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Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2057, 30 April 1907, Page 1

It- 'it said to lie the intention of the Government to discontinue in future as far as possible the employment of temporary clerks, and in connection with appointments of cadets to give preference to those who have passed the junior Civil Service examination.

A proposal at the Sydenham (Christchurch) householders’ meeting to make a recommendation to the School Committee or tile Education Board was. says the Press, scornfully objected to b.v a householder. “Go straight to the Alinister of Education.” he said. “Tile Hoard* would like to see-all the committees down the river, and they are powerless. School committees are only sweepet's-np and dusters for the Education Hoard, and as for powers, they have none.”

The statement was made at a meeting of the Dunedin Ratepayers’ Association the other night, that within eight or ten years Dunedin should hold the unique position of being rateless. or nearly so. The gasworks, although selling at os. were returning the ratepayers a good profit. The electric tramways and waterworks were beginning to pay. and the endowments were becoming more valuable year by year. All that was wanted to make Dunedin a ratepayers’ paradise was the return to the Council of men of sterling character, with ability and time at their disposal.

Obstacle after obstacle, says the Wairoa Guardian, has been placed in the way of the Tynron ratepayers in the matter of obtaining the £2OOO loan. The amount of red-tape extalisted' in this correspondence must low he about a mile long. However, it really looks as though tile Govcrnnent officials bail expended all their

energy, and exhausted all their TiteBarnaelc objections. Rut it is too early to crow yet. Some hero, bleeding for his country, at the rate of five or six hundred per annum, may yet discover an informality with the

office microscope, and so delay matters for another year or two. If the question is not soon settled the £2OOO will have been expended in stamps on the voluminous correspondence.

“That in cases where Crown leases are surrendered or forfeited, and again taken up, whether under anitlier or the same tenure, the local Tates that have accrued shall be a charge against the property up to the value of the improvements.”

This was the text of a resolution carried recently at a conference of the Taranaki local bodies, and brought under the notice of the Acting-Pre-mier to-day. After Air. Symes, ALTER-., had dealt further with the subject, the Alinister said it seemed not mi reasonable to suggest that

ales owing on surrendered or for‘ited Crown land should he a liabil-

its ngainst tin? land. If it belonged to nn individual owner, it would be liable for the rates, and lie did not see why it should escape.

The question of a universal Saturday half-holiday was raised at the Grocers’ Assistants' smoke concert in Wellington recently. Air. A. H. Cooper, president of the Trades Council, stated that the grocers’ assistants of the city wore dissatisfied with the present: closing hours of shops. They considered that 9 o’clock was quite late eiiou !-?'> Oil Saturday night. He went on to say that hr was sure the organised workers of the colony who were" enjoying their Saturday half-holiday were not only ready to conform to the 9 o'clock closing hour, hut also to a universal half-holiday. The Mon. J. A. Millar, Minister for Labor, in a subsequent speech, said anybody who knew anything about the matter knew that Saturday was the only proper holiday. Upon every occasion, he said he gave his vote and influence for Saturday,

The Momoua School Committee has purchased a school hell, saytin: Dunedin Star. The school !:•. miall. hut the bell is large. It was imported at a cost of Co. measures U’t across, and Is so weighty that it ■auuot be hung in the school, foi the walls would never stand the vibration. The School Committee is afraid that if hung in tile, school Ihe children, on obeying its summons. might syiiue. morning behold something jike the .Jericho catastrophe when" the Israelites sounded the devastating trumpets. Accordingly the School Committee wants the hell hung outside, hut it would cost about -C'lG to build a framework IRft high, and it wants the I'Mucation Hoard’s assistance. The Hoard did not seem disposed to grant it. One member called the bell a white elephant: another said the committee was a foolish to buy it: a third said that the cost was out of all proportion to the necessities. 'The request was referred hack to the School Committee.

The important uses of the fingerprint system as an assistance in the detection of crime was referred to in the Court of Appeal in connection with the Papakaio murder case. It was stated by Mr. Dinnie, the fingerprint expert, that there were fingerprints on nearly everything in Rennie’s house, but that none of them 'were-the finger-prints of the accused Findlay. ThesiPprlnt s were not compared with those of anv otlipr-piU'son. There was, however, one of the fingerprints that was almost identical with a finger-print of accused’s, but there* was not sufficient of it To he photographed. Mr. Justice Donniston remarked that a police officer should photograph such marks, whether he thought them sufficient for identification purposes or not. They should fie - kept: for reference, and with a view to further possible developments in a case. Air. Justice Cooper, in concurring, mentioned a Dunedin case in which failure of the police to ta’ka records of finger-prints had resulted in what was possibly a miscarriage of justice. That case, he said, was absolutely destroyed by failure of the police to take the finger-prints that were available,

The Rotorua paper rises to- remark: —“On the Rotorua railway station may be seen tlio following notice: ‘Tlio Railway Department does not undertake any responsibility in connection with the running of steamers or the allotment of

births.’ Quite so; we shouldn’t think they would.”

Says the AVaiioa Guarian : —On the fourth page will lie found a report of the AVairoa cases before the Native Appellate Court at Gisborne. . jt will lie noticed that the natives concerned protested against the eases being heard so far away as Gisborne, anil urged that the Court should sit in AVairoa to deal with them. , The protest is a just biicC "Dozens of natives have to put themselves to the inconvenience and expense of attending the Court at Gisborne. The whole Court comprises only a few individuals whose inconvenience would be slight. ' The" reply of the Court to the applicants that they could not sit at-all the small places concerned surely does not apply to AVairoa, as in native matters AVairoa is quite as ini porta lit, as the interests involved are as great or greater than at that place: Tlio dragging of whole Lupus of natives a hundred miles or so to. defend their interests legally is surely a rank injustice. It will he noticed, according to a wire from Gisborne, that the Court can visit Port Awanui, and other small localities where the interests at stake are not so important as in this district.