LOCAL AND GENERAL

Feilding Star, Volume II, Issue 343, 14 August 1907, Page 2

LOCAL AND GENERAL

A meeting of the Feiiding Beautifying Society will be held at 7.30 this evening. Parcels of stamps for the Halcombe invalid have been left at this office by Miss Iris Dewar, Miss Coombes, and Mrs H. Capper. The reception to W. Webb, the champion souller, at Wanganui, has been postponed till Friday. Webb will pass through Feiiding by the mail train that day. Miss Rowling, the typiste for the Palmerston Borough Council, is at present in the Wellington Hospital suffering from a serious illness. A letter of sympathy has been sent to her from the Borough Council. The Feiiding Debating Society last night discussed the question of defence, the meeting being in the form of a " Mock Parliament." The Government's Bill, proposing universal training, was carried by 12 to 11. For the junior competition prize essay on the Christchurch Exhibition, written by the Feiiding Cadets, the following are the winners -.—Oswald Bramwell 1, Burns Watson 2. Ballance Hostick 3. The Waitara Mail is informed that a flaxmill is to be erected at Nukaharika.Bay, near the locality of the Kia Ora wreck. The dressed fibre will be sent to the steamer in a surf boat, of which Mr De Wolfe, late of the Northern S.S. Company, will have charge. A house belonging to Mr W. Tompkms, and occupied by Mrs Witney, at Makino, was totally destroyed by fire on Friday evening. No one was in the house at the time, and nothing was saved. The furniture was i insured in the South British for ! £150. The insurance on the house i is not known. J Several residents of Feiiding are ! having the tall trees round their ! houses cut down, which will have the ' ?ood effect of letting in more sun- : ight. The Boioiigh Council somo ' time ago adopted a recommendation ' fiom the Park Committee that the ■ trees on the Ov*l should be topped, | but the work has not yet been done. . n T !\ e S £ l°l?\ Girls ' Missionary Guild will hold their annual sale of work and entertainment on 23rd ' August. The collection of articles ' for disposal will be as profuse as is usual at these sales, and the great reputation of the Guild will be carefully upheld.. For the entertainment part, the girls are practising some new dances and songs, and this de- . partment of the function will be ' quite up to concert pitch. The pro- ' ceeds of the sale of work will be divided between the Maori and M*l- : anesiao Missions. j Dominion " cheek " is just as briliant as the well-known colonial brand. On Saturday evening a girl cycled on to the Devon street foot- ' path at the "Melbourne" coiner, and rang her bell furiously to clear the way whilst she proceeded to a confectioner's shop some distance fur- , ther down. No one interposed, or disputed the right of way. Last ; night a girl, probably 18 years of age i rode her bicycle on to the Currie I street footpath, and kept on her way • to the Devon street corner, where she rang her bell as she turned the corner. There must have been gentle- j • men amongst those who got out of ' her way.— Taranaki News j The Director of the Feiiding Tech- ' i nical School, at the committee meet- ' < ing last night, read a letter from Mr i Adams, schoolmaster at Foxton, in < reference to starting Technical Classes ■ i tit Foxton. The letter said the peopie of Foxton did not appear over- ] anxious for the education of their : j children, and there did not seem j much chance of starting classes. The ! Foxton School Committee, said the i letter, had just rented two rooms of 1 the school for dancing t The Feild- t ing Committee, amidst a general J laugh, suggested that a dancing in- ii structor might be sent over by the f Technical School. i r Mr Liddle, who is cycling round' 1" fclie world on an Enfield bicycle, gave l a most interesting and instructive £ lecture 'in the Oddfellows' Hall last } night., His experiences in Africa and t] Australia were attentively listened F to. This plucky young cyclist set ■ out with only two-halfpennies in his « pocket. "With * sum like that," » be said, "and no friends, a fellow t. soon learns what the world is like." *< In. the course of bis travels, Mr tl [ifßdle met with much hospitality— si and the other thing. This morning, c be left for Marton accompanied by a w Pew local cyclists, and hopes to lee- « ture there to-night. From Marton d le pedals to Wanganui. Wherever n le is we wiehtam "Kia Ora" and a p tafe return to the "Land o' Oakes" o1 ;rom which he hails, W

