LOCAL & GENERAL NEWS

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXIX, Issue LXIX, 17 March 1915, Page 4

LOCAL & GENERAL NEWS

The Stratford Dairy Co., at a meeting on Tuesday of about 200 shareholders, decided on the voices to continue making butter during the next season.

The Stratford Borough ratepayers have endorsed the Council's proposal to borrow £9000 for the erection of municipal buildings to replace those recently destroyed by fire.

The tender of Mr J. W. Tong, of Hawera, has been accepted for the erection of the Central Hotel in Eltham. The contract price is over £3000. Mr J. A. Duffill, of Hawera, is the architect.

During the summing up in the case against Patrick Henley at the Supreme Court at Napier {.says the Telegraph), his Honor tlie Chief Justice said that it could not be expected that small men could employ an accountant to keep their boo.lv. Many business men did what was required so that it could be understood that was sufficient under the Act. g,

Mr W. E. Goodwin, of Prebbleton, has had exceptionally good returns from his farm during the present season (says the Lyttelton Times.) From a five-acre patch of land he sold 98 tons of fiust-ciass onions. He has another patch of onions which promises to give an almost equally prolific return. Mr Goodwin's wheat gave a return of 52 bushels pei* acre, while his potato afield gives promise of a yield varying from eight to ten tons per acre.

Addressing the jury in the final criminal case before the sittings of the Supreme Court at Napier, Sir Robert Stout, Chief Justice, said that from what he had seen of Napier juries they seemed to imagine that the responsibility did not rest on them. The jury were the protectors of the community, and if they chose to ignore the evidence and believe men who were telling lies they were not protecting the community.

If the public generally would accept their bread over the counter, the 21b. loaf could still be sold at 4d (says the Dominion). The cost of delivery in AVellington is extra heavy owing to the big grades to be negotiated, accentuated at the present time by the "high price of fodder. There is at least one baker in Wellington South still selling bread at-4£d per loaf over the couriter. Curiously enough, as the cost of delivering bread abounts to about |d a loaf, he is making more profit than the baker who vends bread at 5d a loaf.

A suggestion made by the Auckland Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals that a lethal chamber for the destruction of stray dogs should be provided by the Auckland City Council is approved by the Mayor of Auckland (Mr C. J. Parr). The society's idea is that a brick chamber should be constructed wherein gas could be introduced to cause death painlessly. The Mayor, intends to commend the proposal to the council. In the past stray dogs have been destroyed by drowning.

It was lately officially announced that 60 per cent, of the British wound- ">! had recovered. The French record is equally striking. The French Government has issued statistics showing the percentage of wounded men who have recovered, or are recovering, and are, or wilL be, fit again for service. The figures are taken up to December 1: —Wounded, but not fit for almost immediate return to the front, 54.50 per cent.; wounded and still on leave, 4.50 per cent.; wounded and still in hospital, 17.40 per cent.; permanently disabled and unfit for further service, 1.46 per cent.; wounded and died from wounds 3.48 per centl The enormous proportion of complete recoveries testifies to the "humaneness" of the modern bullet,' and the great skill of the surgeons", gays The Spectator.

To mark tfis #<?i, that he had comphjt^d 35 years a§ pVnvk to the Auckland Presbytery, a dinner was tendered to the Rev. Robert Sommerville by the members of that body last week. Moderator, the Rev. H. W. Johnston, presided. After the dinner, a presenta-. tion was made to Mr Sommerville of a, purse of sovereigns and a handsome illuminated address. The text of the address bore testimony to the fact that Mr Sommerville's sound advice, based upon an extensive knowledge of ecclesiastical procedure and church law, had often been of material assistance to the Presbytery in arriving at right decisions, while his clearness of insight business accuracy \ and loyal devotion to the work of the church, had been beyond all praise.

When the Kaiser succeeded his father, the good Emperor Frederick, he said, amongst other things: "Having succeeded to the throne of my ancestors, I have taken over the Government, relying- upon the King of Kings, and I have vowed to God that, acting in accordance with the example of my predecessors, I will endeavor to be a ]ust and clement ruler, that I will encourage pietj' and the fear of God; that I will uphold peace and promote the welfare of the country, and, further that I will strive to be a helper to. the pool' and „ oppressed, and „. a faithful guardian of the"law." That was the VOW; for history's comment on its performance, turn to the present state of Germany itself, to violated treaties and to the unparalleled desolation of Belgium. v There is a vast difference between the advertisements in the London newspapers and those in the German press nowadays. In the London journals the advertising columns proclaim that a war is going on, but a war which is neither hunting nor depressing the British nation. In Germany the advertisements tell another 6tory. The obituary notices dominate the advertising columns. A great amount of space is taken up with notices of voluntary and compulsory auctions. Such notices as this are common: "A dog to be sold cheap, or given away, on account of the war." In long columns distressed house-agents offer rooms at j "war prices." Some regiments are J actually advertising for volunteers. "War loans," says the Socialist Vorwarts, "are sought after, and many a poor devil who requires a sum of ready money sacrifices his last poor savings to those hyenas who still coin gold out of the misfortunes and sorrows of their fellow men. Anyone wanting to buy a business can do so cheaply— I 'Business for sale immediately, husband at the front, so runs the advertisoment." There is a terrible significance in the fact that extensive advertising is done by photographers who offer to make life-size reproductions of the photographs of the fallen, and by female fortune-tellers who offer to give the poor German women news of their men.

