LOCAL AND GENERAL NEWS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 16046, 12 October 1915, Page 6

LOCAL AND GENERAL NEWS.

" The health of the Samoan garrison is good," remarked Lieutenant A. F. Miller, who returned in charge of a detachment of men by the Talune yesterday. He stated that the worst time of the year in the islands was about to commence. The rainy season would set in next month, and this was when fever was most prevalent. " I think the marching of the SCOO New Zealand soldiers through the streets of Wellington on Sunday was splendid," remarked Dr. A. W. Averill, Anglican Bishop of Auckland, who returned from Wellington yesterday. "It was a revelation to the people to think that in view of the numbers that had already been sent to the front there was such a fine body of men ready to go. The men looked very fit and well." Dr. Averill said he visited the Trentham camp on Friday, and was pleased to notice that further improvements had been carried out there. A collection in aid of the. Sick and Wounded Soldiers' Fund was made at the reunion on Sunday of the New Zealand Old Colonists' Association. The sum of £95 5s was subscribed, and the committee has donated £4 15s to complete the sum of £100. The holding of carnivals for the purpose of augmenting the patriotic funds was warmly defended by Mr. Wesley Spragg, a member of the Executive Committee of the Patriotic and War Relief Association, at a meeting last evening of residents of Mount Alberts " These efforts bring the people in touch with one another," he said, " and create a spirit of unity which is very beneficial. If carnivals are free from anything of an evil nature, then I think they are to be commended, and not howled down. They serve a useful purpose in keeping up the spirits of the people in the midst of much that is depressing." The new Scenic Board, which has been set up by the Government to control the Kauri Cully reserve at Northcote, met yesterday for the first time at the Crown Lands Office. The Commissioner of I Crown Lands, Mr. H. M. Skeet, chairj man, presided. The other members of | the board are Messrs. J. P. McPhail and ■C. E. Campbell, Mayor and DeputyMayor of Birkenhead, and Messrs. H. H. Hunt and J. B. Tonar, representing the Northcote Borough Council. The appointment of a caretaker was considered. The. control of the reserve has been taken over by the new board from the Northcote Borough Council. The. work of constructing a new road in place of Factory Road, connecting Alpha Road and King's Drive, has made such progress that, the new thoroughfare will shortly be open for traffic. The old road is now a quagmire, madn.lv owing to the stream of carts conveying earth from I the Jermyn Street scheme excavations to . the Mechanics' Bay reclamation. A new departure has been made in street formation, the thoroughfare being planted with shade trees, which occupy a central strip ] of the road, raised slightly above the level of the macadamised portion of the street, j.and protected by a stone coping. The spaces reserved to allow pedestrians to j cross the street convert the central portion into a number of miniature gardens. On either side, even allowing for wide footpaths, there appears to be ample space for vehicular traffic. The work is being done by the City Council for the Rail' j way Department, in accordance with ai. agreement arrived .it between the Department, Harbour Board, and City Council in 1911. The executive of the National Reserve has organised a scheme with the object of (providing 4000 sand-bags for use at Che , front. It is hoped that a number of men j will volunteer their services in their spare I time and assist in sewing the bags, a large quantity of which have been secured by Miss Butler, headmistress of the Girls' , Grammar School. It has been found that ■ basic-slag bags are the required size, but j others can be cut down and sewn to the 1 required measurement. The work is somewhat rough for women, hence the desire to enlist the services of men for the work. | A work-room being necessary a commodious and well-lighted one has been I offered to the National Reserve by the I Hospital and Charitable Aid Board in its High Street premises. Apropos of this project the War Office announced on August 26 last that the regular provision of sand-bags on an adequate scale was i then in full swing, and that there was no longer any need to appeal to the generosity of the public in the matter. Arrange[mente had, however, been made for taking delivery of those bags which, were at the moment in process of being made by private workers. When the Railway Classification List, a lengthy printed paper, popularly known as " D 3," was submitted to