LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1117, 3 May 1911, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

The Department of Labour reports a strong demand throughout the country fer labour in all tho building trades. With tho approach of winter, and the consequent slackening off of farm work, there is an increasing number of applicants at the Labour Bureaux. Ploughmen, however, are in strong demand in tho South Island. The freezing works are shortening hands, and there is already a movement among slaughtermen towards tho Departmental agencies for employment. Tho applicants, as a whole, comprise three single men to one married man. The married men are in all cases given preference of employment. Tho season promises to be a very busy one for bushmeu, and the Department expects to have no difficulty in placing men used to,that class of work". Men are being regularly sent to co-opera-tive works in the Gisbornc and Xelsou districts, where the numbers are still a good deal short of rer|uirements. It is stated that the men for these works are carefully selected, and must first prove their skill with pick and shovel. Tho Department does not anticipate that relief works for (ho unemployed will be required during the coming winter. ■

Complaints are heard in almost, every p:u'' of the Dominion (says an exchange) of irregular arrivals of trains, causing great inconvenience to the public. From north and south come reports of disabled engines and want of punctuality owing to breakdowns of one kind nnd another. It is to be feared there is some cause for apprehension in regard to the condition of many of the locomotives, which, it would appear, are being overtaxed in order to cope with tli« excessive traffic of the last few. months.

"Government Midi tors know very little about .sheep," remarked a member of n Tarannki local body, when some exception was taken to a Mieep transaction.

"Why," he continued, "at a Domain Board audit, the auditor could not understand why the board owned 15 f.heep al the beginning of the your ami 20 at the end of the year, without any being purchased in the interim!"

Yesterday the Auckland oyster season opened, and a staff of pickers, engaged by the. Marine Department, are at work on the beds. The I,'opaTtment has also opened a depot close to 'ho water front in Auckland City. The price cf the shellfish has been fixed at 12s. Gd. per sack of from 75 to SO dozen, and an additional Gd. will b<. charced for cartage to rail or steamer. Freight is to bo payable by the consignee, on arrival of the oysters.

The Sydney Zoological Society has come by a specimen in rather a. strange manner. A little while back a barque m , - rived in port in ballast, and when the rubble and othc, rstuff were emptied out of her a tortoise in good order and i-.-tt-dition was found. The vessel obtained her ballast from same South American river bank. The reptile was forwarded to the society, and lorms an interesiiiij addition to the collection, it being ine only specimen of its kind in the gardens.

Promoted by the Wellington Fox Terrier Club, in co-operation with the Irish Terrier Club, a dog parade will be held on the Basin Reserve on Saturday afternoon, l-'ifty-six fox terriers and sixteen Irish terriers have been entered. Ribbon awards will to made to the best dogs on parade. No charge will be made lor admission.

Mr. John Fuller, who was successful in his first attempt to secure municipal honours, entertained the members of his committee and other friends at a social gathering hold in Godber's Rooms, Cuba Street, last evening. The chair was occupied by Mr. Davis (chairman of tho committee), who congratulated tho can'di-dat-3 on his success at last Wednesday's poll, and wished him a. lons and successful career in municipal politics. Mr. Fuller replied in a humorous vein, but gave at the same time every assurance that ho would stick to his election pledges. During the evening Mr. Fuller sang "Geraldine," the song which his father made so popular in the old touring days. Mrs. John Fuller exhibited a very sweet soprano in song, and together they sang a duet in excellent laste. Others contributed to the harmony of the oycninß, and Mr. Douglas (manager of His Majesty's ' Theatre) played the accompaniments.

In January Inst the stipendiary ma?isIrate, at Westport, in a • lengthy judgment, dismissed an information charging Iwo hotelkeepers with selling liquor on December '-6, which was observed f..-i a public holiday in place o£ December 25 (Christmas Buy), on the grounds that he considered the Legislature, in pacing the Public Holidays Act, was deaUi-.s exclusively with the riuestion of fixing with precision what dars should bo treated as public holidays, and was not concerned with the question of public order, which the closing of licensed premises would infer. The police appealed against this decision, and their appeal has been upheld by Mr. Justico Denniston. His Honour said it could not be assumed that Ihe Legislature intended to exclude the Licensing Act from the operations'of the Public Holidays Act unless it was clear that such a limitation must l>3 assumed to have been intended. In many cases the literal construction of a Statu'to may lead to anomalies and hardships, but as n general rule the remedy (if any) for such lies in an amendment of the Act.