LOCAL & GENERAL.

Dunstan Times, Issue 2488, 5 July 1909, Page 4

LOCAL & GENERAL.

The ordinary monthly meeting of the Clyde School committee takes place in the secretary’s cilice this evening. The monthly meeting of the trustees the Duustau District Hospital is called fo r Wednesday, 9th inet., at 8 p.mMr D. T. Fleming has been nominated by members of the following school committees for the seat for the Southern Ward in the Education Board viz., Wylie’s Crossing (Taieri), Clinton, and Balclutha and Dawrencc D. H. Schools. The nominations close to-day. Our readers will see trom this issuo that Mr W, H. Campbell, who now represents Messrs J. and J. Arthur, the well-known tailors, Dunedin, will soon be in our district with samples of new goods in suitings and other requisites for men. We believe that Mr Campbell has something good to show the ladies in the way of stylish, tailor-made costumes. The boom in dairying lands in Taranaki still continues. The ‘ Fielding Star ’ reports that a farm at Okaiawa has changed bands at £45 an acre. A 50 acre property at Waihi lias been leased at £2 5s an acre, two hundred acre farms at Manaiaat 38s each, and 77 acres at Kaponui at 37s (to a Wellington policeman). There are many sides to the unemployed question,” says the ‘ Wairarapa Daily Times,’ “ and one was brought under our notice the other morning. A stationholder wanted 30 scrub-cutters, wages a shilling per hour. His agent in Masterton approached some of the out-of-work men, but they would not take it up. Scrub-cutting is doubtless hard work, but if a iuan has any grit in him he should tackle it until he can find something better. The right to work is proclaimed by the Labour party, but this really seems to mean in practice the right to refuse work or the right to pick 1 work. How can the community be iu syms pathy with an unemployed dJliculty when they find that tne men out of work refuse a living wage ? The latest reports from the Hooded district state that the rivers are still rising slowly. Immense areas are under water. Many bridges have been washed away, vehicular trallic is blocked, and rescue boats have boon sent. The Hooding of the Tumut River is the highest for HO years. A man was drowned in the Hood waters at , umberramba, and there were several sensational escapes. Cable. According to the New York Times, with a view to forestalling the Chicago _ packers, half the necessary capital is being subscribed in America and half in England to establish a company to run five steamers, commencing in October, to bring Argentine and foreign beef to New York and return with coal. The company intends later on to erect a packing plant at Btienos Aires. The amount of grain carried over the railways of Southland till the end of last week reached the total of 693,937 sacks. During the same period of last year the amount carried was 557,158 sacks, while it is interesting to note, the amount carried during the same period of 1907 was only 365,296 sacks. The total for last week alone was 47,761 sacks, au increase of more than-1000 over the previous week, while during the two corresponding weeks of last year the totals were 5130 and 8944 sacks respectively. In the case of Corby v. Nelson City Council, a claim for £llO damages for injuries alleged to have been sustained through falling into a drainage excavation, Mr Evans, S.M., gave judgment for the defendants yesterday. He held that the plaintiff’s negligence in attempting to cross the trench contributed to the accident, and that the opening was sufficiently lighted and protected, 'ln the days of long ago, when Stratford was a very young centre, says the local Post, strange tales of whisky stills, and big sprees, and saurian monsters, used occasionally to Hoat out to places where settlement was older and less strenuous. Legend hath it that strange doings went on in these dark ages in what is now the highly respectable hostelry conducted by Mr T. Lawless,, and that the cellars under this hotel were connected by a secret passage with the Patea river. The other day, while some important alterations were being made the workmen discovered a pips leading from the cellar up through the bar into an upstairs chimney, and cunningly boarded over so as to evade detection. Mr Lawless has no doubt but that pipe played a very important part at some period in the early history of the hotel, and its uncovering conjures up visions of illicit stills and casks of whisky-wild, fierce, free whisky of its kind that scorns to pay duty and kills at the longest known range. When all is said and done, and when the record of the unprecedentedly short session is written up, it may be unceremoniously labelled “gas,’’—Wellington ‘FreeLance.’ A point touched on by the Hon. T. Mackenzie in his speech at Palmerston North was the excessive increase of urban compared with rural population. This is a subject to which attention has been ’directed over and over again. The phenomenon is not going to be removed by talking about it or being sorry that it should exist. It is an unpleasant peculiarity which can only be removed, by doing one thing, and that is to press on with a still more comprehensive system of settlement- by offering facilities to city workers to go on to the land, and by offering opportunities to men with families to acquire moderate areas in which their savings may be invested. Ministers have spoken about this question mw times, It is not unreasonable to hope, therefore, that when Parliament opens they will tell us what they are going to do about it, |f Mr Mackenzie will play the part of a countgeous exponent of small settlement the country in general will be as much indebted tq him as wjl the dMvymen U he assists to rqiso their iudnstvy to greater import- ■ anco,—Wellington ‘Times,’ A social under the auspices of the Clyde Football Clqb is to be held in the Town Hall on Wednesday evening. Some excellent musical items are promised, and the committee intend to make the function q aqccesa. Kissing- tpasing— Lovers twain-. laughing-sneezing—--oold again ! Lovers quarrel!, All too sure. What’s the moral ? Woods’ Great Peppermint Cure.

The ballasting of the line between Lawrence and Evans Flat is being pushed along slowly. The last of the bridges on the line between Lawrence and Big Hill will soon be out of Mr Watson Rhodes’s hands. The station shed and appurtenances at Evans’s Flat are well-nigh completed. It is not yet known what kind of building is to be erected on the east side of the Big Hill tunnel. As the Big Hill is the dividing line between the Bruce and Tuapeka electoral districts, and as prevails ‘ over the border”, it has been hinted that if the funnel were pushed through the Government could erect station buildings on the west side and allow the sale (illiquid refreshments under Slate Conti a'. The experiment could easily be put to the test and the settlers, condititionally to the line being completed to the Beaumont, would doubtless guarantee the State against loss. (Star) Rabbit trapping for the export trade was brought to a conclusion last week by the setting in of hard frosty weather, after what has easily been the longest season on record in this district. “Bunny” has had a severe thinning out and is scarcer in numbers on most of the runs at the present than he has been for many years past. Out large station in Central Otago is reported to have cleared oil just about 500,000 of the pest this wiuter. The Court sits at Clyde on Saturday and at Alexandra on Monday next. The excise duty on beer manufactured in Invercargill during the June quarts l of the present year amounted to £405 qsas compared with £368-8-3 collected during the same period last year. This means that the consumption of locally made beer shows an increase of 5351 gallons for the quarter just ended. There are evidently still a few thirsty souls left iu the No. License town. A party of Stewart Islanders have hired a small steamer, and intenc setting out for the West Coast in search of ambergris, | which they think will be cust ashore in payable quantities as a result of the recent storm. Mr J. A. Holt, our local postmaster, who has been away on holiday leave for the past three or four weeks, has not been in the best of health during his trip and has been granted another month’s leave of absence. Mr H. Edser, who is relieving, will remain in charge of the Clyde office till his return,