LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXII, Issue 61, 7 March 1912, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

In this issue will be found a further consignment of “A Trip. Abroad. The Wesley Sunday School is holding its annual picnic this afternoon in .Mr R. McK. Morison’s grounds on the Mountain Hoad. A cricket match will be played today, weather permitting, betweeen Newton King’s Stratford and New Plymouth staffs. The scene tor the encounter has been fixed at Inglen ood. The Telegraph Department is at present engaged in an exhaustive overhaul of the line to Whangamomona. The wire is being duplicated, and on completion of the departmental buildings it. is proposed to instal the Morse system at that centre. This should have the effect of greatly facilitating the traffic in the back country district. Yesterday’s Eltham “Argus” publishes the following paragraph:— This morning the Hon. Thomas Mackenzie telegraphed as follows to Mr E. Parrott, secretary of the EltliamOpnuake Railway League : —Have much pleasure in informing you that Cabinet at its meeting decided to set up a commission for the purpose of definitely locating railway from Opunakc to main trunk line. If you must do a thing, do it thorrouglily, is an excellent adage, which has be'en taken to heart by Thomas Hampson, of Liverpool. • He determined to be thoroughly bankrupt, and he has become so. His liabilities are £1930, and there is no such nonsense on the other side as unsecured debts or marketable property. The total assets amount to a fishing rod, a basket, and a book of flies. Strangely enough, the registrar adjourned the case. The play in the Town Hall closed with a funny unrehearsed incident says yesterday’s Eltham “Argus”. When the final group had been formed on the stage and the last line had been spoken,, the act drop refused to drop. It was convulsively shaken but it persisted in remaining aloft. The company and the audience in the laughter caused by the predicament, and the people on the stage had to walk off, while a man from behind the scenes was observed, fastening up the ! stage props as the, audience filed out off the building. Of the fifty thousand trout ova secured this year by the Stratford Acclimatisation Society, the majority (45,000) have been liberated, but the remaining five thousand have been retained in the Society’s ponds, and are now an average of six inches long and in excellent condition. Owing to the dampish , season experienced; plenty of water has been available in the ponds, and the fish will be rc T tained as long as possible, though there has been difficulty’in securing sufficient food for them. When finally liberated, these fish should be of a size which will enable them successfully to combat their natural enemies. An Edinburgh gentleman, while staying on a holiday at Killin in the month of June, 1904, had a watch taken from his room by a tame jackdaw. He saw the bird take the watch from the dressing table, and reported the matter to the Perth sire police. Nothing was .seen of it, however, until the other day, when it was discovered by some workmen who were engaged in the locality. The watch, which had no doubt lain there for seven years, was in a damaged condition. It was forwarded to Edinburgh and returned to the owner, who, needless to say, was greatly surprised.