LOCAL AND GENERAL

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXVI, Issue 18259, 18 August 1921, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL

A well-built seven-roomed house was sold at auction in Dunedin on Tuesday for £BO5. We understand that the particulars of the award filed for Wanganui and Rangitikei drivers, which we published yesterday morning, did not include the bonus of 10/- which shopld be added in all adult wages. A man who was arrested in Wellington was, acording to a city paper, suffering from delusions that "the girls were after him.” For being so' silly, he was sent to gaol for three days.

In view of the financial stringency the South Australian Government has decided not to proceed with a Bill increasing ministers’ and members’ salaries A report of the impressive speech delivered by the Hon. W. F. Massey at the opening of the Imperial Conference will be found on pages 2 and 3. The statement was made at a meeting of the Education Board last evening that there were probably over a dozen children in the Wainiarino district so far away from schools that they were not receiving any education at all. The chairman said that ho knew of an instance of a girl aged fourteen years who could not add the figures two and three together. St. Paul’s Band of Hope held their usual fortnightly meeting last Monday when a very good attendance was recorded and an enjoyable hour spent. Tire programme consisted of recitations by Miss N. Astbury, Mavis Cowan, Marion Chisholm, and Norman Cowan; pianoforte duet by Misses Chisholm and Watson; reading by Mr H. Astbury ; songs by Marcia McKenzie and Keith Gowan. An interesting address was given by Mr Bui st, and several pledges were taken by new members. A relic of former days was recently found on a section in Tauranga. Beside several well-preserved skeletons there were a number of stone implements and section of the back bone of a whale, also a blue bead bead such as was used for barter by old traders. By arrangement with the Dominion Museum authorities measurements are being taken of the old skulls found, and the figures will be recorded and tabulated as part of the study of Maori history. “If people would only walk a rca. sonable distance to their place of occupation they would save their health and their money,” said Dr. 11. J. - McLean, in a lecture recently. “I am positive that street-cars are responsible for the lost art of walking, and that they are not altogether an unmixed blessing. We should all walk more and tram less, and if we could prevail on each man to walk only one section more a day the result would be an enormous gain in health, thought I don’t know if he would save any money in these days of concession tickets.” “I understand that one society is absolutely exhausted, and that several are on tse verge of exhaust;, remarked the chairman (Mr Williams, of Hawke’s Bay) at a recent meeting of the Advisory Board of the Federation of the New Zealano Patriotic War Relief Societies. During a discussion regaiding soldiers dependent upon exhausted societies opinions were expressed that no society should be subsidised by a lump I sum from the War Funds Council. Some members stated that there was no desire on the part of their associations to be reimbursed from any other fund. There was a humorous little incident at the meeting of the Education Board last evening. Mr Grace and other members of the Southern Schools Committee waited upon the Board to hand over a cheque for £540 the proceeds of tho recent appeal for funds to improve the Avenue School grounds. After discussing the suggested improvements and receiving the cordial thanks of the Board the deputation retired amid a round of applause, but a few minutes later they returned to announce that they had forgotten the most important thing of the lot—to leave tho cheque with the Board. When it was handed in by Mr Grace, one of the Board members, Mr Mclntyre, remarked facetiously: “Instead of being a fall from Grace it is a windfall from Grace.” Six of the workers homes In Puriri Street have now been completed and another five will be finished next week. Applicants for these houses are now being interviewed by Mr Gohns, the officer in charge of the Department. Preference is given to applicants with the largest families, but all things being equal, the date of application Is taken into consideration. Therefore, anyone in need of a dwelling should not lose time in making application to the Department. Successful applicants are expected to find cash for the cost of the house above £lOOO and the balance (£1000) is then paid off by weekly instalments of £1 1/11 which Includes interest, principal and insur. ance. The interest is at 5 per cent, reducible to 4 % per cent, if paid punctually. The cost of the houses varies from £1053 to £ll4l. “It appears (states the report ol Ihe Advisory Board of the Patriotic Societies) that ex.lrnperial soldiers are arriving in New Zealand in some numbers. There are cases where the soldier is suffering from some war disability, and is, perhaps, in receipt of an Imperial pension. He may break down in health after his arrival in the Dominion, and be sent to one of the military hospitals Naturally, he requires assistance,” and at least hopes his pension will be made up to tho standard of our own men. The board might consider whether this class of soldier should be a charge on war relief funds, the Health Department, or even if he should be discouraged from landing in the Dominion at all. There are other classes of Imperial men who also require temporary assistance, and, in a small degree, are receiving help from some societies. The de mands may, however, become too great to permit justice to be done to the Imperial soldier and. at the same time, to conserve the funds for the benefit of our own men.’’ “In the back country one comes across some curious cases of rougn and ready surgery,” writes “J.C.” in Quick March. “There are, or rather were, two approved methods among the Maoris of treating .gunshot wounds. One was bathing with boiled flax-root water, the other was plugging them up with clay to exclude the air. Sometimes the wound was cauterised first with fire-charred supplejack. These norolc methods were generally as successful as Lord Charles Beresford’s famous methods of patching up his camels in the Desert Column, Soudan War. On the great return inarch from Gubat to Korti, Beresford found his camels in such a condition that the resource, ful sailor was ‘obliged to put shotplugs in to keep the water in when' they drink.” One of his diary entries, February 27. 1885, ran: 'Employed repairing camels,’ sides byplugging them with oakum.’ lord Wolseley laughed when he read it. ‘But the admixture of tar,’ explained Lord Beresford afterwards, ‘acted as an antiseptic’’ It does not appear that clay possesses antiseptic properties; nevertheless the wounds of the Maoris so treated did quite as well as those of Beresford’s oak-um-caulked camels."

The Westrallan Government has decided to form a wheat pool within the State says a Perth cable "You see very little mutton or lamb in America," stated Mr T. M. Wilford incidentally, in the course of an interview with a Times reporter. A Carterton nurseryman sent to Belgium for glass required in a large greenhouse. The duty and freight charges exceeded by £2 the amount for the glass. Joy.riding is still very popular with some Eltham youths (sa.ys the Argus). Recently three young fellows, all of whom reside in Eltham. appropriated a car from a local garage and went for a trip to Hawera They attended a dance there, and after having a "good time” returned to Eltham. When they went to take back the car, however, the garage was closed and the doors locked. The only thing to do was to leave the car on the street. Had they been able to return it to its place in the garage their escapade might have passe, unnoticed, but having to leave it on the road gave them away, and they will appear before the next sitting of the Eltham Magistrate’s Court to explain their conduct. The Licensing Bill, which has been passed by the House of Lords, which applies to the whole of Britain, provides that the earliest hour at which liquor will be procurable, shall be 11 o’clock in the morning, and' the latest 10 o’clock in the evening, except in the metropolis, wli.ru the latest hour shall be 11 p.m. The hours of opening are limited to eight in the provinces and nine in London. Meals, with drinks can be ordered on weekdays in London between 11 o’clock and midnight in hotels and restaurants, and between 11 and 11.30 in licensed houses and clubs. The Central Liquor Control Board is abolished and its property transferred to the Home Secretary and the Secretary for Scotland, who are empowered to continue the board’s scheme of State management of the liquor traffic.