LOCAL AND GENERAL

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 55, Issue 298, 30 September 1935, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL

Fifty-five men mi the Ashburton unemployment register will be given work this week, and sustenance payments will be made to 183 others.

The set of new instruments recently acquired from London by the Band of the Ashburton Salvation Army are on view in a shop window in East Street, where they will remain for several days. They will he abdicated and handed over to the Band at a special service to be held on Sunday next.

A disconcerting occurrence befell a jSlew Zealander who recently sent her brother in England a greenstone tiki ornament as a curio. In the course of his letter thanking her for the gift, her brother said: “I)kl you notice, Ip 7 the way, that the ornament was made in Birmingham.”

Driven to desperation by the circumstances of her married life, a woman in her early thirties walked aboard the Remuera at London with a gangway pass. She hid in the pantry and revealed herself a few hours after leaving (Plymouth. Moved by sympathy, the passengers raised over £4O, and permission was obtained by wireless to carrv her as a passenger. She was also lavishly supported with clothing. Telling her story at Auckland on Saturday morning, the woman said her home was at Croydon, Sydney. She followed her husband to England in May last. He had a mental collapse, and was now an inmate of an institution. She worked at an East End hotel, and suddenly decided to board the Remuera. She will continue to Sydney next week.

Though it has been noticed in New Zealand that a number of returned soldiers are only now beginning to feel the full effects of their war service, there has been a distinct improvement in the health of “nerve” cases among English returned men in the. last few years, Dr. D. Arnold Lyndon, 0.8. E., who was medical officer in charge of one of the war hospitals from 1914 to 1918, told a “Dominion” reporter. There was certainly a very large number of men who would never be able to work again, said Dr. Lyndon, but there had been a distinct improvement m the condition of many “nerve” cases, and it had been noticeable that an encouraging proportion of them had been absorbed into work-. The worst period of these men had been the first 10 years after the war.

A concession to telephone subscribers on exchanges of more than oO subscribers whereby those exchanges may be opened for a period of two hours on Sundav for a payment of 2s Gd a year in addition to the ordinary rental has been arranged by Mr T. D. Burnett, M.P. for Temuka, with the PostmasterGeneral (the Hon. Adam Hamilton). The only exchanges in the Ashburton County which are now closed all day on Sundays, and could take advantage of the concession, are Hinds and Springburn. Before this concession was arranged the Post and Telegraph regulations provided that a payment of Is 8d a month or £1 a year was necessary b.v subscribers on exchanges of a similar size to Hinds and Springbuni before they could he opened for two hours on Sundays. A few months ago arrangements were made to open Mayfield, Methven and Raknia telephone exchanges all day on Sundays.

News of the defeat of the All Blacks was greeted very calmly in Ashburton yesterday, though it formed a topic of conversation for most people at some time of the day. It was the first defeat of an All Black team in England for 30 years, but the comment of many people was that it would be a good thing, not only for the team, but also for Dominion football and its followers generally.

The report of the Lands and Survey Department on Discharged Soldiers Settlement, for the year ended March 31, 1935, states that loans authorised during the year numbered 574, involving a total amount of £59,028. The lands set apart for selection by discharged soldiers during the year totalled 3857 acres, making a grand total of 1,452,525 acres proclaimed since the inception of the scheme. Applications for land under the Discharged Soldiers Settlement Act, 1915, to the number of eight were received during the year. Over the last 20 years, 15,153 applications have been received, and 4086 allotments have been made, involving an area of 1,437,180 acres.

A Press Association telegram from Auckland states that, replying to the Hon. A. D. McLeod’s remarks in Parliament regarding Presbyterians and war, the Moderator of the General Assembly (the Rev. Dr. Dickie) said on Saturday morning he thought that not more than 2 or 3 per cent, of Presbyterians were pacifists. He certainly was not. There was a small hut very active pacifist group, but not more so than in other bodies. The Church believed that sometimes war was the least of a number of conflicting evils. The question of the righteousness of a war would depend on the circumstances. The official policy of the Church was to support the League of Nations.

Since Mussolini has been in power in Italy, said Dr. D. Arnold Lyndon, 0.8. E., who is at present visiting Wellington, in an interview the other day, a great improvement has been effected in the condition of the roads, while the railway service, at one time irregular, is now all that a tourist can desire, the trains running regularly and the carriages being very clean. But Dr. Lyndon, who has travelled extensively on the Continent, could not say how great Mussolini’s “mana” was in Italy. In their own country, he said, the Italians would not talk; it was not until they had left Italy that they would discuss Italian conditions freely—and it was not always that they did so then.

To ho thrown through a plate-glass window find escape without a scratch was the experience fo a New r Plymouth architect, Mr W. N. Stephenson, the other morning, states a New Plymouth correspondent. He was walking down Devon Street when without warning a man cannoned into him and sent him sprawling through a shop window. The Mass was wrecked, but Sir Stephenson extricated himself without injury. The man who collided with Mr Stephenson was running across the street, arid tripped on the kerb and crashed headlong into Mr Stephenson. The latter had his hand in his pocket, and Ins shoulder made the first impact with the window, this probably preventing injury.

