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Otago Witness, Issue 3274, 13 December 1916, Page 3

In the Supremo Court at Wanganui on the 2nd, Mr Justice Edwards upheld the appeal of George Swan, licensee of Chevannes' Hotel, who was convicted on a charge of. permitting shouting, the chief ground of the conviction being that ha had failed to place notices in bars. The judge held that it was unnecessary to place notices in the bar, provided the licensee* warned their employees find conformed strictly to the regulations, as Swan had done. Mr Justice Edwards expressed th« opinion that the barmaid had also been wrongly convicted, and steps could be takea to nullify her conviction.

Probably the largest bridge that has tku< far suffered destruction in the European war is the great cantilever bridge at Cernavoda, Rumania, which was wrecked by th« retreating Rumanian army on October 26. The bridgo was completed 20 years ago, and was the longest span cantilever bridga in Continental Europe. It was built by tna Rumanian Government, and nearly hva years and a-half were occupied in its construction. The total length is about tw<J miles and a-half, and the construction of the bridge was attended with unusual difficulties, as it was necessary to sink tha caissons for the river piers to solid rock to a depth of 100 feet below water level. The total cost of the bridge and approaches was about £1,250,000.

A paper was read before the Hawke's Bay division of the British Medical Association on Thursday, November 30, dealing with the decreasing birth-rate in Europe, and even in New Zealand, and the prevalence o{ abortion. The following extract is published by the Hawke's Bay. Herald: —"X believe," said the speaker, "that 20 pet cent, of all legitimate pregnancies in Ha-sb-ings are being criminally interfered with« I do not refer to preventivo measures, whick are rife, but I do refer to the terribly prevalent and criminal habit of married women either interfering with themselves or being interfered with. The srbject is grave, ar<{ calls for jusi as clear speaking as docs the 'social evil.' I have had ample apporiuaity of gauging the extent of the evil in my practice. I know of fatal cases resulting from abortioning in which one was powerless to bring it home to thG criminal party, and in which both doctor and nursing homo to which he took tho case, got the blame for malpractice."

At a mooting of tho Forbury Talk Treating Club Committee last week it was decided to vote £250 to the Red Crosa S'ocieiy out of the profits of last week's meeting.

A meeting of tho executive of the Otsgtf Employers' Association was held on Wcdnea day afternoon to consider tho questioa whether any statement should be made publio concerning the employers' connection with tho recent drivers' dispute. It was decided, however, not to make any statement. What actually happened at the conference in Wellington between the Minister of Labour, tho representatives of the en> ployers, adid tho representatives of tho Carters' Unions is now fairly common pro-, porty. It is said at one timo no fewerthan four Ministers were present, and thaft they finally forced the employers to con» cede the demands of tho men at the point of tho pistol, as it were, threatening, among other things, that if tho demands were not granted the Government would commandeer the carters' plants. The disput* was at last handed over to th& Cabinet—or taken over by S, would probably ba tho better way to describ© it—from both tho employees and tho employees. The' employers prcsumabqly intend to let it ba known, some tima or other, that they had no alternnfivc* in their own interests but to throw- r!i responsibility of settling the dispute on tile Government. An employer stated to one of our reporters last week, with a sardonio smile, that he did not think ho waa less patriotic than other people* but that ha considered it was adding in<-

suit to injury when it v.'as stated in a Press Association message from Wellington that Mr Hemes bad said that "the action of the master drivers, largely, he believed, through patriotio motives, in agreeing to an increase in wages to their employees when they might havo stood pat on tho award of the Arbitration Court was greatly to bo commended."

A very old Tokomairiro resident, Mr Thomas Babbit, 80 years of age, met with a serious accident at Akatore on Wednesday afternoon. He fell from the cart in which he was riding, and was picked up on tho road by Mr John Gordon, who took him to Milton. He was attended to there by Dr Sutherland, and was afterwards motored in to tho Dunedin Hospital, where he was admitted at 9.30 p.m. Babbit was found to bo suffering from a broken collarbone and other injuries. Ho is a bachelor, and is not known to have any relatives.

Tt is the intention of tho military authorities (says the New Zealand Times! to grant extended leave at Christmas to all officers and men in camp. The authorities are making the necessary transport arrangements, and full instructions will be issued as to when and how the men are to return to camp.

The Board of Trade has investigating for some days the recent rapid rise in the price of flour, and it is understood (says our Wellington correspondent) that tho Minister has an important announcement to make on the subject almost immediately.

A Press Association telegram from Greymouth states that, on behalf of the Labour organisations, Mr G. R. Hunter, of Runanga, applied to the council for the use of the band rotunda for a demonstration on Saturday afternoon. The council refused unanimously, on the motion of the Mayor (Mr Perkins), to allow the applicants the use of cither the rotunda or any of tho streets. The Mayor said that in view of tho war regulations the council could not entertain for a minute such an application.

