MANAIA.

Taranaki Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 8642, 30 November 1889, Page 3

MANAIA.

[from odb own correspondent ] November 29. — The result of the school examination is very satisfactory, no less than 81.8 per cent, of the pupils presented having passed. There are 145 children on the roll now, of whom only eight were absent on the clay of examination. Considering that a change of teachers has taken place during the year, during a considerable portion of which the school has not had a full staff, and that the present head master, Mr James Law, has only been some seven months in charge, the fact that that school has fully maintained its good character must be very pleasing to the Committee and the parents of the cluldren. I regret having to record that almost immediately after the examination the Committee have found it necessary to close the school on account of an outbreak and to prevent the spread of diphtheria. The Chairman of the School Committee is to be commended for his prompt action in this matter, which has probably prevented a Berious outbreak of this dreadful epidemic. It also had the beneficial effect of thoroughly awakening parents to the danger, every precaution is therefore being taken, and medical advice called in on the slightest symptoms being shown. Children are being isolated, and disinfectants freely used. Unfortunately two cases terminated fatally before it was known how serious the matter was; Mr Gamblin, a settler who lives three miles out of town, losing a little girl three years old, and Mr King, our postmaster, losing a son 9 years old. Although symptoms have appeared in pome five or six families in the neighbourhood, the little sufferers are on the mend, and no serious results are apprehended in any case that I can hear of. The Farmers' Union held another very successful sale here on Tuesday. It is a curious thing that one of the arguments used by the promoters of the Union was that it was desirable to lessen the number of sales, but the actual result so far is to nearly double them. It was very rightly felt that a great deal of time was wasted by settlers in hanging round the towns on •ale days, with pipe in mouth and a stockwhip on the arm. It is well-known that (particularly in the case of the younger men) these sale days do unsettle them for the drudgery of farm life, and is one of the reasons why agricultural farms are so much out of fashion. Our farmers' sons seem to consider it much better form giving "ex cathedra" opinions on the points of a pen of cattle in a suit of store clothes than following the plough in moleskin and corduroy. A great deal of nnnecessary fuss is being made about space for butter. Some people seem to imply that because farmers did not ship Home at a loss when they could get a good price in Australia they are to be punished by not getting space when they do want to ship home. This is just nonsense ; what is really the matter is that certain business firms agents and others have secured all the space at the disposal of the shipping companies, either with the view of lowering the price of butter, and thus buying at an advantage, or of making money out of the sale of the space, or both There is no lack of space, or there is neglect on the part of the Shipping Companies to provide space. Had the shipping companies provided double the space it would all have been taken up by these parties ; it is simply a " spec " on their part, which, bo far, is paying them very well. This is one of the opportunities of a Fanners' Union — tc see that such a thing does not happen again by making arrangements witn the shipping companies some time in advance.