LOCAL & GENERAL NEWS

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue LXVIII, 16 October 1914, Page 4

LOCAL & GENERAL NEWS

At tha Rotorua Magistrate's Court i ISII *£ rbous formerly a chemist at Wanganui, was fined £25 and £3 V2s costs ior falsely representing himself as a medical practitioner. He had tor several weeks carried on an extensive practice among the Maoris. Max Linder, the celebrated picture player, and well known and popular as tlie leading Pathe comedian, is the first of the front rank picture players.to fall m the present lamentable war. AVith many other actors of repute, Max Lin-' der joined the colors at the outbreak of hostilities, and: it will be sad news for picture goers to learn that he was killed in a recent engagement in France. Picture lovers in Hawera have always shown much appreciation for Mr lander's work whenever it has been exhibited at the Opera House. The lambing this season (says the Alexandra Herald) is a very prolific one, and in some of the Central" Otago > paddock i'iocks constitutes almost ' a record. Messrs Roy Bros., of Moon- \ light, and T. Ramsay, of Hyde, report that each possesses a ewe which gave birth to four lambs. In each case two survived. . A- gentleman who recently travelled through the lower part of Central Otago states that the lambs , are more than ordinarily large and. vigorous. South Canterbury farmers are anxiously waiting ror rain, the long absence of which inuicates that there has been practically no spring so far. Cereal crops are almost at a standstill for want, of moisture;"there is no growth in the grass, which is particularly wanted now for the ewes and lambs,, and the country does not bear anything like the pleasing aspect which it usually has at this time of the year. Generally speaking, the lambing, percentages are high, but if rain does not come soon there will be a heavy mortality among the flocks. Napier district has practically gone a whole winter without rain. A serious problem is confronting those engaged in agricultural pursuits. Hawke's Bay is not, of course, a grain-growing district, but the other branches of the agricultural industry must be affected. Although there were, eleven days on which rain fell in June, the total for the month was only .47in., and for July, wtih three days of rain,. .23hi.. August* W as slightly better with a' total of 1;32in., but the highest fall on any one day was only .41in. The total rainfall for September was .45in. There were three days on which rain fell. * One of the effects of the recent earthquake has been to disturb the mud. springs on Mr Twistleton's property at "YVaimata Valley, Poverty Bay. These' springs have always been very quiet,! but now are bubbling up furiously,, and the ground has opened up for five chains around, some of the cracks being a foot to eighteen inches wide, juarge quantities of gas are escaping, which, although odorless, burns brilliantly. "There is enough gas escaping to light up the whole of Gisborne," stated a neighboring settler to. a Poverty Bay Herald reporter. When a match is applied to small cracks an eighth of an inch wide the flames shoot up about two feet high, whilst from the larger holes the flames go up as high as four feet. These springs are not of the blow-out kind, but have never been seen in their present active condition before. Mr. W'G. Day, S.M., in giving his reason for not convicting defendants who were technically guilty of having trout in their possession out of season, explained that a conviction would render them prohibited from taking out licenses for the season just begun, and this punishment would be a out of all proportion to the misdemeanour committed. The .men hau lifted live fish out of isolated pools tnat were rapidly drying up, and the society was making no attempt to save the perishing-fish, which would certainly, have died-if the defendants had not taken them. He therefore proposed : o dsimiss the informations and call upon the defendants to pay costs, which amounted tc 33s each. Counsel for the society disclaimed any desire to inflict hardship, But pointed out the necessity for tak ing action in- order to discover whc were the poachers and who were th« "sports." The following extracts are taker irom. .an interesting letter received b\ Q e-*Y cry cv' Dean McKehna, V.G.". ot Masterton, from Archbishop. Redwood, concerning the present war. Writing from Bayonhe^ France* under date, of 9th August, His Lordship says: My plans for a tour of France tell through, for suddenly all the trains were seized by the French army authorities, and passenger traffic suspended sine die, in order to make the general mobilisation of ,the army. So I had to stay here as a sort of prisoner, not of war, but because of war. Having at last got, by^ means of an English Consul here, a passport for Spain, 1 am going'there shortly, and I shall, please God, visit the principal cities, including^ Madrid, Seville, and Barcelona. At Barcelona (as the Marist fathers have several homes there) I shall be at home. I shall get to England later on, either by sea or land. Well, the tremendous general European conflict has begun, and I am glad J-ngland is thoroughly in for her share, and it is the general opinion that the three. France, England and Russia, will defeat- Germany, and give her unbearable pride and arrogance a salutary lesson. Germany has made herself hated by most of Europe and by well-high all the world. She is into it at,last. .France this time is quite ready, and you will hear of her achievements, or I am wonderfully mistaken. Already the German merchant trade is paralysed, not to say destroyed, on sea, and I expect that, if it fights, her fleet will be ruined.. Belgium's defence of Liege is heroic, and has completely upset the German plan of a surprise to France by rushing at her through the Belgian territory. Now France has all the time required ■to meet her m or near Belgium, and British troops will be at hand to help, '

