HERE AND THERE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19862, 3 February 1920, Page 4

HERE AND THERE.

Someone made a. glaring, mistake In a Chinese store m Sydney recently, as a result of which the Customs ers secured £BOO worth of opium. In a certain suburb a Chinese grocer re* ceired several bags of sugar from a' Chinese store in the city. One of these bags was sold to a favoured customer hj the grocer. On opening it, howv ever, the customer found that the bag end not contain all sugar. Some o? the space was taken up by queer-ldok' nig sausage-like affairs. As the customer had ordered sugar lie considered himself badly done by, so he had the offending hag sent back and lodged a complaint with the grocer. The grocer, on his part, decided that be had received short weight, and gave information to the police. The Customs searchers were communicated with, and an investigation of the supposed sausages showed that the sausage skins were hut envelopes for opium. There were ten pounds of it altogether. As tho drug is now worth well over £lO a pound, someone was a hcavv loser. Tho Customs activities did not finish at this stage. The searchers went, to the Chinese store from which tho “ sugar” had been sent, and there made a systematic search. Their efforts were rewarded with another I.olh of onium, this time done up in half-pound tins. Lachlan Cochran, who is declared to he the hero of Banjo Paterson’s “ Tho Man from Suowy River.” has»just died, after a lingering,* illness, in the Cootamundra Hospital. Now South Wales. In the early days he was a jockey and huckjump rider. He served through the South African war. His brother, Mr Neil Cochran, of Yonak Estate, Adaminnhy, rode eighty miles over mountainous country on ' horsehack in fourteen hours to say a. Insr, goocl-hyo to the dying man. The ride involved traversing the G.reta Lividiug Range in the darkness through Tunudrn and Ynrrangohilly, and is regarded ag the finest rido on horseback of late years,

Tlie boom in rabbitskin prices has produced a remarkably energetic campaign for the slaughter of the pes‘: (says a Sydney paper), and on every farm and station where rabbits are to be found the trapping or shooting of them is engaging attention in preference to any other form of country work. Children are earning, during the school vacation, more money than the labouring men formerly got fer their work. Parties of experienced trappers have each made £2O per week,, and it is by eo means exceptional fo" £2 a day to bo earned. The demand for skins on European and Anieric.au account is now so strong that it is believed the price will go even higher later on for the winter coat. Even at the ruling average price of 7s t-i 7s 6d per lb,' trappers would in the winter, receive nearly dotiblo the price for their labour, owing to the skins weighing nearly twice as much as summer skins- The carcases then will also bo of account, whereas at present practically all this valuable food is thrown away.

If some fairy godmother were to coma to you and offer you the chance of iving through any week you chose to name in the world’s history, what week would you select? Landon Ronald would choose to have been present at the original production of “Tristan and Isolde”; Hilaire Belloc declares that the week beginning September IG, 1792, and ending September 23, would have been tho most interesting week for anyone living in any part of Western Europe. William le Queux selects the week of the Crucifixion and Resurrection. Alec Waugh (the novelist of public school life) is for the last week of Sulla’s consulship, when “ Paganism reached its most splendid point.” Dean Welldon would choose to have lived in the week when Luther appeared.before the Diet of Worms. Mrs Belloc Lowndes would like to have been alive in the week which saw Napoleon’s triumphant return to Paris from Elba. Dor my own part (says a London .writer), I have no special hankering after the big historical episodes. Gliven half a dozen choices, I would hare a. week with Jesus, as one of the Disciples; a week in Periclean Athens during a. Dio. nvsian Festival; a week with CuchuL lain (the hero celebrated- in* ancient Irish poems); a week in Elizabethan London, with the free run of the Hernia id Tavern; a week with Captain Kidd (I’d risk that); and I rather think I’d like the thrill of thnjt night in the Wooden Horse, though I’m not certain. On the other hand. I am quite certain which week I’d least like to live over again. Noah’s last seven days in tho Ark must have been intolerable.”

A matter which requires immediate investigation by the Government is, according to a. Palmerston resident who nas just returned from llotorua, the state of affairs existing there with re> gard to the returned soldiers’ hospital, In conversation with a Manawatn “Times” reporter, he said that the wholesale waste going on there in connection with the hospital buildings an.l the staff was common talk among the residents of the town. With regard to the buildings, provision is made for over 1000 patients, and the average number of inmates has never exceeded 200 at any time. A very large medical staff is employed to look after these men. When it is realised that the average works out at about one doctor to every fourteen patients, and that each of these officers receives a salary commensurate with the importance of his profession, the huge expenditure that the Government is being put to can readily be understood. Besides iliis there are two colonels in charga of the medical, staff, each drawing "a salary of £I2OO a year with housing and messing allowance thrown in. The peculiar part of the whole thing is that buildings are still in the course of erection with a large number of men employed on them, and consequently a long pay-sheet to he faced at rognlai periods. “ T don’t believe,” said tlv> gentleman in question, “ that the present Cabinet can possibly he aware -if the stale of things at present existing there, or a stop would surely have been put to it years ago.”

According to the men who know the likes and dislikes of the Prince- of "Wales, the most pleasant moments of his stay in New York 1 wore when he strolled incognito down Fifth Avenue in the dusk of the, evening, brisking elbows with the thousands hurrying homeward, and occasionally stopping to inspect the brilliantly lighted shop windows. Not until he had reached 34th (Street, after walking down the avenue from 59tli Street, was lie recognised. Then a newsboy called out, “There goes the Prince.” Immediately a crowd pressed round the Prince, who exchanged a few words with the “ newsies.” Among the appreciations of the Prince appearing in the American papers is this from the New York “Times” “For the women he has the grace, dignity and charm of the princes of legend and romance. For the men lie has finalities of good sportsmanship and good fellowship.”

There is evidently ‘'professional etiquette ” even among watersnders. which forbids one section of workers, to trespass on the preserves of another. An instance of this came under notice on the Auckland wharves thother day. A worker was wheeling i truck load of packages from the boatside to a shed (or vice versa), when one of the boxes fell off the barrow. The man immediately put down his load and returned to' another part of the wharf and signalled another worker- This struck the curiosity of a hy-standor, who inquired the meaning of the procedure. The questioner was as muck astonished at the reply as the worker scorned nncor\.orned. ' “Oh, I’m only n trucker,” was the answer' “He handles the goods; I don’t touch them.”