LOCAL & GENERAL NEWS.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLVI, Issue 262, 5 November 1912, Page 4

LOCAL & GENERAL NEWS.

The steamer Wairau on Saturday loaded a cargo of whale oil/at Te A waits for transhipment to London.

.. At yesterday's meeting of the Spring Creek Road Board it .was decided to close the Ferry Road during repairing operations.

The following subscriptions to the Jackson fund have been received at this office: Mrs Isaac Gifford £1, E. Parker 10s, P. M. ss, and "Sympathiser" ss.

The opening of the Springlands Lawn Tennis Club's season will take place to-morrow afternoon. Members, their friends, and the members of other clubs are invited to be present.

The current number of The Triad is a more than usually interesting number. Accompanying it are two supplements, devoted to art and music respectively.

Tenders close at the Public Works Office in Blenheim on November 23 for the leasing of the Picton rifle, range. The conditions are set out in an advertisement appearing in this issue.

Four men, alleged to belong to the light-fingered gentry, and well-known criminals, were, arrest-ed by detectives at Riccarton on Saturday on a charge of having relieved a man oi: £70 in money.

Noxious- weeds in and around Picton iire now seeding in abundance, and property-owners have received a gentle hint from the Department to clear their lands and the street frontages adjacent. i

The question of secession of the New Zealand Rugby Union from the English Union has again cropped1 up, and a special meeting of the New Zealand body will be held on 14th November, in response to requests from the Canterbury, South Canterbury, and Otago Unions. The remits to be considered aro from the first of _tlie»o bodies, a,nd, if carried, will practically bring about secession.

The state of the Wairau bar is causing the Harbor Board much satisfaction. The harbormaster now reports the depth of the channel in fathoms.

The "Gunpowder Plot," which, with Guy Fawkes, has been immortalised and celebrated until recent years by pyrotechnical demonstrations, was discovered on November 5, 1605.

It was reported at yesterday's meeting of the Spring Creek River Board that there was a debit balance in the bank of £20 13s lOd. This rather unsound position, with several rnrnortant Avorks in contemplation, as the chairman pointed out, necessitates discretion in the Board's spending policy.

Our Picton correspondent writes : — The weather for October was not very settled. The rainfall was 2 inches 23 points. This fell on ten days, the maximum being 110 points on the 15th. The barometer was very unsteady. The highest reading was 30.16; on the 27th, and the lowest 29.51 on the 18th.

Rain of a beneficial character hias fallen throughout the district, and, although there were signs of fine weather this morning, rain seemed imminent early in the afternoon. Wet weather was general throughout the Dominion this morning, while the sea was rough at Farewell Spit, moderate at Cape Campbell, and smooth at the Wairau Bar. ,

Evidence of youthful precocity was furnished' at the monthly meeting of the Spring Creek Road Board yesterday afternoon in the shape of a startling announcement that unless the Board paid 2s 6d per 100 for birds' eggs "twenty-two Rapaura boys," as they rather indefinitely signed themselves, would go out on "strike." The apparent effects of such an appalling calamity did not, however, perturb the members of the Board, and the effusion was merely read, amid laughter, ,

The Southland branch of the Dental Association last week presented a report on the* teeth of 57 boys and 53 girls who had been examined. The report stated that the examination revealed a calamitous state of affairs as to the condition of the mouths of practically every child attending the schools. Not one case of a perfect set of teeth was discovered. Hie total number of teeth examined was: — Boys, 1443; girls, 1431. The total number of teeth decayed was: Boys, 685; girls, 586;

Three youths were charged at.the Nelson Magistrate's Court onFriday, before Mr J. S. Evans, S.M., with having thrown missile® in Bridge Street to the danger of persons. The missiles were what are commonly known as "throw downs." The defendants pleaded guilty, and were Gonvicted and ordered to pay 7s costs each. The conviction (states the Colonist) should act as a warning to hoys and young men who make a practice of annoying persons, especially women and girls, with these "throw downs." '

Ball-punching is ah art in which Mr C. Whitwell, a local athlete, has so perfected himself that he is taking the ambitious step of attempting to break the Australasian endurance record of 24 hours. He will start upon his task at 8 o'clock on Friday night in a shop adjoining Mr A. Sowman's grocery premises, and hopes to finish on Saturday night at 11 o'clock. The holder of the world's record of 43 hours is Mr T. Hogan, under whose tutelage Mr Whitwell acquired his proficiency in the art.

The Spring Creek Road Board met yesterday afternoon, the following members being present: Messrs J. Gane (chairman), F. Redwood, W. Gifford, H. G. Cheesman, and J. Watson. Mr C. Reeves was granted leave of. absence. The secretary reported that there was a credit balance in the bank amounting to £28 5s 7d. Accounts totalling £64 8s 3d were authorised for payment, and after transacting general business the Board rose. The report of a deputation which waited on the Board is published in another column.