The number of electors on the main wIJ?'V° l\ f?"\ the Patea,elec!orate v._uc_ closed last week, is 6427 as compared with 7085 iil 19n Wut T lr r?l* tWs ,year closed a' week earlier than it did in 1911. The supplementary roll is now being co £_ piled and all who are entitled to be enrolled should at once put in their claims at the courthouse. Mr H. Bedford, M.A, y LL,B., is to speak at Eltliam to-morrow ioj-.iu-oay) evening, and at Patea o^ Sunday evening. He is to pass through Hawera by motor car on cmndaw _. a the Brotherhood have arranged with him to break the journey and address their meeting in the afternoon • All men are invited. i Two Napiev motor cyclists—Messrs H. Bate and Ducket.—left Napier at midnight on Saturday, and, after reaching Wellington, returned home within the 24 hours (says the Telegraph). Both machines had side cars attached, and the- ride is considered a very g6od one Wellington was reached at 9 a.m. on Sunday, and.the riders and their passengers leftagain at 12.15 p.m., reaching iNapier just on midnight. Punishment for drunkenness in theearly days m New Zealand was a fine ot os, so Mr. Donald Fraser, of Rano-i----tikei. told his audience (asys the _7ominioil) at a gathering of the Early Settlers' Association, held in Wellincrton on Wednesday. He explained that halt-a-crown went- to the arresting policeman, and believed that the other halt-crown went to the Magistrate. The of Hawera, :by Christmas, should present an appearance consistent with its importance. The work of street and footpath improvement is general, ,and what is being done has the appearance of being well done. The substantial manner in which footways are being channelled is, no doubt highly satisfactory to ratepayers, as the cost of repair should be almost nil. When the works in hand are completed and the.footpaths are asphalted complaints should be few. - ' The English lead pencil 'industry, which is receiving a notable impetus through the war, dates back to the early half of'the 18th century, when plumbago—which hitherto had served mainly for the manufacture of shot and crucibles —was first used for writing purposes. All the black lead used m pencil-making then cam,e from Seathwaite, which enjoys the double distinction of being the rainiest village in the British Isles and of being the only place in the world where pure plumbago may. be found. This mine yielded a huge fortune to the Bankes family, who'owned it, the output in 1813 amounting to 31 tons of pure plumbago, which realised £105,000. Twenty years later, foreign graphite began to take the place of plumbago in pencil-making, and in 1850 the Seathwaite mine was closed down. The Cheese at Samoa appeared to be under the, impression' that the change of government viped out the offences of any of their f _llow-countr-v----meu who were in gaol, and finding that such was not the case they, tried to cause trouble. The facts as related by a member of the Expeditionary Force to his relatives in Auckland are that there are over 3000 Chinese in Samoa, and the writer expresses th c opinion that they may cause trouble to the authorities. He adds: "It would not occasion any surprise if they were to break out into revolt. On the third day after our arrival about one hundred Chinese made representations to the Governor (Colonel Logan) asking that now the islands Had changed hands, the Chinese prisoners should be released irom gaol, and on receiving a refusal they made a rush to open the door by ■force, but were repulsed with a few cracked heads." Far too much is being made by some ot our writers about the absence of enthusiasm amongst- the German soldiers (writes the London correspondent of Sydney Sun). There is. general assumption that the Teutons have no stomach for this war, that they have been dragged into it, and that they are conscious of the Kaiser's wrongdoing. This assumption is only possible where there is ignorance, wilful or pitiable, of the carefully concocted campaign of misrepresentation within the German Empire which was conducted by the Kaiser's command, German paper which I have seen dating from a fortnight before the war up to Tuesday last, discloses that the German people have been most elaborately deceived, and that they honestly believe Russia made war upon them, and prance made war upon them, and brreat Britain was a traitor to her plighted word. The German people, educated by their press, are filled with just as much righteous indignation as are the Allied nations. It does not matter that they are wrong; the fact remains that they think themselves in the right, and even if it were not so men once in the line of fire forget the reasons which took them there.