LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Wanganui Herald, Volume L, Issue 14741, 21 October 1915, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Another draft, of about 20 men will leave Wanganui this week for Trentham for the Ninth Reinforcements. A busy day was spent by the Defence Office staff yesterday, no fewer than 20 registrations being received. Th’Hon. O, Carson "nas been re-nom-inated the Wanganui representative on the Wellington Training College Board of Governors.. The Education Board last, night passed a resolution of condolence with the relatives of Mrs Furrie, who died recently and who was the mother of-one of the best teachers in the employ of the Board.

Not, the least appreciated of the gifts to the Wanganui men who left for Trentham was a consignment of over 100 meat pies presented by Mr George .Ambrose, the well-known nork butcher, of the Avenue. Each of the pies was made up in a. neat parcel. Last night the Wanganui Board of Education received applications for leave of absence from twentyeight teachers, principally on account of illness. In addition ten applica--1 ions were received from teachers wanting to join,the .Expeditionary Forces. A settler from tlie Okoia district came to the Education Board meeting last night with what he considered a grievance against fen head: teacher. The chairman of the, Board explained that the Board had no power to deal with the alleged grievance which - would have to be dealt 'with by the • committee first. If the committee ignored his complaint, or, the complainant was not satisfied with the committee’s decision, be could appeal to the Board. ;

I A New York cable states that it further five millions sterling in gold has arrived under warship v escort, -consigned to the : Morgan Company. I A Company, National Reserve- will parade at the Drill Hall on Saturday evening at 7.30 o’clodk. No. 4 Platoon will parade on Friday evening at 7.30 o’clock at the Victoria Avenue School. A Wellington telegram states that the Vi to:ia College Council last night deeded, in view of tiie fact, that the Alien i Enemy Teachers Act make it impossible j to i a ain von Zedlitz on the professorial I be should be voted one year’s salary r(U70;)) as compensate:n.. An amendment ! by Dr. 0. P. Knight, seconded by Mr R. A. Wright, M.P., that six months’-salary be voted in lieu of notice, was defeated by *even votes to two after a warm disev.sjirh. An idea, that is being tried in America, of indicating the vacant -seats in a picture theatre, will be valuable to patrons if found workable. A small green lamp is fitted to every seat in the house, these are electrically connected to automatic switches mounted under the chairs, so that when a seat is vacated the lamp will light. The lamps are small, and lock like coloured jewels. The idea, of course, is to ,do away with an usher wa'king down in front of patrons with a lamp and pointing out the vacant 1 seats. |

During; one of the recent air raids on the East Coast of England, a well-known surgeon was performing the operation of tracheotomy at a nursing homo when the German aircraft came over the place at night. The town electric current was at once cut oft. All the lights went out suddenly at the very moment when the surgeon was opening the windpipe. Fortunately, says the Lancet, it was not the first attack delivered against this place, a fishing an 4 sea-bathing resort. Taught by experience, the operator had made it a matter of habit to warn his nurses and other . assistants that lamps should be kept ready’ for use during all operations which had to be undertaken at night. This , precaution may have saved the small patient’s life. With but a trifling delay , the tracheotomy was completed, a.nd the child is now doing well. Although,; owing to the adverse decision,of the Public Works Department,' the proposed tramway to Durietown has had to be turned down, this does not mean that the question of giving access to the bill suburb has been abandoned. Messrs Burnett, Mcßeth and Hogg wrote to the Borough Council on Tuesday night stating that Colonel Wilson now proposed to revert to tho original scheme of a tunnel and lift, and asking that the Council made to him the necessary delegation of its powers. The Mayor explained that, two years ago, an Act was passed authorising a tunnel and lift to Durietown, and the delegation of. tho Council’s powers in the matter. The syndicate which promoted the scheme sold out to Colonel Wilson, who, however, thought an inclined tramway would be better. The Public Works Department having decided against him, he had now reverted to the lift. Tho Act provided that the Council could bring the concession back ’ any time after ten years. Prior’to.'nis election to Mayor, be had been acting for Colonel Wilson, but on his election had notified the latter that he would be unable to do so any longer. He’ suggested setting up a special committee to deal with the matter, but for obvious reasons , could not himself act upon- it. : The. Council agreed to the setting up of a committee consisting of Crs, Spriggens (chairman), Sigley, Darkness, Alderton and Gower.

