LOCAL AND GENERAL

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLII, Issue XLII, 13 February 1922, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL

*. On Sunday morning at 12.20 a fire occurred in the Marble Bar in Union {Street, by which a considerable amount of damage was done. The brigade turned out Tery promptly, and were quickly on the scene. The fire evidently broke out under the counter, but it was luckily confined to one room. The contents were much damaged by fire and water. Mr. Hannah, the. proprietor, considers his loss will be considerable. Insurances at present are not available. There were nmeteeen members of the brigade present. The correct weight of the sheep in the sheep-guessing competition at the Otakeho Farmers' Union cattle show was 178 lb, the winner being Mr. D Malone, Kaponga, with 179 lb. "It ought to be niade a criminal offence for relatives to interfere ba tween man and wife," said Mr. Wyvern j Wilson, 5.M.., in a half jocular, half oracular vein, at the Christchurch Magistrate's Court on Tuesday (says The Sun). It was in the course of a maintenance case, and the applicant for separation was being cross-examined on some evidence given by her female relatives. "We see the results of it here over and over again," added the Magistrate. "If they would only permit tbe couple to settle their own matrimonial affairs! But relatives try to interfere, and carry tales backwards and forwards, and do more harm than good. There is is far too much interference. It may be that one sees here only the cases in "hich the intervention of relatives has failed. But one is disposed to doubt it." Pope Benedict's day was as follows: 1 5 a.m. to 6 a.m., meditation and prayer ; 6 a.jn., celebrates Mass privately ; x 7 a.m., attends a second _Mass, kneeling throughout; 8 a.m., black coffee. The next five hours were taken up with correspondence and audiences. Every letter of three or four hundred a day the Pope read or had read to him. At 1 p.m. he ate a meal that differed scarcely at all from that of an Italian peasant. An hour's siesta followed, a carriage1 drive in the Vatican gardens, and an' hour's walk—the only recreation and exercise of the day, during which good story-tellers accompanied the Pontiff to take his mind off his task. The rest of the day. with a break for a meal at 7 p.m., was given over to unremitting work that did not cease till midnight. This went on with but the slightest variation from his election in 1914 till his death in 1922. In emphasising increased population and shortage in food supply as 'being mainly responsible for the great wars of history, Mr. 'F. H. Bakewell, M.A., Chief Inspector of Schools, in his Com. mumty Club lecture to Wellington TerTTtoiTals reminded his audience that it was scarcity of food that first brought the Maori to New Zealand. The "high cost of living in Hawaiki" had sent them on their three-thousand-mile long journey to the south. It was interesting to notice how largely the food question loomed in the Maori life. Plantations and crops, as Judge Manning pointed out in his "Old New Zealand,'' were most jealously guarded. It was very much a case of "keep off the grass" with them. Swift was the penalty for any attempt at spying on the crops. No information as to the size of the crop was given ; even to related pas. Often the rumour of an extra fine crop was the signal for the total destruction of a hapu or even a whole tribe. Proof that pak-a-poo still retains s tenacious hold on a certain class of the communit was afforded a few evenings since, when a crowd of youths and mer congregated in a city quarter, mutter ling vague threats against the Chi nest ! "bank" Cstate* the Dominion). It if ' stated that a man, said to be a water sider natl succeeded in striking th< "bank" for the limit, having market off the full number of characters (ii Chinese) which corresponded with tin "bank's" first draw; but the "bank' stoutly refused to pay out on th< grounds that the secret draw had beei spied upon, allegedly by someone wh< had bored a hole in the wall from ai adjoining room to that in which th< ''bank" conducted its operations. Fo I three successive evenings large ant mildly excited crowds of people, pre sumably interested in this' form oi gambling, made the qnarter in questioi a rendezvous, but nothing happened oi a serious nature, though on one occasion, it is said, a riot was narrowly averted. Rat propaganda is getting on some people's nerves (says a writer in the Domrrr-oh). A most respectable citizen (who also carries a walking stick and wears spats to support his dignity) was pacing homeward in the dusk of the twilight the other evening, when his gaze lighted on an out-size in rats. With his. mind saturated with the Minister of Public Health's propaganda on rats, he shook off his lethargy, bounded after the rodent, and made a terrific hole-out-in-one drive at the am mal with his stick. He struck hard and true, but the rat, though momentarily upset, continued its slow j>rtf gress, so he struck again and yet again. Then a smothered giggle came from round the corner, giving him pause for further action. A close scrutiny of the moving object disclosed a string leading to the source of the giggles, which caused him to resume the even tenor of his way. Looking round after he had proceeded a short | distance his face "broke into a broad priii. The sight of another citizen slashing away at the rag rat was so I irresistibly comic.