LOCAL AND GENERAL

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 55, Issue 244, 29 July 1935, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL

Ashburton prize-winners at tile Hohitika Poultry, Pigeon and Canary Uubj annual show werei-Orpmgtons . Black cockerel: G. H. Nicoll 1. Utility class—Minorca, cockerel: R. H. Boy • Black Orpington, lien: G. H. Nicoll 1. Cockerel: G. H. Nicoll 1.

Up to noon to-day, entries for the Ashburton Competitions Society s iestival next month totalled 754, compared with 805 last year. Entries closed on Saturday, hut a few more are expected by mail. Details of this yeai s total are:—lnstrumental section, ol; adult vocal, 133; children’s vocal, 74; elocutionary, 140; national dancing, 199; fancy dancing, 157.

Commenting on an aspect of the right-hand traffic rule, under which motorists give w r ay to vehicles on their right, Mr Justice Smith, in the Wellington Supreme Court, said: “My view is that if two vehicles are approaching each other in the same street, and the vehicle claiming the benefit of the right-hand rule is crossing from its correct to its incorrect side across the stream of traffic, the right-hand rule does not apply.”

A carved Maori meeting house for Taranaki is projected, and it is hoped to have it ready for opening next year when the memorial to the late Sir Maui Pomare at the famous Manukoriki pa at Waitara is unveiled. Its cust will be about £2OOO, half this sum being provided by the Taranaki Maori Trust Board. The decision to erect this meeting house lias only been reached after several years of discussion.

It would appear that there will he fewer names on the main Mid-Canter-bury electoral roll this year than was the case prior to the last general election. The roll closed at 5 o’clock today, hut fi/ tlier applications for enrolment will be received for another month or two for inclusion in the supplementary list. When the last main roll was printed in 1931, it comprised 10,247 names.

Man on the Unemployment Board’s sustenance payments in Ashburton this week inumber 146, while there will be 253 engaged under the No. 5 scheme of relief.

Two engineers who recently arrived from Sweden are engaged at Arapuni in repairing No. 1 unit, which was thrown • out of action and was badly damaged in February last. The material required to repair the machine has also arrived. The work will occupy several months. ,

Mysterious telephone calls late at night have caused annoyance and some concern to residents at Owen’s Road, Epsom, Auckland;. On several nights recently householders have been awakened by telephone calls, the only response to their answers being the click of a replaced receiver at the other end. While it is considered a practical joker may be at work, the opinion is also held that the mysterious calls may be a. burglar’s ruse to ascertain the presence or otherwise of occupants in the houses concerned. There has been an epidemic of burglaries in the Epsom district recently.

The steps at the landing stage of the Akaroa lighthouse were washed away in the stormy weather a short time ago, and this has caused great inconvenience to the lighthouse keepers. This was especially noticeable recently when the wife of one of the keepers was very ill and had to be taken into Akaroa by launch. Great difficulty was experienced in getting her down to the launch, as the party had to clamber down the cliffs. Residents of Akaroa are urging that some action to repair the steps he taken by the Marine department.

A Press Association telegram from Auckland states that a sum of £IO,OOO has been made available by the Carnegie Corporation of New York for educational work in connection with museums and art galleries in New Zealand. The grant wajs made after a tour of inspection made last year by officers of the corporation. The following New Zealand committee has been appointed to administer the fund: Professor C. E. Hercus (Dunedin), Professor T. A. Hunter (Wellington), Bishop Williams, of Waiapu, Messrs A. T. Donnelly (Christchurch), and W. H. Cocker (Auckland).

Although several aeroplanes continued the search for Mr Hamish Armstrong on Saturday and yesterday; no trace of him was found (says a Hastings Press Association telegram). A rumour was current during the week-end that part of an aeroplane had been seen in the Blowhard district on the Hastings-Taihape main highway. Aeroplanes searched that country yesterday, and a search on foot was made in the area where the wreckage was thought to be, but nothing was found, and the rumour was definitely dispelled. Mr Armstrong has been missing a week.

The Minister for Transport has approved the classification in class 111. of that portion of the Main South road from Rolleston railway station to the north-eastern boundary of the Ashburton county. The effect of this classification is to limit the permissible gross loading on this section of main highway to six and a half tons in the case of ordinary four-wheeled vehicles and to 10 tons in the case of the multiaxled vehicles of an approved type. Arrangements are being made for the early erection of signs on the highway indicating this classification, and any breach of the restrictions will render the offender liable to prosecution.

