Local and General.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXX, Issue 3424, 16 January 1912, Page 4

Local and General.

The monthly meeting of the S.P.C. A. will be held ‘at the Borough Council Chambers at 2.30 p.m. to-day. The launch Waima. which is the property of the Tokomaru Sheepfarmers’ Co.,"is expected to arrive in Gisborne about Monday next, and will be placed on the slip for overhaul. The homeward bound steamers which left- Gisborne during the last quarter of the year 1911 took shipments from Gisborne valued as follows: — Tainui £lO4, Rotorua £787. lonic £9lB, Indralema £1052, Turakina £997, Kia Ora £28,566, Eimutaka £44,363 (also from Tokomaru Bay £8891), Nerehana £48,659. Athenic £1339, Pakeha £14,307, Kaikoura £10,910 (also from Tokomaru Bay £15,078), Remuera £39/0, Corinthic £13,374. Judge Jones left for Tolago Bay yesterday, where he will hold a sitting of the Native Land Court. The next meeting of the. Tarawhitu Land Board promises to be fairly busy for there are no fewer than 124 cases set down for decision. There are 69 adjourned mid 55 new cases to be dealt with, as follows: New leases 31 adjourned and 4 new, transfers 21 and 32, mortgages 1 and 1, consents under section 209 14 and 12, miscellaneous 2 and 1, applications for meetings of owners 5 new cases. The N.Z. Producers’ Association will hold a special meeting on January 23 for the purpose of meeting Mr 1. J. Shelton, the representative, of the Association in London, who is returning to New Zealand for a short period. Mr W. A. Barton, -S.M., who has been absent from town on his periodical visit to Wairoa for some days, returned home Yesterday afternoon. While in the Wairoa district his Worship.visited several hotels in connection with his office of chairman of the Licensing Committee. The proprietors of the j premises in every case undertook to have the matters complained of rectified. The annual Burns’ dinner, which will be held on Thursday, January 25, is being looked forward to with a great deal of pleasurable expectation. Dr Scott will preside. The hon. secretary, Mr R. Macduff Birrell, wishes it to be distinctly understood that the gathering will not be confined to. Scotchmen, but persons of all nationalities will be welcomed at the honoring of the anniversary of the birth of the great poet of humanity. Our roads, says the Matiere correspondent of the “Taranaki Herald,” are now in a worse state than ever before at this time of the year; in fact, two wagons were abandoned for the night, bogged side by side about a quarter of a mile on the railway side of Matiere township, blocking all traffic, and, as one waggoner puts it, taking a lease of the road. The road between here and Ongarue is indescribable. Waggons are being daily bogged and broken, and no stronger indictment could be found against the Liberal Government than the state of this arterial road, supplying the whole requii-ements of over two thousand souls. At one particularly bad hole some wag has written an epitaph on a well-known teamster thusly: —“Sacred to the memory of John , who was drowned while fishing in this pond,” followed by other particulars and a date.

