LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 56, Issue 77, 13 January 1936, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Outdoor relief administered by the Ashburton Hospital Board in the last month amounted to £6l Is Bd.

Railway traffic from Ashburton yesterday was again heavy, 320 people booking seats in two excursion trains south and one north. Three extia cars had to be added to the north express at Ashburton in the morning.

Over 100 applications for the position of engineer-laundryman at the Ashburton Public Hospital were received by the board at its meeting this morning. They came from all parts of New Zealand between Auckland and the Bluff.

The first salmon of the season wore seen at the Rangitata River during the week-end. Fishing conditions were excellent, and good catches, including a 101 b trout and several of eight or nine pounds, were taken. Owing to the condition of the river, few trout wore caught at Hnkntere, but the sea fishing was excellent, even groper being taken.

"When fire broke out in the grass on Smithfield Road near the saleyards on Thursday, threatening the house on the saleyards property, some anxiety was caused. Three men working in the saleyards fought the flames until Ashburton County Council employees arrived to put out the lire with buckets of water. Part of one wall of the house was blackened with flames and smoke, as the fire had taken a firm held in the long grass alongside.

A huge Moreton Bay fig tree, which had been a landmark at the eastern end of Eden crescent for well over half a. century, has been cut down. It was nearly 50ft. high, and (says the “New Zealaiici_Herald”) the cluster of trunks rising from the massive pyramid of roots was more than 4ft. through. The tree originally stood in front of a single-storeyed house belonging to the early days of Auckland, which ended its career as a row of lock-up garages and finally was demolished when a large block of flats was built immediately behind it. There are other trees not far away, hut the Australian giant will he missed by all who are familiar with the neighbourhood.

It was reported at the meeting of the A si) I mrton Hospital Board to-day that the public responded generously to the Hospital Christmas collection, which brought in £llß 3s 3d.

An aggregate of about 4500 people spent nights under canvas at New Plymouth during Christmas week. On Saturday, January 4, the Belt Road, f’itzroy, and Huatoki camps were accommodating about 700 people, the majority of them visitors.

1 Because rust has made its appearance to a large extent in the Ashburton County this season, farmers did not welcome the change in the weather to-day, though only light rain had fallen in all districts up till noon .Farmers state that the rust disease has taken a strong hold, and sheep that have come in contact with crops effected have a distinctly reddish tint on their fleeces.

A church service at Hakatere last evening was conducted by the Ashburton Salvation Army, Captain N. E. Bicknell giving an address. A party from the Salvation Army Band accompanied the singing, while an instrumental quartet playtd the solo “Abide with Me’’ (Emerson). Deputy-Band-master 0. E. Hopwood sang a solo, and Bandsman L. Raughen played a cornet solo.

Lawns in Ashburton are showing signs of parching, following the long dry spell, only about two days of light rain having fallen since November 26, and in most places the turf is drying off. Where watering has been resorted to, lawns are still fresh. Gardens are suffering also, from the lack of rain, but flowers are standing up> well to tlie conditions.

“It has been said that the board made a grant of £IOO toward the cost of the children’s health camp at Stavelev, and I would like the position made clear,” said Mr Raymond Oakley at the meeting of the Ashburton Hospital Board this morning. “The Board purchased £5 worth of health stamps, which amounted to a contribution of £2 lCts to the fund. That is the full extent of our assistance,” he added. This statement was endorsed by the chairman (Mr W. G. Gallagher).

A Palmerston North resident with an interest in aviation, and keen for the recognition o&liis town as the principal airport of tne North Island, has suggested that Milson aerodrome should lie renamed Kingsford Smith airport in honour of the world’s most renowned, aviator. He says that this would show some measure of grateful recognition for the great assistance given the Dominion by Sir Charles Kingsford Smith, and that the changes now occurring at Milson offer an appropriate opportunity to make the alteration.

Recently a nocturnal intruder has been invading the precincts of the Massey College science block by scaling the creeper on the outside of the walls to a window in the top (third) storey. Other escapades were to climb to a, sec-ond-storey bedroom at night and make a practice of knocking articles off wardrobes, to the disturbance of the occupant.’ Subsequently, the intruder was found asleep in a glasshouse in the middle of the main building. He proved to be a rather tame opossum which had taken up his sleeping quarters in a benzine'tin there, and soon showed a partiality for bananas. He has now been claimed by one of the students, who has taken him home as a pet.

When the Ashburton County Council puts off 100 relief workers to seek harvest work on Saturday, they will become a charge on the sustenance fund unless work is available for them. It is not expected that it will be possible to absorb all the men in seasonal work, according to a statement made by the certifying officer (Mr W. J. Minogue). He said there had never been any difficulty about farmers obtaining their labour requirements from the unemployed labour bureau; in fact, they had been invited to apply when they wanted men. Positions available were offered to suitable men among the unemployed, and farmers’ organisations had been asked lor their co-oper-ation in this matter.

