a compilation of his views with the object of obtaining opinion from men in daily practice as to their correctness. The pamphlet will be issued as soon as possible, and is expected to be one of the most important and useful publications that has emanated from a Government department. —N.Z. Times. The Waipawa tennis club will eommence a club tournament to-

morrow. At Greymouth last week Mr ISeddon, in stating that the cutting up of large estates was the fixed policy of the colony, pointed out that last session the Government had been blocked from getting a vote of £250,000 for this purpose. Next session he would ask Parliament for more, in order to facilitate cutting up big estates. There is said to be a demand for building sections in Waipukurau,. and a few have recently changed hands. Quarter-acres just outside the town are worth £25. There are no empty dwelling-houses just now, while the several boardinghouses are full. Such superiority as the New Zealand footballers have shown, exercised in whatever popular direction, will doubtless always command recognition, remarks the Sydney Telegraph. Their tour in Great Britain is oue of the most remarkable things of that kind on record. To find a parallel for it we have to go back to the days when colonial scullers and cricketers first surprised the parent'peopie by their proficiency. As Hanlan, Gaudaur, and O’Connor,of Canada, and Beach, Searle, and Kemp, of Australia, rowed away from OldWorld oarsmen ; and as Australian cricketers showed English players new science in the game, from wicket-keeping to bowling for catches instead of at the wickets, the New Zealand footballers have revealed Rugby football as a dashing, sparkling game in which clever and at the same time attractive play may be developed to such success that victory is no longer merely to the strong, as had been supposed, to the threatened obsoleteness of that particular branch of football in Great Britain. The matron of the Waipukurau Hospital reports for the week ending last Saturday : — Patients in hospital, males 23, females 8 ; admitted during the week, males 4, females 4 ; discharged, males 8, females 3. In the course of a lengthy letter to a Wellington paper, “Omar” makes the following remarks. The letter is headed “ Are women civilised ?” “ Personally, I find no objection to woman as she is, the primitive, uncivilised, tear-shedding vindictive, barbarously bedecked, impossibly garmented, hysterical, unpunctual, unstable, and altogether alluring and charming woman of to-day. I don’t want her to grow up. She is good enough as she is—far too good for most of us. But why worry to ‘ improve ’ this divine irresponsible creature by legislation ; why give her the legal opportunity to enforce her freakish moods, her recurrent emotionalisms, her fads and her fancies upon the colony? The best minds are needed for our government; to put woman in charge of us is surely to hasten the progress of this nation to perdition. Woman has always been a barbarian —the remnants of her cave dwelling habits are still discernable in the dislike she has to light, the persistence with which she pulls down the drawing-room blinds. There were fair entries of sheep and cattle at the Waipukurau stock sale, and the attendance was good. Fat bullocks realised £6, dairy cows £4 ss, yearlings £1 3s, 18-months £1 Ils. Woolly lambs 9s 4d to 9s 9d, ewes 10s to 10s 6d. A good number of persons from this district attended the Napier wool sales. The sales were brisk, but showed a slight drop in value. Six hundred and forty-one houses were pulled down to make room for the new 1800 yds. long Central Avenue of Rio de Janeiro, whioh was opened by the President of the Republic last month,