LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 58, Issue 39, 25 November 1937, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

No fewer than 2300 entries have been received by the secretary (Mr S. W. Gower) for the Ashburton County Schools sports meeting which is to be held on the Ashburton Domain Oval on Friday of next week.

A bridge party, organised by Mesdames J. Connor and E. M. Gabites in aid of their handkerchief stall to be conducted in conjunction with the fair next May, was held last evening in St. Stephen’s Hall, and proved to be very successful. The -.bridge prize was won by Mrs F. J. E. Smallbone and Mr Wltced and the 500 prize by Mrs A. T. Smith.

“Mr Oram, the senior inspector, aud I have found that the class of candidates for entrance to the training colleges this year is much better than last year,” commented the chairman (Mr E. F. Hemingway) at a recent meeting of the Wanganui Education Board. “They are a really fine lot of young men and women who would make splendid teachers and do credit to any education board in the Dominion.”

A line of hoardings that has been a familiar sight on the sections opposite the Ashburton Railway station has been removed in the past few days. For many years they have proclaimed the merits of a number of nationally known lines, and they were set off by a garden plot which occupied the space between the* hoardings and the footpath. Inquiry has been made regarding the leasing of the sections as building sites, but it is understood that none of them has so far been taken up.

Though the operations of art dealers had opened the field of art to the charlatan, at least to a certain extent, art was by no means in a bad way today, said Dr. E. T. Rogers, at the opening of the Waikato Society of Arts spring exhibition in Hamilton. Through an increased tendency on the part of artists to submit to the discipline ol craftsmanship, to-day the sculptor was getting more and more of a say in the design of building and the pictorial artist in the production of mural decorations.

Archie, the pet monkey of the tanker Edward F. J ohnson now - discharging at Wellington, is on liis second visit to New Zealand and seems to he thriving on sea life. When the ship was -at Tanjong Oeban some of the officers saw a crowd of children shying coconuts at a monkey which was chained up outside a Chinese shop and one of the engineers, taking pity on the creature, bought Archie for a couple of dollars. Although it is hard to calculate his age, it is thought that he is about two years old. He thoroughly enjoys being on shipboard and when the ship is at sea he scampers around the deck on the end of a fairly long leash or dozes in the sun. Archie’s diet consists mainly of rice, bananas, figs, and other fruits, but he likes a cup of tea or coffee and considers beer a fine drink.

“Foreign countries with depreciated currencies and cheap labour fill the market with very attractively-packed soft fruits, in fact so well packed that no country paying a living wage could afford to imitate them,” said Mr H. Turner, London manager of the Fruit Export Control Board, in an address to Hastings fruitgrowers recently. “Tariffs seem to have missed their objective as far as curtailing supplies of foreign fruit is concerned, and it is generally recognised that in many cases the only objective is the _ accumulation of sterling balances, irrespective of market values or cost of production, which means that the fruit really belongs to the foreign Government and not the actual grower.”

At the cattle sale in the Invercargill Show Grounds on Friday there were scenes reminiscent of the rodeos of the Wild West when a bull broke away and raced for the streets, says an exchange. A well-known stock agent received a shock when the animal charged his car before it careered through the Rose Gardens, up Gala Street, to Elies Road. The bull sought refuge in a backyard, but jumped over the gate when men tried to recapture it. Some public-spirited citizens tried to stop its wild rush, but they thought discretion the better part of valoui and sought places of safety. The bull reached the abattoirs before it was too tired to go further. Appropriately enough, it was named Lelburne Enterprise, and it certainly lived up to its name.

Methods of preventing the entry of foot-and-mouth disease into the Dominion were discussed at length by the North Canterbury Provincial Executive of the New Zealand Farmers’ Union yesterday. Special reference was made to the possibility of new regulations being necessary to prevent infection coming in by overseas air services. A letter from headquarters said that inquiries were being made about the possibility of foot-and-mouth disease being introduced by air services from overseas. It seemed likely that some regulations would have to be made about the disinfecting of passengers’ footwear. The letter was received. ~ln a discussion that followed it was agreed also to ask the Railway Department if the regulations about the destruction of foreign packing on imported goods were being observed, one ’member giving an example of what he considered negligence in this regard. Mr M. Fleming said that all packing should be sterilised before it was allowed in the country.