the House of Representatives last week, Mr. G. J. Anderson expressed the opinion that the list was an expensive and unnecessary production. Promotion, he said, should be made on merit, and not entirely on length of service. The member for Palmerston North (Mr. D. Buick) took an entirely contrary view, and assured Mr. Anderson that if he lived in a " railway district" he would know, from the number of copies asked for, that very large interest was taken in the list. The Minister for Railways (the Hon. W. H. Herries) said that about 2000 copies of the list were printed each year. The House of Representatives declined to add to the Washing-up Bill a clause moved in the early hours of one mornirg last week by Mr. D. Buick (Palmerston), exempting the Manawatu and West Coast Agricultural and Pastoral Association's showgrounds at Palmerston North from payment of rates. Members protested against a single A. and P. Association being favoured in this way. A large number of German vessels, which were interned at various ports, have been released by the Imperial authorities, and are now doing useful duty as British merchantmen. The A and A line have secured six of these vessels, and the following steamers will shortly load at New York for New Zealand ports, coming via the Panama Canal :—Parattah (ex Berlin), Conargo (ex Altona), Toromeo (ex Tibernious), Talawa (ex Wotan), Araluen (ex Scharz- j fels), and Dongarra (ex Stokenfels). The first meeting of creditors in the i estate of William Coleman, deceased, ' which has been placed in the hands of the official assignee, Mr. W. S. Fisher, for '• administration, has been fixed for Friday morning next. The meeting will be held at the assignee's office in the Government Buildings, Customs Street West. The following was the state of His Majesty's prison, Auckland, for the week ending October 9:— remand, 1 maleawaiting trial, 7 males, 1 female; sentenced to life, 6 males; hard labour,-197 males, 12 females; imprisonment, 1 male; ceived during the week, 13 males, 4 females; discharged, 23 males, 4 females ; total in prison, 212 males, 13 females. A record haul of 13 tons of fish was landed by the trawler Countess yesterday. The catch consisted of schnapper, teraMhi', frost fish, baracouta, trevalli, and gurnet.

A woman, who applied for a pass to the Wellington Wharf on the occasion of a recent military event, was asked: " Are you next-of-kin to a soldier in the reinforcements?" She answered: "Yes, I have only one left. 1 had eight boys, I am now a widow, seven of my boys have already gone, four are killed, three are wounded, and now I am sending my last. I only need one pass, there is only me." A returned New Zealander, Mr. J. B. Reid, of Elderslie, South Canterbury, states that the people of this Dominion cannot be sufficiently grateful to Lord and Lady Plunket for all that they have done for the wounded New Zealand soldiers now in England. In order to live close to the hospital provided by the New Zealand War Contingent's "Association at Walton-on-Thames, Lord and Lady Plunket have given up their home in London, and Miss Plunket, the exGovernor's sister, and his daughters are doing servants' work in the hospital. Lady Plunket is a daily visitor, and Lord Plunket divides his time between his town office and the hospital. The New Zealand ladies who are giving their services at the hospital are doing excellent work, and motor-cars and other vehicles are constantly placed at the service of the convalescents. A fair amount of closer settlement will take place here shortly, reports the Takapau correspondent of the Hawke's Bay Herald. The Tangarewa estate (700 acres) is to be cut up into 31 farms, and offered for sale this month. Mr. Sydney Johnston is cutting up 5000 acres of Oruawharo, which will be sold in suitable sized farms in November. Several thousand acres of the Otawhao Block is to be opened up early next year. Taken altogether it is evident that a considerable acreage, and that of the right kind of land for close settlement, will be almost immediately available. Daring one of the recent air raids on the East Coast of England, a -well-known surgeon was performing the operation of tracheotomy at a nursing home when the German aircraft came over the place at night. The town electric current was at once cut off. All the lights went out sud- ! denly at the very moment when the surgeon was opening the windpipe. Fortunately, says the Lancet, it was not the first attack delivered against this place, a fishing and sea-bathing resort. Taught ■by experience the operator had made it a matter of habit to warn his nurses and other assistants that lamps should bo kept ready for use during all operations which