LOCAL AND GENERAL NEWS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 12468, 12 January 1904, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL NEWS.

TriE HERAi.n Summary, for transmasft by the next outward San Francisco mil, | will be published to-morrow niojng. Those desirous of forwarding the Sufaary ■■ to their friends in Europe, Americaetc ~1 will have ample time to do so, as theews! H paper mail closes on Friday ne, a t I'l 12 noon, up to which hour pnpe f or mailing may be obtained of runnersi the -• post office. This mail will bo due iLondun on February 13. , The Union Company's steamer Ikoi* [I left for Sydney last evening, taking l arw number of passengers in both classes.nd » considerable quantity of general carg< n . eluded in the shipments from Atdand were eight bars of bullion, valued at 1850 shipped by tho Waihi Gold 1 pany, for London; 34 cases kauri gu, f or transhipment to London; and liq 0 f ' copra, timber, flax, hides, etc., f olAug . trahau ports, besides a quantity of jjgUa for China. * | The Borough of Pamell, in the opirm of S Mr. J. A. Beale (one of its councillors is a 1 hundred years behind the times, andieeds 1 waking up. Speaking at last night's ieet- j ing he said that the Council at presen hid 1 neither a telephone nor a typewriter. la I said that the proposal now on foot to cure 1 all the Council's offices and plant on one te I was a step in the direction of improving ie 1 present backward state of affairs | To-day Messrs, Logan Bros, will lamK I tho racing yacht Southerly Buster, wbh 1 they have built to the order of Mr. Mrk I Foy, the well-known Sydney yachtsmn. I The yacht will be sent to Sydnej by he I s.s. Westralia on Monday next, and aer I having some trial races at Port Jackm, 1 will be sent to England in March net' I to compete in the Medwny Club races'or 1 the Australian Cup. The same na I launched yesterday a smart-looking ,6ft 1 pleasure yacht for Mr. Bramley, of ftadey I Bay. | Yesterday afternoon Sergcaa'-Majo* ? Cheater, drill instructor, Paeroa, nit with' | an accident while out driving in a buggy on the road between Paeroa and Stckay. f town. Stopping to pick up one tf tie 1 rems, he leaned against the dashboard, which broke, and Mr. Cheator fell rig»t at I the horse's heels. He was dragged abort 150 yds in this position, but he held on t* 1 the reins, and eventually pulled the hors j up. He received a number of severe kick on the chest, while his knees were terrfbh cut. The accident will necessitate his re maimng in bed for several weeks. x Inspector Cullen received a telegram fron \ Sergeant Darby, Thames, loat night, statin* I that Andrew Anderson, a man of 60 yean of age, had died suddenly on Sunday, a; I Table Mountain, 16 miles from Thames, The coroner' had ordered the removal of the j body to Thames for the inquest, and the body | had to be conveyed over a rough bush trad* yesterday. f | Our Hamilton correspondent writes:-* I Land in Hamilton is going up in value day I by day; each sale that takes place is at an advanced price on the last. I learn that the j acre section in Victoria-street, facing the \ Commercial Hotel, has changed hands at f £20 per foot, the vendor being Mr. J. Smith, j and the purchasers Messrs. Hundley ! Brothers. There is 130 ft frontage. Om Waiuku correspondent writes:—The unseasonable weather is interfering greatly j with the harvesting. Most of the oat crops are iniested with rust, the only kind to escape being the Algerian. Owing to the continuous rain grass is in abundance, and then is a large supply of milk at the creameries. i Maori named Whare broke his arm (writes our Raglan, correspondent) while practising his horse jumping over the hurdles at the New Year's Day sports. The animal fell, throwing Whare heavily to th« ground, with tho above-mentioned result. I Dr. Sanders attended to his broken limb. As an example of the manner in whicK the wheat traffic is beginning to boom (say* the Sydney Daily Telegraph), it may be f mentioned that no less than 41,700 "bags [ reached Darling Harbour on Saturday, January 2. The corresponding number last j year for the same day was infinitesimal by j comparison, but last year at this time the prospects of a harvest were practically nil. the number, as a matter of fact, did not ' exceed 100. The Railway Commissioners j are