LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIII, Issue 10, 9 May 1912, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

A meeting of members and adherents of St. Andrew’s Church is to be held to-morrow evening. Messrs. T. C. Fookes and F. Dobsou left town last Monday, to attend the annual communication of the Masonic (fraud Lodge of New Zealand, now being held in Dunedin. Miss Ethel Black, who has acted as organist for Holy Trinity Church, Stratford, for some years, leaves shortly for Auckland to take up her residence in that city. On Tuesday, May 1 !th, the parishioners are tendering her a farewell in the Parish Hall, and are, we understand, expressing their appreciation of her services to the Church in a more tangible manner. The Mayor has given notice, to move as follows at the meeting of the Borough Council next Monday,;—“That a report with recommendation be secured from a competent engineer on the condition of the bridge in Broadway, and that a committee consisting of the mover and Councillors be empowered to employ •an engineer to draw up a report.” Mr. F. M. B. Fisher, M.P., who some time ago accepted an open challenge from Mr. Geo. Laurenson made at Stratford last Faster, came up to Stratford last evening, and was an attentive listener to the n Minister’s speech. Mr. Fisher returned to Wellington this morning, but, so far as we can learn, whether ho will speak in Stratford at some future date is not decided.

11 The Hon. George Laurenson and ; J Mrs. Laurenson are the guests of Dr. ;r Steven. This morning the- Ministerial party went to New Plymouth on ploa : |® sure bent. To-night there will be more “ politicis, when the Minister will speak c at Toko. The Hon, W. D. S. Macr" Donald will join the party to-morrow, when they leave by a special train >r for Whaugamomona, where, on Friday evening, a banquet will he tendered to 5* Mr. Joseph McCluggage. 5. The matter of the letting of the y 'Town Hall for skating should be fully ■ ;l discussed at next Monday’s meeting n of the Borough Council. Or. Paget lias jf given notice to move: “That the resolution passed at a special meeting on March 19th, letting the Town Hall to Messrs. Mercer and Drake for skating, be rescinded.” Cr. Boon will b move: “That the following words be - added to the resolution passed at a special meeting on March 19th, iot- [. ting the Town Hall to Messrs. MerLi cer and Drake for skating; ‘The hall not to bo Ist to any other person or persons fo)' skating, and that the. les1. sees remove and replace the forms as - required.’ ’,’ .Describing the sights in the' An- _ tarctic, Mr P. E. Correll, a member of Dr. Mawson’-s expedition, 'says Mr a letter to a friend: “On the Voyage down wo continually saw icebergs, sometimes miles' in length, others ■ Smaller, sea worn, and most'fantastic form. The bine sce caves are s very fine. We have experienced snow t storms at sea on several occasions . the flakes sometimes granular, am sometimes in the form of star-shaped crystals. Several times, we saw ' whales spouting, and ' the ''jic-ii- ,‘ gpins, which wo often saw ! miles out to sea drifting in to land : are very interesting. The days grew ’ longer as we came south, 1 and new we 1 are within the Arctic circle, in the re--1 giou of the midnight sun—no sunrise, 3 no sunset, but continuous -daylight. . We have ■ already made a very important geographical discovery—a great ’ ice barrier—a vertical wall of icefrpnt- ) ing the sea, and from 120 ft to loO.fi r high, and extending for many miles.” : It would be well if those who have discarded their head coverings were , to study for a moment the immut--1 able laws of Nature, writes a corre- ; spondent to the Oamaru Mail. The - first protest—a bronzing of the hair —is but a slight one when compared to the next, when Nature asserts in a most decisive way her effort to protect herself. This is by a thickening of the scull, and the receding foro : ( head of the savage rapidly develops. Going about hatless has no merit whatever; already J have shown what i| leads to mentally. The fact that such delicate organs as the ears are unsheltered in the bareheaded person counts for nothing, and a union of thickheads, as deaf as adders must certainly evolve. Now, if the hatless union would only take off their hoots instead, they would find that Nature puts on an armour of ttrckci skin on the soles of the' feet, and by the threatened protective thickness being transferred from the skull to the feet their brains would not be in danger of getting squashed. Going barefooted has very much more in its favour than going bareheaded, and the brigade should endeavour to make a study of the evil of going hatless before it is too late to reason. The largest spider’s web in the world was spun, not by a spider, but by human hands. It stands on the lawn of a Chicago man’s country home, and is of such tremendous size as to startle the passer-by when fie first sees it. The creator of this interesting oddity conceived the idea of attempting to see how nearly an actual spider’s web could be reproduced with rope. Selecting two large trees on the lawn of his homo, he spun between thorn his spider’s web, forty feet by sixty, , which is so strong that a man may easily climb to the centre or top of it. The web faces the main thoroughfare { passing the house, and is one of tire ] most fascinating country ground de- j corations ever seen. The spinner could , not attain the minuteness of the actual ( spider’s web, but came so near to it j that the illusion is almost perfect. , A rather good yarn, which is said i to have the merit of being true, comes J from a district less than a dozen miles t from Timarn. On a certain farm there j is a certain cow which lias always re- t fnsed to allow a woman to milk it. { But in this “catchy” weather time is r precious, and a day or so ago the man c. who owns, and has always m Iked the r cow in question, was out in the fields •: getting in his crops. His wife, a re- a sourceful woman and a helpmate in r the best sense of the word, decided f that she would milk the cows tiiat i night, including the one that showed r; such an aversion to women. But ‘it v was no good. The cow would not al- t low the woman to get near her. It 1‘ suddenly dawned on the woman that rshe might work a little trick on the t cow, and going to-the house she dress- s cd up in one of her husband's suits, a and strolling back to the -stockyard, a with all the dignity of “a lord of ere- h ation,” she had not the slightest d fficulty in approaching and milking tin- I beast, which was quite content when it n thought it was being milked by a 1 man. d