A meeting of the Gisborne Fire Bri- ««*• “iSS & was appointed to awena at presented to Hbl service n.«Ms d "jg£ ovan. The former Hw I haw relived the modal in 1909, h i n onnseaueiice a two years service and m q medal. Messrs -.vero elected Tlin Bfate Guaranteed Advances DeEvfel A voting man named William Tam appeared before Mr John Warren, J. 1., Police Court yesterdav morning on two charges, namely drunkenness and procuring .liquor during the currency of a prohibition order against W, The accused was remanded to appear before Mr W. A. Barton, S.M., to-day. The Mount Owen Rising Sun mine, between Nelson and Murchison, has been a good deal m the public mind recently An offer has been made by J pfarle Hermann, Ltd., the largest firm of company promoters and sharebrokers in Australia, to purchase the mine on behalf of a new company for £ls 000 in cash and £26,000 m shares. This offer is subject to the inspection of the property. There are a good many shareholders in the Poverty Bay district, A statutory meeting or shareholders is called for Thursday, January 18, at the Industrial Co-operative Society s Rooms, Nelson, and in the report issued to shareholders dated 16th December, 1911, receipts are shown:— Application money 2s per shaie on 10,160 shares, £1016; allotment money 2s per share on 5735 shares £o/3 IDs; so itwill be seen from the above that if the purchase of the property is negotiated it looks if shareholder will receive a splendid return for their investment. A trial of the Mirrlees Diesel oil engines which are to supply the generating power for the municipal electric lffihtino-, was made on Sunday and a further'test was given yesterday. Ihe machinery worked splendidly, running with the greatest smoothness. Ihe enI gines are driven with crude oil. and tne consumption is about 0.01-bs per brake horse power per hour, winch is stated, to be 75 l>er cent, cheaper than steam, j As soon as the electric motor arrives jx>wer will be supplied to t*ie .Loivugn Council’s workshops, which adjoins the powerhouse. The cable for conveying the current has been put in position, and a temporary switch board, will. i>e erected. The Diesel engine, having been i nstalled, Mr Hill, representative of the makers, says he is now in a position to supply current. AH that is required in the‘powerhouse is the erection of the permanent switchboard, and this has already arrived. The wiring of the town area will be commenced next week, and the installation should be completed about the end of February. While there appears to be a great deal of diversity of opinion as to whether Stevenson" George Gray, Reece or Inman is really the champion player of the world, local billiardists are unanimous that in Messrs Smith and Robinson’s billiard rooms, upstairs in Dunlop’s Lowe street, are to lie found the truest- and fastest tables in Gisborne.* Landlords always find reason to grumble at the want of care in the treatment of their premises by tenants, but perhaps a case that is reported locally is unique in its facts (remarks the "Eltham Argus”). The tenant had a mania for shooting minalis. and with a pearifle he popped away at them .whenever the birds settled on the roof of the dwelling. The result is best expressed by the landlord himself when he got up through a manhole in the ceiling looking for the cause of the leaks: ‘Tm hanged,” he said. “if it wasn’t riddled like a pepper-pot-” And as it to add insult to injury the culprit left and didn’t even pay the rent. A young man residing in North-East Valley, Dunedin, had a narrow escape last week when walking with some com. panions over the Valley hills, a stray bullet passing over his scalp, and making a furrow about three inches long and removing both hair and skin. Mr William Begg was called in by the alarmed mother to render first aid, but finding the wound not of a serious nature, had simply to allay the parental feelings and explain that a visit to the Hospital was unnecessary. The unpleasant episode in India, in which a prominent native ruler turned, his back upon royalty, recalls an episode in the life of the late R. J. Seddon which the general public may have rorgotten (savs the "Wairarapa Age”). In the vear 189 S M. Seddon accompanied Lord Ranfurly, then Governor of the Dominion, on a visit- to Hastings. The Mayor and his councillors were assembled* at the railway station to extend a civic welcome t-o t-lie Vice-regal party. His Excellency shook hands with* each of the councillors in turn. The Prime Minister was doing likewise, but when he came to a certain councillor that gentleman deliberately turned his back upon Mr Seddon. The insult was resented by the local press, and the public showed its disgust by relegating the councillor to obscurity on the first opportunity. Mr. Seddon. though he laughed at the incident, was plainly affected by the insult offered. “Tailioa” and its meaning form the subject of a letter to the "Marlborough Express” by Mr. Thomas S._ Grace, son of one of the first missionaries who labored among the Bav of Plenty and Taupo Maoris in the far-off days preceding Constitutional Government in New Zealand. Mr- Grace writes:—'‘Tn a recent issue of the ‘Marlborough Express’ you quoted Sir James Carroll’s interpretation of the now familiar Maori adverb, ‘tailioa.’ Such a fanciful meaning as the honorable gentleman gives can but hoodwink the pakeha uninitiated in the Maori vernacular. ‘Tailioa’ does not mean ‘careful consideration, prudent and wise advancement, careful deliberation, putting on the brake, chewing things over,’ although it may be used for these reasons. Englishised, this word just corresponds to our own adverb. ‘by-and-bye’—postponing indefinitely for any reason or no reason at all what may be said or done at once- It has always meant this, and can never mean anything else, whether applied to the occasional or habitual procrastinations of a pakeha. Maori chief, or honorable Parliamentarian grievously pestered by urgent petitions of insatiate constituents.” There are a nuniber of Maoris amongst the employees of Wirth Bros.’ circus, and Sir. G. Wirth gives them fine characters as workers. He is emphatic in bis denial of the popular belief that Maoris are lazy; liis men he finds have been most loyal to him, and have often gone ahead with their duties in weather which has made the white workers knock off. Many of the Maoris, he says, join the circus for a round trip only, but very often they have yielded to the desire to live in bigger places than the Dominion holds, a nd have settled on the other side.