LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Thames Star, Volume LIX, Issue 16733, 8 March 1926, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

The Thames Kash Kounters notify in this issue a clearance sale of bo\s’ clothes.

Great reductions in boots and shoes at Danby’s Shoe Stores. See advertisement to-dav.

Attention is drawn to the “Big Three” Art Union advertisement today. The first three prizes are £IOOO each.

The indications are for variable and moderate breezes, but southerly prev vailing. There is a prospect of fair to cloudy weather. The barometer lias a rising tendency. Seas moderate, tides good. Barometer .*10.03, thermometer 70.

A party of Thames residents fishing off the Coast yesterday caught some large sehnapper. In all, they secured 18 fish, and two amongst them weighed 101 bs. and 13lbs. The last' of their catch was also 131b5., and the hook on the line was almost straightened out bv the weight.

Blue eyes occur in the best of families, but they become unique when they are possessed by a Maori, members of whose race look out upon the world through orbs of brown. A Maori was seen in Wanganui with eyes rivalling the colour of the clearest sky. Pinkeyed Maoris have also been reported in New Zealand.

What happens to the old plates is evidently left to the whim of the. individual motorist. With the passage of vears it is conceivable that a fair stack of disused plates can be amassed by each Mar-owner, and one Wanganui motorist is said to be contemplating the construction of a. fowlhouso wiien he collects a sufficient number.

A young Christchurch inventor, Mr. F. D. Moredithf claims to have devised a machine, m the form of a radio set, by which electricity can be obtained from the atmosphere in sufficient quantities. to. .provide . light and power for &eue ; i?a¥Mise, 'iiuffiiding' the lighting of houses and the charging; of bateries. He has applied for patent rights for his invention.

An amusing incident is related of Sir James Parr. While at Hamilton lie had occasion to use one of the penuy-in-the-slot telephones, and finding, like many others, that the response was not too . brisk, he became rather irritated. “Who are your asked the exchange attendant. “I’m the Postmaster - General.” “Garn, came the sarcastic reply, “I’m the Governor-General. ’ ’

A survey of the proposed new railway route from Pokeno to Paeroa is being made by Messrs. I). Rodi© (railwav commercial manager), A. C. Fay (operating and equipment superintendent), and O. N. Campbell (Public Works engineer). The party is proceeding from Pokeno, at which point the main line is tapped, working towards Paeroa, where the proposal is to link up with the Fast Coast line.

The latest, issue of that • popular weekly magazine,' Humour, inaugurates a big jumbled .word competition, in which cash prizes to the value of £IOO are offered. There is a. first prize of £SO, and 19 other prize. 4. Humour is one of the most entertaining of weekly magazines, and in its pages is to be found a rfeflex of the world’s cleverest witticisms in picture, verse and anecdote.

“Business isn’t what it used to he in this, line,” remarked Mr. W. White, Ashburton Registrar, to a Guardian representative. He said that some years ago marriages in his office were frequent, but lately there had been very few, and he had married nobody so far this year. We’ll give them the benefit of the doubt,” said Mr. Whito, “and say people are becoming move religions. Anyway, tlley don’t come here now.”

Experimental plots at which researches have been made into the manures and grasses most suitable to the soil of the district have been conducted and have been established at Te Kuini and near Te Kuiti and at Aria for the past five years, under the supervision of the Department of Agriculture. They have been a great success, the most valuable results being that they have convinced farmers in the locality of the necessity for topdressing and have proved which variety of manure should be used.

A kindly thought on the part of a North Island resident in the country is to help the Blind Institute in Auckland by making a small charge for the use of the “accommodation paddocks’’ which are a feature of country life. These are used by those who take flocks or herds along the road to salevards or elsewhere, and who have to put the animals somewhere for safety at night. The station-holder to whom the idea came used to lend his field free of charge, but thi's was objected to by others who used to charge, so lie was seized with the idea of assistance to a cause in which he had already taken an interest, and now he charges so much a hundred, and the result is quite a substantial sum for the Jubilee Institute. It was found on quite a number of occasions when the circumstances were explained that the drovers added a little to the payment “for the good of the cause.”

Husbands are being worn less shabby this season in London (says a London writer to a New Zealand paper). The slogan of all the tailors is “Brighter Husbands.” The position a year ago, a well-known tailor in Bond Street confided to my ear, was that it was the hen bird who decked herself in gaudiness and let the male go drably, even scraggily, through the world. Now, it appears, shame has come upon the bedizened creatures', and they are learning to go without so many frocks that their spouses may look a little more decent. Tljis reversion is believed to have come about through one woman saying to her best friend: “My dear, why on earth do you allow that tramp to keep on following you about? What on earth does he want?” And the retort was: “Oh, t that! That’s my husband!” But women, the London woman at any rate, are learning that a shabby husband contrasts badly with a trim Pekingese, and as it is not possible to banish her better half entirely, she has to spend as much, in comparison, on his coat as she does on the dog’s! And all this, naturally, is brightening up the streets of the West End.

.New Zealand butter as one of “Liie s Little Consolations,” is referred to in the editorial columns of the Glasgow Evening Times. “If your bread will be dearer to-morrow,” it says, “you will have cheaper butter to spread upon it. There is a fall of about l£d. per lb. on most kinds of butter. New Zealand butter, as the sleuths of. the British Shopping Week stated, is always cheaper than Danish, and this rule again obtains. Quality as well as price commends the New Zealand produce, though the present sample is hardly .*f the best. New season’s produce, however, will he available in a week or two, and tho housewife can then combine patriotism with sound economy and discriminative buying.”