LOCAL AND GENERAL

Evening Post, Volume XCIII, Issue 46, 22 February 1917, Page 6

LOCAL AND GENERAL

The annual meetings of the -various press organisations will commence at 9.30 a.m. to-morrow, when the United Press Association will meet. Those meetings will be continued until Thursday next, when the annual meeting of the association will be held. On Monday evening the annual meeting of the Newspaper Proprietors' Association will open, and the Mayor (Mr..; J. P. Luke) will extend a welcome to thY representatives of the Dominion newspapers. This meeting will be continued on Tuesday. Other meetings to be held are those of the New Zealand Branch of the Empire Press Union, the New Zealand Federation of Master Printers, and the Country' Newspaper Proprietors' Association. "On Friday next the local newspaper ■•proprietors and printers will entertain the visitors at a harbour excursion. The Ant-arctic exploring ship Aurora, ■which had been lying alongside the Ferry' Wharf since her return from the Far South, removed to an anchorage in the stream this morning, and will probably remain there until she is sold. The sum of twenty-five guineas is to be contributed by the Harbour Board to the Capt. Fryatt Memorial Committee. This decision was arrived at last evening, after various members of the board had expressed their admiration of the heroism of Captain Fryatt. " It is becoming daily more and more evident," said Mr. M'Dougall, Canterbury member of the Federation of New Zealand Patriotic War Relief Societies' Advisory Board, -to-day, "thatwe have not enough money to meet the demands that will be made upon us in the near future." Opposition to spending money on statues was expressed at the meeting of the Harbour Board last evening by Mr. R. Fletcher, M.P., who expressed the view that the money could be expended for more practical purposes. The discussion arose after the secretary (Mr. H. E. Nicholls) had read a letter from the secretary of the Fryatt Memorial Committee, inviting a contribution towards the memorial it is proposed to erect to the hero who was shot in cold* blood by the Germans. Mr." A. H. Hindmarsh, M.P., took the opposite view to Mr. Fletcher, contending that it was an excellent thing to perpetuate the memory of great men. A statue had'been erected to the memory of Lord Nelson, for instance, and every year the school children were reminded of his great career. The board ultimately decided to donate a substantial sum to the fund. A wharf labourer named.-Thomas Bristol appeared before Mr. W. G. Riddell, S.M., in the Magistrate's Court to-day to answer a charge of theft of a lady's costume coat, valued at £3, from the steamer Wajrau. The alleged offence is an indictable one. Accused, who. was represented by Mr. H. F. O'Leary, was, on the application of Inspector Marsack, remanded till Monday next. Bail was : fixed at £25, in accused's own bond and ! a surety for a similar amount. "The Government has gone into the question of requisitioning frozen rabbits," said the Hon. W D. S. Mac Donald (Minister-in-Charge of the Imperial Supplies Department), "and after full consideration, and a conference with representatives of the rab,bit export trade, has cabled to the Imperial authorities a proposal that in addition to frozen rabbits the Government should also requisition canned rabbits and rabbit skins. This will enable rabbits to be obtained for the Imperial Government at a reasonable price, and still allow the business to becarried out on a. thoroughly payable basis in New Zealand." The revenue of the Auckland Harbour Board, says the chairman (Mr. H. DHeather), in his annual statement, is steadily expanding, as is evidenced by the fact that although we are in the third year of this great war the revenue* for 1916 constitutes a record, which is highly satisfactorily, especially in view_ of the fact that there lias been no in-' crease in tho charges, of the port. In comparing the expenditure with the estimates for last year tho results show that the expenditure has been very carefully watched, as in no case has the estimate been exceeded except in the case of maintenance and working expenses, where the increase was due mainly to the payment of the war bonus. Just to hand at Kirkcaldie's are some very smart walking skirts. They are -tailor-made in navy and black serges, and a- special feature i,s the side pocket. Sco these stylish importations 1. Prices range from 63s to 6£ guineas.—Advt. Your old travelling bag just about done ? View our Week-end cases from 6a fid, gla-dstones from 30s, brief bag's t iiom 10s fid... .Gfio,. Fojyldjs t .Ltd.—Advt-,

