NEWS ITEMS.

"Kaeh ilolii a pitrh each purl a prayer," is the new up-to-date rendition of 'The Rosary," according to the Los Angeles Times. By royal order the celebration ' of Arbor Day has been made obligatory in every township and municipality in Spain, and tree planting is to be carried on upon n more extensive scale than heretofore. • il Tlic old pioneers of New Zualalltl are passing away*" said Sir Robert Stout, speaking at PahiterstoU North; "This came hom» to me when I lookbd over the list of the members of Parliament of 1875; that is only 43 .years ago. There wore then 44 members' in the Legislative Council andl 80 members- in the House of Representatives— l24 membei-s in all. How many, tluitk you, of titat list ai-© alive to'daV? There ate only three— the Hon. Captain Baillic, Ml', Doiiald Reed and myself." t What appeared .to be an aeroplane with lights Avas seen by several people in Christchurch on Wednesday evening between seven o'clock and 7.15. It seemed to be travelling in a south-westerly direction, at a rate estimated at sometiling like 20 miles an hour and Avas at a considerable height; To some,' at first, sight, it looked like a planet, but its fairly rapid' movement > dispelled that idea. Others surmised that it Avas a fire balloon, but to other observers it looked like an aircraft under control'. It seemed to pass along the edge of a dark bank of cloud in the southern sky, and Avas finally lost to sight. A telephone inquiry elicited from the Aviation School at Sockburn the information that it Avas not one of the machines from the school ; it was also stated that none of the machines is used at night-time for flight.

In contrasting »tlfe 'expenditure in aeroplanes and flying araohines generally, between America and iSngland,, Sir Joseph Ward said at an Enipire Mothers' meeting in Wellington!' -that "the Americans were, now expending £120,000,000 on these machines, while, when -., he was in England, the Value of them was estimated at only about £100,000. He con\ sidered that JEnglaiid would have to invest at least £60,000.000 to keep pace with things'. Another interesting point was that President Wilson (was elected in a country containing 100,000,000 white people as a pacifist Presiderft, and 3'et in two years and. a-' half he .has become a. war President, with nine-tenths of the .people working earnestly with him. Conscription and Avar organisation sprang up, almost in. a moment, and the motto was "Thorough" in all branches. Another extraordinary transformation was that of Henry Fordj who first of all fitted out and financed a pacifist expedition, and now has given £20,000,000 for the building and equipment o| ships to help Great Britain and America to com. bat the submarines. The suggestion that the use, of the word "kindergarten" should be discontinued on account of it s German origin, was referred to "by the president, air. H. G. Counsins, M.A., at the annual meeting of the Auckland Kindergarten Asociation. He saidl the council of the association hadi decided upon the continued use of the Avoid, and he spoke in defence of that attitude. There was no other Avord they could use Avhich would so easily and fully describe their institutions; instead, almost a whole sentence would be required. He did not think it Avas for a bodj such as theirs to say just Avhat the English language should be, or Avhat words it should contain. If the opposition to the word were given effect to it would be necessary to take exception to woi'ds which might be described as Austrian or Turkish, and! it would be just as reasonable to object to Avords which had been adopted from the ■languages of Franco or Spain, Avith which countries England had been at war in the past. He was very doubtful a« to whether any amount of hatred: of the enemy would lead to „the ultimate elimination of the word ''kindergarten." He thought the council had done tho right thiiSgJn retaining J,he use of what it considered to be a- thoroughly descripItivo English word'. The Nelson Colonist states ;-~" A lady who was bathing at Tahuna shortly after 7 o'clock on Thursday 1 morning saw two unusual visitors over'Tasman Bay. She states that on looking out to sea she saw two seaplanes quite distinctly. They were flying together near the surface of the water, and then separated, one going in the direction of the eastern hills. She watched this one until jt Avas lost in the clouds. She then endeavored to locate [the other, but it had disappeared. The I lady Avas very, diffident about telling tho story, but she Avas so positive as to [what she had seen that she spoke to a j Colonist representative about it, in order to ascertain if the planes had been seen by anyone else. Unfortunately, at the time she was in the sea the onfy person about Avas in the dressing shed, and by the time he came out tha visitors had gone. It was stated a few days ago that a seaplane had been seen in the Sounds, but the story Avas scouted." In reference to the foregoing the-Clmstchurch Press states .-—"Rumors were prevalent in Qhristchurch on Monday that enemy seanlanes had been? .^reported flying over Nelson. Inquiries w^re instituted by the Canterbury headquarters office of the Defence Department of the^ group commander at Nelson, which is in tho Canterbury military district, and he reported thiit the only alleged witness of the seaplanes Avas a lady avlio stated that she saw two rise from the sea and disappear among the clouds. As the result of his investigations the group commander seriously discounted the story as improbable:"