A Press Association message from Wellington states that the arrivals in New Zealand from oversea during November numbered 1953, and the departures 1199, as against 2531 and 1558 respectively in tho nrevious November.

At Kaitangata on the 7th inst., before Mr Young, S.M., Robert Statham was charged with selling licpior and keeping liquor for sale in a no-licenso district. Sub-ii.spector Broberg prosecuted, and Mr Irwin defended. After the evidence of the police had been heard, the further hearing of the case was, owing to the absence of a witness, adjourned until the 20th inst., at Duncdin.

Tho Minister of Defence has forwarded to the hon. secretary of the Hokitika branch of the Overseas Club the souvenir shell received from Lieutenant T. E. Y. Seddon. " I shall adviso Lieutenant Seddon,"' he says, "of your application, and of the action taken and am sure that it will meet with his approbation." The shell will be placed in the Westland Soldiers' Club room (says the West Coast Times). Originally it was an urexploded German shell picked up on the Somme battlefield, having failed to explode among the New Zealand Brigade, with which Lieutenant Seddon was associated.

A summary of war loan certificates sold to November 30 is as under:—Auckland, £142,085 16s; Blenheim, £19,226 Ss; Christchurch, £155.211 4s i Dunedin, £lsl 783 4s; Gisborne, £22,596 16s; Greymouth, £18,021 12s; Hokitika, £8356 16s; Inwrcargill, £61,604 8s; Napier, £59,386 8s; Nelson, £36,353 8s; New Plymouth, £43.843 4s; Oamaru, £15,943 4s; Thames, £16,753 12s; Timaru, £41.072 16s; Wanganui, £53,016 16s; Wellington, £267,912 6s; We-stport, £11,790 Bs;—total, £1,133,953 6s. The first section of the Twentieth Reinforcements was addressed by Colonel C. M. Gibbon, 1.G.5., Chief of the General Staff, at Trentham on Monday. The Chief of Staff said he was very well satisfied with the result of thu march of the infantry over tho hill and tho outpost work engaged in en route was, on the whole, fairly good. The musketry of tho four companies was above the average, and that of C Company wa3 very good indeed. He urged them to strivo still further after discipline and efficiency. "Our troops," ho said, 'have won a high reputation at tho front. This has not been made up by press correspondents

for readers in this country. It has been published in orders in France, and the New Zcalanders are as good as any there. There are about 4,000,000 soldiers in France — several times the population of this dominion. A single division is a very small body. It has to do extremely well to attract attention, and the New Zealand troops have done that."

! "We notice that the Imperial Government is giving us wool-growers a big advance on pre-war rates. That extra money does not belong to us, but to the boys who are fighting for us." An expression of this sentiment, together with a cheque for £IOOO, has been forwarded to Mr 15. C. Brownell, national secretary of the Young Men's Christian Association, by a well-known family of wool-growers in response to the appeal for funds for the purchase of comforts for the soldiers at the front. The writers (says ! the Wellington Post) ask the Y.M.C.A. to ! distribute the money in the shape of com- ' forts as it has been doing in the past. " The cheque represents our estimated war 1 profits on wool this year," the writers conelude, " and we hope there will be a further ■ sum available for you after the sale of the clip."

i While on his South Polar trip Sir Ernest ! Shaeklcton went for 10 months and a-half without changing his clothes, and never had a bath. Ho recounted the fact during his lecture in Wellington on Monday evening, and remarked that when he had made a similar intimation before foreign audiences in South America., they had received the .' statement with calm indifference. A (Mr one meeting he spoke to the chairman about tho matter, and that gentleman replied: " It's nothing to toll them you went 10 months and a-half without a bath, but if you had told them you had a bath every day for 10 months and a-half they wouldn't have believed you."

In the course of a letter addressed to tho Otago Hospital and Charitable Aid Board relative to the matter of proposed structural alterations at the Nurses' Home, the Minister of Public Health (the Hon. G. W. Russell) stated that he had decided to make other arrangements in respect to the bursaries. Therefore, so far as the department was concerned, there was no need for the board to furnish tho rooms for the students or to make any structural alterations.

In its report to be submitted to the next meeting of the Otago Hospital and Charitable Aid Board the Finance Committee recommends that the request of the Patriotic Association for the free admission of soldiers' wives to the Batehelor Maternity Hospital be approved.

In the Kaitangata Court on the 7th inst., before Mr H. A. Young, S.M., Constable Martin prosecuted himself on a charge of riding his bicycle without a light at Stirling in October. He explained that he left home at 2.30 p.m. on his bicycle on police work in Inchclutha, expecting to catch the train at Stirling, but his bicycle chain broke, and the repairing of it delayed him considerably. As it was necessary that ho should be in Kaitangata, he was compelled to ride his machine. It was not dark, although, as the by-law said "sunset to sunrise," it was a breach, but only a technical one. lie wag, convicted and discharged.

