STRATFORD.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 145999, 4 December 1917, Page 3

STRATFORD.

FROM OtJB RESIDENT AGENT* Dec. 2.—ln sympathy with the darkened fronts an'd darkened fortunes of the publicbouses, the public lights had the megrims in the town last night, the aggregate effect being a tragic gloom conducive to an early retreat to the shelter of tho house. I noticed that the “boys” from the country did not indulge in song as has been _ their weekly custom on tho homo-trail. It is a deprivation to which we shall grow accustomed before the war ends. Now that the show is over, some ram would he welcome, the month having been a very dry oho. with 2.84 inches of rain. It has been a good time for shearers, but the dairymen are beginning to complain. To live in a constantly recurring crisis is becoming second nature, otherwise the cheeso storage question might be causing uneasiness, seeing that complete congestion of all available space is a matter of days only. Probably one of the ships that the Prime Minister has had in his mind’s eye (most of them would not have caused him inconvenience if in his actual bodily optic) will turn up just in time to avert disaster. It is cutting it fine, and the people who hold responsible positions in tho daily industry might do worse than to bogm at Mice to consider, what is likely to be the state of things in December, 1918. It is quite evident that shipping is steadily becoming scarcer, and that the requirements of tho United States will increase enormously for the transport of the armies that, since the Russian collapse, are the hope of the Allies. There is a renewal of the diphtheria epidemic, no fewer than eight children being in the isolation hospital. It is fortunate that the discovery of the serum has banished the once alarming fatality of the disease.