LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Feilding Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2197, 17 October 1913, Page 2

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

At a meeting of the Gisborne Fire Board, the solicitor's opinion.was received to the effect that managers of insurance companies who have contracts with the Board were not debarred from being members of the Board.

"Last week's rain saved the situation," said a .strawberry-grower at Northcoto. Auckland, "but, of course, we cannot' as yet say exactly what the season's output will be." The beds with their long green rows of plants are now beginning to look very promising, and under the leaf clusters the berries are reddening and filling out wonderfully.

Speaking of the delays which occur in the tram traffic, a motorman, when giving evidence at the Wellington tramway inquiry last week, said that he often had been delayed for three minutes at Winder's corner. "Arguing with the track men?" aek«d Mr O'Shea. "No, getting old people," returned the motorman, "not lifting them, but carrying them in, bot)h the conductor and 1." .

"Is it really true that you aro married?" asked Inspector McGrath of a female defendant in the Auckland Po lice Court on Monday. "Well per haps not quite," she answered. "You see, I hope to be, married on Monday next." When pressed further, she expalined that! she had had two other husbands. "They are both dead," she added, "each of them commitoing suicide."

King George has just won a pro. longed fight; with the Treasury over his coronation expenses. Lord Knollys, the secretary, • had ordered from the court jewellers in his own name gold drinking cups to cost £1200 .as gifts to throe Indian princes. The Treasury refused to settle the bill until the jewellers served a writ on Lord Knolys. Fearing a scandal, the Treasury compromised, paying the jewellers £1000.

The activity of Mr Howe, M.H.R. for Dalley, saved his wife from being run over by a tram at Circular Quay, Sydney. Mr and Mrs Howe had been visiting H.M.A.S. Australia, and Mrs Howe was crossing the rails near the Parramatta River ferry wharf, some yards in advance of her husband. She did not see a tram ■that was coming along, having her back towards it. She was between the rails, with the car almost on her, when the member for Dalley sprang forward and swept his wife out of danger just in time.

An interesting operation was performed at a blacksmith's shop in Gisborne last week, when several bullocks were shod. This is a unique experiment for this district, says the Herald, and, as a matter of fact, the shoeing of bullocks is rarely heard of. The animals winch went through the operation were four of a team, the two polers and the two leaders. The owner explained that he was having the beasts shod as an experiment, for he found that tho rough metail on the roads caused the bullocks to go lame. If this lot. proved a success, he would have the others done.

in the palace of the Maharajah at Mysore, India, is a magnificent American organ, which was manufactured especially for him in Ohio. Recently his highness made inquiry concerning Ameircan sheet music, and, being much pleased with samples sent him from New York at once ordered nearly 1000 dollars' worth of such music to be sent to him. His highness, who is a skilled musician himself, seemed delighted with the American tunes, especially the band music. One-third of the area of Mysore is cultivated, one-third is not suitable for cultivation, and the rest is forest, waste, and fallow.

Amongst the narcissi exhibited by Mr H. Hart, of Lawrence, at the Bunedin flower show, was a vase of a Lcedsii seedling for the four bulbs of which a horticultural firm oflerccl £25. They are the only four bulbs in the world of a flower that has gratified the owner and amazed everybody eke (says the Dunedin Star). It is in form and substance a rare flower, and it shows "by night a marvellous bit of colouring in its green eye. The Certifying Committee gave an aAvard on the two seedlings. One named " Mre B. Hart" received an award of merit. The other, named

"' Margaret," received & first-class certificate. "

The inspection of a fine powerful steam trawler. is_ to be made in Melbourne in a fe *wdays by Mi- R. S. Alward, managing director of the New Zealand Trawling Fish Supply Company, with the assistance of an engineering expert from the Dominion, with a view to her purchase by that company. The vessel is named the Simplon. She is larger than the Nora Niven, a vessel which has done such good work in the New Zealand fisheries, and she is fitted with freezing machinery. The Simplon is in every respect an up-to-date trawler. If she comes to New Zealand she will be principally employed in Hawke's Bay waters, where she will take the placo of two or : three of the company's emo.ll steamers.

Much interest was evinced in Levin regarding the installation of an elecplained that she had had two other Queen street. A representatvre of tho Chronicle elicited the fact that the belle were a, success as far as the slow trains were concerned, but failed to work with fast trains. Tho latter travelled so fast over the rails that they did not give the electric current tinie to connect! with the bells, thereby failing to give any alarm. The Government's experts in Wellington are at/ present experimenting with the alarms, trying to make the two points that conjoin more sensitive to take the electric current, and when this has been effected no doubt the bells will provide a long-felt want at many dangerous level crossings throughout the Dominion.

The world at large hue .its eyes on Australia, and in the Federal capital it is expected to do something that will bo an object lesson to all nations," declared ,Mr Walter Burley Griffin, the Chicago architect who gained the prizo jfor the best capital design, in a jgpeech in Sydney last week. The future, he added, was tho property of architects and those who could stimulate the imagination of the people, whose natural tendency was to look backwards.instead of forwards. The future was vastly more important than their orthodox religion was loading them to believe. .The old theory that the world was gradually cooling off was practically ex--ploded, and the earth was going to sustain more people than it had ever done in the past. /. It would have a better climate in ages,to come, and the prospect urged ; theni to endeavour to do something that would be ererlasting, in its influence and example at any rate. As a-now country, Australia had greater gossibilitiee in this respect than any other part of the .tvorld. ;

A feature of the tiueenslan*l education :is the ,'ma.nner in which instruction is given -to children m the outlying parts of the State by itiner. ant teachers. In '1911, 1581 children were deing educated in this ; way. by 17 teachers, at an average cost per child of £3 17s per annum. Mr P. Jenson, who was an itinerant teacher for three years had a district of from 20,000 to 25,000 square miles in area, and he could only get round the district three times a year. In other districts the visits of. the. teachers to the homesteads are much more frequent. The practice is for the teacher to carry a supply of hooks (a library as well as 'School books), to spend a' few days at, a settler'a ipme, the children work to do until,the time of hie next visit, and'to instructl the parents how to supervise the work of the children. Speaking of the ey«tem generally, Mr .Jensen say* that parents fake a. keen interest in the children's progress, and seem anxious that the children should avail themselves as fully as possible of the. means of education which have ; . been . afforded by. the State. > In New South Wales splendid work is also being accomplished in this direction,. "■ --