LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume L, Issue 12387, 7 December 1909, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Borough Council meets this evening. A Bleriot aeroplane has been shipped to Melbourne, says a London cable. Mr W. S. Dustin was yesterday granted a transfer of the New Zealand wine license hitherto held by Mr Thos. Hodson. The Licensing Committee yesterday granted renewals of packet licenses in respect of the river steamers Ohura and Waiora and Waione. H.M.S. Powerful, which was to have sailed iron Sydney for Colombo yesterday, has had her orders countermanded. The reason is unknown. A sale of work in connection with the Presbyterian Church at Fordell will be held in the Fordell Hall on Thursday, December 9th. Open at 2.30 p.m. Mr Fraser, county engineer at Whanganui (says a press wire) found at Sandy Bay, East Coiist, a quantity of moa bones and a human skeleton of a high type of man — not a Maori. In a lower stratum he found the skull of a low type of a full-grown man. The skull was much lower in the anthropological scale than the famous Heanderthal skull, the crown of the skull being almost level with the eyes and the bone very thick. Mr Fraser intends to send the specimen to Australian scientists for examination. The low type of skull has apparently been buried for thousands of years.

In another column the Rangitikei County Council invites tenders for various gravelling contracts. The monthly meeting of the Chamber of Commerce will he held at the Borough Chambers on Wednesday, 8th inst. at 10 a.m. Members of T.Y.M.I, are reminded of the general meeting to be held in the club room this evening at 8 o’clock to consider proposals re formation of library and alteration to club rooms. Mr Henry Wilton, of Hideford, Masterton, has disposed of his property and stock to Mr Walter Stoddart, of Mataroa, near Taihape. The price is said to be in excess of £7000. Her Excellency Lady Plunket visits Wanganui on Thursday next. In the afternoon at the Girls’ College she distributes certificates in connection with the local branch of the St. John Ambulance Association. The public are invited to the function. The following members of the Wanganui Licensed Victuallers’ Association left for Wellington yesterday to attend a conference of the “Trade” to be held there commencing to-day: Messrs W. R. Tuck, C. J. McCarthy, T. Nixon, J. R. Foster, A. H. Rogers and Bellve. At the last meeting of the Patea Borough and County Councils, Messrs W. Van Asch and A. Christiansen were elected members of the Patea-Wanga-nui Charitable Aid Board. Mr Hancock whom Mr Christiansen succeeds, has left the Patea district. A private telegram from Waipukurau states that Messrs Chambers and Booth the local patentees, are negotiating with the Lord Mayor of Sydney to light that city with Dreadnought gas by the beginning of January. The ligh is a great success in Waipukurau. J. L. Stevenson, the local agent for the Tyser Line, was advised yesterday that their steamer, Star of Scotland, would sail from Wellington at 5 p.m. for Wanganui, and should therefore drop anchor in our roadstead at an early hour this morning. Capt. Beck (late master of the Star of New Zealand) is in command. The Wanganui Education Board has been exceedingly fortunate in the number of ex-teachers who have been elected to membership. Mr Corry (solicitor, of Wanganui), Mr D. H. Guthrie (M.P. for Oroua), and now Mr P. O’Dea, M.A. (formerly headmaster at Sandon), can all claim that experience. An Auckland wire states that the well-known property at the Bay of Islands, the Kerikeri Estate, belonging to Mr T. C. Williams has just been sold to Mr Harold Bull, who not long ago disposed of his run at Waingaro. The sale includes the stock now on the estate — 7000 sheep, 250 head of cattle, and 50 horses. The price was between £20,000 and £25,000. The Salvation Army Silver Biorama Company concluded their Wanganui season last evening, when there was a very large audience at the Opera House. The programme was an exceedingly good one and was thoroughly enjoyed. The Silver Biorama well deserves the patronage which is being extended to it. A preliminary meeting was held last evening with the object of furthering Mr W. Webb’s chances of visiting the Old Country, per medium of the “New Zealand Times’” round the world offer. A small committee was formed and various details in connection with the matter arranged. Another meeting, to which all friends of Mr Webb are invited, will be held on Friday evening. Another drowning accident nearly occurred in the Wanganui River on Sunday evening. A resident of Aramoho, Walter Haslar, a bootmaker, was bathing in the river when he was seized with cramp. Leslie Neilson, a son of Mr R. Neilson, of Eastown, happened to be handy, and with the assistance of some others, effected a rescue just in time. The secretary of the District High School Baths Committee acknowledges with thanks receipt of donations from Messrs P. J. Bailey, R. N. Finlayson, T. B. Strong, J. T. Johns, T. A. Bamber, J. McFarlane, Drew Bros., “Supporter,” W. G. Bassett. Rev J. Ll. Dove, the Wanganui “Herald” Company, and the Wanganui “Chronicle” Company. The Baths are now practically finished and will be open to the public, on and after Monday next, 13th inst. Speaking at Timaru recently, Captain Blunt, of H.M.S. Pioneer, paid a very warm compliment to Captain Hooper, of the Amokura, for the splendid way he trained his boys. “How he does it I don’t know,” said Captain Blunt, “but he does do it, in a wonderfully efficient and successful way.” (Applause.) The boys were splendidly trained on the Amokura, there was no better training anywhere, and Captain Hooper turned off the finest lot of sailors it had ever been his (the speaker’s) lot to come across. He was, however, handicapped through lack of funds, and the people (through The Government) should place more money at his disposal. A meeting of the band contest committee is called for Wednesday night at the Borough Council Chambers at 7.30 o’clock. This early hour is fixed so that those members who wish may attend the Orchestral Club’s concert. The meeting will be very short, but business is very important and a full attendance is requested. On inquiry last night the Contest Secretary (Mr J. T. Muir) informed us that he has already received 12 entries, including the famous Kaikorai Band (Dunedin), Newtown (Sydney), Citizens (Dunedin), Ponsonby (Auckland), Gisborne Nelson Garrison, Blenheim, etc. As the entries do not close until to-night no doubt these will be considerably augmented. Success, from an entry point of view, is therefore assured. The Rev John Mackenzie’s sermon at St. Andrew’s Church, Christchurch, on Sunday night severely criticised the condition of the volunteer force, stating that at the present time New Zealand was not prepared for war, and the volunteer force was entirely inadequate to the situation. There were many excellent men in the force, but there were cases where the officers were not trained or had no capacity for leadership. In the ranks discipline was loose and often there was no respect for authority at all, the result being fatal to efficiency. The force did not attract the best men, and the people as a whole were not proud of the system and did not support it. It was hoped the proposals now before the country would secure better results. He was chaplain in the volunteer force, but spoke also with considerable service in the ranks before joining the Ministry. An interesting application came before the Licensing Committee at its quarterly meeting, yesterday morning, when L. D. Patterson, of Gibson’s and Paterson, applied for a wholesale license. Mr Barnicoat, who appeared for Mr Paterson, explained that his client held a wholesale license at Palmerston North, and orders for liquor received by his firm (Gibsons and Paterson) in Wanganui were sent to Palmerston and there executed. This naturally caused considerable inconvenience, and it was desired that a wholesale license should be granted in respect of the Wanganui business. Mr Barnicoat argued that the granting of the license would not mean an adding to the number of licenses, as Mr Paterson already held one; it would simply mean dividing the existing license. After discussion the Committee decided that it could not break the understanding upon which it went into office, viz., not to inconvenience licenses.