Touching on street nomenclature, the Wharves and Accounts Committee of the Harbour Board last night recommended, in reply to .representations made by the City Council, that the name of Fryattquay be substituted for Arawa-quay. further, it suggested to the council that the name of Cornwall-street, Island Bay, be altered so that the name of Corn-well-street (after the boy hero of the Jutland 'fight) might be retained.^ A meeting of the Auckland branch of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers carried the following resolution : " This meeting tenders grateful acknowledgment to the Government for coming to the recue. of the public-by the. establishment of State butcheries in Auckland. Thus not only preventing a < threatened riso of prices, but has eventuated in a reduction of prices - ruling at the time the Government took action, the said reduction being ' now extensively advertised in detail on the glass fronts of butchers' shops. So satisfactorily has been this action of the Government, that we would urge its extension in this branch of trading and its application in other branches of food supplies." A. memento of interest was exhibited at the annual meeting of the New Zealand Society of* Civil Engineers by the president (Mr. R. W. ■ Holmes, Eiig'ineer-in-Chief to the Public Works Department). It was a German bomb, in appearance very much like a jam-tin on top of a stick some 18in long.. The tin, which contains the explosive, is fitted with a hook for carriage on a soldier's belt. .-The stick is hollow, and the method of using the bomb is ingenious. A small cap is unscrewed off the bottom end of the stick, which contains a small button attached to a string. This string is. connected with a friction fuse, which communicates with a time fuse leading to the detonator. The time calculated for the bomb is sjsec. A I'ogue and a vagabond is defined under the Police Offences Act in various ways, and it is generally recognised that in many cases the term is a little harsh. For instance,,. if a person in destitute circumstances should wander on to privkte property and make it his temporary abode he renders himself liable to be dubbed "rogue and vagabond." A case in point came before the Magistrate's Cqurt tliis morning. The facts put forward by the police were to the effect that Charles Haughey, who is an elderly person, came down from the country some" days ago, and quickly ran out of funds. Having no place of abode, he wandered into the new Congregational Church in Cambridge-terrace, and was found there asleep by the police. It was pointed out that there was a quantity of shavingi and loose timber on the property, ■ which constituted a danger of fire. After warning Haughey to get back to the country, the Magistrate (Mr. W. G. Riddell, S.M.) merely recorded a-.conviction, and ordered him to come iip for sentence when called upon. A similar decision was arrived at iv respect of Frank Duane, who was charged with being found without lawful excuse on private property in Mulgrave-stveet. Duane's excuse was that he got very drunk, and did. not know what he was doing. Troubles which beset the path of an engineer in the country districts were somewhat graphically described by Mr. Mayer (Rangitikei)- at to-day's session of the annual meeting of the New Zealand Society of Civil Engineers. It was during a /'discussion on ithe "work of steam-shovels. "There is no doubt," he said, "that -we are up against the problem of labour, and men are now demanding 10s, 15s, . and even up to £1 per day.' They are just' the ordinary labouring man, whp carry their swags, and with the wages they are getting now they get enough in a week or a fortnight to go oil a jamboree Back they come in a day or two, and by the time they have shaken off the effects, and are in- training to be aisle to do a decent day's work, they have accumulated enough money to go on another jamboree." And so it went on. , Another speaker said the position to-day was clear: they were getting a lot less work done at the cost of more money. The only way out, he contended, was the use of machines.in the.hands of intelligent men. The war has been responsible for many restrictions, one of the latest of which was made known at the annual meeting of ithe New Zealand Society of Engineers. The president, Mr. R. W. Holmes, said that a paper had been prepared by Mr. P. W. Furkert dealing with the Trentham Camp from the municipal aspect. For safety's Bake, the paper had been sent to the military authorities, in order ithat they might, if they wished, delete any passages deemed to be undesirable. One or two paragraphs had been,taken out, 'arid then the officer in command had gone to the Minister of Defence on the matter, and ■the latter had communicated with the Minister of Public-Works, who in turn had spoken to him (the president) about it.'