PALMERSTON ITEMS.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVI, Issue 42, 18 August 1908, Page 8

PALMERSTON ITEMS.

[By Teiegbaph. — Special to The Post.] PALMERSTON NORTH, This Day. Pahnerston Hospital has received a cheque for £G2 as the financial result fJf: the recent "Elijah" oratorio. The Cheltenham Co-operative Dairy Company paid out to suppliers last sea-, son £15,446, and to employees in wages ,£1126. Butter to the value of £20,562 was sold. The directors' report regrets fthat owing to a bad spring there was a .great shrinkage in profits. To harmonise with the beautification. of the reserves in tbe centre of the town,, "the Public Works Department has com■menced to 'lay off the ground surrounding the post office in gardens. The local technical school has now be-come-self-supporting. Last term's operations resulted in a profit of £10.

The (Wellington No-license League, met,. ■last evening, the Rev. W. J. Comrie'.pre--siding. Attention was drawn to the; remarkable increase of drunkenness for"■the twelve months which ended on 31st v > March , last, compared with • the preceding year. The police report showed that the convictions totalled in round num- ; bers»considerably over 10,000, an increase 1 of nearly 1000 over the 1906-7 period.. It was mentioned at the meeting that a •sadder fact, as upsetting the theory that New Zealanders did not drink, was indicated by the fact that of these '10,000 nearly 6000 were first offenders, second offenders over 1400, third offenders 800, and over 1000 had more than 'five previous convictions against them. Wellington stood in the unenviable position of being a bad top on the lisf; Dunedin's share of arrests was 865, Christchurch 1517, Auckland 1790, and Wellington 3087, and in the matter of the year's increases the position was infinitely worse for Wellington. Without dissent a resolution was adopted — "That the attention of the Minister of Justice be called to the fact of the numerous fatalities which had been reported in the local_ press within the $asT< few weeks, -and in which the evidence showed- drink to be the cause, but apparently no effort was made to find out the names of the ;pubhcans who supplied these men with liquor while in a state of intoxication." The Defence Department has arranged for district instructional courses as follows—At Carterton, from 14th to 19th September; at Opunake, from 24th to 29£h -Sen^ejpobert