LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Pahiatua Herald, Volume XXVII, Issue 31397, 28 February 1923, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

The 70th anniversary of St. Paul’* Presbyterian Church, Wanganui, was celebrated on Saturday. An instance ol the value of caretul culling and held testing is afforded at Ngaire, Taranaki, where a farmer las tyear netted £l9 IDs per acre off his farm of 28 acres. Another farmer in the same district, with a family of seven, collected £*2o lOs per acre off a 45-acre holding. A meeting of the committee of the newly-formed Municipal. Croquet Club will bet held this evening- A full attendance of the committee and also all intending members is desired. The opening day ol the JJj w courts wili also be arranged. Iho committee wish it to be understood, that the membership of the Club is C'pen to everyone oil payment ol a small subscription.

Two businessmen in Pahiatua inadvertently advertise the same telephone number. One is a land agent, and the other a dentist. The lormhas responded' with alacrity to frequent rings, anticipating that they were the prelimina’ries to important land transactions. He has naturally become very disgusted when he picks up the receiver to find that the enquiries are not about deals in mother earth, but for dental treatment, or appointments concerning troublesome molars. The other evening, an agonising message floated over ine wire:—“Can you pull a tooth?’* The land agent was exasperated. “Yes,” he angrily answered. “and your d nose, too !” Last week there wa a strike of school children and their parents m a Victorian country town, on account of the poor accommodation provided for pupils at the State School (writes a Sydney correspondent). Now there is a more serious strike developing in education circles in Victoria. The trouble 1- that tlie parents think they are being exploited by the firms which sell school books. In many of the States, children are allowed to purchase their books at school, but in Victoria no sucli socialistic plan is permitted. The children have t:* go to tl e suburban bookseller, and his profit has to be added to those of the publish—- _ I rivial g ography ■ o ks on—tabling a score of pages, cost ten—pence, and oxerci.se book-. which probably cost about a perilv to pro—mice, are retailed to thy children at sixpence. The parents are tired of tl:*.* extortion, and thev have made ‘Uich a noise al>out it that the Minis, ter of Education lias ordered m en—