. The result of it all was that it was thought better io withdraw the paper, which was a matter for regret. The ipaper, dealing with the work carried out at the camp, was an extremely valuable one, and he hoped that members would be able to hear it read ait the conclusion of the war. A motion expressing the loss suffered by the Dominion by the death of the late Hon. Dr. R. M'Nab Vas passed at last night's meeting of the Victoria College Council. Dr. M'Nab was a former member of the council. Reference to the death of Dr. M'Nab Vas also made by Mr C. E. Daniel], Chairman of the Harbour Board, last evening, when he briefly reported that he had, on behalf of the board, sent a telegram to the deceased gentleman's relatives expressing sympathy with them and regret at the loss the community had sustained. Good work has been done in New Zealand hy the . use of steam shovels in connection with railway construction. 'This was evidenced in papers read today at the annual meeting' of the New Zealand Society of Civil Engineers, but the president (Mr. R. W. Holmes, C.E., Engineer-in-Chief to the Public Works Department), said that with the small gra.nts made at it was quite impossible to consider the use of the shovels on road construction. Any country engineer knew, he added, that 'if £200 were voted for a piece, of road work, especially in .the 'backblocks, the bulk of it was gone before he got on the work. Some system would have to :be evolved by which grants for road work would be sufficiently large to warrant the use of the most up-to-date and labour-saving machinery. Mr.' A. Asher, of Wellington, has received cabled advice that, after many months of fighting apart, his two sons at last met on the French front. Pte. J. Asher left with the 3rd Australian Contingent, was wounded at Gallipoli, fought through the Somme push, and is now in England, where he has undergone an operation for appendicitis. The other son,* Cecil, was Sergt.-Major of the sth Howitzer Battery, and is now a warrant officer of the Ammunition Column in France. So far. he has gone through Samoa, Gallipoli, and the Western front without a scratch, and he cables that he and his brother had a pleasant reunion. In the Supreme Court at Palmerston ! Noi th this week James Robert Allerby, a widower, was sentenced to seven years' imprisonment for incest. ,• Billip Burke in "Gloria's Romance," a motion picture novel, a faultless and altogether lovely production. First story commences at Everybody's on Saturday. See the first and you'll see the zest.— Advt, „

Owing to numerous . enlistments, and the further drain due to the ballot, the . Bank of New Zealand has found it necessary to close several of its country branches for the remainder of the war period. An issue of the Onehunga Mayoral contest will be the retention in the borough or otherwise of the Zoo, owned ; by Mr. J. J. Boyd, late of Wellington,. ' who has announced himself as a candidate for the mayoralty. Mr. John • Rowe, the present Mayor of Onehunga, will not seek re-election. Gunner John F. Pauling, of Nelson, is being invalided back to New Zealand. Pauling was one of the first to enlist in Nelson, and went with the Main Body On 4th August' he was wounded and. suffered from shell shock. When visiting' his relatives in Glasgow he became ill, and was found to be suffering from appendicitis, and an operation took place in one of the hospitals. Although the. marriage rate in Victoria . in 1915' was the highest on record since 1860, due probably to the marriage of soldiers, an examination of the last seven census periods has led the Government Statist to state in the new issue of the Victorian Year :Book that .the female marriage. rates 6how that the chances of a woman marrying now are smaller than in the earlier period. In Victoria, except in 1901, the percentage, of single women aged 18 to 50" rose from 4.7 in 1857 to 12.1 in 1911, whilst that of the single men aged 21 to 55 fell from' , 23 to 10 in the same period. . i The death is announced of an old • Otago resident in the person of Mr. W. H. Walker of St.. Albans. He arrrived . at Port Chalmers from Melbourne in February 1863. For over 25 years he was a most successful teacher under the - Otago and North Canterbury Education Boards, afterwards engaging in business pursuits in Chrisitchurch for some years. He was devotedly attached to the Methodist Church, and filled many responsible positions in tliaf, body with distinction. At Dunedin he was one of the original trustees of Trinity Church. His son is headmaster of Southbridge District High School. ...