GENERAL ITEMS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXVII, Issue 4, 31 July 1918, Page 3

GENERAL ITEMS.

Tokomaru Bay has raised £2778 for patriotic purposes by means of a baby voting carnival. The Onehunga bar was recently unworkable for 10 days, which is believed to be the longest period known for over 30 years. A very tempting offer has been made by the Kaitangata Coal Com pany to their employees,, in the form of a bonus for regular work. There is a considerable amount of time lost by the workers, and this causes a reduced output of coal. The company are offering a bonus of 5s to all dayworkers—that is, all employed as shiftmen, and 2& per cent to all piece workers. The above advance is to be paid on pre-war rates.

"We met a number of Yanks who had just come across to England," writes a New Zealand soldier to his relatives. 'iWe were walking along the street and,a Yank came up and wanted to know where wo came from, and when we said 'New Zealand' he wanted to know where that was, and then he turned round and said, 'You fellows must have picked up the English lingo pretty quick.' He must have tbought we were niggers or something."

"To bear hunger, without at tho same time suffering from headache or any other indisposition is very difficult for most people," reads the opening sentence of a significant advertisement inserted in tho "Taeglische Rundschau," of Berlin, by a Berlin chemical firm, promising a newly-fti-vented drug which, "though noi forming a substitute for the minimum daily sustenance, is an excellent''preparation for stilling premature hunger, and enables one to hold out until tho noxt meal time."

At the Christchurch Assessment Court (states the Lyttelton Times) a witness who had lodged an objection to his valuation was endeavoring to convince the assessors that the valuation of his property was too high, and that he had given too much tor it. "I was a hit of a fool over that property," he remarked. A Valuation Department officer, who had interrogated him, interjected: "I was never in a place where there were so mnny self-confessed fools as in an Assessment Court.''

A good story is told of a dog, which illustrates the faithfulness of this animal, and incidentally the /slowness of the New Zealand trains (states the Patea Press). The ownmof the animal a few days ago happened to bo journeying by train from Patea to Wavorley and noticed the dog on the platform as the train steamed out of the station. When ho reached Waverley and was walking from the station to the town he was amazed to find the dog by his side. 1 Enquiries from passengers on the train elicited the fact that the dog had followed the train to Whenuakura where it had overtaken it. It then jumped up into an open truck and rode in this to Waverley getting off when it saw its. master leave the train. The story has the merit of being absolutely true.

A returned newspaper id tin gives n new setting—and a true one—to thfe smart rebuke for the American soldier, whose moving into khaki has not stripped him of nny of his national characteristics. Of course it happened in London. The colonial concerned was a big, solid six-footer, who might have played witlr distinction in a Ranfurly Shield scrum. The other was a lithe, clean-cut American. Ho approached the Now Zealander, "Guess that's a fair imitation of our hat y're wearing N.Z." The big fellow hardly changed his expression as he replied, "No. This hat's been fighting in France for nearly three years!" He did not add, which would have been true, that the headgear replaced by that under notice had been lost in a bit of a scramble on April 25th, 1915. However, the soldier from the States turned his guesses in another direction.