Sir Ernest Shackleton has mentioned a number of what some would call "lucky coincidences," and others "providential happenings," which occurred in the course of his recent stirring adventures in Antarctica. One of these took place when they landed after the hurricane on the coast of South Georgia. The bumping of their tiny craft a 22ft whalcboat—on the shore dislodged the rudder, and it floated out to sea. The next day, and the ncxt.thc bay was frozen over; but on the third day there came a thaw, and then they saw something bobbing about in the water. They found it was their rudder. "With all the wide Southern Ocean to choose from," said Sir Ernest, "it had come back to us there." Then, when they' were crossing the glaciers in their ■journey over South Georgia to Stromness Bay with huge crevasses to either side of them, the path of tho moonlight just illuminated the best path for them to tread; and, as the moon rose on through the night, and tho path of the moonlightchanged its direction, it still lighted up just tho course that they had to follow. Again, the whaler from Stromness Bay, the trawler from Uruguay, and tho 70-ton Chilian schooner were prevented by the thick ice- from getting to Elephant Island

to rescue his 22 comrades. None of the vessels was sufficiently stoutly built to venture through the heavy ice. Some said that the ice would never open up and let them through, but when they tried again, in the Chilian steamer Yelcho, the ice did open up. The ice had been all round the island only two days before they reached it, but on the day they got there the ico had gone, and they were able to approach the island and rescue their comrades.

An unique case, in which creditors, after waiting for a period of 15 years, are to bo rewarded with a first and final payment of 20s in the £, is reported by Mr S. Tansley, Official Assignee in Wellington. Many years ago Mr Joseph D. Tustin carried on business in Wellington as a painter and paperhanger, but in April, 1901, was compelled to seek the protection of the Bankruptcy Court. The novel idea of taking out an insurance policy on Mr Tustin's life was suggested by the creditors. A policy for £SOO was thereupon taken out. and this matured on November 1 last, enabling Mr Taneley to make the pleasing announcement that a dividend of 20s in the £ in the estate was payable. Mr Tustin is now in business in Gisborae.

"Wonderful changes have taken place in the United States since my last visit there 23 years ago," stated Mr G. M. Yerex, who returned to Wellington on the 2nd, when speaking to a Post reporter. The changes, he continued, were both political and social, and more particularly the latter. Matters dealing with the general health of the people received considerable attention. Gambling had practically been done away with throughout the States, and with it had gone horse racing. Gambling and horse racing had been diverted 'to a Mexican border town, where there was stabling accommodation for 700 or 800 horses, and race meetings extending over 100 clays at least were held. Fortunes were made (and lost) in a few hours. Roulette tables and bull fights all helped to attract crowds, and thus free the States from a certain undesirable element. The social evil had been grappled with, and reform was continuing with the greatest success. Even the " Red Light" district in San Francisco was now a thing of the past. Twenty-four out of forty-eight States, or 60 per cent, of the population, were now under prohibition laws, and woman suffrage, judging by the present rate of progress, would soon be universal The press generally had assumed a more serious tone. It was less inclined towards sensationalism and scandal—less frivolous than it over had been .before. The States were now enjoying a wonderful prosperity.

It is now definitely settled that the hospi- ' tal ship Maheno will make Auckland her I first port of call on her approaching visit ! to New Zealand, and will then successively . call at Wellington, Lyttelton, and Port I Chalmers. Silo will, we understand, be re- ! conditioned at Port Chalmers, where the : appliances arc superior to those of any other • port in the dominion, and thereafter will I proceed to Lyttelton, which will be her port ■of departure. The coal strike in Australia j caused the Maheno to be delayed in Western Australia, where she had to fill her bunkers, ' and it was not until Friday last that she I was able to leave Albany. It may be ! reckoned that the voyage from Albany to Auckland will occupy about 10 days.

The Otago Hospital and Charitable Aid Board lias decided to continue free treatment to voluntary recruits received into the Hospital for operations necessary to fit them for active service, but in the ease of men who come into the institution for operations under the conditions of the Military Service Act, the charge for maintenance is to be made against the Government.