■■-.' A story comes from Mount Peel district, in South Caanterbury, which shows what a man who is anxious to mak» ' headway can do. It relates that the kssee of a small grazing run on Mount Peel, recently acquired, this year had 1800 sheep. He is a bachelor and his own< shepherd and housekeeper. He has this year shorn all his own sheep and baled the wool, besides cooking for himself. He fetched in a "cut" of sheep every fine morning, and never, enure less than 80 in a day. The man who gave this information, acquired from the energetic settler's neighbours, adds that this small sheep-owner last yeat- gave all his war profit on wool to patriotic funds, and then enlisted. The Hawera branch of the New Zealand Society for the Promotion of the Health of Women and Children is much concerned at the impurity and insufficiency of the milk supply in some parts of the Dominion, and it urges the conference in connection with that body, which is now sitting in Wellington, to draw the attention of the Government to the necessity of bringing about a speedy and permanent improvement. The Hawera branch also considers that each . matron of a St. Helens Hospital and State Maternity Hospital should be a trained Plunket nurse; that future matrons appointed should have a course., of training at Karitane; and that maternity homes should be established in each town. "May I ask what has become of NewZealand's patriotic funds?" -is the enquiry made by .a correspondent ("Britannia") in a,letter to The Post. "At the beginning, of the war," says the correspondent, -'this country contributed very well towards the funds, but now, when the money is needed as much, if not .more,'-patriotic funds have come to a standstill. "-In Wellington alone there are people who could afford to give handsome sums towards the triumphant victory of Right over Might." The correspondent is confident that if Wellington people were "to realise, as they can if they think, the deadly awfulness of the war" a very large sum of money could be raised in a month. Instead of facing the position, the people are, the writer states, living in luxury and spending money on unnecessaries and amusements. Many of the women are doing their utmost to help win the war; butthere are many, in the opinion of the correspondent, who prefer pleasure to patriotic work. "In conclusion," he says, "I wish to ask the Mayor of this city, and also every newspaper, to open a new war fund, the proceeds of which will go directly towards winning the war. If everyone, from the poor wjdow to the wealthy man, will contribute all he (or she) can, a big sum of money will help largely towards the triumphant victory of Right over Might." "Is a woman legally qualified to act as a lift attendant?" This question has, been raised by a business firm in Wet lington', and has been officially ariWer&i in the negative. The correspondence oil the subject has been sent to The.Post. An application was made on- behalf of the wife of a man who has enlisted to be allowed to operate a lift, which was previously in charge of the husband. The business firm in its application stated : "Since the husband left we have had considerable "difficulty in obtaining a man to fill the position. It has been offered to three returned soldiers, but they have not accepted same." The official reply to this was:, "The law specifically states that only a- 'male person' may be appointed to control a lift, and the Law Officers advise me that no power could be taken under any other statute to set a-side the express provision of the law on the subject." The business firm, in pursuing its case, mentioned this fact: "We have since heard that a permit, has been issued to a 'female person' in this town to act in a. similar capacity, and owing to the very exceptional circumstances of our case we could see no reason why a permit should not be granted in our case also." The official reply makes the following , candid admission: "In reply, I have to inform you that the one female attend- •' ant on a lift is in a Government institution, and under section. 62 of the Inspection of Machinery Act, 1908, all ■ Government machinery is exempt from the provisions of the Act. I regret there- / fore to advise you that as the Act stands there is no power to grant your request." Out of 200 bakers in Auckland city and suburbs, 65 have enlisted. "In these times of stress, State institutions should be supported to the utmost," remarked the chairman (Mr. Clement Watson) at last night's meeting of the Victoria College Council. There's economy and satisfaction in using Desert Gold, the queen of teas. The 2s grade is best value in New- Zealand. Sold by all grocers.—Advt. Travellers recommend our baggaga checking system. We collect, check, deliver at once. Tho New Zealand Express Co., Ltd., 87-91, Customhouse-quay.— C. Smith, Ltd., "The People's Store,"-Cuba-street, Wellington, have just landed, ex s.s. ——, a big range of new autumn and winter Housings. These comprise tho latest in flannelette, delainette, viyella, and flannel; in smart effects. • Patterns will be forwarded to any address in. the Dominion per return post on application. Write to-day while the stocks are at their best. This store pays posta-pe on orders.—Advt. ' ■