LOCAL AND GENERAL

Nelson Evening Mail, 14 May 1917, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL

Owing to the restrictions, on goods traffic on the railway,, a number of Bastings and Napier Sims have gone in for motor-traction, arid one managei' inform T ed «i. Herald reporter t-liat his firm had definitely decided; that. .even if the original 'train service, was renewed, their custom Would riot, go there,, as the proprietors were satisfied that'cost of parcels, etc., "per car'was not only cheaper but more satisfactory, and the goods reached their destination much more exipeditaously.

Rather an' awkward -prohlem faced v Hi's Worship at the Wellington Magistrate's '.Court the other day. says the Times. It was to deal with the case of a young girl, charged with .theft: She had been an inmate of Borirua Mental Asylum, had kleptomaniac tendencies, and stolen' such articles as tins' of sardines; and had recently been' the, victim of a bigamous i marriage. It was added that a medical j authority ,wasi .of the opinion that, grant- j ing proper attention, the girl would be•! quite strong mentally in a few years' time.- The subject,of these' remarks, a rather attractive-looking young girl, listened to the statements with almost amused interest. Eventually the magistrate decided to convict and order her to'. come up for sentence when called upon, on condition she went- to thei Salvation Army Home for six months.

An- expert to determine the age of ,fish-heads would have 'been of great value in a case heard at the Wellington Magistrate's 'Court, says the Times. The case was one-on which a carrier was charged with leaving fish offal and. fishheads on.'the- beach at Island Bay. While the police evidence was to the effect that the aroma of' the fish-heads was painfullvi apparent, the evidence of tin defence" was that the heads did not smell at all. To show that the smol: was not awful, defendant offered to eai_ anything picked out of the sack and cooked. "" 'lnstead of being impressed, In spector iMarsack jokingly suggested thai probably defendant was one of those people who liked his game high.

The annual general meeting' of the Nelson Acclimatisation Society will he held on the' 24'.n inst. at the t Anders' Club rooms. The Anchor Company announce that the steamer Kaitoa will be laid up on (Saturday next for overhaul and annual inspection, extending over five ov six ;days, consequently they will _ have no steamer leaving here for Wellington on the 19th, 2nd, or 24th insts. Mr M. Webster is not too shy to teh thrifty housewives that "No .Rubbing' 'Laundry Help does'wash all clothes spot lessly clean without rubbing or injury ■ Thinker Note, Book free wiu, every i« of "No Rubbing."'...'"'

At the Magistrate's Court this morning, before Messrs F. W. Fairey and H. Baigent, J's.P., James Ryan was charged with using obscene language aivli also breaking a window at the Royal Hfotel last evening. On the former charge he was fined £l. and in the latter case was ordered to pay ss, the c°st of the window. Affier e occurred at- Mangarakau lastweek, during the daytime, and destroyed Messrs Harris and Saunders' wharf, sheds, and' flax fibre, estimated at £l5O, and a large quantity of timber. There wertr'no insurances. The origin of the outbreak is a mystery'.—Golden Bay Times. The . ellington Harbour IBoard is experimenting with a mechanical method of discharging coal from a steamer. A grab similar to that- used with a Priestman dredge is dropped into the coalladen hold and lifted with a cra'.o in a similar manner to that of the dredge. A Gazette has been issued fixinsr the maximum price of machine-dressed rcc<l wheat, at one shilling per bushel above the maximum price fixed by Order-in-Council in February for wheat other than seed. The Order-in-Council does not .apply! in cases where a contract has been made with the knowledge and approval of the Board of Trade. "Of all the expensive places I've ever been in, London takes the prize and incidentally all your cash," wrote a Huwera boy to hi« people in New Zealand under date December, 1916. "To live in London in a good locality, say West End, costs on an average about twice as much as anywhere I have been. It is astounding to see the extravagance pursued by the average West Ender. I am sure that the greater majority could not- afford it and dress. . Almost every ■ woman is wearing now a fur coat that one sees in shop windows marked at not less than 15 guineas. Everything is on much the same scale. All that one reads about people devising schemes for economy is—to put it tersely—so much 'bosh.' With the general population there does not seem to be the slightest attempt to economise. Except for that number of'men that one sees in khaki and the newspapers in London, one would not know that the war was anything out a myth." "Many hand's make light work" is an axiom that was exemplified at Tauherenikau camp a few days, ago, says the Times. At Tauherenikau a camp is befog constructed in four sections, in order that the men arriving from the four military districts (Auckland, Wellington, ICanterbury, and Otago) may be segregated. Recently the o. the main road through the camp was commenced. One thousand soldiers were detailed for the work., and in an hour a road of 500 yards in Teogth, with a width of from 12 to 15 feet, was formed. The same number of men, at the same rate of progress, would construct approximately two and a-quarter. miles of road in an eight-hour day.

