LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Wanganui Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 15970, 12 November 1919, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

A young’ man named Patrick Foster was yesterday committed for trial at To Kniti on a charge of attempting to break and enter the railway bookstall on Sunday night. , The Wellington Returned Soldiers' Association passed the following resolution: “In recording the first anniversary of the cessation of hostilities in the great European war, this Association honour* the memory of those men who laid down their lives'for freedom, and reaffirms its determination to sec that adaquatc prorision is made for all their dependants. 1 The Fire Brigade received three calls dnring the night. At 8.44 they were called to the River Bank at the junction, with Ingestre Street, whore gorsc wan blazing. Two hours later they had t<» go to the top of the Avenue on a similar,errand, and a few minutes after mid. night a call came to extinguish a lire which had occurred at the rear of the Gothic. A copper of fat outside tho building had become alight, and but for tho prompt attendance of the Brigade tire lire must have got into Hie kitchen. A strange fish was caught by Captain E. J. Kcatley, of the Northern Company’s steamer Daphne, who formerly traded to Wanganui in command of tho Arapawa. This rare visitor is an cel sft Gin long being in greatest depth 3Jin* This fish is fairly widely distributed in Australian and Japanese waters. Thu eel, which has been classified as Ophichthys Serpens, has been prepared for exhibition by Mr Geo. Shepherd, the hom, curator of the local museum, and is attracting a great deal of attention from visitors.

A very plucky act by a child was witnessed on the New Plymouth beach. Some children were playing among tho rocks when a little boy of four was caught by a wave and washed off. Tho bigger children raised a scream, bnt a little girl about eight years old, without any hesitation whatever, jumped into the sea, and though the water was over her shoulders, she safely brought tb( 1 little lad ashore. But for the prompt' fiction of the little girl tho hoy would have been drowned before help could have reached Mm.—Taranaki Herald.

A Christchurch telegram states that information has been laid by the District Repatriation Officer (Mr T. M. Charters) alleging fraud against a returned soldier, who obtained a grant of iilso from the Board. This, it is believed, will bo the first case of its kind in the Dominion. The circumstances alleged arc that the soldier incorrectly stated that he had had 11 years’ experience as a. tobacconist and obtained a grant to start him in this business. He actually had no ex» perienee in this particular line, and itj was not long before the Board had to take over the business. Tho one town iliat is going ahead faster than any other in New /calami at the “present time is Masterton (says the Manawatu Times). Notwithstanding extraordinary high cost of building materials., houses are going up in every direction, and tho supply is by no means equal to the demand. Particularly good teste is being displayed in tho architecture of the new residences and in the manner in which the grounds are being laid out, and a very noticeable feature is the number of beautiful gardens which surround the residences new ami old. Tho presence of a number of spring-fed streams in the higher parts of the borough has been taken advantage of in many cases to enhance the landscape effects Wealthy settlers in thP neighbourhood arc acquiring land and building town residences on a more or less elaborate scale. The Soldiers’ Club at jMasterton is a residential one and tho citizens, by weekly socials organised by a committee of ladies, promote entertainments for the returned meji and the soldier students at the Penrose training farm.

Tho next most striking feature of life in the Swedish capital, Stockholm (savs a writer in the Daily Mail) is that it certainly is tie dearest city in Europe. The staple coin is the krona, just over a shilling. As an example, a room at an hotel, a bath, and breakfast come to 33 kronor. Tie simplest meals come to just on a pound; wines are entirely prohibitive in price —£i for a bottle of the worst war champagne. A taxicab for an hour oosts ill 15s—they have a pleasant knack of making you pay exactly double what the clock shows. “Tips” leave one aghast. One dare not give less than a krona to a man for opening the door. Five kronor is tho customary “tip” to a waiter for one meal. And people do it! I have been in many places these last five years—in Moscow and Bagdad, Bombay and Salomon, Cairo and Borne, Paris and Petrograd, London and Monte Carlo, Brussels and Milan—and Monte Carlo was the cheapest of them all. And Stockholm far and away the dearest. They put it down to our proximity here to Bolshevism. Certain it is that Swedes indulge like few others in Europe. They cat too much, drink too much boer and punch, sleep too much, and sit about in cabarets too muchOne docs nothing for oneself in Sweden. Great athletic females insist on coming in to bath you unless you bolt and bar tho door and elect to carry on in insular exclusiveness.

A Washington cable states that' it is announced that vessels flying a foreign flag will now obtain bunker coal at American ports in order to relieve the congestion of goods for export.

The New South Wales Government is offering .£IOOO reward, the insurance office £IOOO, and the Broken Hill South Company £2OOO for information leading to the conviction of the perpetrator of the recent lire in the South Mine. A free is offered to any accomplice giving information.

It is reported that several of Hie larger steamship companies in America plan to convert their vessels into oilburners in. order to avert fuel difficulties as the result of coal shortages. It is estimated that the conversion will affect 3750 vessels and save 240 million tons of coal annually.

In the Magistrate’s Court yesterday, R. Kawhia (Mr Mackay) sued G. Haeler (Mr Cunningham) for 355, -the value of a sheep worried by defendant’s dogs. For the plaintiff, the evidence was to the effect that a neighbour saw defendant’s dogs worrying the sheep and shot t hem. For the "defence it was suggested that the neighbour had aimed at the dog and shot the sheep instead. Judgment was given for the plaintiff for 3(te and costs.

Our London correspondent. (says the Christchurch Press) states that the bulk of opinion elicited hv a question put by the Weekly Dispatch to a number of celebrities in England, was to th 6 effect that the use of the term ‘‘Hun” as applied to the Germans, should now be dropped. Incidentally, Sir Thomas Mackenzie remarked: ‘Tib is not a word that I have used much, having preferred to condemn the Germans in other terras, but its application has been more than justified during the war. Feeling is still very bitter against the Germans, and to raise this question now will not, in mv opinion, tend to lessen the use of the word aa a description of the Germans.”

The Wellington Returned Soldiers’ Association last night considered the report of delegates "who visited Pukenra Sanatorium, near Waipnkurau, to investigate complaints made by patients. The report expressed the opinion that great inconvenience and discomfort to patients ■were caused bv the occupation of the bmlding before it was completed. Mr Badger, one of the delegates said there had been a good deal of complaint abont the place, which was only half furnished when the men went in, and they were subjected to needless discomforts. He contended that the complaints were well founded. .There should be more sympathy and less discipline about the place. A motion was passed' approving the delegates’ report, and regretting that the military authorities placed patients in the sanitorium before the building was completed.

A new setting to <the biblical story Of a cup of cold water, etc., was heard on a Devoaport ferry boat a day or two ago (says the Aucklaud Star). Two returned soldiers, happy at being in the land of their birth once more, were in a jovial mood till one made a remark about ■ another soldier who was not then present, that he was not what he ought to be, and asked his mate to have a driuk out of a bottle he had till they further discussed the question. ■‘Not on your life,” said the other soldier. “You, have known the man fifteen years, and you say he is not what lie' ought to be. I knew him for a few days only, and unless you withdraw your remark. I’ll never drink with yon At Gallipoli, when we were both feocked out, and nearly parched to death for want of water, as I found out afterwards, when he got some he gave it to me instead of keeping it to isimsejf. although he needed it as‘much as I did. I’m not a religious man,” he added, “and I’m half shickered now; but the act of that man was the act of a Christian, for he gave a cup of cold wafer to a poor wounded comrade when might have drunk.it himself.” •‘l’ll withdraw my remark,” said the other man, and then they clasped hands and pledged the health of the man where both recognised now as a digger of the best type.