LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 65, Issue 181, 15 May 1945, Page 2

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

A New Zealand Expeditionary Force casualty list issued last night reported one man died on active service. His next-of-kin lives in Petone. Applications for 65 tyres and 48 tubes were granted by the Ashburton Tyre and Tube Rationing Committee last evening. The following cases of notifiable diseases were reported to the Health Department in Canterbury last week:— Scarlet fever 15, diphtheria 1, puerperal sepsis 1, tuberculosis 5, erysipelas 2, enteric 1. There was one death from enteric. On the West Coast there was one notification of scarlet fever and one of tuberculosis, and one death from tuberculosis. A good attendance at a meeting of the Ashburton Next-of-Kin Association yesterday was presided over by the president (Mrs J. W. Tinker) Items by Mrs Gordon (monologue*), and the Misses Cullen (duets) were much enjoyed. Miss O. Watts gave an interesting talk on her experiences on Norfolk Island. Mrs H. L. Barker read a letter from her son, who was until lately a prisoner of war in Germany. Souvenirs of interest were shown and described. Afternoon tea was served by the committee.

“This grand jury is unanimously of opinion that the Government should be asked to reimpose the death penalty.” This was a rider regd by the foreman of the grand jury at the opening of the Supreme Court sitting in Wanganui yesterday, when a true bill was returned on an indictment for murder against a labourer. The foreman (Mr A. R. Donaldson) added that members of the grand jury were perturbed by the large number of murders which had been committed in New Zealand during recent years. Stating that the rider would he sent to the Minister of Justice, Mr Justice Johnston said that it was not for him to express an opinion, as the death penalty was a matter of policy, but such a recommendation was well within the province of a grand jury. “It is a. fact that an impression is gaining ground that, the sanctity of human life is not as important as it was once regarded,” said his Honour. —(P.A.)

Poisonous tobacco—is there such a thing? Of course there is! A wellknown London nerve specialist has just been telling the world that impure tobacco, i.e., tobacco poisonous with nicotine, is a comman cause of nerve trouble (and heart trouble), now so prevalent, and deploring the fact that the 20th century, so prolific in discoveries of vital importance to humanity, has not yet solved the problem of producing tobacco from which the poisonous nicotine has been eliminated. Yet such tobacco lias been grown, manufactured, and in general use throughout New Zealand for many years past. This, of course, is the famous “toasted,” which, subjected to a special purifying process, emerges sweet, cool, fragrant and comforting, and as free from nicotine as tobacco can possibly be. There are only five brands of the real thing, the genuine toasted —Cut Plug No. 10 (Bullshead), Navy Cut No. 3 (Bulldog), Cavendish, Riverhead Gold, Desert Gold, also tailormades. Try any of these and you won’t Avant to change over to anything else. All toasted, and no sore throat, no cough! lx

Addresses on the relationship of the food position to farming in Canterbury will be given at a public meeting at Ashburton on Friday afternoon by Messrs L. J. Wild (president of the New Zealand Royal Agricultural Society) and G. H. Holford, of the Department of Agriculture. Appropriate talking films will be shown. The meeting is sponsored by the National Council of Primary Production.

The possibility of two-way-radio communcation between fire engines and their stations in Wellington was discussed at a meeting of the Wellington Fire Board. The superintendent, Mr C. A. Woolley, said that the installation of radio would not be expensive and would be of great use for operational direction at fires. The board decided that Mr Woolley should make further inquiries before a final decision was made.

In an effort to foster a better relationship between the town and rural populations of the Ashburton County and Borough, the Ashburton Rotary Club will this evening hold a “country night,” when members of various country organisations will be the guests of the club at tea. The speaker will be Professor E. R. Hudson (Director of Lincoln College) whose subject will be “Agriculture and the National Life.”

At a. public meeting on food rationing in New Zealand held in Dunedin last evening and addressed by Dr. Muriel Bell, the following resolution was passed: “That as Britain’s meat and butter ration, is much lower than that of any other English-speaking community, and furthermore, as there is no likelihood of it being increased in the near future, this meeting of Dunedin citizens urges the New Zealand Government to take immediate steps to increase this country’s export of meat and blitter to Britain by reducing the New Zealand ration in the saving of 4oz a head of butter a week on 1,000,000 ration books would enable to New Zealand to export an additional 5800 tons of butter to Britain. —(P.A.)

“As a businessman with a wide experience of selecting stall for commercial offices and industry, I state that the average child trained in our primary schools does not spell as surely as he did 40 years ago, he does not display the skill of his father in calculation, nor does he write as well,” said the Mayor of Wellington, Mr W. Appleton, in opening the annual conference of the New Zealand Educational Institute at Wellington. “Perhaps I shall be regarded as a back number, but I am convinced that with the introduction into the school curriculum at too early a stage of such a wide variety of subjects inadequate knowledge of the fundamentals of the three R’s is being neglected. In my judgment, and I also speak as the father of five children, the department might well give more attention to reading, writing, arithmetic, grammar, and a sound foundation of the mother tongue.