LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Waikato Times, Volume 102, Issue 17168, 2 August 1927, Page 6

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

A register, which has 1 been compiled during the past three years, shows that there arc in New Zealand approximately CDO blind people. There are 112 in the Jubilee Institute for the Blind.

The Christchurch City Council last night decided, by a Labour majority of II votes to five, to raise a special loan of £25,000 for city street improvement, under the special legislation for the relief of unemployment.

H.M.S. Dunedin, which left New Zealand for England on January 25 to relit at the naval dockyards, is expected to return this week, arriving at AucLland on Wednesday afternoon.

There was a substantial excess of departures over arrivals through the Port of Auckland during July. Arrivals tot-ailed 770 and departures 1327, compared with 797 and 1047 respectively in July, 192 G.

Preliminary work in connection with the establishment of the Masscy Agricultural College, at Palmcrston North, is being pushed ahead rapidly. A nurnof men are employed on poperty at Tiritea, their principal work being fencing and draining.

Three petitions in bankruptcy were filed last month in the Wellington district, against one in July last year. In the seven months of the year 21 bankhuptcics have been recorded, against 17 in the January-July period last year.

"It is rather remarkable," says Ignaz Fricdmann, the groat pianist, "that the three countries which had been responsible for the downfall of Poland — Germany, Austria, and Russia —should each have fallen in the Great War. Poland has regained her independence, and all wo desire now is to he allowed to cultivate the peaceful arts. We have profited by our faults of history and will not repeat thorn. Poland is prosperous, but it will naturally take us some time to regain tho good-will of the neighbours on either side of us,, who at present are none too friendly. Poland is satisfied now that it is wiser to make music than to point guns at each other."

"Slumber Week," which commenced on Thursday is producing sonic amazing bargains in bedding, blankets, etc., at Hooker and Kingston's Colossal Sale. Everything needed for the bed, from a "snug in" mattress to a cosy elderdown, will be cleared at prices that will set the whole, town thinking. Buy your bedroom needs this week—for you'll pay less for berutiful pure kapoc bedding at Hooker and Kingston's during "'Slumber Week" than most Inferior grades. *

| The water on the road at Mercer !is down to i 2 inches. The river is reported to bo falling.

The late Mr. Frederic Lubbock, formerly chairman of the London board of tiic Bank of New Zealand, left an estate valued at £30.014.

The Wellington City Milk Committee has reported that the selling price of milk and cream for the ensuing summer season will be 6d a quart and that of cream 2s Bd. Prices had formerly been 8d a quart in the winter and 7d in x the summer.

The practice of some business firms in pressing shopkeepers' to purchase goods without first investigating the financial position of the shopkeepers was criticised by Mr. Justice Stringer in the Supreme Court at Auckland.

On Sunday, about five miles out of Raglan, a sportsman belonging to the locality, while out shooting, fired at a rabbit, and three children belonging to Mr Shea, a farmer, who were playing nearby, were struck by the shot. The children were not seriously injured.

There was a recurrence of foggy weather in Auckland yesterday, with the result that shipping was again delayed, for the second time in two days. The arrival of the Niagara was delayed five hours.

A consignment of 5000 shrubs has been despatched to Australia from Taranaki. It is believed that this is the most valuable consignment of shrubs shipped in one order that has ever left the Dominion.

This afternoon a collision occurred at the corner of Victoria and Collingwood Streets between a motor-lorry belonging to the Te Uku Carrying Company and driven by Mr J. Porter, and a cycle ridden by Mr H. Elmore, of Frankton. One of the wheels of the cycle was damaged.

At the forty-first annual meeting of shareholders in the Wellington Investment Trust and Agency Company the recommendations of the directors to make a payment of a further dividend of 3J per cent., making 6J per cent., for tiie year, to place £3OO to the reserve fund, and to carry forward £531 14s 10d, were adopted.