The principle of land tenure in the Northern Territory is stated to bo perpetual lease. There will bo no rental charged for the first ten years for agricultural and mixed farm leases. Five thousand leases will ho picked cut in different parts of the Territory and classed as “pioneering leases.” No lent will be charged on these for the lifetime of the person to whom the lease is granted, with a minimum of twentyfive years, so that should the lessee die before twenty-one years expire, Hie wife or heirs will have the farm rent free for the remainder of thditerm. The Government will retain the right of resumption with compensation. The extent of improvements and stocking of land will be determined by the Board. Ino lessees will have to be in residence at least six months of the year for cultivation farms and four months for mixed farm and grazing areas. There are 335 millions of acres in the Territory with a population of only 1000. Professor Gilruth, the new Administrator, is an ardent advocate of the leasehold system.

At tiic Imperial Conference held in London last year a resolution was unanimously carried declaring that simplification of spelling is a matter of great importance in all parts of the Empire. For some years most of the inspectors of the A ictorian Education Department, though not in favour of drastic spelling reform, have advocated simplified forms of certain words. Mr late, Director of Education, has therefore decided to take the following action in the direction desired, and has given instructions that in all printed matter issued for or by the Education Department the following rules as to spelling arc to be observed:—l. Omit the useless u in honor, favor, etc., and :dl their derivates; e.g., write honor, labor, parlor, favor, arbor, vapor, armor, behavior, endeavor, color, etc. 2. Put er for re in meter, center, etc. etc. 3. Lse e for ae in esthetic, cyclopedia, etc. 4. Use termination ize instead of iso in factorize, legalize, modernize, etc. 5. Use gram, program, plow, jail, connexion. The British Philosophical Society and the Oxford Dictionary recognise the use of the forms given above.

