LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 4 September 1924, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

A Newcastle (fable states that the Joan Craig has sailed for Nelson.

,Mr B. C. Bennett, writing under date Wednesday, August 6, to a friend in Hawera, stated that the Rennlera was just drawing into Pitcairn, and he hoped to get ashore by surf boat, but only , a small number are allowed It was a record trip. All were well, and the team was in great fettle. .At a meeting ,of the Stratford Chamber of Commerce, held on Tues--5*? y a letter was received from Mr R. Masters, M.P., stating that he had been advised by the Postmastergenera] that three tenders had been received for the installation of the automatic telephone exchange at Stratford. These tenders were at present being considered.

Referring to the Main Highways Act a . speaker at Inglewood on Monday night, said it was like opening the family Bible; it was full of legal i xjm'?' ®° me of the people who drafted Bills and got big salaries in Wellington shouid be sent up to Taranaki to draft cows. .

The world walker, Mr Maurice Vancam, who is now in the South Island, states that of all the. roads , traversed during his tour, none could compare with the roads in Taranaki. He had seen better individual highways but he could assert that,, on the whole, laranaki was better served in this respect than any other place in the world.

A little comedy in legal proceedings was enacted at the Otorohanga Police Court when two litigants claimed and counter-claimed for exactly the same amount. The claim being admitted, aud defendant securing judgment on the counter-claim, the account was exactly.: squared, but through a difference in. costs plaintiff collected the important sum of 4s from defendant as a result of several hours’- work by the court and counsel. >

Some of the finest specimens of muscular manhood are to be found handling American lumber. The North Pacific Railway champion tie handler recently carried on his shoulder a tie of green Douglas fir measuring 16ft. by Bin. by 7m., and weighing 3051 b. Two of 'the company s tie plant men recently unloaded and crosspiled in one day 1370 fir trees each. The ties averaged 1351 b, so that each man handled in the day over 92'tons of timber, a national record, it is believed, A postcard, which must be one of very lew in existence, has been received by Miss McVinnie, Otakeho. The interest in the card lies in the fact that it bears four stamps, two being an Indian anna and a half anna, and the other two being Mt. Everest stamps, dated 1924. These stamps are defaced by postal marks, stating ‘'Mt. Everest Expedition, 1924, Base Camp,” and. “Mt. Everest Expedition Tractor Party, Tibet, 1924.” The postcard has a photograph of Mt. Everest from the base camp in the Ronghuk Valley, Tibet, and was dispatched bv postal runners to India by Captain T. B. L. Noel, a member of the expedition. Mr D. J. Goodwin, who is spending a holiday in Great Britain, has sent the editor a postcard of the Forth Bridge. The bridge represents the labour of 5000 men (day and night) for seven years, and it cost over £3,'500,000. The total length of the viaducts is over one and a half miles, including approaches. There are two clear spans of 1710 ft each, and two spans of 680 ft each. The highest part above high water level is 361 ft, and the deepest foundation below high water level is 91ft. The weight of the steel used is 51,000 tons, and the bridge contains 5,000,000 rivets. The engineers were Sir John Fowler and Sir Benjamin Baker, and the contractor was Sir William Arrol.

■ A public meeting was held at Waverley on. Monday- to further discuss the construction of a swimming bath at Johnston’s Lake. The chairman explained that, as authorised at the lastmeeting, plans and specifications had been prepared. The minimum amount required to carry out the work would be £200,. and the maximum £3OO. The form of construction of the bath would depend upon the .amount of financial support the scheme received. Personally, he hoped that the latter amount, would be subscribed. On the motion of Mr Adlam, it was resolved that subscription lists be opened, with a view to collecting £3OO, and that as soon as a reasonable amount was in sight tenders be called for the work.