Mr Good, manager of the New Zealand Clothing Factory, Hawer-a, has returned from Dunedin with the new season goods for the local requirements, including boots, overcoats, suits, hats, bags, underclothing, blankets, ties. These goods are now on show at their store, High street, Hawera.—Advt.

Throughout the Dominion—throughout the world, everyone, everywhere is looking for time and labor-saving devices. Have you any ideas on the matter?—however small, they way bo worth patenting—and may bring in a Rmall forturie. Get our free booklet Dominion Buildings. Cathedral Square, "Advice to Inventors." Write if you cannot call,—Henry Hughes, Ltd., Christchm^h. 70

To-day is St. Patrick's Day. Locally the chief attraction is the annual race meeang of the Opunake Racing Club, winch is being largely attended. The Waverley A. and P. Show is also being held to-day. The banks and Government offices observed the day as a holiday.

Mr Dixon states that he has been advised by the NVanganui Education iioard that the Department has granted authority to proceed with the erection of additions at the Ohangai school.

Mr and Mrs Sinclair, Miss Cunningham (New Plymouth), Mr and Mrs Chavannes, Mr Krull, Mrs Peat and several others from Wanganui, have been visitors to the Dawson Falls Mountain House. On Sunday next the Eitham Band will render a programme of music at the house.

Besides the 500 sheep that have been shipped from bisboraxe district during the past few weeks, steamers that- are due to load there will take another 10,000. "With the exception of about 1000, all the sheep have been sent to Lyttelton. The coast is supplying nearly all the sheep, and the scarcity of feed in Hawke's Bay has necessitated farmers in that district sending their sheep South. It is believed that when rain comes in Poverty Bay district and in Hawko's Bay, and the feed grows, many stations will be short stocked, and prices will rise correspondingly.

A correspondent serving with the South Africaii Mounted Rifles'writes: — The funny side of wav is very r;i:ch before us out here. The telegraph section for instance, with great speed and efficiency fixed up the field telegraph, 48 miles of it, on bamboo poles. • Next day, walking along the line, I never saw such a mess. Wherever a giraffe had come across it in the night he seemed to have wound it round his neck and then started off at top speed. Then a rhino joined the bathing squad, and every man there had no clothes anjj every tree had thorns. He marched majestically and slowly,into the middle of the pool and wallowed happily; the bank of the stream dotted with the piles of clothes of the bathers, and the sun blistering their skins.

The letter "X" appears to have had a remarkable influence in the career of Lord Kitchener of Khartoum, says the Daily Chnmicl). That it should be thtj initial of himself and the place of its titular designation might be put down to alliterative coincidence, but —he was born in the county of Kerry, and when he bought a country seat he wisely did so in Kent; but his one bit of work as ''war correspondent" (in the Russo-Turkish war) was dated from Kamedleh. When in his younger days he was appointed a vice-consul in Anatolia he was stationed at Kastamuni, as Sirdar of the Egyptian Army he was in the service of the Khedive, in his Khartoum successes he was fighting against the Khalifa, and in South Africa he was fighting against Kruger— it is. surely a good omen that he should be at the War Office when our armies are opposed to Kaiser and yon Kluck!

Private H. Rukingi, of the Maori contingent, enclosed a message in a bottle and threw it overboard from a troopship on 27th February. Mr John Thomas McLean, of Airey's Inlet, on the coast of Victoria, found the bottle on the beach, and it was sent to the editor of the Geelong Advertiser. He transmitted it to New Zealand, and it reached Rotorua. Enquiries for relatives of the writer of the message were set afoot, and within a coiiple of hours after it had been received it was placed in the hands of the soldier's brother. The message was written on two leaves from a small notebook. One of these bore the words: "Troopship No. 20, 20/2/1915. Anybody pick this up communicate this message to my people, Rotorua. North Island, to Mr Rukingi. All well. From your loving son, H. Rukingi." On the other sheet was written:'"Love to everybody in New Zealand from Private H. Rukingi. For Madame Liverpool, may God bless you." When a large number of Welsh soldiers, filling several compartments of a long Great Western train, passed through Snow Hill Station on their way to the South of England, there were many people on the platform at the time, and during the few minutes the train was at a standstill they were treated to some typical Welsh singing, including the rendering of "Ton y Botel," which may be described as the Welsh "Tipperary," and which, translated, means "The Tune of the Bottle." This is the most popular air in Wales, next, of course, to "The Land of My Fathers," and connected with it there is a rather curious legend. During the last religious r.erival in Wales, in which Evan Roberts was the principal figure, j a sealed bottle was discovered on some j part of the coast, and when opened it \ was found to contain the manuscript of a hymn tune, which quickly caught the popular fancy, and became known as "Ton y Botel." Its strains are somewhat melancholy, but nevertheless it is j sung with great enthusiasm at secular gatherings where Welsh people congregate in large numbers.