A sea .serpent found alive at Farquhar Inlet, near the Manning River, New South Wales, and forwarded to Mr D.. Stead, of the State Fisheries Department, proves to be the first specimen of its kind found in New South Wales. It measured about Bft. long, and at a cursory glance looked like a carpet snake- Its i coiling propensities when held in the. air. emphasised its similarity to this land snake, and both hold their prey by vicelike coils. But in ' the shape of its body the sea serpent is quite different. A ground snake 'nas a flattened or roundish under-part, on which it crawls, but the sea serpent’s body underneath juts out after the fashion of the keel of a ship, and when it gets washed ashore it becomes stranded on its side, locomotion in the serpentine method as generally understood being a matter of great difficulty with it. But in its native element the sea the serpent darts through the water at a great pace, its tail, which resembles the flat end of a paddle, enabling it to steer with facility. Its greatest weight: ia concentrated in the lower part of its body to help it in dragging down and constricting whatever it seizes. Mr Stead says that the sea serpent has poison fangs, and its bite - is deadly. It lives mostly at the top of the water, and has to come to the surface to breathe, as it possesses Jungs and not gills. When it comes up to the top to breathe it is almost invisible from a boat, as it just puts its nose above the surface, all the rest of it being immersed. ■ 'Salonika, the port where the Allied Expeditionary Force has lauded, is the ancient Tesaallonica, to whose inhabitants. Biblical students will- remember, St. Paul addressed the two “Epistles to tho Ihessalonians.’’ Until its surrender to tho Greeks on November 8, 1912, the city had been in the bauds of the Turks since 1430. Although attacked often by Bulgaria and Serbia, (it had never belonged to either. The city lies on a crescent of low hills facing the Gulf of the , Aegean, to which it igives its name, and a little to the eastward of the mouth of the Vardar, the ancient Axios, the chief river of Macedonia, down whose a alley runs the railway which connects the Danube with the Aegean. It is a portion of this line, just north of the Greek border, that some of the Allied troops are now said to be guarding. Salonika boasts the -best harbour in the Balkan Peninsula. The population, according to the latesjt available statistics, is, 121,600, including 60,600 Jews, who regard themselves as of Spanish origin, dating from 1571, and speak- a corrupt ' Spanish among themselves. There are also'about 20,000 Moslems included in the population. Salonika is one of the two heads of the great railway which runs through Central Europe from Paris, by Vienna, Budapest, and 8e1,., grad". the other terminus being Constantinople. It is the nearest good Euroj neau haven to the ports of Asia, of Africa, and of Australia. If tho Greeks utilise its natural advantages to the full, Salonika, bv reason of its close connection with ■ Paris and Hamburg, ,is looked upon as being destined fe> become perhaps the very first port of the Medi-' terranean. For the moment, however, we are more concerned with its military than’ , its: commercial, .Importance—and from its bearing npo : n the Serbian campaign, the advantages accruing from" the j use of "it by the Allies cannot possibly be over-estimated. I -

