NEWS OF THE DAY

New Zealand Times, Volume XLIV, Issue 10207, 18 February 1919, Page 4

NEWS OF THE DAY

The Base Records Office is advised that returning soldiers ex Nestor will arrive at Auckland m the Mamari on Wednesday evening.

“The deposed German War Lords,” says the ‘‘lllustrated World,” “were expert trainers of animals and men. They were not content, however, to let their men slaves do the fighting, but drafted soldiers from the animals as well. An educated monkey was trained for service in the field. His work was throwing hand-grenades, and he did a lot of damage in the Allied trenches. With an armful of grenades he would slip across ‘No Man's Land’ at night, and follow the instructions of his masters. One night he was captured and taken to headquarters, screariiing ‘Kamerad’ in the monkey language.” A photograph shows him in an automobile wtih the French, his captors.

The revenue of the City Council’s electric light department for the ten months from April Ist to January 31st amounted to £78,257 —an increase of £5208, compared with the same period in 1917-18. The working expenses were £39,974, which was an increase of £6523. Capital charges remained the same, but the credit balances showed a reduction of £315, and now stand at £24,283. ’ The number of units sold was 4,788,640, as against 4,332,030 last year, the increase being 456,610 units. The figures for the month of January last show decreases all round as follow : —Revenue, £334; working expenses, £B3; credit balance, £251; units sold, 15,627.

Tho following letter has been sent to Sir James Allen, Defence Minister, by Mr F. T. Moore:—“On each of the four separate occasions that Lieutenant Frank Moore (No. 11/625, Main Expeditionary Force) was wounded you expressed in lengthy , telegrams much sympathy and hope for his recovery in every instance Now that he has survived all these ordeals and two attacks of malarial fever and wishes to be allowed to visit England before returning to New Zealand, can I appeal to you to remember all that he has suffered in the past long years of active service, and invoke your special intervention to see that his most reasonable request is granted? Surely, New Zealand can afford to alloiv soldiers who have endured the agony of wounds and horrors of Asiatic diseases to see something more of this world than Gallipoli’s barren hills, Egypt’s torrid sands, and Palestine’s fever-stricken zones.”

Johannes Meertens, a man fifty-four years of age, was brought before Mr Justice Edwards in the * Supreme Coura yesterday to be sentenced on a charge of having connection with a girl under sixteen years of age at vVangaehu. Tho prisoner had pleaded guilty at Wanganui under extenuating circumstances, the girl Having gone to the prisoner’s house at midnight after committing a theft. She subsequently paid other visits to the house. Mr \Villis, for the prisoner, urged that tho girl was evidently/ ot loose habits, and Meertens had previously born© a good , character, bh© had communicated to him a contagious disease. His Honour remarked that there were cases in which some girls became vicious before they reached the ago of sixteen. In the present instance the prisoner had not wronged a perfectly innocent girl, but still he had committed a breach of the law, and must pay the penalty. A sentence of one year’s imprisonment was inflicted. 1 '

A maintenance case of an unusual character came before Mr F. V. Frazer, S.M., yesterday, when Gertrude Bird claimed maintenance from her husband, William 1 John Bird, , The parties had been married for a number of years when the husband introduced a boarder to bis homo. Some time later husband and wife had a disagreement, and the husband demanded that his wife should get rid of the boarder, and also her mother, who lived in the house. The requset was refused, whereupon the husband said ho would sell up the home, The boarder offered £2O tor the furniture, and the husband accepted the money. His wife then packed up his apparel, and Bird left the premises after making his wife a present of £2. The magistrate said he had never previously heard of a similar case, and it appeared to him as if the £2O purchased the whole outfit. If the husband had suspicions regarding the relationship of his wife and the boarder, why he did not turn him out was a mystery to the court.

A Persian rug that predicted the world-war and Allied victory is the subject of one ot the photographic reproductions in the current number of the “Illustrated World.” The rug, which is to be in the possession ot Khan Pera, collector of antiquities, New York City, was .made eighteen years ago. “Its maker,” we .are told, “was a Persian who dreamed the events which are now history. They thought him crazy when he wove the story of his dream into a rug. A Turkish Governor heard about it, had the rug-maker prophet neatly murdered and the rug stolen. A Syrian merchant got it from the Turk in trade for a facsimile of a prayer rug, the original of which the Turk wanted. From Prince Yussipoff, the alleged murderer of the Monk Rasputin, it was purchased by Khan Pera. According to the legend in the rug, it is ‘The Dying Tree of the Ottoman Empire.’ The Sultan is sitting on the limb, which is being cut off by Germany. The English Fleet is entering the Dardanelles,_ while a figure representing France is chasing Austria and the Huns.”