A fungus on paspalum grass has been noticeable in the Kaipara district since the summer (writes the “Auckland Star’s” Waimauku correspondent. It ruins silk stockings, and smears the bare legs of children with a persistent sticky substance which only wear can eliminate. Now that livestock are being fed on the grass turned into hay the unfortunate beasts stagger round drunkenly and are temporarily blind. Several farm horses have been affected, and two on one farm at Wcodhill had to be bled. If fodder is held against the nose of affected cattle they eat ravenously, but when a bundle is laid at their feet they are unable to see it, and stare blindly ahead. Government experts have been around the district studying the phenomenon.

How billiards came to the House of Representatives was jocularly mentioned by the Hon. S« G. Smith (Minister of Education), when he officially opened a professional ibilliards exhibition in Wellington. “We have three tables at the House,” said Mr Smith. “When I first went into Parliament we had just moved into the new buildings, and we then had billiard tables for the first time. I was later told by older members that when billiards were added to the amenities of the House the takings at Bellamys dropped 75 per cent.” Mr Smith added that at one time his Labour friends declined to enter the billiard room .because they considered it beneath their dignity. To-day they won all the cups and trophies.

The propensity some sports club have of appointing numerous supporters as vice-presidents for the sake of their financial acknowledgment of the honour is well known (says the Marlborough “Express”)'. Speaking before the Blenheim Rotary Club, Mr T. E. Maunsell, S.M., amusingly referred to this “habit.” Shortly after he was first appointed to the Bench at Westport, he said, he offered his services to a cricket club as a player. “They promptly made me a vice-pre-sident,” he proceeded. “I took the hint and sent them a cheque, but in doing so I asked how many vice-presi-dents there were. I only wish I had kept the secretary’s letter, it was so naively apologetic. He regretted that there were 27 other vice-presidents, due to the fact, he was sorry to say, that their funds were so low. However, it was hoped to be able to reduce the number the followin'" year!” (Laughter.)

It is stated that considerable anxiety is being felt by dairy farmers in the County regarding the powers of the inspectors who have been appointed to visit dairy farms in the interests of the production of a higher grade of milk and butterfat on the farms. “It looks as if there will be much work to be done in the alteration of sheds on all the farms to meet the requirements of the new regulations,” said a wellknown dairy farmer to a “Guardian” reporter to-day. “With the price of butterfat so low these days, there are many dairy men rvho are not in a pcsition to' carry out all the work that will be demanded by the inspectors. In cases where the lower grade butterfat is produced there might b'e some justification for changes, but in those cases where finest grade is being produced now, and improvement cannot be attained, the men look on the regulations as being too harsh.”

As the interior of St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church is being renovated, services yesterday were conducted in the hall.

Good progress is being made with the reconstruction of the theatre in Tancred Street. New entrances and emergency exists have been completed, and the circle has been built up, while the wall? and ceiling are being lined with material calculated to stop echo from the screen sound-boxes.

Seven years ago the number of cases of canned goods produced in Great Britain totalled 2,500,000. To-day the total had grown to 100,000,000 as the result of the application of laboratory research, said Dr. E. Marsden in an address at Wellington. In South Africa, where they have availed themselves of research, the output of canned fruits had grown from 200,000 cases before the war to 6,000,000 cases last year.

“We may yet see a ‘complete; avenue from Auckland to Wellington,’’ said Mr G. W. Hutchison, at a meeting of the Great South Road Beautifying Council, Auckland. Reference was made to a movement at Wanganui which aimed at interesting all schools in that district in a tree-planting scheme throughout the road to Wellington. Mr Hutchison said it was encouraging to hear such reports. It was stated that the totara trees planted by the council along the main highway at Takanini last Arbor Day were flourishing, and that the protection guards had been renewed.

The principal of Hutt Valley High School (Mr J. N. Millard). reported to his Board of Governors recently that he had recently fitted up a special geography, room. It' contained all the school maps, the lantern, the museum specimens that may be needed, and all school books bearing on geography. The walls were used for displaying pictures depicting various aspects of life in other countries and these were changed frequently. “AVe hope by this means to bring the subject of geography more into the lives of our pupils, and to bring them a little closer to the peoples of other countries.”

A tribute to the newspapers of New Zealand was paid by Professor F. Clarke, adviser to overseas students in the University of London’s Institute of Education, in a broadcast address in A\ 7 ellington. “It is a pleasure to pick up journals which have not yet sunk to the level of mere articles of commerce, blatant and cynical in their mercenary appeal to the worst side of the massr-man,” Professor Clarke said. “A high standard of taste and good good manners is still dominant in your journals, and the news is well varied and well set out with due .regard for the decencies of the English language in the style of presentation.”