The record price for land in the wuthern end of the Taranaki province was reached lately, when £50 [>er acre was paid for a fifty-acre section about two miles from Hawera. The section had no other improvements than a ring fence. The Christchurch Press has been calculating the amount of the proposed new land tax on properties of various sizes, other than business premises. A property worth £200,DOO will have to pay £5833 6s Bd, or eery nearly three per ceril. The present tax is £3229 3s 4d. The Kumara Times has the following paragraph in Saturday's issue: — On dit, that an investigation is to be held into serious charges against a well-known medico and others, in a West Coast town for negligence, resulting (it is alleged) in the death of a woman. Simple life extraordinary. The case of a Chinaman at Arrowtown was mentioned at the meeting of the Hospital and Charitable Aid Board at Invercargill. The secretary said that the Celestial was in receipt of 12s per month from the Board, and listed his expenditure thus: — Rice, ss; Derby tobacco, 6s; matches, Is. To-day (says the British Emigrant) the ambitious and capable young man, not afraid of hard work, ready to earn his experience with his horny hands and straining sinews, should certainly go to the colonies. But only such. The days of sudden wealth are past, but an earnest worker of any class can obtain employment and good remuneration. There was some disagreement between the bookbinders' representative in the Arbitration Court at Christchurch on Tuesday and Mr Wbic'combe over the meaning of clothing a book. Mr Whitcombe considered the leather covering outside the book as the ' 'clothing." but the Union representative said it was the cloth inside the outer covering. "The underclothing," defined Mr Pir*ni, amidst laughter. A laugh was caused in the Arbitration Court in the bookbinders' dispute on Tuesday. Mr Pirani had finished his examination of Miss Ward, a case-maker for Whitcombe ana Tombs, and the Union representatives had got her to admit that superior kinds of case-work was done by men. "Take this book, for instance," said tlie Union representative, "isj this not men's work?" "I did that work," replied Miss Ward, as the Court laughed at her examiner's discomfiture. The death occurred at Deiffert, in Belgium, on June 27th last, of the Rev. Father Halberaohs, who at one time was in charge of the MasterI ton parish for five years. Father Halberachs was* born in Alsace, in France. It was principally through his efforts that the churches of St. Patrick, Masterton, St. Bridget, Featherston, Sacred Heart, Greytown. St. Mary, Carterton, and St. Jolurs, Tinui, were erected. The deceased will have many friends among the early settlers in Wairarapa who will regret to hear of his death. Pie had latterly been residing in Belgium where he had charge of a school. Mr Beerbohm Tree, the well-known London actor-manager, received the following elegant epistle from an aspirant for histrionic honors: — "Veneered sir — I wish to go on the stage, and would like to join your valuable theatre. I have been a bricklayer for five years, but, having failed in this branch, I have decided to take on acting, it being easier work. I am not young, but 1 am six feet tall without boots. I have studied Balls sistem of Ellacutkm, and I am fond of reading." A Mohammedan, who had heard that Mr Tree wanted "dark people" for "Antony and Cleopatra," wrote offering his services, adding : —"P.S.— l can lift any grand piano with my teeth." Says the Christchurch Press: Some diversion was caused by two unexpected incidents in Cathedral square last evening. An itinerant preacher, forming a party of one, proceeded to address the by-standers in his vicinity, but his comments upon their morals proved so pungent that after a few minutes of vituperation the audience closed in upon him, and he was hustled away into the silence of outer darkness. A little later, Sergeant Morgan and a policeman had to gently but firmly request the band of Evangelists taking up its stand m front of the Post Office to "move on" to the Godley Statue side of the tram lines. After considerable debate and audible protests on the part of the female section of the party, this demand was complied with, and the service proceeded with unabated enthusiasm at the new location. More is done for the comfort of the worker in Germany than most Britons are aware. "We have a great deal to learn from our German kinsmen," confessed one of the English editors who went over the Channel to improve their minds. "The system of national insurance, established by Bismarck, works admirably. Endeavours are now being made to simplify it. Whatever its com- 1 plexity, there can be no doubt of its I I beneficence to the workers. The j German artisan is insured against every possible vicissitude of indus- ! trial life, from accident to old age. ; Both workmen a,nd employers contribute to the old age pension and ; sickness funds, the State supplementj mg their contributions by a grant from the Imperial Exchequer. No , contributions is made by workmen i to the accident fund." j The lot of some dairymen on the I East Coast this winter has not been ! an enviable one (says the Poverty • Bay Herald). Speaking to a Herald . reporter a few days ago, a Gisborne ■ dairyman said : 'During all the years i I have been connected with the busiI ness, I have never known the condii tion of things to be worse. Ordin- ; anly we make a bit of a profit in the summer and lose a little in the winter, but this season beats them all; we have had a great deal more to ; do under more than unusually unpleasant conditions, and the regular loss has been much more than usual." Asked if it was true that the dairymen having runs were just now hard put to it to supply their customers, he said it was; he had had to supply . feed for all his cows, there being j little or no grass, and what there was was of very poor quality. Taken I altogether he had not known any winter so bad for dairymen. ! At the Druids' meeting, held last eveniug, one candidate was initiated and five proposals received for mem- , bership. The Social Committee reported that a lively interest is being taken in the card tournament, which* will be held in the Lodge room on Monday evening next. Good • prizes have been presented, and , everything points to a very interest- ! ing competition. Arrangements ' have been made by the Lodge, whichi will, from next Lodge night, enable brethren to have their choice of chemist as well as doctor, and this : system will, no doubt, most with the | hearty approval of all members. Owi ing to the hall being otherwise eni gaged, the fortnightly assembly will ' not be held on Tuesday, but the date of the next dance, toe last of the series, will be advertised in these columns this week. After passing accounts for sick pay, tfnd dealing with the usual business, V.A.D. Bro. Hyland, who presided at the meeting, declared the Lodge closed. Multitudes of sparrows have come into Timaru for the winter (says a local paper), owing, of course, to the shortness of feed in the country. They are frequenting the railway sidings and wharf, where, spilled grain furnishes food for them. It has already been published that the sparrows have learned how to bore holes in sacks to enable them to extract grain, a kernel at a time, and that it has been found necessary to cover trucks of grain with tarpaulins to prevent such pilfering. The manager of the the Belford mill, seeing the sparrows thick about the Betford mill sidin'gj determined to try the effect of poison on them. After feeding the sparrows with seconds for three days, lie mixed on ounce of strychnine with 121bs of wheat moistened with fresh milk and sweetened with 21bs of sugar,, and spread this over the feeding grounl. This was done on Saturday morning, and during the day boys came about and picked up 310 dead sparrows, and others were picked tip on Sunday and M*»day.