A divorce case came before Mi Justice Edwards yesterday in which tho petitioner was Amelia Wilson and tho respondent Thomas Henry Wilson., Mr H. F. O’Leary appeared for the petitioner, and Mr P. W. Jackson for the respondent Mr O’Leary explained that tho circumstances haring disclosed that it was the petitioner who had deserted the respondent, it desired to withdraw this original petition and go on with a counter-petition, which would bo undefended. Evidence was then called in tho secona case. Wilson stated that he was a returned soldier, and was married on October 9th, 1909. Shortly afterwards his wife took jirooeedings m tho Magistrate’s Court for maintenance, desertion, and cruelty. The case was dismissed, the magistrate telling her to go hack to her husband. _ She neglected to do so, although petitioner had frequently asked her. Two days before ho went to tho front ho saw her at Newtown Park, and sho declined to have any more to do with him. The mother of the petitioner gave corroborative testimony. A decree .nisi was granted, to bo made absolute in three months.

The members of the Chinese Mission and friends have given, through, the missioners, Mr Law and Mrs Wong, the sum of £176 17s towards the Anglican Cathedral Fund.

The annual sketch exhibition of the New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts will be held shortly after the Easter holidays. At a meeting of the Academy Council last evening, the opening date of the exhibition was fixed for Saturday, May 3rd.

“What time on Sunday was it that the accused was arrested?” asked Mr F. V. Frazer, S.M., yesterday when an inebriate was before the court. SubInspector Emerson said that it was after 1 o’clock in the day. “I suppose it is no use asking you where you got the liquor,” inquired the magistrate of the accused. “No, sir. ,1 did not get up before 10 o’clock, and started drinking right away,” replied the defendant.

“I have been thinking over ‘Sunday drunks,’ and I think that men who are found drunk on Sunday morning after 10 o’clock should be charged double rates. I have taken into account that a man may be recovering from a previous evening’s drunk, but by making it 10. o’clock on Sunday it will give him time to get over it.” So said Mr F. V. Frazer, S.M., yesterday when two men were before the court for being found drunk on Sunday.

The Hon. W. H. Herries, Minister for Railways, met in conference yesterday the delegates of the Railway Officers’ Institute, who submitted to him their proposed scheme of salaries. The matter was fully discussed with the Minister, Mr E. Hiley, General Manager, and Mr MoVilly, Assistant General Manager. The Minister is to meet the representatives of the A.S.R.S. on Thursday next, and afterwards will prepare the new schedule of W'ages and submit them to the various railway societies.

Mr P. Fraser, M.P., and Mrs Beck spoke at a Labour meeting lield at Ngaio last night. Mr Fleming, chairman of the \ Ngaio branch of the Labour party, presided. Mrs Beck spoke bn the education question, and opposed the proposals of Sir James Allen in regard to military training. She also dealt with the social and democratic status of women. Mr Fraser dealt with the fundamental principles of the Labour movement, and referred to the questions of secret diplomacy, .the reduction of armaments and the League of Nations. There was a large attendance, and the speakers received a good hearing.

A member of the Canterbury Repatriation Board, speaking to a Christchurch “Press” representative, said there . were one or two matters concerning the boards which the public should know. There were, he saia, forty-five of these boards in the Dominion, with an average membership of at least ten. These members draw a guinea each for every sitting, and the boards could- sit as often as they liked. Thus every time the boards sat it cost the country £450, and the total cost for a year could be imagined. Furthermore, the boards possessed no executive functions; they were simply advisory boards to the Repatriation Officer. The pressman’s informant expressed the opinion that the members of Parliament should form the Repatriation Boards, and do this work during the, Parliamentary recess without additional reward to their honorarium. These persons had. the time to spare for the work, and the country would be put to no extra expense.