An incorporated society, the functions of which are believed to be unique in the world,has been formed at Auckland. A representative body of women, as a result of a meeting called during the last week, have now formed themselves into the New Zealand Womens’ Food Value League, Incorporated, and aim to band at least 20,000 women together, who, by the payment of an annual subscription of half a crown, will maintain a laboratory to investigate the food ‘ value of foodstuffs and to disseminate the knowledge so obtained, to members of the league that they may become nutritionallyminded, discriminating purchasers of ood. It was pointed out that the general guide toward food quality today would appear to be mice and the appeal to the eye, whereas, inreality, it was the concealed qualities of food which should be the guiding purchasing factors. These concealed and vital qualities could, he revealed only by laboratory investigation, and it was just this service which the- New Zealand Womens’ Food Value League was creating.

During the past 10 years the Wellington Free Ambulance has attended to a total of 11,486 accident eases. Transports numbered 76,308 and minor cases 1414, making a total of 86,208 eases. The total miles travelled by the cars was 785,936. The number of cases attended in the Wellington hospital district was 85,937, and outside cases numbered 271.

Trials with painted desks in the in* fant department of the Ashburton East; School having pro.ved successful in the effort to do away with the use of slates by the children, it is likely that the slates now used will be discarded. The Committee, at its last meeting, decided to ask the Canterbury Education Board to paint the remainder of the desks in the infant rooms.

Modern weddings attended by people in evening dress, and looked on as social events, came in for some criticism by the Bishoy, of Wellington (the Right Rev. St. Barb© Holland) in his address at the Masterton Parish Hall last week. He longed, lie said to see a very great development of sacredness, awe and beauty of the marriage service, which was indeed a great sacramental service. It was so sacred and so tremendous that it could not be filled in as one of the necessary pe~ts of a social function.

“Beware of the man who comes on to your farm and gives you a lot of Latin names for the trouble. You do not know what it means, and neither does he. It is his excuse for wriggling out of the argument when he does not know what is wrong,” stated Professor G. A. Hucker, the American bacteriological expert, when addressing a meeting of farmers in Palmerston North last week on the subject of mastitis in cows.

Cherries and apples, broom and grass are growing in profusion in the section adjoining the Ashburton Post Office, on the East street frontage. The fruit trees a relic of the days when the Postmaster’s residence was attached to the Post Office, are carrying heavy crops of cherries and apples. These are a familiar sight during the summer, but they seldom are permitted to come to maturity, as small boys and birds carry them off as soon as they start to ripen. Large bunches of broom are growing to the height of eight or nine feet among the fruit trees, while the grass is waist high.

“Some of the examiners see a deterioration in the average quality of the candidates,” said Professor Maxwell Walker, presenting his annual report of the modern languages department to the Auckland University College Council. “This is not surprising, in view of the low standard accepted for entrance. Resolutions are passed year by year by b.oth the Academic Board and the senate, urging an improvement in the entrance examination standard, but nothing is done. As long as the present state of affairs continues, the work of the university colleges must suffer. Without a doubt the classes are at present choked with students who are not up to the standard of university work.”

The Dunedin United Temperance Reform Council adopted the following resolution to be forwarded to the Minister of Transport (the Hon. R. Semple): “That the most effective way of protecting sober motorists and other users of the highways would be to enact a law to the effect that the driving license of every motorist convicted of being intoxicated in charge of a car should thereby automatically be cancelled for three years (minimum) for a first offence, and six years (minimum) for a. second conviction. The Dunedin Temperance Council believes that the Government holds in this the most powerful weapon in dealing with drinking motorists, but it must be made automatic upon conviction and imposed upon everyone alike.”

That there is no lack of enthusiasm for athletics in Ashburton has been shown by the recent revival of the Ashburton Amateur Athletic Club with considerable assistance from V. P. Boot, the New Zealand Olympic Games representative, who is at present stationed in Ashburton. Further evidence of this state of affairs was given during the Club’s second meeting of the season last evening, when something approaching hero-worship was seen. Boot began to jog slowly up the track prior to the hall-mile event, and was at once joined by dozens of small, boys, eager not only to pick up a hint or two from him, but probably also to be seen near him. They kept pace beside, in front of, and behind him for perhaps 100 yards, until he decided to stop.