LOCAL AND GENERAL

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LII, Issue 249, 16 October 1918, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL

The practice hitherto followed of issuing casualty lists through the Telegraph Department and .posting them up at all offices, has been abandoned from to-day: No more will be circulated by the Government.- —Press Association.

Of 50,000 sacks of Australian wheat landed at Auckland, over 3000 sacks have .'been rejected by the miller 6 on account of weevii, states a Press Asso : ciation message.

Twenty German civilian residents, of Samoa have arrived at Auckland, states a Press Association wire. They have been interned at Motiiihi, ranking second-class prisoners of war.

A twelve-year-old girl, a daughter of Mr JDelaney, of Tahuna, on Monday, brought, a flock of 600 sheep over the Moutere Hills, handling them in a masterly way, and not losing one. sheep oil the journey. The sheep were from the farms of Mr H. Myttom • and Edwards Bros. (Pokororo) and Mr G. _ Tasker (Motueka). They were a fine line ar,d were brought to Nelson to the order of Mr F. Fa-irey.

The conference of the Baptist Union elected the following officers : —Presi-. dent, -Mr. M. W. P. Lascelles (Timaru); vice-president, Rev. H. Hercus; secretary, Re'V- 'R. S. Gray; financial secretary, Rev. Alfred North; treasurer, Mr. W, liamboume.

A communication was received by ,the Blenheim Borough Council at its last meeting from the Nelson City Council regarding the contemplated conference at Lake Rotoiti, in connection with .the hydro-electric proposi r tion.. ,It was explained that the Nelson Council (had already been advised that the date suggested !by inst. (Labour Day)- —would not be suitable ; for the Blenheim Council. The vyas left in ithe hands of the May»t and the 'Deputy-Mayor.

The appointment of a woman inspector of factories, for the Auckland district, has been decided upon by the Department of Labour. Miss Emerson, who has been on the clerical staff of the Department ■ for several years,, has bjsen appointed, and has taken up her deities. - Miss Emerson's attention will be given" chiefly 'to the working conditions of' women and girls in- factories, ■shops ,'and other premises. The appointment has "been, made for the remainder of the war period. Miss Emerson was "engaged at- the Nelson Labour Office for some years.

A London pressman was told of a miner who was tunnelling under No Man's Land, and heard a German picking with his pickaxe in a counter-tunnel ■appjfoa-chiaig ttihe British lines. The English miner waited hours) in the V3ark until the German tunneller broke into the English tunnel ; then, there was a fight to the death with knives, and the Hunt went West. The victor got into the German tunnel and walked towards the Hun trenches, and succeeded in. blowing up a" part of them. This grim fight, 30ft be'ow No Man's Land, between these two soldier miners, is one of the grimriiest and most striking '.combats ever recorded.' .

The Paris papers state that Dr. Regnault, a former; professor in the Naval School of Medicine at Toulon, has presented a report confirming the of magh'esa afe a' treatmet for cancer. Dr. Dubord," of Dijon, has recently furnished interesting statistics the_subje_ct. ■These reports' taken, in conjunction with the research work carried out by Professors Delbert, yßichet, and Robin, are stated to give ground for the hope that therapeutics is on the eve of discovering an effective treatriierit for cancer.

. The. investigations: in connection! with the recent burglaries in Auckland disclosed the growth of a band' of young men in the city whose behaviour had been developing through larrikinism tq crime. The' outbreak of interference* with motor cars which . preceded the buglary incidents' has.,, been; traced' to several of -the youths concern.ed in the buglaries, an 3 • these young men appeared to have been infecting with v. lawless spirit. Four youths, admitted in Court:that they had taken a car out of a shed and had drivew it about until it broke down.'' On a charge of' damaging the car twp of them were fined £5 each and ordered to pay for ..the) damage.

A rather dramatic incident occurred at the Patea railway- station (sdys the Patea Press) Lieut.-Col. C. H. Weston, of New Plymouth, had just received a hearty welcome from some local friends when Corporal P. H. Tinned, of Taranaki representative football fame, warmly greeted the colonel. The latter stared hard for a moment, and then, shaking Cbrporal Tinney by the hand, exclaimed: ''Why, surely you tan not be the corpora! who helped me out of action on October 4th last year?" Corporal Tinney solemnly assured him that he was, and the pair spent the remaining moments before the traim left in chatting over the anxious time spent near Gravenstafel exactly twelve months ago. Corporal Tinney, it may be mentioned, was' on that occasion making his way to a dressing station, after being wounded in the Gravenstafel battle, when he overtook Colonel Weston, who was himself severely wounded, and assisted him on his way to the dressing station, which both reached safely, although they had to journey through the German barrage om the way. It is a long step from Passchendaele to Patea, but truly it's a small world, after all.

The declaration of war, on Germany by the Republic of Haiti brought the number of Powers arrayed against that country,, if Rouma-nia and Russia be counted, to 25. populations of the countries, which are in a state of war are estimated to number 1,200,000, 000, whch means that far more than half the population of the world — 1,600,000,000—is involved in the struggle. Of the land area of the globe, 30,000,000 square miles out of a total of 55,500,000 square miles is involved, though only 1,000,000 square miles is actually in : the. fighting zones, and the greater part of this battle area lies in the Near East and Turkish territories of the Ottoman Empire. Five per cent of the peoples at war are under arms-. [The percentage in Germany is higher than in the case ;of any of the other belligerents, amounting to 10 per cent.

"I look forward to the day 'when. New Zea'Jand will be riot merely thor-' oughly English, but another England," said Mr G. E. Blanch, headmaster of Christ's College, at v the annual meeting of the Christ's C-ollege Old Boys' Association: Mr. Blanch went-on to speak of - the great possibilities of New Zealand, geographically and otherwise, and proceeded' that to gain the ideal he had spoken of, it was necessary that there should be a democratic spirit and a democratic training in the schools of New Zealand. Those qualities were an absolute essential, and perhaps the old boys who had done so much for school and country were doing more to bring about the desired consumniaton than they thought.