LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 9, 10 January 1914, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

On being asked to take the oatn at Tottenham. Loudon, a man started to say the Lord's Prayer. Idarly the other afternoon a mob o! sheep were passing along Childers road, Gisborne. The swing doors o. the New Zealand Shipping Co.’s office were open, and about two dozen sheep, no doubt enticed by the coo! appearance of the office, walked inside They were promptly put hack on to the road by the junior member of the st'alf. bnj; not’before The walls of the lobby had been smeared with grease. 'Later in the afternoon another sir e, from a different mob elected to tak< a bathe, and plunged into the coo waters of the Turanganui river, striding out if or mid-ocean. One of the drovers promptly plunged in and headed it hack to land, where it wa' forced to join the remainder of the ilock on the hot, dusty road. Dr. Campbell Morgan, lecturing m London last month on 'The Christ oi the' Evangelists,” at Cemetery-roan Church, Sheffield, arrested his audience by the statement that ‘The whole Bible may be read- through at ordinary pulpit rate in sixty hours, or in six weeks, giving an hour and a half each, day.” In proof, Dr. Morgan told a good story. V\ hen staying in Xew York his host, the man-, ager of the Manhattan Bank challenged the doctor’s statement. “1 asked him to try it,” said Dr. Morgan, humorously adding, “for it would least get my friend through his Bible once.” Some time after the banker met Dr. .Morgan, and referring tr. the challenged statement, said, ‘.'Nov. were wrong, you know!” “How lai was I out asked the doccoi “Twenty days,” said the manager, “for I have read my Bible through from end to end, and it took inexactly forty hours.” “But,” replied Dr. Morgan, “1 said at pulpit rate not bank managers’ rate!” \

j With reference to the severe dust storm at Broken Hill on Thursday j December 4; a lady connected with the I theatrical business, writing to her | relatives in Christchurch (says the I Press), thus describes tin} astonishing spectacle and her experiences?— j “The excitement up at this dreadlui j place! We have had a most terrific I dust storm. 44 e were in the sitting

room; it was about 11fdeg. in the shado, ami wo wore Hourly (load with t'ne- boat, win'll all of a sudden someone said, ‘Look 1’ and away in the distance wo saw a huge wall of dust gradually coming nearer, and as it came it changed into different colors, browns, pinks, purples, and blues. Someone suggested going up iu tin tower to get a hotter view. The street wore thronged with crowds of people all watching the wonderful sight, do reached the tower, and* - at last we were' enveloped in the dreadful dust :

»i everything was pitch Mack. Throe > j of us were lift in the tower, and it >; was awful. You couldn’t see your : ' hand in front of you, and througn the ' j tiny windows there was a red <r'are like hurnino lire. It was a dreadful ■! experience. . it was hla: ker even ; than nijilu. and at lasi ne pron >d our ■jwa\ ahont and found, the stairs and j Indued one another down. The people below won' awfully anxious for ns, hut. however, we pot ever all riirht. Tin-* darkness was absolutely intense, and kept so for 16 minutes.”

Air F. X. Fnsseli, who lias been spending the Christmas holidays in Timaru will be back in Stratford on .Monday evening. Two sheep were penned at the Whangantomona sports for the purpose of a guessing competition. Their correct live weight ■ To9lb) was guessed I>v Mr Jl. Me!.end and the correct dead weight ',5UMb> by Mr Rockleben. A report from the Bay of Plenty states that smallpox has again appeared amongst the Maoris'. The Whakatane County Press has the following;— “I:/ : renortid that several cases r.f' saiilbi'x nave broken out at the Maori pa; a: Kokohinau and Mikorangi, near To Toko. The cases are, amongst Maori children who have been 'quarantined, and nurses have been engaged to look after tire patients. At Kokohinau a largo number of Natives had gathered together for the purpose of celebrating Christmas Day, some 60 of whom have been isolated, and are being victualled by the Government nntij the vaccinations have properly taken.” The places mentioned are on the Harigitapci River, close to the main road from Rotorua to Whakatane, Among the “best sellers” in Berlin just now is a book by a German naval officer, entitled “The Collapse.” Its object is to show the folly of a war against Great Britain. As a result of a groat battle off Heligoland the German navy is annihilated as a lighting force, and all the British Dreadnoughts are destroyed or crippled. British airmen in a waterplane then destroy Wilhelm shaven dockyards. A short time after Ger-

man Zeppelins return the compliment by wrecking Plymouth, Portsmouth, and Harwich, and doing great damage in London. Then peace is declared, and by that time the foreign trade of the belligerents has passed to the United States, and they find themselves reduced to the level of third-class Powers and fourth-class tacle nations. A second class smoking compartment on the Methven branch line train was

the scene of a regular feast on Xew fear’s Day (says the Ashburton Guardian). Hie carriages were pretty well packed by people going to the races, and one man (who later was identified as a bookmaker), and had either gone

without his breakfast or was expecting to be so busy that he would not be able to find time for his dinner, undid a brown paper parcel and took therefrom a fairly Irage-sized roast fowl. His next act was to spread a sheet of newspapers on the floor of the carriage, and this, as was after-

wards seen, was intended as a receptacle for the bones. He cut .off one of the legs and. with the aid of a lunik of bread as a digestive commenced to devour it. That leg finished, he commenced on the other, and afterwards made an onslaught on the breast. In the meantime the pile of,bones at his feet began to grow in size, and when lie had demolished the whole of the fowl he wrapped the remains up neatly and threw them out of the window. He was a huge’ fellow, with a big double-chin, and his follow travellers were impressed and amused at his performance.

A Danish engineer has invented an automatic soldier, w Inch he claims will do away with most of the dangers of war for the army employing his invention. It consists of a steel cylinder enclosed within another cylinder which is embedded in the ground. The fight-

ng power is set in motion by means if wireless telegraphy, the inner cy-

Under rising to a height of about sft above the surface of the ground. At the same time an automatic gun fixed in the cylinder opens fire with 400 bullets in any required direction. The automatic soldiers may be brought into action by an officer at a distance of five miles from the line of defence. Furtheu, it is pointed out that there is no danger of panic. It is claimed that a few hundred of these-steel warriors would suffice to defend a position against the most powerful infantry attack. To stop the murderous shower of bullets the enemy would have to destroy the steel cylinders one by one,

which, of course, in active warfare,

would be a most hazardous proceeding, ibanish officers who witnessed experiments declare that the automatic soldiers would serve admirably in certain dangerous positions, where they could very, well he substituted for troops. Dr. Rendu, of Paris, has discovered a novel and seemingly successful method «f treating diphtheria by inhalations of hot air. Having proved that the microbes are destroyed by exposure to a heat of 1 tOdeg. Fahr. for five minutes or IdSdag. for two minutes, he tried the effect of air at such temperatures upon the disease ; t-olf. Diohthoria is eenerallv localis-

' • ii. i/n*uu;i iut i r> Jit lytcitio- ! in tiie upper respiratory passages. Dr. Rendu first experimented upon Himself to a'-ertain how great a heat his throat would bear. He found that he could inhale dry air at 212 deg. Fa.hr, inr two minutes and at 140 deg. for half an hour, the temperature being taken at its entrance to the mouth. it was, of course, necessary to protect the lips and the rest of the face, which he did with compressors soaked in water. Having proved what the human throat count bear, Dr. Rendu tried the hot-air treatment upon d'i diphtheric patients, at the same time treating 3-3 others with the ordinary antidiphrlnric serum. The results were identical, the mortality bring 1-5 per cent, in each