NATIONAL REGISTER.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 144842, 20 November 1915, Page 2

NATIONAL REGISTER.

SUCCESS ASSURED. Work on the National Register is in full swing nowadays. The Government Statistician has a huge staff working at sorting and classifying and summarising tho schedules, and the information in them every day and evening, hut the task is a very big one, and it will yet be three or four weeks before he will have his statistics compiled. There was some doubt weeks ago as to whether the tiling had been done carefully enough, whether enough care had been taken to sec that every man required by law to do so had returned a. schedule. But Mr. Fraser estimates that he has received 280,000 cards, which is not far short of the maximum number expected. The Government was faced with this question : Was the register worth an expenditure of from .020,000 to £30,000? For this expenditure the Government could have taken a complete census, with absolute safeguards against evasion, but some of the schedules would have cost several pounds each. The Government decided that the register was not worth this largo sum, and entrusted thc_ task of collection by a cheaper, if lens thorough, method to the Post Office. _ The success attained by the Pest,Office is as meritorious as it may be surprising. The Government Statistician estimates that less than 2 per cent, of the schedules are deficient in essential particulars. Some of these will be corrected by reference to the sender, and even the 2 per cent, are not quite valueless. Most df the mistakes are tho mistakes of careless, stupid, or illiterate peonle. The person who filled in his schedule with the name Von Hindcnburg, or filled in descriptions of appallingly largo families of dependent invalids, or wrote on it “An open letter to Square Deal Baton Bill” in carefully disguised misspelled writing, is so rare that lie is inconsiderable iti the big total. And ho may yet be discovered and called to account for his “inkc.” The steps taken tn trace schedules are by no moans ineffective.

A final reminder is given of the sacred concert to be held at "Aotea” to-mor-row afternoon in aid of the National Fund for the Wounded and thetHerald Belgian Fund. Messrs. Sole Bros, state that if no more rain falls the grounds will be in perfect order. The gates will be open from 1.30, and afternoon tea will be obtainable after 2.30. Busses and motor-cars will run taking passengers from the centre of the town. Visitors are asked not to take dogs with them, on account of the damage to the more delicate ferns and trees. The Citizens' Band has kindly offered its, services, and will render a selection of sacred and patriotic items.

Turakiua Valley, between Wanganui and Marten, was the scene of a rather sensational incident last week, when one of the settlers there and his family got the shock of their lives. Short-, ly after 7 p.m. a heavy thunderstorm swept up the valley, accompanied by vivid lightning. The inmates of the house were startled by a heavy explosion, and immediately the back portion of the dwelling was discovered to be in flames. When the blaze was suppressed it was ascertained that lightning had struck the telephone wire, and had fired the benzine in the lighting plant attached to the house.

A movement is afoot in Eeefton fittingly to commemorate' the jubilee of the Inangahua goldfields. Formerly called “Reeftown,” this mining town claims to be the first in the Southern Hemisphere to be supplied with electric light. Quartz reels were first discovered at Reefton 'in 1871, and the district, has since proved one of the most important in the annals of New Zealand mining. In 1872 Air. Hawkins pegged off the Golden Hill and Caledonian mines, which for ten years yielded excellent returns. In eight years the Welcome mine paid £IIO,OOO in dividends. The reefs extend over a large area, and one reef has been proved to stretch to Otago, a distance of 400 miles.

There is a serious epidemic of typhoid among the Maoris in the north of Auckland. The mortality has surpassed that of all previous outbreaks, and vigorous methods will have to be adopted to combat it. The Health. Department has been doing its utmost, but its task is difficult, because, owing to the war, doctors and nurses are almost unobtainable. The Maoris, moreover, are inclined to hide infectioha cases, and in some instances trust the patients to the care of tohungas. The Department has been advised of cases where Maoris with fever at a very high temperature have been dipped into a, river by order of the tohungas, but it is very difficult to get evidence against the latter. The Department has seven nurses working among the Maoris in the north. At Pupuke alone there have been forty cases of typhoid, three at Mitimiti, seven at Whangape, and several at Awanui. The Department has been fighting the epidemic since February. It will be necessary to stop Maoris moving from one place to another, as was done during the smallpox scare, before the epidemic has any prospect of being stamped out. A well-known gentleman in New Plymouth, under the nom de plume of “Abe Potash,”- has offered 2s 6d to tho first ono to guess his identity. A ticket costing 3d will give the purchaser the privilege of asking any gentleman he meets if he is “Abe Potash.” If he has had the luck to spot the right person, he will, on producing his ticket,( receive. half-a-crown. 'Pickets may /be purchased and “Abe” recognised at the Central School Carnival on Thnrsday, December 2.