LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXVI, Issue 18666, 23 December 1922, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

The Telegraph Department lias accepted the tender of Messi's O. F. Millward and Co. for a further 3000 Australian ironbark poles. Particulars of train arrangements in connection with the Stratford races on Ist January, and Marton Races on Ist and 2nd January, are advertised in this issue. At Wellington S.M. Court, Robert Livingstone Bradley, who was charged with signing his wife’s name to a claim for enrolment form, and Ernest Linibrt«ck, charged with witnessing it without seeing it signed, were each fined £5. The offences took place in an hotel bar. The Tramway Department announces that late cars will be run this evening (Saturday) until 11 o’clock. The last cars will leave the Post Office at this time. No cars will be run on Xmas Day. On Tuesday (Boxing Day), if the weather is favourable, the regular Gonville and Castlecliff service will be suspended and the twenty minutes’ holiday service direct to Castlecliff will be substituted.

The Greek Revolutionary Committed have decided to release, with the exception of Constantinopoulis, all the ex-Minfsters awaiting trial. In order to alleviate local poverty, Captain Mackenzie, of the Salvation Army, is appealing for £lOO. He will be glad to receive donations big or small. A notice in this week’s Gazette* announces the application of Maintenance Orders (facilities for enforcement Act, .1 920 (Imperial) to New Zealand. The tail’d challenge match for the Hawke Cup. between Hawke’s Bay and Wanganui, the holders, has been definitely fixed to be played on Cook’s Gardens next Tuesday (Boxing Day) and Wednesday. “Next year is going to be a very busy year, in that we will have building works to t.he extent o! £90,000 to £lOO,OOO going on,” said Mr F. Castle, of t.he Wellington Hospital Board recently. The National Assembly elected M. Wojochewski President of the Republic by 29 8 votes against 227 cast for M. Mo rawski, the candidate of the Right. M. Wojochewski belongs to the party led by M. W>tos, and was a member of the Paderewski Cabinet. M. Morowski is a professor in Cracow University.

A message from Ix>s Angeles reports that Mr Will Hays, the head of the Motion Picture Producers’ Association, has announced the reinstatement Ojf Fatty Arbuckle, who was barred from films following the death of Virginia Rappe. as a recult of the comedian's party a year ago. Christmas cards have become such an institution chat it is difficult to reaalise that 70 years ago they were unknown. Th© originator of the Christinas card was Henry Cole, who subsequently became a knight. The first card Ua.s issued by Joseph Gunda 11. a Jxmdon artist, in 1846. The drawing was done in lithography by a man named .Jobbins. It was coloured by hand. It was not until 1860 that the Christmas card, as we know it to-day, became popular.

The Taranaki Chamber of Commerce is running an excursion from New Plymouth to Sydney and back the s.s. Manuka leaving New Plymouth on the 3rd or 4th March. Any Wanganui residents desirous of joining the party- are asked to hand in their names to the secretary of the Wanganui Chamber of Commerce, from whom full details of the trip, the cost, and the itinerary in New South Wales may be obtained. Through failure to poll one-fourth of the number of votes polled by the successful candidate, the following candidates, besides several Maori candidates, forfeit their deposits:—W. D. Adnams, Manukau: C. Lafferty, Hamilton. E. Piggott. Raglan: C. H. Chapman, Hawke’s Bay: V. A. Christensen, Palmerston North. J. Ross, Wanganui: H. S. Montgomerie, . Rangitikei; G. Tweedie, Taranaki; J. D. Lynch. Westland; R. D. Martin, Kaiapoi: |R. M. Thomson, Christchurch South; !p. R. Needham, Temuka; \V. Masi in, Dunedin Central; N. Mclntyre, Awarua.

