LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXIX, Issue 86, 31 May 1911, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

A Masterton farmer has this year put down a crop of maize into ensilage. He believes that there is no bettor fodder for ids cows. The opening of the Stratford Telephone Exchange at 7 a.m. instead of 8 a.m., will take effect from Monday next, June otli. The Auckland Magistrates are inflicting a uniform penalty of £5, with alternatives ranging f rom one to three months’ imprisonment with hard labour, for using had language. Consumers are reminded elsewhere that the Stratford Electrical Supply Company is removing to new offices adjoining Co-operative Store, as from Ist Juno next.. The annual meeting of shareholders will lie held in the new offices this evening. It was significant of the progress of events, says tho “Wairarapa Age,” that at the Masterton dog trials, when the officials desired to draw a cork from a bottle of “shepherd’s delight,” not a cork-screw could be found among tho crowd.

Hoipe separation lias liedn discussed by Ngatun (Pahiatua) dairymen. Mr. James Young, manager of the New Zealand Dairy Union, was in that district lately, and, it is stated, offered milk suppliers during the next season the same price for butter-fat under that system as is paid under the present system. Home separation is common in parts of Australia, and is also in vogue in the North of Auckland, and at Hamilton, Waikato, where a factory has been established. The term “unimproved value,” as applied to valuations, was described by the Hon. D. Buddo, at Oxford, as a misnomer, which lie said would bo cut out of the Act. It had practically no meaning in a well settled country. If those interested would only read the Act, they would find out that the “unimproved value” was the saleable value of land in a district under conditions usual in the district. The mortgage system or any other system in vogue would give the saleable value; it would not be a cash value necessarily. In this issue it is advertised that the Taranaki Plumpton Coursing Club will hold their winter meeting at Wharoroa on June sth and 6th. The energetic secretary (Mr. T. Trask) is sparing no pains to ensure the success of the meeting, and has the arrangements well in hand. The hares are in excellent condition, and some first-class coursing should be witnessed. There are many interested in Hie sport in this district, and therefore a good contingent of visitors from Stratford should bo present at Whareroa on June sth and 6th.

, The following hours will he observed by the Stratford Post and Telegraph Department on Saturday, June 3rd, King’s Birthday:—The post office will be open in all branches (except money order and savings bank) from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. Hie telegraph office will bo open from 9 to 10 a.m., and from 7 to 8 p.m. The telephone exchange will be open as usual. All mails close at 8 a.m.; only morning clearances of pillar-boxes; no delivery by letter-carriers; a special delivery of town letters will be made over the counter on Friday evening from 7 to 8 o’clock.

A defendant in a vaccination case— Benjamin Head—was asked in a Sydney Police Court recently, how he pleaded to the charge. Defendant: “Guilty, hut it’s not altogether my fault; I am in favour of getting the child vaccinated, but my wife is of a different way of thinking; and I have only to mention the word ‘vaccination’ in the place and ‘up goes the donkey.’ ” (Laughter.) When the Police Magistrate enquired if tiio child would lie vaccinated in the event of an adjournment being granted, defendant said, “I do not think so. Wo must give way to mother.” A fine of 20s was' then imposed. Some interest has been aroused in legal circles in Auckland by Mr. C. 0. Kettle’s remarks concerning the illegality of solicitors threatening to bring proceedings against debtors if the amount claimed was not paid, together with tiie costs of the solicitor’s letter. In conversation with a “New Zealand Herald” reporter, Mr. Kettle said there was nothing to prevent a solicitor threatening to institute proceedings against a debtor in a just claim; it was the demand for the costs that was not lawful, and judges had expressed very strong opinions upon the subject of this practice. Several pitiful stories of wife desertion were told to Mr. Justice Edwards by applicants for divorce at the Auckland Supreme Court, and when the list of cases ready was completed, his Honour remarked that the men who deserted their wives were not sufficiently dealt with by the legislation of the country. There was plenty of law to deal with them, but they could not get what was wanted. His Honour considered one of the most criminal offences a man could commit was to marry a woman, get a lot of children, and then leave the woman and children to shift for themselves.