.A Wellington telegram states that the Unicn Company conceded the men’s demand: for six firemen and three greasers for the Komata, and the vessel left at 8.30 last night for Westport. The former complement was three firemen, two trimmers, and one gieaser. The men at the front include a Pongaroa settler and his son, the father being among the wounded. The farm is being managed by a sixtecn-year-old sou. The mother is at present in a nursing home, recently having given birth to her thirteenth child. A correspondent to a Dunedin newspaper toys that the alteration in the Customs traiff has increased the duty cn a motor truck from .£3 10s to jEI7I 10s, or, in other words, has raised the new duty to -t9 times the old duty, ivlotor tuick is the American ,description of what are best known .to us as motcr lorries. On account of a disease among the cattle in some of the States of the Conimonwealth, restrictions have been placed upon importations into New Zealand. The disease is a parasite, and forms what arc known ua “worm nests,” which affect the oeef to such an extent that portions of tue carcase have to be destroyed. Live sock has been imported into Australia, where there is a shortage of beef, from t-iji, but such importaions are prohibited as far as this Dominion is concerned. Vais is on account cf the diseases that

attack cattle reared in the tropica, and if. is understood that provision has been made in Sydney for the killing, of the beasts, immediately after their arrival, as is the case in England with cattle landed, from the Argentine.

Now that sandbags play such, an important part in trench warfare (writes a lady' to the London Times), I think the following suggestion sent m© by my husband, who is commanding a battalion in France, may be worth publishing. He asks for sandbags to be sent out to him, and makes a good point of their being daubed all oyer with irregular patches of black, brown, and greed paint to render them invisible to the enemy. Be adds “that the Germans build their parapets so much better than we do, using different coloured bags; it is almost impossible to detect their loonholes, whereas ours are very easily seen.” This seems an easy and practicable suggestion, and may be-the means of saving countless lives.

An inspiring story of the perseverance and invincible enthusiasm of a Napier young man is related by the Telegraph. ,ne young soldier offered himself for medical examination in the first instance, and was informed that he was ineligible, ns his teeth were defective, so he at once bad them put in order, at a cost of £lO, and he presented himself again.,- This time his teeth were passed, but he was told that his chest measurement was too small. Nothing daunted, he sought the assistance of a physical expert, unde; whose treatment he developed the necessary inches. With full confidence he presented himself for a third examination v ith expanded chest, when the conscientious medical expert discovered that one of . his toes overlapped and, still undismayed, the gallant youth has gone into hospital to have the toe amputated.

According to- recent files from Suva; an elderly Indian woman named Lelcenia was charged at the Supreme Court on September 27 with murdering one Madari ao Gclonimatu, Bau. The case, as briefly outlined by tire Crown' Solicitor, was that the murdered man, Madari, ran amok,' killed two Fijians, ;hu*|’ band of the accused woman, ahdi also attempted to kill her son by means of a knife and spear. The accused, sprang upon the murderer and held him down* the prostrate victim meanwhile slashing at her with his knife. The son came -to bis mother’s assistance and-took theknife from Madari. At his mother’s request he then handed the knife to her, and she did the rest. Madari’s neck and body remained connected by the skin only. The assessors found the accused not guilty of murder, justifiable homicide being tbeir view of the case. His Honor accordingly discharged the woman.

Of all the inconspicuous but significant events of the war there have been few that for interest, and in a measure for pathos, have surpassed the quiet visit of the Queen of the Belgians on a recent Sunday to an eminence from which she was able to obtain a view of the ruins of her loved and lost Tpres (says a despatch from British headquarters to the Daily Telegraph). Nothing could have been more in sympathy with a day from which no human help “could rob the sorrow than the simple arrangements of this unnoticed and unheralded journey. All that was due to honour was- rendered; nothing that mere ceremony claimed. Almost alone the Queen went out towards that much-hammered salient, and though those whose right it was to welcome her were with her there, it was almost alone in spirit that she let her eyes fall over the cruel havoc and desolation of the i»wel of all her husband's ' cities.' The afternoon was brilliantly clear, and the white wreck of the famous Cloth Hall, so fast sinking to the ground, was again and Again illuminated by a ray of sun when all round was shadowed by the passing cf the high overhead clouds. With the reticence of those who were with her as an example of arofe, there is no word more to add to this ;Baro note than to say that once an English aeroplane thrummed exultingly overhead on its way to Ypres and the German lines.

