LOCAL AND GENERAL

Taranaki Daily News, 4 December 1930, Page 8

LOCAL AND GENERAL

' Apparently bearing- a grudge against the borough, a, New Plymouth ratepayer went to the office to pay £5 10s in rates yesterday. He succeeded in delaying the officials himself and those in the queue behind him by paying in the whole amount in threepenny pieces.

A Stratford lorry with a broken axle held up the tram traffic on the FitzroyBreakwater line between 3 and 4 o’clock yesterday afternoon. The lorry was put out of action at the junction, of South Road and Morley Street. A temporary terminus was created, the trams’running each way, meeting at the lorry and exchanging passengers before going back the way they had come. A largo black opossum was sce/i by a motor-cyclist -when proce?ding along Devon Street, pSst Sackvllle Street, Fitzroy, last night. The opossum came out of the street and ambled down the footpath in the glare of the headlight. Once it hid behind a telegraph pole but left its concealment when the light found it and went as far as Paynter’s Avenue. There it disappeared! “You seem to be beyond all reason,” said Mr. R. W. Tate, S.M., when a man chr-rged with a breach of his probation license walked towards the bench yesterday. “Here you are on a serious matter and yet you stroll in chewing gum. Why can’t you have some sense of responsibility?” Later in the day the man was again called before the magistrate. He was still chewing as vigorously as ever.

It was a nonplussed motor mechanic who; in giving evidence at the Supreme ! Court at Napier the other days, claimed ; that if a man was travelling on his correct side of the road and he was negligently. approached ’by another car he should keep right on. "You are quite wrong.” said Mr. Justice Blair. “The law says that you should do everything in your power to avoid a car that is approaching you in a negligent manner. people seem to know that fact. The quarterly meeting of the New Plymouth Licensing Committee was held yesterday. The sole business was an-ap-, plration to transfer the jnibliean’s license of the Waitara Hotel from John Albert Shea to William Charles Leach, which was granted in view of a favourable police report. The police reported favourably npo,p the conduct of all other hotels in the district. Mr. JI. W. I ate, S.M.. presided, the other members of the committee present being Messrs. J. S. Connett, W. F. Jenkins and J. S. S. Medley.

A tribute to the business ability of Indians as a. people was paid by Mr. A. H. Johnstone in the Supreme Court at Auckland when replying to a suggestion that certain Indian shareholders in a forestry company might not be in a position to safeguard their own interests. It was his experience, he said, that the Hindus of Bombay bad been traders for many generations and were very astute business men. “I would not care to, attempt to over-reach one of them,” he said.

Had hi? honesty not been so pronounced a Timaru man who had occasion to visit a bank last week to deposit the sum of £l5O might have made £5O profit from his visit. He filled in a deposit slip fof the total sum and handed over a cheque for £lOO which was accepted and duly acknowledged, in his pass book as £l5O. After returning to his office he found that in addition td his receipt for £l5O, he still had notes to the value of £5O. The clerk was profuse in his thanks when restitution had been made.

“One ragwort flower this year will produce at least 500 plants next year,” said Mr. R. Hatrick at a nleeting of the Wanganui Chamber of Commerce when suggesting that many of the unemployed who were not suited to road work could be put on to destroying this and other noxious weeds. Sodium chlorate he said, had been proved effective in the eradication of ragwort, which was at present overrunning the country, especially in up-river localities. The meeting approved of. the suggestion, which is to be forwarded to the local Farmers’ Union for consideration.

“What will happen if the Lambeth Conference keeps on growing as.it does I really do not know,” said Archbishop Averill on his return to Auckland on Tuesday. “Ten years ago I thought that the library of Lambeth Palace, where it meets, was quite full, but this year 50 more bishops attended, including many Americans, and some of them had to be put in all sorts of nooks, and corners.” Dr. Averill added that prob-, ably the constitution of the assembly might have to be altered to admit only the metropolitans and definite numbers of representative bishops from the different churches and provinces, otherwise the conference would become unwieldy. Great catches of fish, haVe been made lately with nets cast from the West-' shore beach, but a philanthropic amateur found the other evening that even a inajor share in 2- big haul is not inexhaustible, states the ' Hawke's Bay Herald. After a haul which netted 200 fish, he took his share home, and started to distribute them to friends, relatives and neighbours. The. good news quick-' ly spread, and the pile of fish rapidly diminished, until there was only one left,, which the fisherman cleaned and put away for himself. When still another neighbour called for a fish, he was in a quandary. After a prodigal distribution of the fish to all and sundry, he could not very well refuse, the man next door. Se he preserved his reputation for generosity, but he had to have sausages for breakfast. 1 It is understood that there is a possibility of Mrs. E.' R. McCombs, wife of Mr. "J. McCombs, M.P., being selected as the Labour candidate for the Mayoralty of Christchurch at the election, to be held in May next, if both Mr. Archer and Mr. D. G. Sullivap, M.P., decline nomination. Already, says the Times, there is a move among a number of women in the city to ask Mrs. McCombs to agree to nomination but when approached she said she had not given the matter any consideration. Mr. Archer has not announced his intentions in regard to the next election but it is belived that he will, not be a candidate if Mr. Sullivan is desirous of being given the nomination. Mr., Sullivan would be certain to receive the Labour nomination if he was desirous of contesting the Mayoralty, next year but latterly he has shown less enthusiasm regarding tha matter.

The matron of the New’ Plymouth hospital acknowledges w-ith thanks the following gifts: Magazines 1 and books, Mrs. G Home; illustrated papers, Mrs. Hine (Morley. Street), Mrs. Pennington; magazines, Mrs. K. H. Launder, Mrs. C. W. Reube, Mrs. Lang and Mrs. A, R. Andrew;

The annual archdeaconry choral festival service will take place at St. Mary s Church, New Plymouth, to-night at 7.30 o’clock. The service'is primarily to encourage choirs in the Taranaki archdeaconry, and this year choriscrs representing Waitara, Stratford, Inglewood Fitzroy and St. Mary’s (New Plymouth) will participate. The music will include Stainer’s Magnificat and Nunc Dinnttis and “Let All the World in Every Corner Sing,” an anthem by William Blake. A Christmas euchre party of. unusual interest, to ,be held in the Clifton Hall, Waitara, on December 11, is advertised. Patrons of the Melbourne, Ltd. are urged to be on the look out for two Stunning lines just arrived and purchased at tremendous reductions by the firpl s Home buy ers. The goods comprise fast colour “Azlin” and Chintz overalls and smocks all sizee for 6/6 each, and ladies’ and maids’ smart tweed and worsted summer coats for 29/6. See windows.*

You will be requiring a smart summer coat .nd smart hat this summer. A word to the wise: Buy now at The Greater MeGruer’s. New smart coats, 19/6, 27/b, 32/6, 39/6, 59/6. See our window to-day.