GENERAL.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 661, 10 February 1909, Page 6

GENERAL.

There is a drop in the price of timber in Wellington. The reductions will average about Is 6d per 100 ft on general building lines. In regard to the statements made at the meeting of the Ohristchurch Fruitgrowers' Association, the fruit auctioneers d»ny the existence of any ring, and say they have nothing to add to pievious replies given to similar charges. Invercargill Trades and Labor Council resolved, iu view of the number oi unemployed in the dominion, to strongly protest against the Government's itumigation policy. According to L>r Josiah Oidtield, Noah wis the first meat eater, and also the first drunkard. In Persia the dough for making bread is rolled out as thin as a pancake and as long as an ordinary towel. Six hundred persons wrote to the Lambeth ' Guardian ' off jring to adopt a nine-year-old girl. A woman of thirty also expressed her desire to be adopted. When a workhouse boy at St. Asaph was declared to be " not of a very high order of intelligence," a member said he would mike a good farmer. Mr Roosevelt has forwarded to Congress the General Staffs recommendation for the proposed fortifications in San Pedro Harbor, California. The Message states that if these are not accepted it will be impossible to prevent any Oriental Power, within a month of hostilities developing, landing 100,000 men at Los Angelos, and 300,000 within two months. The War Department declares that the projected fortifications have no connection with recent Japanese troubles. The House of Representatives has voted 29,000,000 dollera, as recommended by the Naval Committee, for the construction of two gigantic battleships. " Milton was essentially a Radical," said Professor Manley, of Chicago University, at the celebration of the tercentenary of the poet's birth at University College. "He would be in favor of every advanced modern movement except women's suffrage."