Local and General.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XII, Issue 240, 23 September 1922, Page 4

Local and General.

The name of the ( Maori youth, charged at the last sitting of the Hastings Magistrate’s Court with th© theft of a pair of boots and a scarf, was not Frank Scott (which was an alias) but J. Tawahai. 11 The gas companies have passed through a somewhat critical period, but the outlook is again brighter, and a reduction in the price of gas, in addition to small reductions already effected, should be reasonably possible in the near future,” says the annual report of the Department of Industries and Commerce. From the recently opened great French radio station at Saint-Assise five or six messages to other parts of Europe and to other continents can be dispatched simultaneously, at an average rate of one hundred words per nlinute per message. Thus it is computed that can send thirty-six thousand words an hour, or nearly one million words a day. We not infrequently hear of testamentary provision being made for the maintenance of four-footed favourites, hut Mrs Sarah Ingham, of Kirkby-Over-blow, Yorkshire, a lady of some wealth, in her will requested her brother to cause all her horses and flogs to be destroyed and buried as soon as possible after her death. At a gathering of the Auckland branch of the New Zealand Association of British Manufacturers and Agents, it was resolved: —“That realising the extent to which the economic life of the dominions and the solidarity of the Empire are interwoven with the prosperity of British industries, this meeting of citizens of the Dominion recognise the necessity of conserving and increasing their support to the Motherland’s industries.” In the Supreme Court at Hamilton Stephen Stewart Spiers, share milker, of Hikuati, sued Joseph Johnson, carrier, Ngaruawahia, for £l5OO damages form an injury to an eye caused through a prick from gorse thorn reieived whilst riding in the defendant’s motor ’bus. The jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff for the full amount claimed and judgment was entered accordingly. The evidence showed that the motor ’bus was engaged to take a party home from a football match. The ’bus belonged to Johnston and was hired to another firm for the trip, Pugh, an employee of Johnson, acting as driver. During the journey the ’bus went on the side of the road with the result that a thorn pricked the plaintiff’s eye. The jury added a rider that legislation should be introduced to compel the owners of property to clear frontages of noxious weeds.

A “Bobby Burns” night is to be held by the Literary and Debating Society at Waipukurau this evening, Ke/ K. F. Fish being the lecturer. The Paki Paki freezing works employes’ annual dance will be held at the works on 29th September. Nimon’s ’bus will run from Havelock and Hastings. A London correspondent says that Sir R. Baden Powell is adding another to his many activities by taking the presidency of the newly-formed International Committee which is to wage war against th? progress of juvenile crime —one of the disquieting symptoms of the war m nil countries. Fellow-work-ers with him will include Mr Byron Herrick, the American Ambassador in Paris, and Lord Hampton. In the House last night the Minister of Justice read the official report on an inquiry into a complaint that a boy at Westport had been whipped with undue severity by a police constable. Medical men who examined the boy declared that the punishment was not more severe than was often inflicted by teachers and parents. The report concluded that apparently the father of the boy bad been aggrieved because his son received more strokes of the birch than others associated with him in the offence which brought about the punishment. It declared that the report published by the “Grey River Argus” on th? subject was grossly exaggerated. Two girls, still in their teens, who pleaded guilty in the Wellington Magistrate’s Court on Thursday to six charges of theft, wept copious tears when Mr F. K. Hunt, S.M., sentenced each to a year’s detention at a reformative institution. The charges concerned the theft of a cor.oy seal fur stole, valued at £5, a silk scarf, worth £2; a pair of gloves, valued at 12s 6d; and three sums of money amounting in all to £3 Ils Bd. For some months the girls, both of whom possessed respectable homes, had been beyond the control of their parents. The thefts—difficult ones to detect—were committed at dance halls. One girl was described as a nurse, while the other was said to Jjc a dressmaker.