LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Taranaki Daily News, 6 February 1919, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

The mail steamer Paloona is due to arrive at Wellington from San Francisco on Sunday next. An English parcel mail of 05 tons is expected to reach Wellington to-day by the Port Hacking, which ia coming to New Zealand, via Australian ports.

At a meeting of the Hawera Returned Soldiers' Association a land bureau department was formed to assist returned men to settle on the land. A land agent'B licence has been granted to the association. —Press Association.

The Pukekura Park Board on Tuesday evening discussed the matter of holding evening concerts in the park. Arrangements for two concerts in the near futur,e were left to the chairman (Mr. C. E. Bellringer), Mrs. Burgess and Mr. A. Gray (lion, secretary). Mr. C. A. Wilkinson, M.P., chairman of the Industries Commission, informs us that the Industries Committee will visit New Plymouth after completing the South Island trip. The committee is now sitting at Wellington, and expects to leave for the south next week.

The oflice of the secretary of the Tourist and Expansion League was besieged last evening by visitors desirous of securing accommodation. All were fixed up with beds, thanks to the generosity and public spirit of townspeople who, in response to the league's appeal, placed bedrooms at the disposal of the league.

Prohibition meetings in Hawera lately have been subjected to a good deal of disturbance, and the local paper is led to enter a vigorous protest against this behaviour. It remarks: "If opponents to any speaker cannot exercise sufficient control and behave in a respectable and gentlemanly manner at meetings, then the police should not need to be threatened that they will be reported before they carry out their duty. That a few people—probably thirty or forty at most —should be able to destroy the liberty and comfort of six or seven hundred respectable citizens is most deplorable. The noisy few, who go to meetings to disturb them, and who take every opportunity to interrupt a speaker, deny the majority of citizens their right to hear botli sides to a question, and we fear that the troublesome element in the community throughout the country is far too prominent)' When arrangements were being made at the Supreme Court yesterday in regard to times for hearing civil and other cases set down for the present session, his Honor Mr. Justice Chapman referred to the clash of race meetings with Supreme Court sessions. He said it frequently happened that a judge, when on circuit, arrived in a provincial town and found, during the course of the sessions, that a race meeting was taking place, and the services of the police were required in another place. He thought the local people might arrange with the court registrar to notify the date of the race meetings. The dates of the court sittings were fixed always at the last sitting of the Appeal Court in the year, and it did happen that the dates of race meetings were before the judges then, and they were careful to avoid fixing the court dates at the same time, primarily for the purpose of freeing the police for the race meeting work. He said if the racing club notified/ the date of their meeting the sitting of the court would not be fixed for the same week.

We find it impossible, writes the Saturday Review, to be seriously angry with Ferdinand, King of Bulgaria. With hia huge nose and moustache, his'slianiole«s treachery, his cynical offering of himself to the stronger 3ide, and his various crimes (of which murder is only one), he is really a picturesque hero, a soldier of fortune of the old school. He at least does not cant, and maies no pivium'c of any other policy than, his own pocket. He does not complain, and he does not explain. He did us a had. turn in 1913 by coming in against us; 1 but ho has done us an uncommonly good turn by going out at this particular moment. Certainly he cannot be allowed to rule; but we hope his life will he spared. After the war, Tino Ferdinand, Wilhclm and Karl might. b» confined m the island of Croft, and allowed to inhabit the beautiful villa which the Empress Elizabeth built and the Kaiser bought, and which is now a hospital. There this amiable quartet might play auction-bridge and abuse one another for the remainder of their lives

The Loan and Mercantile draw attention to their Punewhakau sheep fair, on Saturday next, February 8, in Mr. Thomas Hayea' yards, by his kind permission. There is an entry of over 5000 sheep, full particulars of which will be found on page 8 of this issue.

Land seekers are invited to read W. H. and A. McGarry's advertisement on page one.

MAKE YOUR REMOVING PLEASANT, INEXPENSIVE. LISTEN! Employ & Arm (experienced in the work. Then you can depend on being saved all possible trouble, for your tilings will be handled with the utmost care. This mean? a saving, not only of money, but of worry too. We are furniture-moving experts, and are sure you will be well advised to utilise our services. The New 2ealand Express Co, Ltd.