he week ending March. 23 proved quite exceptional for the Northern Territory in providing a heavy death-roll. Amongst the victims was Mrs. Kingthe well-known proprietress of the Katherine Hotel. In connection with her death, a stockman named Dove has made himself famous for a remarkable ride to Pine Creek from Katherine and hack again to Katherine, a distance of over 100 miles, to bring medical assistance and a nurse when the road was deemed absolutely closed by heavy floods. He arrived at Pino Creek in record time, travelling night apd day. Arrived there, he secured the services of Dr. Holmes, of the Aborigines Department ,and Mr. I 1 ritli, and set out back to Katherine, at which place lie arrived with the party, also in record time. The 1 ride is considered to have been a most remarkable feat of endurance and pluck. Every river had to be swum, and this at a time when the mails and all other traffic was entirely suspended. The journey was covered in under three days. Love during this time had no sleep and little food.

The liquor traffic lias decreased in Timaru considerably compared V: with what it was two or three years' ago. Such is' the consensus?’' of opinion among the leading hotel-keepers in the .town, When .asked if they ,coukD ascribe, any reason, for this ,chang ! e 1 , .the publicans gave varying answers,, jbut' all agreed that the popularity of the picture business was the leading feature in the decrease of the drinking habit. Quoth one: “Come into my bar any time you like at night and ,ym will n0t...-see more than three or, four in at a time, whereas two or three years ago we were nearly always full. 1 here’s only one tiling that’s doing it, and that’s the pictures. Instead of young fellows spending their evenings inside the hotel as before they elect to visit the picture theatre, and there they stay until after the closing hour.” Another publican told the reporter, that the pictures had 'injured Jus business to a far greater extent' than would he imagined. Not only young fellows, but men of riper years Who were wont to frequent his' bar were now almost total strangers, a fact which he would ascribe to nothing else than the pictures.

The Sydney “Telegraph” publishes the following “fish story,” which tale, or one somewhat similar, ran through the New Zealand papers some years ago:—Colonel F. Meysey-Thompson, writing on .the ricionsness of eels, states that on an out-station in New Zealand owned by a relative of his a groat many drowning fatalities occurred at one particular spot in a river near by, and notices were put up cautioning people against bathing there. The current was very strong—sufficient to tax the powers of a good swimmer—and it was a favourite pastime among the residents to have a tassel with the current. Time after time the swimmer would disappear with a shriek before assistance could reach him, and when the body was .finally recovered it was iuvaroably found to have been mutilated by eels'. The cause of these fatalities was for a long time undiscovered, various theories being advanced, and the general opinion was that the swimmer had been attacked by cramp; occasioning his collapse, lire true cause was discovered at last. While a bather was battling against the stream a large eel seized him by the leg and dragged him beneath the surface. Some of the eels rakou from that particular stream weighed between 201 b and 301 b.

Some stories of tho South African, vvar were told in Sydney last week by the Governor-General of tile Commonwealth at a banquet given by tiro South African Soldier’s Association. One recalled the foraging capabilities of the colonial troops under General French. The soldiers were all lined up one day by the officer commanding, who appeared to be in high dungeon over the reputation that his command had gained. His wrath was awe-in sp ring. They were supposed to sweep the country bare like a plague of locusts that went through tdio land of Pharaoh: and there was ringing anguish in the voice of General French as he recounted what terrible things were said about his regiments. These reports had '.even reached the oars of Lord Roberts who had J-pm-plaiued to him as officer and now this commandeering pilfering, or what even harsher term might be used, must cease, the General angrily declared. The soldiers all stood aghast at the stormy lecture the General was reading them. Sheep wandering about must not he commandeered, and .speaking with dire earnestness, tiie general said tnat any man found killing sheep would he shot. The troops winced at the order, the stern tones of General French impressing his hearers. But the order had a saving clause, “Of course,” the general added, but still with the same blaze of indignation in bis eyes at the pass things had come to, “if a sheep attacks a soldier .” A roar of laughter like a salvo of artillery drowni the‘conclus on of the interesting hr.’-rl?. “The soldiers,” naively remarked Lord Denham after ho had rernvd to tins story, “often had to difeml themselves.”