LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXIX, Issue 135, 31 July 1911, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

The Technical School Committee mcels to-morrow evening. Tin- monthly meeting of fhe [Tosnital Heard will ha held io-me-row

Miss Hlack, organist at ! loly Triu ity Chinch. returned tins mornin. from a trio to' Auckland. ‘ South Canterbury butchers aro pr< ing far afield and paying big prices for heel cattle.

. Tin- annual mooting of the Stratford Horticultural Society will bo belt in tiie A. and I’. Society’s room tomorrow evening.

r i’!io many friends of Mr. and Mrs, George Watson will regret to learn di t!io death of their son, George, which took place yesterday, after a lingering illness of about twelve months. In the course of conversation wit;

a Canterbury farmer, several member, of the Sheffield Choir intimated that as soon. as the choir’s present ton was finished they intended to retina to New Zealand and settle here; 1

’When Sir -William Gilbert was aj> pointed Justice of the Peace, the High Sheriff said: “You have, I believe, studied the law as a. barrister and have a sound knowledge of it?” “Tha is tine.” said Sir William, “but ! hope you will not consider it an impediment.”

A Masterton resident, who has jus i returned from a visit to the distriealong the Main Trunk Line, informed a Wairarapa “Daily Times”’represen tativo that work is very plentiful i the vicinity of Ohakune, and wage; are ruling high. The demand has beet particularly keen for Inis-hfellers, gen oral labourers, and farm bands. According to the New York “Her aid,” Mr. Hodman Wanamaker. tin Philadelphia business man, and tin

son of Mr. John Wanamaker, is tin most heavily insured man in tin world. He has just added anothc £IOO,OOO to his life insurance, making the total sum £900,000. Talking to a “Press” reporter abon tlm turnip rot, Dr. Hildondorf, - bin legist at Lincoln College, says it is nr obscure disease, certainly caused b; a fungus, but “until wo get to know more nboub it, not much will bo accomplished in checking or preventing its ravages.” Nor is there any- hop ,cf its dying out. Probably- the bacteria find their way into turnip.through an injury caused by insects: usually aphis. Swedes, be remarked aro much less affected by rot, but on the other hand they more easily sue cum!) to nobis.

According to -Jr. Mark Webb, pu: modern hat-band goes back to the sixth dynasty in Egypt, that is, w imagine, to about 4000 B.C. Great i our' reverence. .Before this immemorial antiquit.- pales oven the tight waist beloved of the ancient Cretan before Troy fell. We are prepared (remarks “St. James’s Gazette”) to boh: that our huge hats of to-day had thoii autotypes when the world was : ye J . young, but Boadicca wore an “cagp nest,” Zenobia of Palmyra a “flowerpot,” and that Lady Macbeth lavished her husband’s resources on the lutes' fashion in “Kaffir Hats.”

The Federal Statistician’s efforts t arrive at the cost of living in Austral lia have not met, with the immedialt response that was-expected of them., In May, 1910, about 1500 books of ac count, providing for a weekly state meat of income and expenditure dining the twelve months from June 1.910, to June, 1911, were sent out to persons throughout the Commonwealth. The object of this enquirj was to obtain first-hand information. Although the time when the bnolqrshould have been complete expired on Juno 30 last, only about two hundred have been returned to the Statistician up to the present time. The value 'of any deductions which may bo drawn from a compilation of those, results will depend largely upon’ the number of examples from which the analysis, can bo made. " " J>noi nol> i

Tiro steamer Aldenham, which' arrived at Sydney last week from China, was searched on berthing ah Circular Quay by the Customs official®,: who were on the look-out for :sto,waways. One of the searchers reported to the officer who was in chargrA'cif the gang that there was a suspicions plant in'the-fore bunkers. Upon further examination the discovery was made of 75 tins of opium, two tins of opium ash, and a bundle containing; three dozen skins. There was no claimant for the stuff, which was ac-cord-ugly taken to the King’s'ware-. Imu-e. The value, of tire opium would he about £225. It is assumed by the' Customs officials that whoever bad charge of the opium had intended put-: ting it into the skins to get rid of-ft in that way. ;

Damage to the overhead telephone cables at Auckland, caused by boys; shooting with pea-rifles at bird? alighting on the cables, has been causing much expense to the Department, and inconvenience to subscribers. A “Herald” reporter was shown a piece of the cable, which was literally riddled with bullets. When the lead covering encasing the insulated wires is tints penetrated a short circuit is at once created if the papoi insulator ho at all disturbed, and dampness also alfects the system prejudicially. It takes about -three or four days to repair any damage of the kind mentioned, the pumping of calcium carbide into the cables to ensure absolute dryness occupying most of that time. While this repairing .work is in progress the subscribers affected by the particular wires damaged are cut off from telephonic communication. With a view, to putting a stop to the mischief, the Telegraph Department has communicated with the police, and in future offenders may find their shooting practice result in expense and inconvenience to themselves as well as to others.

