LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 25 June 1924, Page 6

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

The price of butter in New Plymouth was raised Id per lb yesterday. It is now Is 8d for bulk and Is 9d for pats. Mr. 0. P. Skerrett, K.C., asked a witness in the Supreme Court at Napier recently whether a, small batten interposed between a falling cylinder of acetylene gas and the concrete wharf would appreciably lessen the shock. “Oil, of course,” answered witness, “every schoolboy knows that a single sheet of newspaper inside the seat of his trousers appreciably lessens the shock.”

A. litter of 17 pigs which a Smart Road farmer thought some time ago was ia, record, at all events in his experience,. has since been eclipsed by the same sow on the same farm which on Sunday presented the. farmer with a litter of 20 pigs: A Shannon resident i.s considering tiro advisability of trying to give away a section he owns in Foxton. The Government valuation is £l2O, but, as a matter of fact, 'although the section is close to the town, and consists of half an acre, on a comer, the owner is unable to get £SO for it. with £5 down As the rates are £5 7s Gd per annum, and has held tho section for sonic years and paid about £2O in rales without receiving any income from the land, he says he would like to find some rich person he could give it to, an enemy preferred.

A i ©solution passed by the Stratford Chamber of Commerce requesting the Government to introduce legislation matting it compulsory for each driver of a motor vehicle to have a driver s beense, and that provision be made for the withholding or withdrawal of the license m proper cases, and again drawing attention to. the necessity of heavy motor vehicles being compelled to iiistal reflectors, was unanimously supported by the Stratford County'Council at its meeting on Saturday! . The prickly pear is a far greater pest in some parts of Australia than the blackberry in Taranaki, and it is interesting to learn how its spread was encouraged before its dangerous nature was realised. The owner of a station who has cleared huge tracts of country relates how his country was first taken up in the thirties of last century The then holder brought up a prickly pear plant fiom Scone, where it had become acclimatised. It was carefully watered —just think of that—hut died. After his father acquired the property another plant was brought up in the titties or sixties, and thrived so well in tne garden that fearing it would become a pest, it was dug out. The hardener, however, threw ‘it into the river —called the Big river—and from that event dated the launching of the pest. Mr Munro has, in conjunction with his partner the late Mr Thos. Cook, of luranville, cleared 50,000 acres of pear land, under improvement lease conditions, at a cost of from £BO,OOO to £IOO,OOO. The thoughtless act of that gardener, then a matter of no concern, is now well remembered.

The secretary of the Hawera Jersey Cattle Chib (Mr R. McOav) requests all Jersey breeders with photographs of true representatives of flip breed to send them to him on or before Monday next for exhibition at the South Taranaki Winter Show.

EREE TROUSERS. During Show Week we are making suits-to-m ensure with extra trousers free for £o 12s 6d. Remember, this is a genuine offer of a good suit and a pair of extra trousers free. Call and he measured for your suit during Show Week at the New Zealand Clothing Factory, Hawera.—Advt. OUTRED’S. Sale in full swing with Outred’s usual bargains: Velour coats from costumes, navy blue, 39/(1; coat frocks, special value, 49/G; Burberry coats, £4 10s and £G 10s; children’s tweed coats, 10/G (large sizes); children’s rubber coats, Ifl/G; fur necklets from 39/G; millinery greatly reduced. Watch windows for further reductions. -—Outred’s, High St.-—Advt.

“The Bishop of Durham made a reference at the recent meeting of the Durham Diocesan Conference "to the reduction in the number of clergy working in the diocese. He puts the wastage at the figure of fifty. and he regarded the prospect with some alarm. He referred to the causes commonly assigned for the decline in the number of candidates for ordination, such as intellectual difficulty and clerical poverty. While no one would deny that the aspect of the problem to which the Bishop invites public attention is a serious one, it may be that one of the reasons why congregations tend to be confined to people of‘ the same class, is that the clergy themselves have been drawn from the ranks of that class. With the wider opportunities of today, the Church would be more profitably engaged in enlarging its recruiting grounds than in complaining that the old one is piot as fruitful as it used to he.” —Westminister Gazette. Office girls are almost unprocurable in Adelaide, according to business men. As fast ns girls are turned out of technical colleges, high schools, and technical schools they are snapped up by eagie-n employers. Numerous .applications for shorthand-typistes and girls with a knowledge of book-koep-mg are received every day by the busi. ness colleges, and les s than half of these are filled. “A qualified girl looking for a job is unknown these clays,” said one manager of a business college recently. “The only difficulty is to know what i.s the earliest time a gp'l cun be allowed to take a position without prejudicing her future business career. So ~ keen is the demand for office girls that even those who are not fully proficient can obtain employment. As fast as we can train the girls they are snapped up. In fact, we cannot fill half the positions that are offered.”