The merits of blue lupins as feed for sheep were discussed by a group or farmers in Ashburton this morning, after one of them had stated that he had been amazed at the fattening qualities of lupins as instanced in a mob of old ewes, which, with their lambs, were in excellent condition after having been on lupins. Another man stated that he had found the lupins to be of the greatest benefit to his sheep, while a third said he had found that his sheep would not eat lupins till the plants had been frosted, when the animals had a great liking for them. The speakers agreed that the lupins were at their best before they became too rank. Lupins, it was also stated, had been making large growth this season.

A landmark almost in the centre of Morrinsville Borough is a huge Christmas plum tree which towers above the nearby business premises. The tree, which bears a heavy crop of red plums every Christmas, is closely linked with the early days of the town, for it was planted behind his shop by Mr F. J. Marshall soon after he began business as a butcher nearly 50 years ago, when Morrinsville had only a dozen buildings. In later years, Mr Marshall became the first Mayor of the borough of Morrinsville,. and at the age of 75 still takes an interest in the public affairs of the district. Recently a number of his friends gathered to wish Mr Marshall the compliments of the season, and in doing so made a presentation of a suitably-inscribed framed photograph of the venerable tree and its planter. The base of the trunk of the tree is several feet in and the branches spread out about 25 feet in all directions.

The altar on which the first Holy Mass was celebrated in New Zealand nearly 100 years ago, and the writing desk of Bishop Pompallier,' were included in a collection of relics cf the early days of the Catholic Church in ' New Zealand, displayed at St. Mary’s Convent, Ponsonbv, Auckland on Wednesday for the benefit of the delegates to the annual conference of the Catholic Teachers’ Association of New Zealand (states the “New Zealand Herald' 5 "). Most of the relics have been collected bv Bishop Liston, and are valuable records of the Church in its infancy. There is a historical and statistical note on the results of the mission to New Zealand, written by Bishop Pompallier, and published in 1849; the first register of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, dated 1841; the receipt for the sale of the Bishop’s schooner, Queen of Peace, with its ink faded to a pale brown with age ■ the Bishop’s missal and rochet; the scrapbooks and photographs dealing with the pioneer priests of the Dominion.

Ashburton did not receive much of the Government’s Christmas bonus for people who were on the permanent relief lists of Hospital Boards. The sum granted was £35, and this was distributed among 24 families through the Ashburton Hospital Board, The grant, however, met a very passing need.

A double-headed dahlia, looking both ways like the Roman god Janus, is the strange freak of flower growth in the possession of a gardener in Southland. Two. flowers, each about four inches across, well formed, and of a fine cyclamen colour, grow back-to-back from a stem of normal thickness, hut flattened at the top and divided into two intertwined spirals. Unlike most freaks, this one has a decidedly pleasing and decorative effect.

Health stamps were withdrawn from sale throughout New Zealand on Saturday evening. The sales at the Ashburton Post Office totalled £153 7s 6d since the stamps were issued on October 1, compared with £l2, 0s 6d for the corresponding period last year. Slightly more than half this amount has been placed to the credit of the Staveley Health Camp Funds. There was no special campaign for the sale of the stamps last year, but this year the sale was pushed energetically.

Townspeople spending their holidays at Day’s Bay and; other parts on the eastern side of the Wellington Harbour have been delighted with the song of New Zealand native birds. To many visitors the tuneful notes of these birds are indeed a -rarity nowadays. Tuis are quite numerous this year in the bush behind Day’s Bay, and their liquid song beginning with a deep but pleasant guttural note and ending with a shrill whistle can he heard from early morning until after sunset. More beautiful still is the melodious song of the bellhird, New Zealand’s sweetest songster among the feathered species, which to-day are all too few in numbers. There have been a few in the bush at Day’s Bay this year.

Japanese enterprise knows no bounds. An Auckland trader (says the “Star”) exhibited the other day a sample of a packet of “stickers” he had received, intended to be used for promoting the sale of English goods. The sticker in question is a strip of tough hut flexible paper of attractive colour and design bearing a red. white and blue Union Jack in a circle at each end of the design, with the word “English” printed in bold letters in the centre of the strip. Inconspicuously and upside down beside the hold word “English” is printed the legend “Made in Japan.” This Japanese-made advertisement for English goods might possibly be considered an elaboration of the Anglo-Japanese political entente.

Mr S. H. Mayne, F.S.M.C., F. 1.0. (London), of Messrs J. 11. Procter, Ltd., Christchurch, arrived in Ashburton this evening, and may be consulted on all defects of eyesight at the Somerset Hotel to-morrow.—(Advt.)