"They say a pig has no sense, but he has more than we have sometimes. We often take things that are not good for us, but a pig docs not." This remark (states the Gisborne Times) caused a little merriment at the winter farm school in the Gisborne City Hall the other morning, when Mr K. W. Gorringe, instructor in swine husbandry, mentioned a pig's discrimination regarding its food.

"In this mixture you can use red clover •or cow grass: whatever you order, it will probably come out of the same bag," remarked Mr E. B. Lew, grasslands expert, in the course of a lecture at the hospital farm in Gisborne (the Poverty Bay Herald reports). "Practically the only difference between cow grass and red clover," he added, ". is about 2d a pound." (Laughter).

Among the companies registered in Auckland is:—Midlands Bulidings, Limited,' to erect and carry on the business of a private hotel at Cambridge Capital, £4OOO, in £1 shares; Subscribers: E. R. Partington, 1200 shares, A. McDonald, 200 shares; R. Simpson, C. E. H. Rout and J. Taylor, 100 shares each; A. W. Ganc, G. E. Clarke, W. J. HaUiday, and D. N. Chambers, 50 shares each; F. E. Day, 20 shares; F. Penn, 10 shares.

The Prime Minister, the Right Hon. J G. Coates has informed Mr J. McGombs, Member for Lyttelton, in connection with the electrification of the Lyttelton tuunel, that tenders arc nowbeing considered for the supply of poles and locomotives, and work will be started "in the near future as soon r>s the material arrives. It is anticipated that the work will be completed early in 1929.

The somewhat unusual incident in the House of Representatives the other afternoon, in which a little feeling was displayed between two members (states a parliamentary reporter), is said to have had its sequel in the lobby later. The story goes that the belligerents almost came to grips in the excitement of a wordy duel, but from all accounts nothing serious happened, and by evening they were again on speaking terms. There were more serious encounters in the olden days.

A few years ago the Johns HopMns University, at Baltimore, United States, organised a commission'to determine whether women were by nature more unpunctual than men. The inquiry, which was conducted on a systematic! plan, embraced 700 male students and 700 women students, and examined over a period of several years. The students themselves were iscnorant of the inquiry. The findings of the committee show that none of the women students had a proper sense of the divisions of time, while the majority of the men gave fairly satisfactory results.

Tho Mayor of Christchurch (the Rev. J. K. Archer) has received the following letter. It is headed "Valparaiso, May, 1927":—"The reign of terror of the dreaded Anti-Christ, the dreadful and final battle of Armageddon, with its inauguration -of the lake of lire and brimstone and the capture and imprisonment of the Devil and Satan for a thousand years, will very shortly wind up this corrupt Ghistian age of dead churches with total destruction. These actual troubles in the East and West will finish up with the total destruction of the kings of the earth on the battlefield of Armageddon, and that by the hand of God Almighty. Nothing can avert this."

As indicating the profitable use to which deer hides, winch arc now left to rot in the deer forests, can be put, there was left at the Office of the Timaru Herald last week, a piece-of leather which had been made from the hide of a West Coast red deer. The hide was tanned at Christchurch, and tho resultant leather shows quality sufficient lo indicate a ready place for ii. on the leather market, for a variety of purposes. The hide was a largo one, which cost lis to tan, and it demonstrates the folly of allowing deer skins to waste when they can be profitably made into good leather.

With tho coming of Spring we expect to sac the Latest Creations in headwear for the fairer sex, and nowhere In Hamilton can such an array of hats for Spring, in the latest shapes and -fashions, lo be seen as at Miss Beagley's, Victoria Street, flats wiili the small brim seem lo be still the vogue, but a few with larger brims are\exhibUed. Amongst a large assortment of artistically-designed and trimmed ha is, the predominating colours are Mauve ami the now Almond Green,'the latter especially being of a very'delicate shade, which, with_ the careful choosing of trimmings,

form a very One showing. The Mauve colour scherncs <-.t! c:;o line and make a display well worth inspecting. Black, Fawn, and Salmon Pink arc also well to the fore, and tho premises of Miss Beagley seem to glow with ail tho colours of Spring, daintily arranged and well displayed.**