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Evening Post, Volume LXXXI, Issue 75, 31 March 1910, Page 6

LOCAL AND GENERAL The new railway time-table will come' j into force to-morrow. By an extraordinary Gazette issued yesterday, Parliament is further prorogued to 30th April. A Dunedin Press Association telegram states that Sir Joseph WaTd expects to hear the name of the successor to Lord Plunket announced within a fortnight. The only foreigner who arrived by the Wavrimoo, from Sydney, this morning, was an Italian, who satisfied the authorities as to his right of admission into the country. One hundred and fifty cases of fruit for the local marts was brought by the Warrimoo, from Sydney, this morning. The consignment included pineapples and passion fruit. There are four cases of typhoid fever amongst the natives in the village of Jerusalem, on JtJje Wanganui River. Two experienced nurses are attendiag the cases, and visits to the sufferers are made by a medical officer. The Post's Feilding correspondent telegraphs: — "A local buyer says the trade in fat lamb? is not bright just now, largely because lam' ~ refuse to fatten. Why this should je so is a problem, as feed is good and plentiful. On the other hand there is still a big demand for railway trucks for stock." "The present buildings and equipment of the Wellington Technical School are in the main thoroughly "unsatisfactory," says Mr. La Trobe, the director, in his annual report. He adds that the board has during the past year devoted a considerable amount of time and energy to the problem of securing "a satisfactory and central site on which to lay the foundations of a technical institution more in keeping with the importance of the city. ' ' At the Makara Hall last night a meeting of ratepayers was held to decide whether a poll shall be taken in connection with the raising of a loan of JG6OOO to be expended on the new road over Makara Hill. The weather was very bad, and there was only a small attendance, which was presided over by Councillor Hawkins. It was unanimously decided that a poll be taken, the date of which will be fixed at another meeting on Bth April. The Victorian State Ministry has suggested to the Premier of New South Wales that he should, as the head of the senior State, summon a conference of representatives of the various State harbour trust* or boards for the purpose of discussing the arrangement of a uniform policy for the whole of the Commonwealth in connection with the levying of wharfage dues upon shipping. The Treasurer (Mr. Watt) is still .withholding his official approval of the Mcl bourne Harbour Trust's schedule of wharfage rates submitted early in the year. At the Sydney Industrial Blind Institution's exhibition last week, blind girls could be seen doing apparently impossible things. "They were not only weaving the cane bottoms of chairs," says a Sydney paper, "but actually taking short hand notes, and typewriting them afterwards. All, of, course, by the touch. The shorthand is the usual Braille characters, embossed, and struck out by means of a fimall six-keyed machine, like a typewriter. The girl who does this work can take at least 80 words a minute from dictation. The typewriter is an ordinary machine. The main difference is that on a few of the keys the Braille types are embossed, to guide the sensitive fingers. The girl who typewrites can average from 20 to 30 words a minute. She can take it from dictations, or read it by touch from a book in Braille type, or from the notes, in the same type, made on strips of paper by the "shorthand" writer. Another girl works a stereotyping machine, which impresses upon discs of zinc the Braille lettering, which is afterwards stamped into the paper pages of the Braille books. All by touch alone. It is an exhibition of marvels." The policy of Dr. Solf, head of the German Government in Samoa, was summed up in Sydney last week by a missionary, Rev. J. E. Newell, who had just arrived from there. "We have suffered no kind of disability,." he said, "from the German annexation. The Government piuclaimed that the people would be allowed to go on as they had been accnetomed, choosing what religious fajth they liked; and it has faithfully kept that pledge. It is difficult to say how German prestige is to tbe maintained when compared to the enormous British influence which surrounds it in the South Seas; the German colonies are very small, and right in the midst of British colonies. But Dr. Solf has recognised that fact, and whilst maintaining German interests as far as possible, he has not forgotten tho other interests there." Mr. Newell gave an instance of the Government's honest treatment of the natives : — "When some years ago tbe volcano burst out on the north coast of Savaii," he said, "and the natives there lost several of their plantations, and had no longer means of subsistence, the Government removed them to Upolu and gave them two very fine pieces of land, on which they have settled." The director of the Wellington Technical Education School, Mr. La. Trobe, has reported to the Wellington Technical Education Board that 62 young men have intimated) their intention of joining the proposed classes of wool classing and sorting. He added that for various reasons it was improbable the classes would be satisfactorily conducted in the city during the wool season. There should be, he thinks, a small profit on actual working expenses leaving out rent. At the meeting of the Technical Education Board last evening, the chairman (.Mr. J. P. Luke, M.P.), commented' on the incicasing quantity of wool sold annually in Wellington instead of being sent Homo for':-tJe Jn\ J. G. W. Aitken moved that the Education Department be asked to provide the neietfaiy funds to start the classes. He took it that the classing that would be required at present would be the classing of the wool as it came from the sheep's back for sale purposes. Of course, he said, it i would involve considerable expenditure. Mr. W. Allan supported the starting of such a class. Mr. W. H. Field, M.P., said that tome nine years ago he uiged in his place in Parliament that instructors in wool classing should be appointed. It was within his own knowledge that as much as Id per lb had been lost by bad classing or no classing at all. It would benefit the growers and the coun- ' tr^ if proper classing was done. In some districts very good work was now being done in this way. If a wool classing class was started in Wellington it would probably attract many farmers' sons, and would do much good. It was agreed by the board "that the Education Department be asked to make a grant to assist' in starting Buch slafis«s t