Th e Greymouth Star states that reservists, drawn in" the early ballots and previously exempted on account of their connection with the coa-1 mining industry, have received orders to present themselves before the Medical Board for examination, in view of the Military Appeal Board's decision in regard to exemptions of employees at Ruhanga and Paparoa mines.

Two motor cars, one driven by Mr Pickering, proceeding to Havelock, and the other in charge of Mr Hewlett, returning to Nelson, '.came into collision on the Warigamoa Hill on Saturday afternoon. The cars were travelling slowly, bufli owii;;g to the south-east gale blowing, neither of the drivers heard the sound of the other's horn. Some damage was sustained by the steering \ gear of Mr Pickering's car, and he returned to town. While the car was corning up "Gentle Annie - ' a large fir tree on Mr Withers's property was blown down and fell across the road directly in front of the c ar. Before the latter could be pulled up it crashed into the fallen tree, the windshield and the brakes..! being smashed'. The car contained. Messrs Gardiner, Walker, Baggs, and Hiale, besides the driver, find, with tjhe I exception of Baggs, who sustained a cut on the heaH', the party,; escaped with I a shaking.

A cheery note of-optimism as to' the future was sounded, by vMr James Macintosh (president*of ;. the Wellington Chamber of Commerce) on Wednesday afternoon. "The recent rains,'"" said Mr Macintosh, '-,iaye been■;-most ' beneficial, and th e outlook for' the \\'|htef is good. Generally, -the outlook, from a 'pastoral point of view, is gxio'd,- but" there is, of course, the uncertainty'- of shipping. ' On that everything, hangs. Given a sufficient number of shins to carry our produce to the Home markets and also—-and this is labour the season in front 'of us shbulcf equal in resuHs the seasaii now. closing. Both ships and 1 labour depend, upon''..-the exigencies of the war. .The former' are' entirely under; the control;''of the Imperial authorities, and the lat&er—lahpur —we know is being seriously and sympathetically considered' 'by the (jovernnrent through ' th\6 National Bfficiency Board. 'Seeing - how much depends on these two things,—ships and farm Labour —I hope I may be pardoned if I say that the Government should inark; these two things as "'urgent" to bo settled v as speedily as possible."

At the annual meeting of the Royal New Zealand .'Society* for the Health of Women and 'Children, held at Dunedin on Tuesday night, SDr. Colquhoun, in the course of a paper ori" "lu'esh air and its > uses," said':—Open-air schools. A had already made their appearance in New Zealand. The 'Macandrew fßoact Kindergarten, for example, had used the svstem with marked success, and at Archerfield School Mrs Nisbet reported' t'ha-t the children loved the change, enjoyed the privilege ~'of sleeping in openair dormitories, and' would be unwilling to sleep in the rooms again. He had also the report -of the rector Of the Waitaki Boys' High School, where opener dormitories had been in existence since February, 1916. There was, now such sleeping accommodation for 130 boys, and 50 had had one year's expei-i----ence of it. Their verdict "in its favour was enthusiastic. , They said it was easier to get to sleep, they slept more soundly, tlieyi awoke more alert, and thffy would not go back to the dormitories agaj.n. All ihe boys, the rector said, had the option of sleeping inside during winter, and only one had availed himself of that option"! Those sleeping out enjoyed the better health, and no school 'had' a better health record. He ittributed'this to the facts that all took the cold shower every morning, Swedish' -Irill, and open-air sleeping. Again, in Otago University, the medical students had asked that certain lectures be taken out of doors, and;';they' spoke' of the experience with similar enthusiasm. There was also a tendency to follow this' practice in the public" schools, but here there still existed in some cases overcrowding and want of air. The annual meeting of the Royal New Zealand Society for the 'Health of Women and Children will, be held in the Council Chambers on Wednesday, 15th May, at 3.3o"o'clock. The annual meeting'; of shareholders of the Permanent' Building Society of ; Nelson will ■ be* held. on Wednesday, the 23rd fast. " : -."'.•-•■■■