taking all necessary measures to cope \ with the influx, which threatens to be phenomenal within the next week or two. An inquest was held at Melbourne oi January 2 concerning the death of a youth named James Watson Oakes. aged 14, who died in the Melbourne Hospital as the result of burns. The boy was reading in bed, and it is supposed he "fell asleep and upset the lamp. About twelve o'clock at night he rushed out of the bedroom into the passag* with his nightdress ablaze. His mother trie* to extinguish tho fire, burning her own hand/ badly, but in spite of her efforts the boy die* \ two hours afterwards. What is known as the ox-eye daisy is j beginning to spread itself over the Waira- jj rapa, and has been included in that district ; and in the Forty-mile Bush in the .Is. oi noxious weeds. Around Carterton a rum- j ber of paddocks are white with it, and tte j same state of affairs is beginning to be ex- \ perienced at Pahiatua. Fanners fear that i they will have quite as much trouble with this noxious weed as with ragwort. The returns for the co-operative dairy factories in the Wyndham (Otago) district j for the month of December are as follow*! —Wyndham Factory, 833,6561b of milk, as | compared with "65,1351b for the sane J month in 1902; Island Dairy Factory, 663,0241b, as against 577,6301b; Seaward Downs, 197,6171b, as against 193,3911b. The December payments of the three fac- 1 tories for milk and wages alone reached | over £30001 There were two persons in the lockup la*» ..', | night, both on charges t>t drunkenness, t ■ 1

At a meeting of the Christchurch Technical Education Board. Mr. J. Clark remarked that most pupils seemed to think that when they had passed the sixth standard they had acquired all the theoretical knowledge necessary before entering upon I . practical work. Such a view, he added, was entirely erroneous, and the boys would be studying their own interests if they attended the continuation classes beiore joining the practical ones. Mr. C. Taylor said that in the carpentering trade the apprentices were always anxious to start away and make something instead of being willing to learn first the theoretical principles of the, trade, The boys, however, soon . realised their mistake, and. lie considered, therefore, that matters would right themselves. The Tourist Department on January C despatched from Wellington the material for establishing telephonic communication between Sutherland's accommodation-house, at the head of Milford Sound, and the boat landing at the month of the Arthur River— a distance of a mile and a-half. .Previously tin boatman at Arthur River has been notified that his services were required at . the accommodation-house, to convey tourists down the Sound, by an explosion ol dynamite, but this crude method will disappear at the coming of the electric wire. Later on it is probable the Department will proceed to erect a telephone wire from Sutherland's accommodation-bouse, Milford Sound, to the head of Lake To Anau, with an instrument at each of the travellers' huts on loaf route. This innovation should be of the greatest convenience to tourists and others who are called upon to travel in the district. "It may be news to you," remarked one of ill? delegates to the recent Maori School Teachers' Conference at. Wellington to a Times reporter, "to learn that Phallic worship is not at all uncommon among the Maoris. 'there are several places (notably one near Kawhia) to which pilgrimage is made by childless women. For instance, an old rangatira. in the Bay of Plenty had only one daughter. She had been married some years, and had gone in vain to the sacred tree on the Galatea Road and to other more distant shrines. ' The old chief was very sad at the prospect of the extinct ion of his line. His hopes were revived by the announcement of his grand-nephew that the schoolmaster had got a. new tree, in his garden, and it was marked " tamariki" (chil-! dren) tree, He had thus read the nursery- ' man's label " tamarisk." The old man gravely asked permission from th„ schoolmaster to pay his devotions to the spirit of that tree, and the schoolmaster, appreciating the sincerity of the request, consented. .And every morning for a week, the old chief, his : daughter, and his son-in-law prayed tc that J tree for the blessing of children. j