H.M.S. Victory has been saved. “Saved for all time” was the phrase used by Admiral Sturdee to the Society for Nautical Research. He said that up to date £78,000 had accrued to the fund from subscriptions, and interest on sums deposited at the bank during the past two years had amounted to £2500. The interest more than covered the expenses of collection, which were only £2146. The Admiralty, he added, had helped in every way to get the work of restoration done as quickly as possible. He was now negotiating with them for the provision of a museum, in which could be placed the Victory barge and various relics and records from the ship, lip to the present ■ alterations had been carried out on thte prow and stern of the Victory. The upper works were being dealt with, and arrangements were being made for installing a complete battery of guns. By the end of the year they would want to acquire, by loan or by some other means, some of the furniture' which was in Nelson’s cabin at the Battle of Trafalgar. They were going to make the ship exactly as it was at that time.

The Melbourne Limited are making a special display of ladies’ corsets in famous makes, such as D. and A and B. and G. The former are Canadian make and the latter British. Particy lar attention is directed to the' blush white embroidered sports corset at 6/11 and a dove grey make, extra stout material and strongly ribbed at 14/6. — Advt.

For underclothing, germ-laden handkerchiefs, etc., “No-Rubbing’' Laundry Heip has no equal. Hardies and Sons.

Mrs M. A. Gadsby has offered to donate a tea service to the Stratford A. and P. Association’s Show as a trophy for competition in the pedigree Jersey yearling classes. “There is no provision in the Rent Restriction Act for taking cases where the rent is over £2 a week,” said the Minister for Labour in the House. ‘‘lf a person makes an agreement with his eyes open and then comes to the department to protect him the department will not interfere.”

“No man is compelled to enter the Government employ,” said Mr L. M. Isitt (Christchurch North), when replying to statements made in the House of Representatives regarding the conditions of employment, “and that fact is often overlooked. If a man chooses to enter the service he must then recognise that there are certain regulations to which he must conform.”

One of the things which has impressed Dr. John Adams, the eminent educationist, since his arrival in the Dominion, is the feeling of goodwill which prevailed between the two islands (says an exchange). Although there was rivalry, he said, it did not amount to bitterness, as in some parts of America. “Why, in Minneapolis and St. Paul,” he said, “the Reeling is so strong that the people of Minneapolis will not use the New Testament because it contains the name of St. Paul.”

Divers engaged on salvage works on the German warships scuttled by their crews at Scapa Flow state that some of the ships are covered with growths 20 feet long dnd encrusted with barnacles and mussels of enormous size. In the battleship Hindenberg the divers found the engines and interior intact. There were .champagne bottles and glasses in the officers’ quarters, and the, bunks were just as they had been left. The divers say the crabs- and lobsters are “as thick as trees in a forest,” but there are no other fish to be seen.

An. indication of the shortage of yearling and two-year-old steers lies in the fact that local requirements have To be met from an outside source. A fetar reporter yesterday, conversing with a drover and dealer from beyond Palmerston North, learned that there was -a general shortage throughout the whole of the North Island, due, no doubt to _ the slaughter of calves in the dairying districts, and that the breeders of fat cattle were directing their attention to the dairying indus•y - A large mob of yearling steers passed through. Hawera yesterday en route for the Mokau district. These had been on the road several days, Nortlf C ° me from n( l Palmerston

The Taranaki Herald’s Stratford correspondent writes: It is too soon as yet to speculate. upon the extent to which the Control Board will exercise control over the export of dairy produce, hut representatives of London importing firms do not seem to anticipate much interference with present methods. There are several new aspirants to the honour and profit of handling outputs, and this would hardly be 1 the case if there was a probability of the board’s taking over the responsibility of selecting the distributing agents m the near future. There certainly ought to be some better way discovered than the present faulty and haphazard one. There is plenty of evidence that importers sometimes "have more produce consigned to, them than they can distribute with the best' results to the consignors and that sometimes they cannot secure enough for their clients’ demands for New Zeabutter and cheese. In either case the producers’ interests suffer