A journey along the coast from Green Island to Taieri Mouth at the present tunc is most enjoyable, and the road is in fair trim for motoring. On the slopes of Saddle Hill, and in the country south of this landmark, many very promising crops arc to bo seen, and stock is in good condition. The lupins, which are becoming quite plentiful on the sandhills, are flowering in a variety of colours, and the cabbage trees and flax are covered with bloom. It is asserted bysome that such a wealth of bloom has not ueen seen for years on the cabbage trees. The Christmas party on Saturday afternoon to the children, wives, and other relatives of Dunedin soldiers, which was arranged for by the Women's Patriotic Association and the Otago Soldiers and Dependents' Welfare Committee, proved an eminently enjoyable entertainment. Provision had been made for entertaining over 1000 children and their mothers, and there must have been between 600 and 700 children present and 500 or 4CO elders. The party was treated first to a programme of kinematograph pictures, lent by llayward's Pictures (Ltd.), in His Majesty's Theatre, added enjoyment being lent by music supplied by the High Street School Band. Then those in the stalls and pit were taken into the Puller Hall, the rest of the party remainins in the theatre and watching more pictures being screened, in the Fuller Hall—the theatre and tnnexes were lent free of charge —a large crowd of willing, smiling attendants saw that every one got a scat at the long tables laden with such cakes, fruit, etc., as could not fail to make an instant appeal to the appetites of the youngsters. After sufficient time had been allowed for a hearty meal the party made another journey—to the skating rink in the Prydone Hall. Here were four huge Christmas trees, presided over by Santa Claus—a real live fairy. Santa Claus fully realised the great importance of the occasion, and after solemnly presenting his Worship the Mayor (Mr Clark) with a sword and belt, taken from the tree, he had a busy time with hii

many assistants in seeing that every little one received his or her Christmas present. The party then filed off down the stairs, and each one received another present—a bag of sweets and a small bunch of flowers. In the meantime the many attendants had been busy tidying up the Fuller Hall and relaying the tables. Then the second half of the party camo in from the theatre, and also had a good "tuck in." A visit to the Christmas trees followed, and the handing round of lollies, etc., The High Street School Band provided further music in the skating rink. The children had, indeed, a very happy day.

The Methodist Times considers that it can hardly be said that the Presbyterian General Assembly covered itself with glory in its treatment of the question of Church union. The policy of re-action has, it Bays, been triumphant; the question that in most other countries in Christendom ranks as being of urgent importance has in the Supreme Court of New Zealand Presbyterianism met with the ignominious fate of being shelved by carrying the previous question. The Methodist Times does not believe, however, that the dictum that has been recorded by the vote of the Assembly .will meet with anything like universal approval among New Zealand Presbyterians There arc many, it thinks, who will regard it as a vote not to be proud of from any point of view.

An important new scheme for tho improvement of the Grcymouth Harbour is at present under consideration by tho board. At the November meeting tho engineer was asked to confer with Captain Cox (the harbour master) and report on the cost and feasibility of the suggested scheme of deviating the river from its present course., to a course in a direct line between Cobdcn bridge and the entrance to the harbour. Captain Cox has already outlined a scheme, which will be considered along with tho engineer's report at next meeting of tho board. The leading feature of the scheme is to divert the present course of tho river to a straight channel from tho gorge to between the tip-heads. Tho advantage would be to convert the river course into a tidal compartment or dook, making it possible to use 3000 ft of wharf, with ample standago room. On a modest estimation this would give 3ft more depth on bar, and make tho port workable when, under present conditions, it would bo unworkable. An additional 3ft working draught would enable a modern cargo steamer to take a load of 4000 tons or over. Tho new river course would have to bo dredged fully 100 ft wide and sufficient for the dredge to float. Tho scour would soon clear away the full width and maintain itself to a certain depth.

If the moss sent to Professor Hilgendorf at the Lincoln College proves to be tho game as that used in the hospitals in England, tho West Coast of the South Island should be able to provide an unending supply (says the Christchurch Press). There aro tablelands —marshy tablelands.—on tho Coast which seem to grow nothing but this moss. Like tho sphagnum, it is very green when wet and living, and when dry is a huge mass of white covering the ground. Tho text-books etato it is widely distributed over tho earth's surface, being found in largo quantities in tho Arctic regions, where it is a food for reindeer. It is also found on mountains, especially where there is any moisture.

The Minister of Agriculture (the Hon. W. D. IS. MacDonald) proposes to hold a conference of wheat-growers this week at Ohristchurch with the Board of Trade, under his presidency, in conjunction with the Board of Agriculture, with a view to discussing a scheme to encourage wheat-growing in New Zealand for tho period of the war and ono season after. Tho selection of four representative wheat-growers has been left in tho hands of Mr G. Witty, M.P. The Minister suggests next Thursday as the most suitable date. In tho Magistrate's Court at Kaitangata On the 7th inst., L. 11. Haggart was ordered ■to pay costs. _ (7s 6d) _ for failing to render personal service Win;rrield and Co. sued T. M'Caughern on a judgment summons 'for £7 16s lid. No order vva i made. Coulter Bros, sued H. V• rnon on a. judgment summons for £lO 6s. The defendant was ordered to pay tho amount forthwith, in default throo weeks in Dunedin Gaol, tho •warrant to be suspended so lo.ng «» he paid 10b monthly.