Aii unfortunate incident occurred at sea recently in connection with a wireless message between the Howard Smith liner Cornua , and the-Aberdeen liner .Marathon. The Cooma was at the time going to Melbourne irom Sydney, while the Marathon was proceeding to the New South Wales port. A passenger by the Cooma, wishing to send a message to a friend on the Marathon, the wireless operator on the Cooma established communication with the Aberdeen liner, but war. astonished to receive the reply irom the Marconi operator of the- Marathon that he was not allowed by his instructions to receive or reply to messages despatched from ships using a rival system. lit spite of remonstrances from the Cooma, the Marathon operator persisted in his refusal to accept the message. r l he Marconi operator on the new Blue Funnel liner Aeneas, who had been an interested listener to the exchanges, between fee other vessels, then intervened. He established communication with the Marathon, and. as one of the senior

operators in the Australian service, urged upon the Marnihen ' onentw that his instructions did not forbid bis receiving a message from the Cooma. with the result that the Marathon operator took it. .As far as can 1m ascertained, this is the first occasion, at least in Australian waters, where one vessel has declined to accent a wireless message from another, irre-

snective of the systems used on board. It is. explained that the operator who refused to accept the message was acting nml'm instinct ions that had boon cancelled by the Marconi Company in Januarv.

;rv -yTJtI Mr. Harry Good, of- Wanganui, is a,q visit, to. Stratford. . r/ Mr. Newton King has received the following cable from his Sydney.agents ■o hides:—“Upward tendency.” Mr. H. Norman Liardct, General Manager of the Ocean Corporation, is on a visit to Taranaki, and remains m Stratford until to-morrow. Mr. Newton King has decided that, ;a order to give every attention immediately on arrival, he will discontinue to receive hides and skins at his Haymarket store, and requests clients to deliver direct to his -hide slied, on ■ Toton Road, near the. Stratford Dairy Factory.

Owing to the fact that,. persons , iave of late made; .rather free with I .bo timber, shrubs, ~firewood, and hunts on the Stratford Extension secions, certain owners, have- found it iccessary to take steps to check this,md Messrs. C. E. Major, J. Chad- . ick, and M. M. McCarthy, ipfjthis isue notify their ,intenti.oij of prosecute ig trespassers on .the, property;. Mr. E. Snowball, who,has i, been umager of the New .Plymouth. Sash nd. Door Company for the last thirty years, lias been appointed manager f the Mountain Kimu Timber Com■any, Mamaku, Auckland, and leaves ■y steamer to-night to take np his ew duties. Mr. Snowball's popularly amongst the employees of the N/ew Tymouth Factory was exemplified by lie send-off they gave him. Mr. Den Simpson, of Mr. Newton ting’s Stratford staff, who has been n New Plymouth for some time in onsequence of the illness of his ather, lias now been permanently ransferred to the New Plymouth ofr cc . On Saturday evening the. memors of the local staff met to say fareell to Mr. Simpson. Mr. Webster, oh •ehalf of the staff, presented Mr. 1 'irapson with a case of pipes as a- tokn of esteem; Mr. Simpson suitably .cknowlcdging the gift and his pleasnt,relations with the. Stratford .staff. According to the opinion of scienists, the human being wages;a coninuous war with microbes from his nfa-ncy, and, unless he is ve.ry careul in the later days of his life, the Aerobes beat him. When a being was tutoring, it is more prone to disease ban when the body became set. Near-

y everyone was impregnated with the überclo of consumption, more or less, mt healthy living enabled a great ’.umber of us to withstand the disease. Now and again, however, we oad that somebody had caught a drill, or pneumonia, and had died. It /as not penumonia or the chill which brought about death, but microbes of •onstimption did the work as the paient had become too old and weak to vithstand them any-longer. A “Timani Post” representative vas shown an envelope which enclos-

;d a letter written to a Timaru resilent from his son who is mineral proslecting in Central Borneo, Dutch In-

lies. The envelope (also the contents) . ere addressed in lead pencil on April ith, and handed to a native'chief, who iromised that it should be sent by ’.and from village to village to the .oarest post office. After sixteen days our this adventurous letter reached ho post office on April 23rd, and arived safely at its destination—-Timaru -via Singapore, on May 30th. Considering the circumstances under which he envelope travelled and-the fact Jiafc the address was written in lead pencil, to look at the envelope now me would be inclined to think that it ■ad not been out of New Zealand. Notwithstanding that 'it may have .Hissed tlirough tlie hands of many lusky warriors and crossed miles of ougli country, its perfect ; state on rrival is a credit to the natives, and lie above proves that, the word of a motive l chief -may well -be relied noon.

Most of us have heard of Roubaix —a place somewhere in Franco where bhero is an exhibition or something it which the Commonwealth has a pavilion (writes : the London correspondent of the “Sydney Morning Herild”). We road of it about a month ago. And yet they say that of the vhole of: the wool that at present candors about Australian paddocks, about one-third ~ eventually goes to lohbaix and its ..district—one-third of mr whole clip. Roubaix is one of a •luster of three towns—rßoubaix, Lille ud Tourccing—nvhich. have a. populaion between them of about 1,000,000, aid are the centre 1 bf the woollen inlustry in France. That is why the Commonwealth is exhibiting, in Roubaix. Argentine is exhibiting, too, ;;>d for many times the money has put up a’show not superior in many rays to 'that which Australia has achieved for £2OOO. New Zealand spent 22000 there also. The Mayor of Roubaix, Mons. Eugene 'Motte, is the biggest manufacturer off wool in the vorld—a man who, besides buying the .vhole of the French clip, actually takes over £1,000,000 worth of wool from Australia. Seeing that frozen •neat is not allowed into France, and ■it is only by a concession that an mbibit of it has been allowed into Roubaix, it may he important that a commercial authority like _ Mons. Motte is so closely in touch with Australasia.