NEWS ITEMS OF INTEREST.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIV, Issue 9408, 31 March 1909, Page 2

NEWS ITEMS OF INTEREST.

“What are threepenny cows’” said ? s Judge Smyly at Bow County Oontt -while reading the invoices of what he described as a “hand to month general business. “They are tins o± - -condensed milk”, was the reply. The secretary of the 1 Royal ' Humane Society of New Zealand has . received applications by the next of kin of Mrs Jacobs and Mrs Hope, for the issue of “In Memorlam” certificates. in recognition of the 'heroic conduct of both at the foundering of the steamship Penguin. It is reported that a sood deal of shoplifting is at present going on in Palmerston North, advantage being taken of the numerous sales now > in progress. One firm reports having caught a young man in the ,act of walking off with a number of ties stowed away in the inside of his waistcoat. When taxed with the theft he paid for the goods and quickly left the premises; vi It is marvellous what can be accomplished by a good cow in the way of continued milk production it properly fed and well treated. At , Liverpool (N.S.W.) there is l. an 1 Alderney which has been milking for three years and seven months, and is now yielding 2% quarts per day. ,A few Jyears ago a more remarkable case was reported and authenticated, i This was a Shorthorn of the JLee strain, which milked at Bathurst for s>£ years without a rest. She kept afamily of seven nersons in milk for the t most part of the tdrm she. was milked.

The new preference for Southdowns for the .North Island, as ■’. shown at the recent ram fairs, ", seems, says the Dominion, _to , promise to overthrow the old order of things in lamb raising. The chief change that must necessarily follow on those sheep stations where the Southdown has been introduced is that the lambs must, as much as possible, be fattened on their jnothers. To have to hold Southdown lambs over to be sold as hoggets would be a drawback that noamonnt -of extra quality in the flesh would recompense. While such a practice pays with the Romney, 'with its fleece of 10 or 13 pounds of hogget wool, it would not pay with the Southdown, whose fleece would probably weigh scarcely more than half as much. • “Industrial matters_ are ”ery peaceful just now, ” said the Hon. A. W. Hogg, Minister for Labour, to a Dominion reporter. “In fact, I never knew the Labour world more calm than it is at present, and it will be my object to heep it so. The Conciliation Councils are creating a good impression, and the new system of keeping* employers* np to ' the mark by means of the Magistrates’ Courts will have a most salutary effect. The long delays hitherto experienced in getting wrongs righted, have led to' a large amount of friction, but the prompt methods of the Magistrates in dealing with the oases brought before them are bound to almost prevent abases of any magnitude in the future.”

During the hearing of a matter in the Bankruptcy Court (says Sydney * paaper) a young lady was examined as a witness. She had acted, as shorthand-writer and “typist, and latterly as secretary in a large limited company in the city, v Her evidence was given in such a clear and able manner, and she showed such a grasp of figures expressed 1 herself with such conciseness, as to evoke from the Registrar the remark that if she was a fair sample of !the female clerk he oouid quite understand how the male clerk was being ousted. Mr W. H. Palmer, official assignee, concurred, and stated that ■ the witness, in his opinion, was quite the ablest female clerk that had ever appeared before the Opart, and far in advance of the ordinary male clerk. A gentleman who is well-known in Hawke’s Bay as -a sportsman and in -connection with freezing works and pastoral pursuits, raised a faugh ~in the Supreme Court—even Mr, Justice Edwards joining in the hilarity—by ■ bis actual or assumed ignorance of Holy Writ. He had given evidence as to dealings in stock, and as to the ■difference between prices asked for by buyers and offered by sellers. Then Mr Oornford got up to crossexamine, and started thus: “I sup/ pose you have heard the quotation from an old hook, a very old book, *lfc is naught, it is naught, saitb the buyer; hut when he is gone his way, then he boasteth.’” The witness hesitated but a moment, and then he said, “Yes, I have heard ■that quotation ; bnt I haven’t read the book!”

The Railway Servants Journal thus refers to the Addington Inquiry:—‘fHardly had the Addington Commission of Inquiry opened when the allegations made against the men were publicly withdrawn by Mr T. Ronayne, General Manager of Railways, the author of that circular V which we in our last issue appropriately, as it turned out, styled a boomerang. Certainly the rash and unfounded allegations have recoiled with a vengeance upon the ' General Manager. He makes absolutely no attempt to support any single statement in the circular, and merely pleads that they were practically the statements of the ‘expert engineer,’ who has now come into the light, and is none other than an ex-

boilermaker, translated to that dignified pedestal of rest, the Legislative Council.” Some two years ago the notion that grapes conld be imported from Australia and sold . in Wellington shops at 6d per ponnd was scooted "by some. The Commissioner of i- South Australia at the New Zealand Exhibition (Mr J. Soott), who was largely instrumental in lifting the ' ‘ restriction on grapes from his State, was qnite positive that it could be done, and that with profit, -j: and quoted the price at which Sonth Australian grapes could be h\ gold in London in justification of bis ■ statement. Mr Scott’s prediction v has come true. For nearly a week past grapes of splendid quality have been retailed in Wellington at 6d per pound, and a larger variety at Bcl « per pound—prices at which New 1 Zealand grapes have never been sold in the ordinary way of business in . Wellington. obtain a patent. New ideas, or improvements on J '. existing arrangements should be r patented, provisionally at any rate. &VFullest details as to procedure, etc., tw ■ • are contained in our pamphlet ’* Advice to Inventors” which will ■I;!*;,-, be posted free of cost on application 0 Vto HENRY HUGHES, Patent Agent, Queen’s Chambers, WellingBT--