LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIII, Issue 26, 28 May 1912, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Twenty years ago tho total export of wool'from Poverty Hay was 8933 bales, and last year the output readied '15,539 bales. The Prime Minister will deliver an address at Opunake on Thursday, May 30, and will afterwards be entertained at a social.

The Borough Council last night appointed Cr. Morison >to represent the Council at the unveiling of the memorials co old soldiers at Nonnanby tomorrow.

A company has heen formed at Itongotea for the purpose of establishing a bacon-curing factory, with a capital of £6OOO made •up of 3000 shares at £2 each, 5s on application, 5s on allotment, and calls of 5s each in not less than three months. The anniversary tea meeting and concert in connection with the Presbyterian Church, is to bo held on Thursday evening, and from the way the tickets are going off, a good attendance is assured. A capital programme has been arranged, and lovers of good singing will have another opportunity of hearing Miss Belle McXab, of Auckland, who took a leading part at (he Scottish concert last week, and whose singing was so much appreciated'by all. The ladies are working hard to make the ten a success, and anything undertaken-by them, will be carried through with their usual ability. Tickets can be procured from members of the congregation.

It is said that in-the case of many eminent men who have met _ their death by assassination the victims have had a presentiment as to what was about to happen. Abraham Lincoln was one or these. He met his Cabinet one afternoon, and his fellowMinisters were much struck with his extreme gravity. So moved was he that he could not forbear giving expression to his thoughts. "Gentlemen," lie said, "something very extraordinary is going to happen, and that soon.' For the third time 1 have dreamed the same dream. I dream that I am drifting on a great, broad, rolling river. J am in a boat, and J drift—l drift. But this is not business." A few hours later he was dead.

Concluding its annual report-for the season ending .May, the South Island Dairy Association states:—"Jt is dangerous to prophesy till you know, but it looks as if we shall have as good prices paid for cheese and butter next year as this. The continent of Europe is taking every year a larger quantity of Danish and Siberian and Swedish' butter, that thus lessens the British supply. Jn cheese, Canada, even in a normal season, is gradually lessening her export, quite as far.b as New Zealand is increasing. Holland, the only other big supplier, does not increase, but rather tends to decrease, and then the towns of Britain are taking every year a larger quantity of milk for their town supply, and lessening very considerably the amount available for the British make of cheese and butter. It really looks as if 'All's well' with New Zealand's prospects for dairy produce."

"Munsey's Magazine" shows that there arc scores of millionaries in Pittburg and one has only to turn to the Babcocks to see what the centre can do in millionaire making. Twenty-five years ago these two brothers were handling timber in a Detroit yard at a dollar a day; now their holdings aggregate ten millions. Lumber started at least one other Pittsburg millionaire on the road to fortune, in August, ISSI, F. I'VNieola, aged 24, deposited 200dols. in a Pittsburg bank. Ho had saved it out of his earnings as a. timber clerk at Ann Arbor. He set up in the timber business for himself, and prospered. To-day he is Pittburg's most dazzling operator, and ov. nrmany millions. A type of the young, clear-cut. self-made man of millions is A \V. H. Donncr, who got his start running a small Hour mil! in Columbus, Indiana. He was attracted to tinplate, and located a plant on a far site near Pittsburg, which is now the prosperous town of Monessen. After it was absorbed by the tin-plate trust he organised the Union Steel Company, in which he had the backing of the' Mcllons. Around this establishment lie built tin 1 town of Donora. which is named after him. The Steel Corporation considered his mills good enough to buy. Now he is a factor in finance, a director of the Mellon National Bank, and a force to be reckoned with. Not so very many years ago Russell Boggs was peddling milk in the little town of Harmony, thirty mile*-, from Pittsburg. He saw the difficulty that his father and other farmers had in getting their products to (he city market, and made up his mind lo remedy it some day. He went to Pittsburg, started us 'an errand boy in a dry goods store, and it now a magnet of retail trad". One of the first things he did whim he came in in his own was to connect up the old homo town with the traction lines ilni went to llm big city. Altogether he owns a hundred miles of tram lines. -

The Literary and Debating Society in connection with the Egmont Club will meet on Friday at the Club rooms. There will be a meeting of the Executive Committee of the Stratford A. and !'. Association in the Secretary's office to-morrow night at 7.M0 o'clock. The Stratford Operatic Society held a very successful practice of "Pinafore" in the Parish Mall last evening, when a full attendance of singers and orchestra were present. On Wednesday next a practice for the principaMiand. (he male vocalists will take place at the Fire Brigade Hall. The. Stratford thirds will play their match against the Xew Plymouth High School next Thursday on the King Edward Park ground, past the saleyards. Play will commence at 3.15 p.m., as the Xew Plymouth men will not be down until the 3 train. A local sportsman drove out on Sunday in quest of pheasants, but caw nothing more "gamey" than a few elderly blackbirds, and therefore turned homewards, somewhat dejected, just after sundown. As he was jogging along East road at G.3.52J p.m., or thereabouts, his horse suddenly thought the time was ripe andjbucked up and endeavoured to back its way down to Wanganui through the side of tia> cutting. At the tame time, and while the sportsman was busy trying with his whip to appeal to iii.s horse's better nature and repenting of his sins in ease he did not succeed, all the pheasants in the country seemed to arise and crow. By the time the horse had admitted the error of his ways there was not a sign of a pheasant. "Earthquakes," says the sportsman, "have no consideration. If it had happened at 4.30, when I. was on foot, there would have been some deaths in the pheasant family."