The man George Allwood, who, after being liberated from the Avondale Mental Asylum within a short time of his committal thereto committed a coldblooded murder of a lady in the open streets of Dargaville, was a victim to “painkiller.” It appears that before being taken to Avondale. Allwood took six bottles of “painkiller” a week.

“Many a life has been lost,” said a speaker at the meeting of the Royal Humane Society directors in Christchurch (the “Press’” reports), “by people standing up when a house is on fire and being suffocated, whereas if they kept on their hands and knees they could crawl to safety. There is often an area of fine air close to the floor.”

Fruit-hawking is becoming quite a popular occupation in Auckland. It is stated that only the limited supply of fruit prevents the streets from being over-run with hawkers. One man is said to own seventeen hawkers’ carts and about a dozen barrows, and to have the men driving his carts on commission, whilst those who ply his barrows are compelled to buy their fruit from him.

The melodious cry of the bookmaker was conspicuously absent from the shores of the Long Reach during the sculling contests. A certain amount of betting was, however, done outside the grounds and the winner was evidently fairly well backed, but it remains to be seen whether his supporters reaped the fruit of their keenness of choice. At least one of the mild-voiced brethren was missing when the time came to disburse, and as the train was leaving last night a couple of irate dividendhunters were anxiously searching the nooks and corners of the carriages for the over-modest “welsher.” They didn’t find him. — “Standard.”

A writer in the “New Zealand Herald” states that in Auckland one day last week he saw a highly respectablelooking man handcuffed, accompanied by a gaol warder, marched right up the whole length of Grafton Road a little after 5 o’clock, to be stared at by scores of men, women and children. He made inquiries as to who the man was, and learnt that he was a respectable member of society who, as it turns out by the finding of the jury, was wrongly accused of cattle-stealing. “Surely.” says the writer, “an untried man, and, therefore, in law, an innocent man, should not be subjected to such humiliation. His sufferings must have been sufficiently acute without the addition of this further indignity. This is a barbarous practice and should not be allowed. It has been ruled that a man cannot be photographed by prison authorities until he is found guilty, and one therefore fails to see why he should be publicly paraded in irons, when he could have been taken in a covered conveyance to and fro.”