NEWS OF THE DAY

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 12, 13 July 1935, Page 8

NEWS OF THE DAY

Eclipse of the Moon.* Next Tuesday evening's total eclipse of the moon will provide something in the way of novelty, for when the full moon rises at 5.4 p.m. in Wellington it will be in a state of total eclipse and will have been so for an hour or so previously. Whether it will be visible at all upon rising depends first of all on the state of the weather, and secondly upon the density of the earth's shadow which will be obscuring the moon. Usually during.the total eclipse of the moon that body is visible as a reddish or copper-coloured disc, so if the weather on Tuesday evening is clear the phenomenon should be quite visible. The moon will remain totally eclipsed until 5.50 p.m., that is for nearly an hour after it has risen. Then the shadow will begin to move away and by 6.47 p.m. the moon will have left the umbra, or shadow proper, behind. It will not be finally clear of the penumbra until an hour after that. Novel Mode of Travel. In these days lvhen there are so many varieties of travel it yet remained for two youths to blaze the trail between Gore and Mataura per medium of roller skates (states the, "Southland Times"). According to one distance of eight miles was accomplished in the splendid time of 35 minutes, the bitumen surface being declared I "reasonably" smooth over the entire journey. The youths' presence at Mataura was the source of considerable interest. They anticipated that the return journey would take somewhat longer on account of the east wind blowing. Veronica's Bell for Napier. Representations made by the Napier Borough Council over a year ago, asking the British Admiralty for the bell of H.M.S. Veronica as an earthquake souvenir, have at last borne fruit. The council is in receipt of advice from the officer commanding the New Zealand Division of the Royal Navy to the effect that the bell and name-plate of the vessel will be presented by the commanding officer of H.M.S. Leith when that vessel visits Napier next November. The council's reserves committee will decide where the souvenir will be placed. Mutton Bjrds and Oysters. Tho interesting theory was advanced by Mr. E. A. Nichol in a talk on oysters at Invercargill on Tuesday that oysters were indirectly responsible for providing mutton birds with their food. He said that the birds arrived in September and it was during the next four months that the oysters were spawning. The oyster spawn floating about in the water provided food for the millions of sardines which were found in the straits at this time, and it was on these small fish that the mutton birds fed. Had there been no oyster beds in Southland there might have been no mutton birds. High Exchange—An Analogy. The high exchange rate was made the subject of a medical analogy by Mr. M. E. Lyons, Nationalist candidate in the Lyttelton by-election, when speaking at Redcliffs on Thursday evening (reports the "Press"). "I have been twitted with having condemned inflation, and at the same time justifying the increase in the exchange rate to its present level—in itself a form of mild inflation," he said. "Well, let me compare this form of mild inflation with the nction of strychnine. You all know that a mild dose of strychnine is sometimes given to stimulate a patient's heart, and you all know what effect a large dose of strychnine would have on that patient's heart. The exchange in its effect is much the same. The raising, of the exchange, a mild form of inflation, I agree, was necessary to stimulate this country's economic system. I scarcely need to tell you what effect Labour's guaranteed price plan, which would mean raising the exchange by 250 per cent., would have—it would be fatal to our economic system." Police Make a Film. Sir Kingsley Wood, PostmasterGeneral, Captain H. Crookshank, M.P., representing the Home Secretary, and Mr. T. A. Burrows, Chief Constable of Reading, recently watched a private showing of a film, "Smashing the Grab and Dash Raiders," by the makers, Pathe Pictures, Ltd. Police and postal authorities co-operated in making the film, which is to be generally released. Reading, typical with its continually increasing network of police call-boxes T>f the modern crime-fighting system in this country, was chosen for the locale. A girl is seen walking along a lonely road. A car pulls up, a man jumps out, hurls her to the ground, grabs her handbag, and leaps back into the car. A passer-by who has seen the attack runs to a police call-box and relates what he has seen into the microphone. Within a few seconds a description of the assailant and the number of the bandits' car is being flashed from the police headquarters switchboard to police telephone boxes all over the town. Police lamps flick on and off. Mobile squads take up the trail. An ambulance arrives for the injured girl. Roads are barred, and the bandits' car is forced by mobile men into a waiting police trap. A brief struggle and they are captured. The police went at their work with such gusto that one of the "bandits," a Post Office official, is indenting for the cost of a new suit.