Two years ago an outbreak of smallpox among the Maoris caused' a stir all over New Zealand, but the present epidemic of typhoid is taking a far greater toll, of lives (reports the Auckland Star’s Mangonui correspondent), v Pamapuria, between Victoria Valley and Kaitaia, is only a small settlement, yet there arc 19 new graves in the burial ground at the native choch there. Nurse Ferguson and her staff have their hands full. at the typhoid camp in the, Herekino' district; and the mortality list keeps mounting up. The careless, happy-go-lucky character of the Maoris, and their disregard of sanitary precautions, is shown by a recent incident. A native woman died; 6f typhoid somewhere in the Herekino district, and nine days after her death her body was driven practically across New Zealand to Kenana, near Mangonui, for interment, there, as the was a. native of that place. The fact that tho body '<fi a person who died from typhoid was left unburied for nine days in the hot, muggy weather of the last month' is bad enough; but worse remains behind, for tho. two native men who drove the corpse to Kenana were both bad wifh.. typhoid, and had, alarming temperatures. The untivea at Kenana packed'them off to the Mangonui hospital, where they now are. These fever patients. acting as. undertakers must, have left a trail of infection behind them across the Island.

;:rvv,v'v r-FV ■ ' :■ ■ ■ ,■* ■' 7-/ IV A resident of Esperanto, a summer ro,;noted for its interesting oaves, near , EertS,fcAyestern Australia,V writing to a friend in Stratford, remarks that the war is making things bad everywhere. “We have had New Zealand butter at 2s (id, but ,it is falling a little now; tiio jjlb 'loftf of 7d, and hour at 12s 6d the SfflbHag—it used to bo 6s 6d to 6s; Everything else is in proportion." The writer incidentally states that they worn having the wettest winter ever known in ' West Australia.

In the Hlalay States all German trading concerns have now been taken over by the Government and wound up, and particularly heavy penalties' have been proscribed for the offenders of trading with the Germans. The German Club at Siugap.: re, a very spacious and wcllaomiuted block of buddings,, has been taken over by the Government, and turned into a volunteer barracks. The civilians of the State will have nothing whatever. to do with, the, Germans, and bar them from membership on sports and social clubs. The fact that the German by six months’ residence in Switzerland may become a Swiss subject is looked unon with grave suspicion by the Malav States civilians, who consequently look askance at neople who register themselves as Swiss. It is considered that the Germans will never again get a trade footing in the Malay States, unless thev con manage it through the agency of, natives. Incidentally, it may be mentioned that the civiMads of the States consisted entirely of ; women and old men, because the Government had passed legislation which makes it compulsory for every man under 55 years of age to wear the khaki uniform and l>ecome subject to immediate .call to .service.

An exceedingly busy afternocn was spent at the Military Hospital Guild rooms yesterday afternoon, when a zest was' given to the work by the fact that another case is to be ready for transhipment early next month, and as there still remains a great deal to bo prepared, it ip honed that all those interested will make a special effort to -finish both knitting and sewing without delay. As this case will be sent to Egypt, where It will be most, acceptable to wounded New Zealand soldiers, it offers an opportunity to anv who want to send parcels to friends, 'and the committee will be very pleased to enclose any sent with correct addresses. A parcei of barn sandwiches’ Was seat in by Mrs Ambrose''and proved ah acceptable addition to afternoon tea, and her thoughtful action was much appreciated. Mrs Suisted, hon. secretary, wishes to acknowledge . contributions received during the past wofk as follows; Mrs A. fies, ode set'of pyjamas; ‘ Mesdames Oibbard. Hodges. Russell, and G.- Handleyold linen; Mr W. E. McCarthy, a parcel pf calico for bandages; Mrs F. M. Hamntohd. to Weis and sox; Mrs G. Robertson, two pair of sox; Mrs Hylton, fact washers; Misses Harrison and Craven, a parcel of new books; Johnstonahd Co„. one gross of toilet soap.