An attempt to introduce grouse in the Tongiariro National Park will be made in a few weeks’ time. Mr T. H. Lowry, of Hawke’s Bay. who returned to the Dominion by the Niagara, has donated seven brace of birds from Cumberland, which are due to arrive in Wellington about the end o,f the month. They are coming out under the care of a special attendant, who will receive a premium for every bird which reaches New Zealand alive. They are being fed on frozen heather and other specially prepared b/rd food. It is fifty years since the first attempt was made to introduce grouse into New Zealand, but this, and all subsequent attempts failed, no birds ever having reached here alive. An old man washing to £lOO in war bonds recently toddled to the public counter of a. certain post office not 100 miles from Stratford (states the Stratford Evening Post) and made known his wants. He was referred to the money order department and repeated them. Then, with shaking hand he took his cheque book from the inside pocket of his coat, and handed it to the clerk with a request to fill it in for the amount named and he would sign his name. The clerk gruffly replied that he had no time to do so, and that when the customer presented the cheque properly filled (n he would be attended to! The old man, with still shakier hand, returned the book to his inside pocket again and slowly went away. “My blood boiled at such treatment of the old fellow,” said an eye-witness, when relating'the fnciden.t. “That’s not red tape, either it’s amazing impertinence and disrespect for age that is growing far too common now-a-days!"

The following report has been sent by Inspector Hugo to the Gonville and Castlecliff Town Boards regarding his recent visit of inspection of tire brigades : —On the morning of the 12th inst., in company with Superintendent Rogers, a visit was paid to the Gonville Fire Station. After an inspection of the building and equipment, an alarm was given for an imaginary fire in a butcher’s shop further down the street. The motor hose reel was turned out smartly, and the men got two deliveries to work in prompt and efficient manner. The Castlecliff Fire Station was then visited, and the same procedure was gone through, in this case the men getting to work in front of the hotel. Ln both cases the men appear to be well drilled and conversant with the work, and the motors, appliances, and other equipment was in good working order and condition. The men's bedding might be improved, but otherwise to that, the organisation and system of working the two brigades, with particular reference to the efficiency already attained for the protection of such a largo area, at a remarkably low cost of maintenance, reflects great credit on the superintendent, who is, I understand, solely responsible for the scheme of reorganisation, and should prove very satisfactory in its results. The work of the two brigades being so closely connected, I send this report in duplicate, as covering the inspection of both.

Mr A. E. Gifford’s yacht, “Ron a* has been chosen to represent Auckland in the Sander’s Cup trials. The designs submitted by the competitors for the Queen’s Park Memorial are placed on exhibition in the Sarjeant Gallery. The Manuka, which has been held up at Auckland since November Sth, sailed for Sydney yesterday with 150 passengers, a volunteer crew signing on. Ihe London Times' Washington correspondent says it is believed that America is conditionally willing to participate in a reparations conference. A telegram from Seattle says that Frederick Hansen, a former mate, has been convicted for assaulting and blinding Demetrius Kabilas, a sailor on the barquentine Rolph during a voyage begun at Newcastle, Australia, on February 21st last year.

To be killed through the agency j of a sparrow was the fate of a re- j turned soldier named Frank Webb, ( aged thirty-three, at Te Aroha on , Sunday last. At the inquest on t Monday evidence was given showing , that Webb examined the transformer at the local powerstation, and isol- , ated all the switches on the plat- ; form. He also examined the oil ] switch, and called out to his companion, “all safe.” Webb then went j on the platform and found the 3000- ( volt switch all right. He was open- . ing the centre fuse box when his . companion, Lockyer, noticed an elec-'] trie flash strike his forehead, Webb 1 immediately falling to the platform. ' Lockyer climber up and found Webb ! apparently dead. He also found a dead sparrow beside the body. All the switches had been turned off, and there should have been no current passing through any of the wires. Alfred Waters, the board’s electrical inspector, said he saw the sparrow, which had its back and one leg partly burned off. On inspection he I found an arc on a wire connecting the knife of the air switch and the : oil switch; also an arc on the air switch clip which the knife would fit into if closed. He was of opinion I that the sparrow got across between the knife and the clip, thus inducting 1 1,000 volt into the wires where Webb’s shoulders would be. The Coroner returned a verdict that Webb met his death by electrocution, no blame being attachable to anyone.