In a letter to the Tarauaki Herald, Mr. W. A. Collis, of 'New Plymouth, says: I have a pretty v good .knowledge of Egmont, acquired suice I ftfst; climbed it 40 years ago, and the position as.de-! scribed about the running water and, cracks and fissures is only what has occurred before when we have had a very hot summer, and the. heat that is the cause is not from below hut from above, caused largely this season by the unusual amount of northerly and easterly winds, and the rafn we have had being mostly from that quarter has been warm, and has assisted in melting the accumulated ice hence the effects described by Guide Upsou. As for the earthquake bringing down rocks, we have not had any earthquakes of sufficient volume to affect Egmont in any degree worth noticing. What is happening in regard to the rocks falling away is only the natural result of the conditions affecting the ice in the crater. It is well known that the summit of Egmont is always more or less weathering away piecemeal, and when the ice that has been binding together fragments of rock is melted the natural result is that the rocks fall away, sometimes more, sometimes less, according to the season. Nothing untoward is happening. I have been up there in similar seasons to this, and- nave seen, in addition to the fissures described, heautiful caves in. the ice, and the light effects in these were really beautiful, but there was no- heat down below to cause the melting. I % should not have troubled to write about it only that some people seem to get a scare whenever anything appeaus in print about old Egmont that seems- to- -th«m-~to-be~oufc- of the- ordin^ avy. . .

I "In future All "these profiteering cases are gOing to ;pi'isdn. There will be no fines. Everybody — butchers, grocers, and butter-sellers— tvill go to prison 'after this week." This was the warning given by Mr. Chester Jones, magistrate at, Lambeth (London) Police Court, in fining grocers £35 for selling margarine above the maximum price. "**"; : A fruit case which, it. is .claimed, will enable tho fruitgrower to supply fruit to tho pliblic at a lower rate ha« beon invented by A W'arWorth growoi 1 . The advantage of -the Jiew case i£ that the liti reqiiirds no nailing, it lifeing Iliilgcd and ' fastened bv a siteel clip. To prevent pilfering, the c'iise is seaied by a patent seal. As the case 1 Would bo rC' tdi'itabie to the grower, it could, it is claimdd.. be. used continuous I . y.- for two years i The ile\v ca*)o, which Jias been •accepted by several .growers jtnd dealers, is at present beiiig considered by the New Zealand Frititgrow<e.js' ' Federation. Judt befol'e One of tile l'ecent bf& pushes j a Canadian Tommy received the news that the only relative lie had in the world.. had died and Idft liimi £550,000, says LdndbJl Opinion. Hfe Joyousiy passed tlie news along to.. ills t'fiurh, ail Englishman, who"; "was" Awaiting by his side to gp oyei' tlie top. Tlieii the thought struck him, what was to become of the money if his luck cil^iigecl and lie "stopped one?" So there, in the mutidy trench, he scribbled his will at the back of his paybook, "with a stubby piece of indelible pencil, making ! his pal his sole heir. Sure enough," the poor fellow's luck turned. In the early hours of the day's fighting he wenlj W^W eav i m S h' s friend the richer by a fortune. The New ,2eal,andU 3?imes says: "Trust the /people*'! >'i^, llie grand old democratic principle ot^irhich a good deal lias, been heard of lute, -but the Legislature has enactec^ thrtt the people are not to be" '-trusted »w the matter of drink on election day. Therefore tho hotels in the constituency bf Wellington North on Thursday were* jclosed' at noon. It all the hotels of the> city had been closed the situation woul<! not have been so curious, but the anbmaTy was presented of all the licensed houses from Thorndon tp Cuba • .street "shutting 1 down at noon while the bars at'ithe other end of the city remained open. On *one side of Cuba stree'i^'a drink could t not be obtained:, so that it became the peculair privilege 'A&'certaiiuJicensees- fa do a roaring trade i^ the afternoon nt the expense of their brother, publicans. The position was, of couilse, quite absurd. 1 and was ? .the subject of much comment. • Many people who are riot in the habit of studying Acts of Parliament were taken" b^ surprise in the matter, but on hearings, now matters stood, at noon there were regular processions of thirsty souls from the centre of the city to the outskirts. During the last few months^ there have been a- greater number of resignations from the Locomotive Running DepartI ment than during any similar period lof the railway's existence (states the New Zealand Loco. Engineers' Journal). The cause of this is the lack oi" jjromotion and greater inducements outside 6f the railway servicei Another factor which i» causing the acting men to resign is the latest decree, which is preventing single men eligible for . superannuation from retiring.' For every man who oould retire \pn superannuation, and who is held back by the Department, there are at least two /men .who resign, and who are discontented with such action by the Minister of Railways. This means that there is a policv adopted of a penny wise and pound fodijsh. The older men who are retained cannot continue working much longer than a., year or so, and when they retire and affairs become normal again the service will be full of untrained men, and the consequence of this is quite apparent to anyone who understands the responsibility *of running trains. It would 1 - be far better for the service if the acting moiL/uould bo promoted to a permanent position, and the men entitled to retire be given the position in the service which would be looked upon as of a tompprary, 'nature, and not held on the D3 lists.