“To show you what trouble w© had in America during the war,” said Mr James R. Waters, the “Abe Potash” of “Potash and Perimutter,” “Business Before Pleasure,” to a- “Times” representative the other day, "you would see in a theatre in a front row fifteen different nationalities watching the show—English, Americans, Italian, French, German, Dutch, Spanish, and others, the whole ‘melting-pot' there. And when this show, ‘Friendly Enemies’ was given for the first time in Now Yorh, after the second act, where I convert Mr Adams, ‘Perimutter,’ from a pro-Kaiser German into a pro-AIIy, the German fellows went right up and . said to the French and the American fellows: ‘Well, I think we had better have a drink together.’ , That shows the impression the play made on those real Germans. Previously they had been for the Kaiser and the Fatherland, but after they saw the play they realised the real facts of the position, and could stand for it no longer. The, conversion takes place because the son of this real German, unknown to his father, enlists voluntarily with the American troops; and the old man discovers that a spy, to whoso funds for helping the German cause ho has just donated 60,000 dollars, has spent a , portion of the money on mining tjie transport which is talcing hiji son to Franco, and the son is supposed to have perished. This causes a big revulsion of feeling, and makes the father .a strong pro-Ally. He himself then calls tho Germans ‘Huns.’ ” From the conversion onwards, the interest in the‘plot is said to he very intense. “Mr Adams and I were to have been in Now Zealand years ago,” said Mr James R. Waters, “Abe Potash,” in the course of a conversation with a “Times” reporter recently, “but we were touring England with ‘Potash and Perimutter,’ and met with such a huge success that we were unable to get away. W© played in England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales for 112 weeks in all; and that big run, with one or two brief holiday trips to America in between, extended over three years! bringing us right up to 1918. We saw lots of air raids in Edinburgh, Hull, Newcastle-on-Tyne, etc., and several of them did a great deal of damage. As fate would have it, wo left Liverpool on May Bth, 1915, our steamer being the first to leave for America after the torpedoing of the Lusitania. We passed the wreckage of the vessel, which had gone down the day before. We saw a lot of little boats and dead bodies floating about; and the last thing wo saw —a most pathetic sight—was a little boat with two oars in the rowlocks, the oars rising and falling with the swell as if to emphasise the fact that there was no one to use them. While in England wo gave ‘Potash and Perimutter’ in tho parlour of Sir Alfred Mond’s fine homo for convalescent soldiers. Lady Mond gave us all the curtains'’and the tables, and wo made a grandstand for the soldiers; and in the hack parlour wo acted the play. We had no scenery, but they put up big signs—‘This is tho home of Perimutter.’ ‘This is the factory of Potash,’ ‘This is the' new premises of Potash and Perimutter’— quite in tho old Shakespearean stylo in the golden days of Queen Elizabeth. Sir Alfred and Lady Mond treated us all most kindly, and tho soldiers seemed to greatly, enjoy the play.”

A man named William Crawford had his leg broken yesterday while engaged at excavating at St. Winifred’s Hospital at Lower Hutt. He was removed to the public hospital. Crawford is 50 years of age and lives at Nai Nai, Lower Hutt.

At a meeting of the council of the New Zealand Academy .of Fine Arts yesterday evening, the suggested scheme of ,a National Art Gallery as a great memorial of New Zealand’s "part in the great war was dealt with. A sub-committee w r as appointed to arrange the preliminaries in connection with the campaign which it is proposed to organise at the earliest possible date.

A trio who visited Wanganui on Wed nesdny (says the “Wanganui Chronicle”) had an experience they are not likely to forget. Their business in town completed they set out for their homes in Palmerston, late in the afternoon. Their motor flew along in fine style until the Turakina hill was reached. There it came to a stop, and not all the combined mechanical knowledge which the passengers had imbibed in Wanganui during the day could induce the car to go either forward or backward. After evening had fallen on the quiet scene, the party telephoned for relief, and the broken-down car was towed back to Wanganui. Arrived there, a motor mender got to work, but when, just at midnight, he found that something was still wrong with the works, he declared in language as polite as the circumstances warranted, that ho would work no more till next day. The party, who had waited patiently for the car, had no option but to seek hotel accommodation. However, Desert Gold and Gloaming were too much for them, the hotels being full of visitors waiting to go to Haw era in the morning. Being quiet, retiring mortals, they did not worry friends, or inquire for a bed in a printing house. Instead, like,-many others less favoured than themselves, they sought the pine mattressed solitude of Queen’s Park, and there they slumbered till daybreak.