had to be undertaken at night. This precaution may have saved the small patient's life. With but a trifling delay the tracheotomy was completed and the child is now doing well. It is not often that the Supreme Court is called upon to grant probate upon the last will and testament of men alive and well, yet such an application was made by Mr. C. E. Salter, solicitor, and granted by Mr. Justice Sim in the Supreme Court, in Christchurch, last month. The man for ■whom this particular experience has been reserved in Private B. R. D. Turner, of the Canterbury section of the main Expeditionary Force. On August 7 word was received that Private Turner had been killed in action at the Dardanelles. In due course Mr. Salter was instructed by the executor to apply to the Supreme Court for probate of the soldier's win. The order was made on September 25. On September 30 a cable was received from the Base Records Office, stating that conflicting reports regarding Private Turner were being received, and suggesting that further action regarding the will should be suspended. Probate, however, had been granted as stated. On Thursday further cable advice was received to. the effect that Private Turner was reported as having entered a hospital on September 8, Buffering from enteritis.

The president of the Wellington District Law Society, Mr. H. F. von Haast, has addressed a circular to the members of the legal profession in Wellington, in which he says :—" The Defence Department requires a body of from twenty to thirty volunteers to give it gratuitous assistance in the compilation of its records, and to work a shift from 2 to 5 p.m. every afternoon except Saturday, for about three weeks. Other bodies are arranging for the morning and niglct shifts. As president of the Law Society, I have undertaken to give my services as a supervisor and to find from the ranks of the profession and their friends the requisite number of helpers. The nature of the work is assistance in the changing of the record system of the Defence Department with a view to the speedier notification of casualties so that in doing this you will be rendering practical service to the country, and in particular to those who have relatives fighting for us.'' An illustration of the manner in which German goods are being disposed of under the pretence that they are British, was afforded in Dunedin last week. A woman desired to purchase a card of dress studs, ■which are commonly known as "domes." She was assured by the shop assistant that those which were offered to her were of British manufacture— in fact, there were none but the British make in the market. She purchased a card, and on returning home she compared it with a card of German manufacture which she had previously purchased. She discovered that the cards were, in fact, originally identical, but that the card she had most recently purchased had had both the top, which bore no distinctively German mark upon it, and a small portion at the bottom, upon which were printed the words " Made in Germany." carefully cut off by means of a sharp knife or scissors. To add insult to injury, as it were, she had to pay- for the card of German " domes" twice as much, she subsequently found as a card of British " domes'' of the same size would cost her. In an address to the Christchurch Philosophical Institute last week, Dr. Hilgendorf, mentioned that the opening of the Dardanelles would liberate the huge reserves of wheat now stored up in Russia, and that the flooding of the English market with this wheat would probably reduce wheat to the pre-war rate of 4s per busheL That, he said, would mean that exportable wheat in New Zealand would fall to about 5s per bushel or 2s below present prices. Estimating next season's yield at 10,000,000 bushels and the exportable surplus at 3,000,000 bushels the opening of the Dardanelles: would mean a loss to farmers of £1,000,000 and to the country as a whole a loss of £300,0000 of outside money. We were fighting our receipts by those amounts, and that we were doin<* so was he considered, a very fine thing to contemplate. In its memorandum to the Inangahua Mine and Dredge Employees' Award, the Arbitration Court makes an interesting pronouncement :— The Court has not made provision for the employment of youths as requested by the employers. These youths, to be suitable for the work, it was stated, would require to be between 19 and 21 years of age, and be strong and active. The Court does not think it should offer any inducement to youths of this description to stay at home and follow the inglorious occupation of raking stones down a shute when a nobler career is open to them in the service of their King and Country."