A singular incident is related in connection with the late .Mr. C. Moberley Bell, managing editor of the London “Times.” On one occasion ho was crossing a railway in Egypt, when his font was caught in the points, and it seemed impossible to extricate it. A train was approaching at the moment, and he had no time to unlace his hoot, hut with a mighty wrench he freed himself, tearing a hone from its place, in the effort. It had to ho removed hv a surgeon, and the I tone was utilised by Mr. Bell as the handle of a walking-stick which he was ever afterwards compelled to use. Mr. If. McNah informs the ‘‘Maun watu Standard” that the coal i ighta of the Mokau estate in the Maungapapa Block have not boon purchased hy Messrs. Johnston and Lnnghnan, as stated in a Press Association telegram from New Plymouth. These rights tiro owned by the Mokau Coal Company, and are part of the purchase recently made hy that company. The Mokau Coal Company arc patting ]O,OOO acres of land on the market in \mnist, survey parties having already been engaged to go on the land. Between August and March nr-xt a block of ;Ui,(JOO acres of additional land will lie put on the market, and that will exhaust the purchase of land recently made by the company.

The annual meeting of the Stratford incensing Committee will lie held at noon on 1 i iday. T’.;c \ a hip of phalaris commute, ta (or canary grate) as food for stock is to he tested by a Masterton settler during the coming year. This grass is now being experimented with in several parts’of the North Island. During an egg-laying competition organised by the English Utility Poiiltry Club, a Huff Orpington laid 1 ();i eggs in 112 days. The highest individual score at previous comp-na-tions was 90. “There is all over New Zealand at the present time a mania for land, and people will give any price at all for land they require,” declared Mr. J. Warren, Clerk of the Cook County Council. Tho friends of Mr. and Mrs. Gilbert Ellis will bo sorry to learn that their five-months’ old daughter died yesterday afternoon. The infant had boon suffering with a cold, which developed into bronchicl pneumonia, with fatal results. A man who was arrested in Christchurch a day or two ago for drunkenness was recognised by Detective Osborn the following morning as being the person wanted since 1902 for the non-payment of a fine. He was accordingly re-arrested in Lyttelton gaol. Mr H. 1). Coutts, Government Land Valuer in tho Wairarapa, and formerly of Taranaki, is being transferred to the Manawatu district, with headquarters at Palmerston North. His place in the Wairarapa will be taken by Mr. Fowler, at present Government Land Valuer in the Taihape district. Ten civil cases, one of which will be defended, and two judgment summonses are set. down for hearing at Friday’s sitting of the Magistrate’s Court. Five charges of breaches of the Railway Regulations will be preferred against a man, and an information for riding a bicycle on a footpath and one for assault will also bo investigated. Though blind and deaf, the Rev. Fred, Hall, the new pastor of tho Blackburn Unitarian Church, is a reputed orator. Ho is an excellent whist player, and at a drive held in connection with his church he proved one of the best of tha party. His own pack of Brailo type cards is used at ids table, and he is told what card each player throws down. He has an excellent memory, and he neither revokes nor plays the wrong card. After sorting the cards, ha plys them from his pocket.

“Anywhere in the world almost you will get face value for a Bank of England note,” said Mr. W. A. Redmond, M.P., one of the Irish delegates, at the civic reception in Christchurch last week, when describing humorously a local experience of his, “but when I come to New Zealand, to this great free country, part and parcel of the British Empire, I have to pay 2s 6d on each note cashed. (Laughter.) I am not condemning that, for such a system as that of keeping yourselves inefependent and not dependent on any other part of the Empire has made you the country you are to-day.” “Notwithstanding the best endeavours of the curator (Mr. Ross), the raising of birds at the Game Farm has not resulted so satisfactorily as last year, owing to the depredations of stoats, weasels, cats, and hawks,” states a note in the annual report of the Wellington Acclimatisation Society. “These vermin are increasing so rapidly as to make it almost impossible to save the birds from destruction ;65 stoats, 12 weasels,.six hawks, and three cats were destroyed by the curator. The question of continuing the breeding of birds at Paraparaumu should be carefully considered by the incoming council. One hundred and fifty pheasants and 147 chicks were reared during the past season, and there are now on-the farm 60 pheasants and 70 ducks.”

A man asked the Bishop of London at one of his missions last month if it was wrong for him to play golf on Sunday afternoon. He was a business man, a regular communicant, and seldom missed matins and evensong. It was very hard, the Bishop said, to cay in the abstract that a man who attended church three times, and who caused no labour in his amusement, was doing any more harm in playing golf on Sunday afternoon than in taking a walk. But two questions arose—Did the man plav everv day during the week? He himself‘found that the men who played on Sunday also played every other day. Then there was the question of example. Archbishop Temple, however, cut through many difficulties of this sort when he said, “Let him follow his own conscience.