An incident which will he appreciated by New Zealanders generally and especially by any American visitors who happened to he in Napier at the time occurred in a Napier hotel recently, states the Napier ‘'Daily Telegraph.” Dinner was over and the chairs and settees round the fire were comfortably filled with male guests at the establishment. Precisely at / o’clock, as the wireless in the lounge boomed for the commencement of the National Anthem, a party of American tourists, comprising mostly women, entered the lounge, their entry being marked by the immediate rising ot the mere mules seated- round the 1110. the sequel came a little later in the evening when one- of the Americans was chatting with the hotel proprietor. “Sav there’s one thing I sure do admire about you folks, and that’s your patriotism,” she said.

The annual festival of the Anglican Sunday schools, held at St. Stephen s Church yesterday, was marked by large attendance of pupils of the Hampstead, Allenton, St. Stephen’s and Fair ton Sunday schools. The St. Stephen s scouts paraded at the morning service, which was attended by a large congregation. The Sunday School children sang hymns, and the choir sang “Forward All.” Mr A. Prentice (superintendent of the Allenton Sunday School) read the lesson. In the afternoon Keith Bathurst read the lesson and the choir sang “Golden Sunshine’ and “Sing, Every Nation.” At the evening service the choir sang anthems, and Messrs E. C. Bathurst and H. Paterson (superintendents ot the St. Stephen’s and Hampstead Sunday Schools, respectively) read the lessons. The Ven. Archdeacon A. J. Petrie was the preacher at all services.

The fishing*season will open in the Ashburton acclimatisation district tomorrow, and the prospects are bright. A large number of licenses have gone out, and many anglers will no doubt break the ice to-morrow. The big rivers are said to be in good order, with a slight discoloration in the Ashburton River. Anglers had lioped for a fresh in the rivers before the opening, but floods have been absent. The seas have been very heavy along the coast lately, and this is likely to have an effect on angling near the mouth of the rivers. It is reported that there are fish in plenty in the several waters. The heavy stocking of rivers and lakes by the Society in ' the past few years should manifest itself in results this year, judging by the large number of small fish that have been seen. It is hoped that the quantity of takeable fish has also increased. Fishing at Lake Roundabout and Lake Camp will not open till November 1.

One part of the world that will never succumb to “burrowmania” is primitive Africa, says the “Marlborough Express.” In a talk on the Dark Continent to Blenheim Rotarians Mr J. W. Kerridge, of Nelson, who had over five years in Southern Sudan, mentioned that lie discovered, rather amusingly, that the natives could not master the intricacies of such a highly developed vehicle as the wheelbarrow. Mr Kerridge was engaged in road building across virgin country with an army of o'OO native workers when a shipment of barrows arrived on the scene. He explained* to the blacks that they were to be used in place of the tins in which they wore carrying stones, and demonstrated how they were wheeled. hen the “boys took over, however, the fun started, because they hadn’t the faintest . idea of steering the barrows. They simply followed the wheels all over the place, barging into one another and geneially getting into a hopeless tangle. “We could not d'o anything with them, ’ Mi - Kerridge added, “and finally we sent the wheelbarrows back.”

Half a million feet of celluloid went up in flame—Ann Harding, Leslie Howard, Constance Bennett and many other favourites whose faces and voices have delighted New Zealand picturegoers, were cremated —when, on the reclamation reserve, at Wellington, a number of worn-out R.K.O. films and newsreels were destroyed. Sonic 144 feature films anti shorts formed the subject of this auto-da-fe; the celluloid blazed merrily and over the bonfire rose a pall of dense black smoke.

Investigations with the object of establishing the sugar beet industry in Taranaki arc proceeding quietly in the hands of industrial firms and chemists. Although the nature of the product aimed at has not been disclosed, it is understood that it will not he sugar, because the quantity and proximity of cane sugar supplies would probably make such a project unsound. There is, however, a suggestion to establish a’factory, and inquiries regarding the possibilities of supply of raw material are being made. The investigation is interesting farmers, as the proposal holds out the possibility of a profitable “sideline” in the growing of sugar beet, to which the soil and climate of Taranaki are said to he particularly suited.

The need for closer co-operation between the medical and dental professions, and the necessity for a measure of conservatism in d’ental practice were urged by Mr R. G. Crawford in his presidential address to the conference of the New Zealand Dental Association in Napier on Tuesday. “Let us save serviceable teeth whenever possible, and above all let us do unto our patients only what we would have done unto ourselves,” said Mr Crawford. He deplored the wholesale extraction of teeth without regard to the. patient’s future. “Nature proves by experience her protest against the reckless extraction of teeth,” lie continued. “Dentists and! physicians, owing to their enthusiasm regarding the theory of local infection, frequently advise the wholesale extraction of teeth, and in some cases of perfectly sound teeth at that, without any regard or thought for their patients’ future or for the satisfactory mastication of then food following sucli practices. How often does the physician encounter disappointment arising from miraculous cures renorted as the result of vide extraction?” asked the speaker. These cures in many eases are but temporary, and the unfortunate patients again find themselves on the doctor’s, doorstep. It seems to be the practice of some dentists and physicians to extract teeth first, and if the condition of which the patient complains does not disappear, to look for another cause of the trouble.”