The Cheltenham Rifle Club will fire > for Mr Stuart's gold medal on Saturi day next, the 17th inst., shooting to i start at 1 p.m. sharp. The annual meeting of shareholders of the Rewa Dairy Company was held in the Public Hall on Monday, 12th inst. The report and balance-sheet , was read, showing a very satisfactory : result for the past year's working. The three retiring directors (Messrs < ■ Short, Densham And Crabb) were re- ' • elected, and Mr Wackrill was reapi pointed auditor. At a meeting of di rectors held immediately afterwards Mr F. F. Hockley was re-elected ' chairman. i The Evening Post, in referring to . the many begging letters sent to Mr [ Carnegie by colonials, says: — "Pal- > merston North is the latest appli- ! cant for some of the Steel King's precious metal. The Borough Council has humbly held out its hat for ' £10,000 and the Trust potentate who 1 has turned philanthropic in his old [ age, mostly put hard words into the receptacle. He gave an opinion that 1 it would be waste to spend so much money in so small a town. Probably 1 this lack of appreciation of Palmers- ' ton's progressiveness will put the re- ' quisite starch into the Borough ) Council's back and so conserve the > people's self-respect." ' "She dirtied every cup and saucer ■ in the house and never washed one up," was the henious offence alleged ' against a wife by her husband, in 1 defence of an application for a separation order, in the Masterton Magistrate's Court on Saturday (says the Wairarapa Times). In view of the fact that evidence was given of the > husband having abused and assaulted - his wife on several occasions the Court passed over the wife's alleged ; lapse in this trifling household duty. I "If I had given her a good hiding ; it would have done her a blooming - lot of good," the defendant inter- • jected at one stage of the proceed- • ings. At the close of his lecture last night, Mr Liddle told an amusing anecdote which he was afraid some | of his audience might have heard be--1 fore. If so, they certainly appre- | dated it a second time. "An Irish--1 man", he said, "while walking in | the London Zoological gardens met an Australian with whom he became . very chatty." "Shall I point out 1 the animals to you?" inquired Pat, 1 and upon his new-found friend as- ' senting he named them all correctly ' till he came to a new arrival, a ' kangaroo. "Bedadl And I don't know him," he said in perplexity. "I do," < answered the cornstalk. "He's a > native of Australia." The Irishman > collapsed. "Begorra," he gasped : "A native of Australia! I've got a • sister married to one of them things."