The road over sft. Messenger is in a very bad condition. considering that is now the middle of summer, on Tuesday a ear broke its axle in a hole in the Mautau, whilst another car was bogged. The Eastern Extension Company notify that owing to heavy delay in all classes of traffic, due to the increase in Government, messages and interruption, the company regrets being unable to carry full-rat? messages either way and via the United Kingdom. Deferred traffic is still accepted via the Eastern subject to posting between Marseilles and London. A Xelson tomato grower is reported to have shipped over twelve hundred cases of tomatoes to Wellington and other places this season, ai prices averaging well over £1 per case. The season has been favorable for glass-house tomatoes (says the Colonist), but the cold weathev earlier in the season affected the outside grown tomatoes, causing tlie bottom fruit to fall off befor;> maturing. However, the satisfactory prices received have more than compensated growers for the shortage of crop. A great shortage of telephone machines and of all electrical apparatus connected with their installation, is at present being experienced by the Telegraph Department- The telegraph engineer at Auckland -informed a. Herald reporter that this unfortunate position had arisen as a result of the commandeering for war purposes in Great Britain and in America of the factories concerned in the manufacture of the apparatus, but that speedy relief was expected, and that the Department hoped to cope with a normal demand for telephone connections within a period of two to three months.

A highly interesting table • published in the current issue of the official Monthly Abstract of Statistics shows how greatly the taxation levied by the General Government has increased during the period of the waT, and what classes are paying the bulk of the increased taxation. Our national taxation, it is shown was £12,340,853, or £ll 3s 9d per head in 1918,, as compared with £5,018,034, or £5 10s per head in 1917- While the amount of revenue derived from Customs and Excise increased in that period onlv from £3,533,785 to £3,901,383; the land tax increased from £767,451 to £1,385,708; income tax from £554,271, to no less than £5,619.501, or more than tenfold; death duties from £813,751 to £BOS 51! only; and other taxes from £425,77G to £928,690.

Many operations for appendicitis are unnecessary, says Dr. Yeisaku Matsuoko, an eminent Japanese medico. One hundred and twenty-six were dissected—loo had, been removed by operations, the others were from post-mor-tems. - About one-half of the lirst group showed that the patient had beei/ infected with worms. The largo number of specimens from a certain Continental clirflc showed that nearly half of the operations had been umieeeosary—737 per cent of the appendixes were normal. Many of the normal organs contained worms, and the presence of the worms is supposed to have produced the pain diagnosed as chronic appendicitis. In such ca=es medical treatment would have disposed of the parasites without resort to surgery. The mistakes were chiefly in the cases of women patients. Wilhelm Hohenzollern—William, the food hog—Bays the San Francisco Star, was hoarding enormous quantities of food : n his Berlin palace all during the war. So the world is told by Wilhelm Carle, in an article in the Frankfort Volks Stimme (People's Voiae); and Carle claims to have discovered the stores of hoarded food in the Berlin Palnee This is what the writer says about the stores:—"The quantity exceeded all expectations. In large whitetiled rooms was everything, literally even-thing, one can imagine in foodstuffs. It is inconceivable that after four years of war such huge quantities eoiild be hoarded- There were meat and game in cold storage, salted provisions in large cases, white meal in sacks piled to the roof, thousands of esgs, pisantie boxes filled with tea, coffee, chocolate, lard, jelly, and jam; hundreds of sugar loaves and endless stacks of peas, beans, dried fruits and biscuits. Their value amounts to several hundred thousand marks." It is quite evident that Wilhelm did not believe in selfhooverization. It was easy for him to evhnrfc the Gernmn to practise selfdenial and to economise in every way. 'vh-'ie he and his sonn had plentv of food. ... .

Mr Tiounson's princely gift of Trounson Park, near Kaihu (Auckland), to the nation, represents about 60 acres of the best kauri forest in the world (writes a correspondent to The Post). Competent authority values the timber as being worth not less than £10,000; or an average value of £ 10(5 per acre. One who has just returned from Trounson Park, and who 23 years ago knew the Puhipuhi forest ia its virgin state, says that there is a close comparison between the two. The Forest League has published detailed calculations showing that at present rates the country has lost sonic €9,000,000 in the destruction of the Puhipuhi forest. At the last annual meeting of the Forest League it was mentioiieit that there is reason to believe that 100,000 acres of bush land is being alienated yearly. The public has a right to know if any more kauri bush is now being alienated, and generally wb.at steps are being taken to stop the further alienation of good forest land, until it has been examined by forest experts.

A lady who has teen travelling for about two years writes from, America concerning "apartment houses/' as follows: Living in an apartment reduces the cares of housekeeping materially; heat, hot-water, and refrigerator are provided, garbage is disposed of. household goods delivered, elevator service provided, telephones, gas stoves, electric light, and many of the larger places have a cafe on the ground floor. This apartment was newly papered, floors polished, etc., for the present tenant when she came in a few months ago, so it looks very nice; there are six rooms and she pays sixty dollars a month,-gas and electric light are extras She is a nice companionable woman, which I appreciate very much. I*m the only guest, and it is nice and quiet except for musical students (vocal), who practise most diligently, but "it might be worse. Students swarm in the neighborhood, about 6000 I believe, men and girls. There is a teacher's training college in connection with Columbia, and I live almost opposite.