VERY HAPPY VILLAGE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21643, 13 May 1932, Page 8

VERY HAPPY VILLAGE

HOLIDAY FROM GOVERNMENT NO COUNCIL AND NO RATES. The Oxfordshire village of Standlako is having a holiday from local government. It has refused to elect a parish council and has done without one for almost a year. The happy result haa been that no parish rate has been asked for or paid and that villagers are getting their allotments rent free, for no one haa any authority to collect rents. Local charity trusts are affected by this state of affairs and the parish has now no representative among the school managers. In March of last year there , was so little interest in parochial affairs that the number of villagers who attended the parish meeting wag apparently insufficient for the purpose of electing councillors. “ There is plenty of talk in Standlake about the situation,” said a former parish councillor when interviewed, “ but a complete deadlock has occurred. It is the duty of the clerk of the parish council to call the parish meeting, but the former clerk’s term of office having expired there is no one with authority to call such ,a, meeting. . “There is no interest in parish affairs. The people could have a parish council to-night if they wanted one, but nobody cares. Yet when the charities are distributed at Easter and Christmas—3s (Id, and two loaves to each of about 09 people—the room is crowded.” A member of the county council stated that some of the residents had signed at petition asking the county council to take action, and it is likely ' that a county councillor will be appointed to call a parish meeting. The theory on which local government, or, indeed, .representative government, is based is that electors will consider it worth while to have representatives. Standlake has flouted this basic assumption and has'made local government acts look silly by simply ignoring them.

The old belief that women are the reckless sex in the matter of their stated ages, is discountenanced in the face of inquiries pursued by inquisitive officials of the Canadian Bureau, of Statistics on the basis of census returns. Their con: elusions are that both men and' women are more than a little careless in the matter. It was discovered that tho. dangerous age for female veracity is in the early forties, when women are apt to forget a few years. It was discovered also that men under-state and over-state indifferently up to CO years, and then are inclined to exaggerate their ages. In the records of the bureau are details of inquiries into the cases of 45 women and 37 men reported in the census ot 1871 as centenarians. It was discovered that three of the women had given their correct ages, but not one man—although three men were older than the years they reported. One man added 31 years, to his actual age, another 30 years, and the greatest exaggeration by a woman was 22 years.