LOCAL AND GENERAL

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 133, 2 December 1922, Page 6

LOCAL AND GENERAL

The Postal authorities have received ad-rice from Vancouver that the Niagara, which left Vancouver* on the 24th November for Auckland, has on board for New Zealand 1726 bags of mail. Two valuable horses belonging to a Christchurch butcher were poisoned on, Monday in an unusual manner. The land on which they graze adjoins the Addington Cemetery, and some workmen placed a fallen yew tree close to the boundary fence, and the animals ate tie leaves. They both died within 24 hours. A shooting fatality occurred at Hunter-, ville on Tuesday morning (reports the "Wanganui Chronicle"). • Miss Maggie Howie, daughter of Mr and Mas. W. Howie,' well-known settlers, went out rabbit-shooting, and as ehe was getting over a gate a pea rifle she was carrying was accidentally discharged, and tho bullet entered her brain. Medical as-, si stance was obtained, but the young woman died at midday. The deceased was only 24 years of age, and was to hays been married in three months.

■ A plague of rats has recently given trouble in one of the Dunedin suburbs. The rats overran a house that was locked up for a while. Being driven out by the incoming tenant, they invaded a neighbouring residence, and upon the* owner thereof giving them a rough reception they made themselves at home in another dwelling to which they stuck with extraordinary tenacity, finding their way all over the house by means of chimneys and pipes, gnawing through woodwork, and making the tenants thoroughly uncomfortable (states the Dunedin "Star.") Wire traps proved useless, but by means of brakback traps and poison the house was eventually cleared, after eighteen rats had been killed, the largest of them "a foot in length. The judgment of the Chief Justice (Sir Robert Stout) in the case of Frederick Frank Wolter against Henry Kemp, an appeal on a point of law from the decision of Mr. F. K. Hunt, S.M., was read at the Supreme Court yesterday. The charge against Wolter was one of failing to make application for registration aa an alien as required,., by the Registration of. Aliens Act, 1917. It was contended on behalf of Wolter that he had resigned his German allegiance in becoming naturalised and that he had ceased to be a. G-eTman subject. H© might have lost his nationality, or he might not, said the Chief Justice, :>nd he was of opinion that it was not of consequence. If a person could be "Stateless" and had no allegiance to ?ny State, that did not exempt him from complying with the law. The appeal waa dismissed without costs.

As a token of their appreciation Tor the service rendered by the Prince of Wales in the cause of the Empire and a. testimony of their unswerving dfevotion' to the Crown, the underwriters of Lloyd's and the Eoyal Exchange have contributed £100,000 to a guarantee fund of the British Empire Exhibition, of which tlie Prince is chairman. The offering was made in a beautiful album setting forth the motives that prompted the gift, and signed by hundreds of underwriters who contributed varying amounts. The Prince has written to the chairman of Lloyd's thanking ths underwriters most cordially for the generous gift and adding that he hopes to come to London shortly in order to thank the donors in person..