The heaviest southerly gale experienced in Nelson for some time raged on Saturday night and continued all day yesterday and last evening. Some of the squalls were very violent and several trees were blown down. A large fir tree on Mr C. Withers' property at Gentle Ajmie foil across the road on Saturday night, breaking the telegraph wires, which v,p-(- '" bunched.'' Telegraph communication was temporarily suspended. A party of linesmen went out yesterday morning and repaired the , damage." The gale moderated this morning, but- increased during the day. The ' Kaitoa, which left here at 7 o'clock last ui"ht, was delaved by a southerly gale in"the Straits, 'and did not reach Wellington until 1 p.m. to-day . Chaplain-Major T. F. Taylor, as a. result of his interesting war lecture in the Provincial Hall on May 7th, has had handed to him an anonvmons cheque for the Red Crss Fund of £ls through Mr E. J. Allen, manager of the Bank of New Zealand, which cheque has been handed in to the local Red Cross Fund. A draft of over 500 New Zealand soldiers has arrived at Wellington from the front. Among those on board were Sister Humphreys (Puponga), Private' W. T. Christian (Glenhope), W. Delaney,, G. Gray, F. H. Newton, J. Hv Scrimgeour, and Company-Sergeant-Major H. V. Condell. Second-Lieut. R. H. Quilliarn, of New Plymouth, an old Nelson College Boy, was also_ on board. It was understood that Lieut. N. A. Vercoe was on the vessel, but later information states that he landed at a port of call. (Railway men at Thorndon and Napier object to women carriage cleaners receiving what the Thorndon branch desciuoes as "the miserahle wage of 35s per week." In its comments on this attitude the Railway Review remarks: "The. general impression is that it takes three' women to do the work of two men, under the best circumstances. In some cases four women have to do two men's work. They are not permitted,,to work, late at night, and they must not be called 1 on to do heavy lifting. The result has been that the'remaining men have to take the heaviest jobs, and all awkward hours of duty. This has been done uncomplainingly, for it is a time of war. Now, in CNT'ew Zealand, about 60 women have been put into the car-riage-cleaning woilc. They can do it efficiently, but not so quickly as the men whom they replace." The Review holds that the women should be paid 10s a day. •' "The- men have had to make sacrifices because it is war time, and if the Department declares that women as car-riage-cleaners would) be too costly at_ the minimum pay for the male carriage cleaner, we can only retort that this is war time, and! a time for sacrifice. The department, and the Government, are quite familiar with this, the favourite official argument. Here is a fine chance to try themselves."

In another column w e announce that ~Ei. 'Cholerton, the well-known eye specialist', lias decided to -prolong his stay in Nelson, until May 22nd. Intending patients are reauested to make an appointment sit ail early date, so as to avoid .disappointment. ' "' '".*'.

Mr G. S. Huffam reports as follows on the rain fall at.Motueka for April:— Ist April, 0.01 inches; sth,-0.10;' 6th, 0 01- Bth, : 0.10; 9th. 0.05; 10th, 0,50; 11th, 0.01 ; 12th, 0.08; 13th, 0.SO;. 17th, 0.13 :>23rd. 0.36' ; 24th, 1.42; 25th, 0.22; 29th', 6.18; totol 3.67; maximum fall, 1.42 inches' on 24th ;| days with rain 14.