LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Manawatu Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 3289, 8 March 1926, Page 8

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

The Dannevmirkc County Council is supporting- the Sports Protection League in its endeavour to have daylight saving inaugurated in New Zealand.

Travellers to Palmerston North, yesterday passed extensive bush and grass fires in th e environs of Woodville, the flames at one point having approached perilously near to the eastern mouth of the g-orge.

A worker at Mangahao, Stanley Fowler, was thrown from a motor cycle he was riding on Saturday as the result of the horn slipping and interfering with the steering, and sustained a -broken leg. Ho was admitted to the Palmerston North hospital.

Early on Saturday afternoon, a motor-garage at Geraldine, owned by H. W. Wade, was totally destroyed by fire. The brigade turned out, taut little could be done, owing to the inflammable nature of the contents, i’iie plant was insured for £250 and the building for £IOO. The annual meetings of the Central Auxiliary of the Baptist Union of New Zealand, commencing to-day in the Baptist Church, embrace a series of evening meetings to which the members of other churches and tho public in general are cordially invited. The addresses arc all on vital living subjects and should contribute to the strengthening of the spiritual tone of the community.

Archibald Nimmo Watson, aged 49, married, formerly in business at Sumner, died at Lewisham hospital, Christchurch, on Saturday morning. Ho had been in hospital as a patient, A night nurse found him with his throat cut and incisions in his arms and legs. By hist side was a safetyrazor blade, and a note stating: “Gone off my mind and gone mad. Forgive.” An inquest was opened and adjourned, after evidence of identification.

An incipient outbreak of fire caused through the close proximity of a quantity of fat to a gas ring resulted in the Palmerston North Fire Brigade receiving a call shortly after nine o’clock on Saturday morning to the premisies of Mr Purell,, at 16 Pitt street. The blaze was extinguished before the arrival of the brigade, although the walls and ceiling of the room where the fire occurred were scorched. The house was insured for £375 and the contents for £2OO.

After trying hard for more than a year, the Auckland Chamber of Commerce has ousted from one stronghold the disliked word “Australasian.". The London Chamber of Commerce has had for a long while an “Australasian Trade Section.” Early last year the Auckland Chamber wrote suggesting that the title was misleading, and that it should be altered to “Australian and Now Zealand Trade Section.” The council has been advised that the section had unanimously recommended that the change should be made. A story of how two gallons of beer saved a valuable motor car from destruction is told by a Plains farmer (reports a Thames correspondent). He was returning from Thames in a fivc-seater car with a passenger in the front seat, who failed to notice the escape of burning tobacco from a pipe, When near Kopu a fire, fanned by a strong breeze, rapidly covered the upholstery in the back scat, which began to burn furiously. There was no water available, so the owner unhesitatlng’y applied the contents of a two-gallon keg of beer with such good effect that the fire was put out and the car saved. The damage is estimated at £4O.

A suggestion that it would be advisab'e for the licensing authorities to re-issue number-plates for motor cars instead of scrapping them each year was made by the chairman,, Mr O. P. Lynch, at the monthly meeting of the provincial executive of .the Farmers’ Union on Saturday. Only those plates which were unfit for use should be scrapped, he said, and in this manner much expense would bo saved. Other members of the executive expressed themselves in favour of Mr Lynch’s idea, and one thought it would fee cheaper in the long run to get better plates, which would last for years. After the cost of collecting, forwarding and re-con-ditioning the plates had been considered, it was decided that, after all, the suggestion might not be worth while. The discussion was then dropped.

A kindly thought on the part of a North Island resident in the country is to help the blind institute in Auckland by making- a small charge for the use of the “accommodation paddocks’’ which arc a feature of country life. These ar 0 used by those who lake flocks or herds along the road to salcyards or elsewhere, and who have to put the animals somewhere for safety at night. The station-holder to whom the idea came used to lend his field free of charge, but this was objected to by others who used to charge, so he was seized with the idea of assistance to a cause in which ho had already taken an interest, and now he charges so much a hundred, and the result is quite a substantial sum for the Jubilee Institute . It was found on quite a number of occasions when the circumstances wor c explained that the drovers added a little to the payment “for the good of the cause.” Women will bo wise to make a point of seeing the 29/0 specials now showing in a front window at The C, ,M. itoss Co. Util’s. These arc this season's tunic frocks, frocks and jumper suits in pretty silk, knitted weaves, simply made so that they will probably not be in the least old- fashioned even next Summer. Usually (licir price ranged from 114/6 up to f.3/6.

A body identified as that of Win Edward Titchener, a traveller, miss> ing for a week, was found in Dunedin harbour on Saturday. A married man, tpamed James Ferguson, aged 62, who was living at Musselburgh, was found shot through the head, at home on Sunday morning H e was taken to hospital dangerously ill. “Last year there was not a single egg exported from New Zealand, though £50,000 worth was sent out of the country both in 1923 and 1 924,” said Mr. O. P. Lynch, who presided at the monthly meeting of the Manawatu provincial council of tho Farmers’ Union on Saturday. Poultrymen, he added, could not make the industry pay with wheat at its present prohibitive price.