NEWS OF THE DAY.

Colonist, Volume LI, Issue 12648, 20 September 1909, Page 2

NEWS OF THE DAY.

Tlio animal meeting of the Nelson Defence Rifle Club will be held at < Mercer's rooms this evening. The Garrison Band will play a ■selected programme in the Botanioal Reserve next Sunday afternoon (Dominion Day). In a case which the New Plymouth "Daily News" describes as the "Oiiokune timber tangle," Judge Edwards remarked that he would have liked tlie jury to decide upon the facts. He knew it was the fashion to say that a jury was an unnecessary and useless appendage .of the Court, but he was sur& that a jury of twelve men, or even of four,was more likely to arrive at a oorrect conclusion from facts than one lawyea* could do. In giving a nonsuit, his Honour informed counsel tihat if the oase were brought again it would have to be heard beforo a jury. He would not undertake the ordeal' again. In proposing the toast of "Rotorua,' past, present, and future," at the annual dinner of the Chamber of Commerce the other day, and alluding to the origin of the name of 'the "Priest Bath," which was named after Father Mahoney. who dug tihe bath out, Mr 8...5. "Corlett created some amusement by giving one ofthat gentleman's utterances when, baking his departure from Rotorua. It was -this: "Heathens I. found ye, and heathens I leave ye." There is just a possibility that if Faither Mahoney visited Rotorua to-day (says tlhe "Hot Lakes' Chronicle") he would still retain the opinion as far as some of its residents are concerned. Says the "New Zealand Times" : Steps are being taken to install the wireless system in Polynesia. News was received by the Canadian mail steamer Marama that Mr Arundel, ono of the Directors of the Pacific Radio iand Electric Company, recently visited Honolulu in connection with tlie fneme. and extended an offer to Mr s=> - --A- Phelps at present wireless operator on board the mail steamer Alameda, to go to Ocean Island, Pleasant Island and the Fijis, and install wireless outfits. Mr Phelps wjjl probably go to Vancouver to take the Pacific line to Fiji, where he will establish his headquarters, and within a few months the dots on the map which are now geographical mysteries to tlie junior class in geography, will become as much within tho ken of civilised countries as Sydney. There are three paper mills in New Zealand— at Auckland, Dunedin, and Mataura. Tlie "Southland Times," in an article on tlie Mataura mill states that there is some likelihood of its being closed on account of tho cost of railing material so far South and railing the bulk of tho product North again. The mill was fixed thero in the first instance because of the abundance of tussock grass available for miakmg brown paper, but this grass is no longer used, and the only reason the moll has not been closed before now is that it possesses a cheap water power for driving tlie machinery. The raw material now consists of rags waste paper, cardboard, old sacking old ropes, flax, tow, waste tow, waste jute, old mailbags canvas cuttings cloth clippings from clothing factories and similar articles and -about forty tons a week are used up. A paperbag factory has a place in the mili. In all 56 hands aro employed, and tlie industry is of great importance to the town of Madura.