At Oamaru yesterday Mr Fred! Jones, editor of the Oamaru Mail, was charged with publishing investment* on the totalisator at a recent trotting meeting. The defence was that the figures got into the paper by mistake. The magistrate entered a conviction, but imposed no penalty.

A meeting of Hamilton business men last night decided to form a Motor Transport Company, with a capital of £5000, and institute a motor-bus service between Hamilton, and Frankton, a distance of one~ mile, so as to bring Hamilton into easier; touch with the Main Trunk train passengers.

At the Auckland Police Court yesterday George Holt and William, Webb were charged with sly grog-sell-ing. Evidence was given that Holt; was in the habit of perambulating the street of a Sunday with a bottle of whisky in one pocket and a glass in another, supplying thirsty souls( Holt was sentenced to six months' hard: labor* and Webb was granted a remand till Thursday.

The solemn rites gone through by superstitious people in carrying out their code of charms and omens are frequently irritating (says the Gisborne Times). Picture the feelings of a well-known carter in Gladstone Road on Friday afternoon when a lady crossing the street seized upon a horse shoe and threw it over her shoulder, with the result that it struck the hitherto disinterested! carter on the head.

Trouble has been brewing over the suspension of a nurse at the Masterton Hospital, and also over administrative matters in connection with th^ institution, for some time, and a climax has been reached by Messrs Ewmgton, Keith, O'Eeary, Cameron, f- n<* Jackson, members of the Hospital Committee, resigning. Relations among members of the nursing staff and officers of the hospital are reported to be strained, and some interesting developments are expected to follow.

_The fallacy of the idea that the Harbor Board was responsible for promoting the movement to amalgamate with the River Boards was emphasised; •at the meeting of the first^mentioned! body held last night. .It was pointed put that/the correspondence from the ■&on- Mi" Fisher, whose instance the Harbor Board is now approaching the Lower Wairau River Board with a. Tl«w to union, went to show that the Board was not a propagandist in the matter. This correspondence is published in another column of this issue. .

, A correspondent in the- Waikato writes:—Afc the invitation of Mr bowman, about one hundred persons assemble to take part in the formal opening of Messrs McCallum Bros/ barn, a spacious building 50 x 30, 14ft. high, with splendid matai floor, well adapted for dancing. There were visitors from Auckland, Blenheim, and Hamilton. Songs between each dance, competitions for prizes, and sleight-of-hand tricks were greatly enjoyed # by the visitors. Mrs Sowman entertained the children from the school the following afternoon in the same building, which was beautifully decorated with ferns, ribbons, and Chines© lanterns.

The rain that has fallen locally this week is especially acceptable to those who are establishing lucerne. A large! area has been devoted to lucerne this season, much of the seed having <already been sown, and some of it on. the point of being put into the ground. In several instances the sprouting process has begun, and a successful "strike" is assured. One of the biggest lucerne enterprises in the district this year is that of the' Messrs McCallum Brothers, who have sown down with success about 45 acres in the Pairhall district. 'In some oases landholders are cleaning upground with potatoes or other crops with a view to the sowing of lucerne^ in the autumn.

A development .worthy of note is. the progress of the apple-growing industry in the Marlborough district. There has been ft;large importation, of young apple trees locally this season, and, in the aggregate, some hundreds, of acres have been devoted to this purpose. There are several instancesof apple-growing. on the industrial scale; Notably, a syndicate hasplanted 83 acres in the Spring Greek district with market varieties; and two land occupiers in the same locality have each planted ten acres. There is also the enterprise mentioned the other day—that of the Messrs McCallum Brothers, who have establish.-1 ed a promising apple orchard on 45' acres in the Fairhall district. The* season has been an. extraordinarily favorable one for apple-planting, thegenerous rainfall having made for vigorous growth, arid the: percentage of "misees" being very small. hi Messrs McCallum Brothers': case, it issaid, less than half-a-dozen trees over the whole of the 45 acres have failed. Generally speaking, the season has; been all that orchardists could desire r except, of course, for the recent frost-

The Australian aborigine has, like* the American Indian, vanished wherever the white man has settled, and! now is only to be found in a wild statein those remote parts of West Australia and the Northern Territory that liave not yet been opened up. Mr F. Connor, M.L.C., who owns a. cattle station of 7,000,000 acres, in the far north-west "of Australia, and> who frankly confesses that he has nogreat love for the blacks, because they frequently spear lus cattle, told an interviewer at Sydney (says the Auckland Herald's correspondent) that* there is a. lot of foolish sentiment andtoo much coddling of the? blackfellow. He was doomed to extinction, no matter what they did." He believed hewould have disappeared altogether in another 20 years. "Civilise him, and he dies out," Mr Connor went on. "Sometimes a young black who has been working on a station will ■■runaway and join a wild tribe, and pufe them up to all sorts of mischief. They're the worst. You may try tosave them, but it's no use. Obedient to some mysterious law, they vanish wherever the white man treads. Nearly all the blacks on the eastern side of Australia are gjone, and, as I hay© said, they will, in a couple of decades, -all be gone on the western? side, too."

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