Local and General.

Waipukurau Press, Issue 29, 23 March 1906, Page 2

Local and General.

The Waipukurau Town Board invites tenders for the delivery of metal. Particulars will be found in advertisement. Quarterly summoned meeting of Oddfellows will be held to-night. Lost winkers advertised for. Annual meeting of footballers on Tuesday night. Full attendance requested of members and intending members. Mr G. B. Ashley, land and commission agent, has taken an office in the Oddfellows’ Hall. A card appears in another column. Twenty -five names were obtained to the petition asking the postal authorities to establish a telephone exchange in Waipukurau. While courting a girl at Lexington, Kentucky, a man named Lucky accidently trod on her toe, and injured it so much that amputation was necessary. Although he paid the doctor’s bills, and gave her slippers and other presents, she has now refused to have anything more to do with him. Unlucky Kentuckian I

Mr Chambers, chairman of the Town Board, has written Mr Hall, member for the district, urging him to endeavour to get the £lOO-vote for improvements to the local post office increased to £3OO, as the first-named sum is quite inadequa e for requirements. Unquestionably more accommodation and better falicities are urgently needed at this office: there has been very little improvement effected during the past quarter of a century. A correspondent writes to a Wellington paper : —“ Don’t you think it is about time we had a change in the teams playing senior cricket in this city ? Can anything be more uninteresting than watching practically the same old teams year after year, and I may add the same old team winning the same championship ? Is it any wonder cricket is as dead as a doornail ? There is something wanting about our cricket; and, if district cricket will make the game more interesting, then the sooner it comes the better.”

Tuesday’s earthquake was felt very severely at Mangaweka. Large slips occurred along the Rangitikei river, thousands of tons of earth falling along the face of the cliffs.

The death is announced from New York of Johann Most, the well known anarchist. We understand that in the allotment of the Railway Departmont’s prizes for the best-kept section of permanent railway from Wellington to Napier, the Waipukurau gang obtained the first prize, Woodville second and Eketabuna third. The prizes amount to £l5. The Waipukurau length extends from Hatuma to Waipawa. The following clause was included in the report of the committee on Temperance and Morals, which was submitted to the Methodist Conference at Dunedin: “ There is much disregard of Sunday as a day of rest and devotion. The volunteer authorities are frequent offenders in this respect. We must zealously preserve the day, and resist anything that would lead to its secularisation.”

In regard to the method of tarring footpaths as now adopted by the local Town Board, we have been assured by an expert that the present is the most satisfactory style for the cost involved. Before long, when the volatile oils have evaporated from the tar and the fine gravel has been trod in, the path will become smooth and solid, and any remaining loose sand may be swept off.

From America comes word that M. Santos Dumont, the world-famed aeronaut and designer of navigable airships, has resolved on making a dash for the North Pole by aid of his airship. M. Dumont intends constructing an enormous airship, the largest ever built, with a lifting capacity of 15,0001 b. It will be 196 ft long, and propelled by a 70-horee-power petrol engine. M. Dumont, who will be accompanied by a Mr Wellman, proposes making his aerial dash from Spitzbergen during the present year. While shoeing a horse, Mr C. Gay had an ankle badly injured, necessitating his laying up. The Premier says the colony has spent five million pounds in buying lands, and to-day had £194,000 to the good. Sixty thousand French miners have struck.

James : “My lord, the carriage waits without.” My Lord: “ Without what, James ?” James: “ Withany ’oases, my lord, It is the motor carriage.”

Mr S. K. S. Tipping has started business in Waipukurau as land and estate agent, a notice to that effect appearing in another column. Eleven applications were received for the position of matron to the Dannevire hospital. Miss Godfray, of this town, was appointed. The subject of Maori labour was mentioned to the Hon. Hall-Jones at Auckland. He said that any Maori navvies offering he would be glad to employ, not only on the Main Trunk line, but also on the Helensville Northward line, and the Kawakawa line. If Maori labour was offering, a thorough test of this source of supply would be made, and the Maoris would be given a section by themselves, of course under foremen, in order that their work might be judged on its merits. It is believed that the result of the Empire Bazaar at Waipawa will be a profit of about £260. At Palmerston a woman shot dead a horse-trainer named Murfitt because he threatened to marry another girl. She also almost succeeded in ending her own career with a bullet. One of the settlers on the Annan estate, not having caught Mr Duncan’s name when he was introduced to the Minister of A griculture, and being anxious to entertain his visitor with an insight into the lighter side of life in the back country, proceeded to relate how he had circumvented the rabbit inspector on his periodical visits to the estate. Mr Duncan listened with much interest. We learn that the Mount Herbert estate is being gradually disposed of. It is rumoured that two Waverley settlers have purchased the homestead and three thousand acres, and the manager will shift his quarters nearer Wanstead. At a political meeting during the recent English elections, a candidate was asked if he was in favor of “ hens laying square eggs, with a view to doing away with the necessity for eggcups ?” Dooley on 'stamp collecting : — Th’ British Guvment issued a noo series larst week with a fine study ov th’ Noo Zealand futballers on it. Bat they were withdrawn as they found they couldn’t lick ’em ! J. A. Blom has up-to-date horse covers. New advertisement in next issue.