The Examiner. Published MONDAY, WEDNESDAY, AND FRIDAY. FRIDAY, MAY 11.

Woodville Examiner, Volume XXII, Issue 3872, 11 May 1906, Page 2

The Examiner. Published MONDAY, WEDNESDAY, AND FRIDAY. FRIDAY, MAY 11.

As a means of fostering regular at-

tendance several

school school committees in attendance. Hawke’s Bay have adopted the “ class board ” system. In each school there is a board on which the regularity of attendance in each class is daily entered, and the class making the highest percentage of attendance for the week has the honor of keeping the board and entering the daily results. The plan is effective, and during Inspector Hill’s visit the regularity of the Main bchool was 97.7 per cent of the school roll and 99.1 of the class which kept the “ honour board.” The School Committee of the Dannevirke North School presents every pupil that makes full attendance for the year with 7s 6d in lieu of a book. The regularity has much improved since the plan was adopted. Patutabi grants to every pupil making full attendance a silver medal or a silver clasp. Many medals have been gained, and some children may be seen on examination day wearing two or three or even four of such medals. The fostering of habits of regularity by the means described is a wise one (says the inspector), and will result in more good being cione than is possible by the employment of the policeman.

Colonel A." Tkaoey, commander of

the Royal Artillery superstition at Rangoon, who is in on a three months’ bubmah. holiday to Australia, Cold at Fremantle a remarkable story, illustrating the extent of superstition in Burmab. During the recent visit of the Prince and Princess of Wales a report spread that the Princess had dreamed she had been poisoned by natives, and that the Prince had issued instructions to employ Indians for the purpose of poisoning the Burmese. Colonel Tracey adued :—“ There was a visitation of plague in Burmah at the time, and, by a curious Oriental deductive reasoning, native agitators proceed to state that the people were dying not of plague, for they urged there was no plague, but from the effects of poison which the Indian natives put into their wells at night, strewed along their roads, and threw into their houses. Were Europeans and half-castes dying from plague ? they were asked. No, only Burmese and Zerbaddis, who are, to all intents an,i purposes, Burmese. To guard against these murderous machinationa every well is repotted to be closed with a wooden lid, fastened with a lock and key. Drinking water is kept under continuous observation, and at 8 p.m. all pots in which water has keen kept are emptied, and turned with their mouths downwards, in order that no poison may be put m them. A light is put in every house, so that any intruder may be discovered. The most serious development is regarded as the appointment of a vigilance committee in each section, with patrols, consisting of six strong men, armed with sticks, who are on strict watch at night, and waylay every Indian native they find going about after certain hours. Many assaults have been committed, and a shooting party, taken for poisoners, had to run for their lives. It is current in Rangoon that all over Mandalay people believe they are being poisoned by order of the Government, because of the Princess of Wales’ dream. Burmese are ruled by fate in everything, consequently they are intensely superstitious—the most superstitious people in the Orient, I think—and when people are so constituted argument is of little avail.”