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Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 143, 18 June 1926, Page 6

Trade depression, weather and market conditions, accidents to machinery, and .various other causes, caused a total of 886.236 hours of work to be lost by the , workers of the Dominion during the I year 1024-25, according to a report on factory production just issued by the Government Statistician. A total of 4361 j male and 1219 female \vorkers were directly affected by these figures, the I aggregate hours tost by males totalling | 724,686. and by females 161,550. This I means, as the Statistician points out, ' that it would take 400 men working 44 j hours a week a whole year to make up I the deficiency, a striking commentary on I the economic waste brought about by j the causes mentioned. i New regulations gazetted yesterdaygive power to secretaries of acclimatisation societies to destroy deer or authorise their destruction. The new provisions will have a currency of twelve months from June 16, 1926.

Should a teacher who is employed fulltime engage in private work? This was a question discussed at a meeting " r the Board of Managers of the Seddon Memorial Technical College yesterday afternoon. "They all do it," said one of the members. The director (Mr. G. -T. Park) said that there were new regulations on the subject, which could be interpreted as prohibiting outside work by full-time teachers on the staff. The board came to the conclusion that outside work should not be permissible if it interfered in any way with the college work, and it was left to tbe director to decide whether a class was suffering from the outside activities of any teacher.

An interestirg bit of Maori tradition appears in a circular issued by the directors of the Taranaki Oilfields Limited. Referring to the numerous escapes of natural gas on the East Coast district the report continues: "One of them furnishes the home of Mr. Kedey, one mile west of Rotorua, with all the ga9 he needs to light and heat his house. Another group of gas vents, one mile north-west of Jerusalem, is famous in Maori legend under the name of 'Ahi-O-te Atua,' meaning 'Fire of the Gods'. This group of gas vents is scattered over several acres and maintained a set of steady fires for many years. An invading tribe mistook it at night for the encampment of a lot of hostile Maoris, but after charging the place decided that spirits had taken the enemy away." The report mal*!s it quite clear these escapes of natural gas would not be seriously considered as indications of oil were it not for the fact that official analyses show they contain "ethane,"' which is in part a vapour of benzine, and an indication of tlie presence of oil in the rocks.

'•Well, if I must give my opinion on the competitions," said Mr. E. Q. Tayier, Supervisor of Music in Schools, at Christchurch on Tuesday night, "I have to say that I do not approve altogether cf children's solo competitions. They stimulate the children to individual effort, of course, but what usually happens is that the teacher does all the work, and the child simply does what it is told to. If it doesn't win it is disappointed, and if it does, is inclined to think a little too much of itself. The end of all competitions should be cooperation, and I am more in favour of junior choirs, singing games, and dramatic folk-songs."

Mr. G. C. R. F. Lovell, who was fined in the Magistrate's Court on Wednesday for speeding on the Parnell Road, was erroneously described as an American who had followed a common practice in America by motorists of informing against themselves for the purpose of saving costs. Mr. Lovell is not an American, on the contrary he is intensely British, and states that he was punished entirely on his own information, the council traffic authorities having taken no action. Mr. Lovell was fined, but was not mulcted in costs.

To prevent numerous tragedies in the new goldfields, boards of trade and newspapers of Manitoba are calling for a police barrier to prevent insufficiently equipped prospectors entering. Mounted police are on the scene, but Ottawa is being urged to establish strict inspection at all joints of entry to the country similar to those observed in the case of the Arctic, when the Fort Norman oil well caused the big rush. The wires to Ottawa point out that Red Lake is a hard rock proposition, with no hope of prospectors washing gold, as in the Klondyke field, to recoup themselves on the ground. There are no sources of provisions after leaving the railways, yet thousands, especially from the States, are rushing in there with insufficient equipment and no experience. Some tragedies have already occurred, and many hazardous escapes. The police barrier is urged as the only means to prevent heavy loss of life before the public becomes aware of the peril.

The ashes ami soil which are believed to contain a large proportion of the lost speck of radium are to be sent overseas in order that the speck may be recovered by the use of the necessary equipment. The experiments that have been carried out at the science department of the Auckland University College have proved that radium is contained in the materials that have been collected, but it is impossible to recover it here. The radium was lost some time ago at an Auckland private hospital, through being incinerated with some bandages that were used during the treatment of a patient. It was traced to the cinders and earth on a footpath.

Although circumnavigation of the globe has been a favourite project of explorers—later of tourists —since the time of the Greeks, interest in records for circumnavigation began with Jules Verne and his novel "Around the World in Eighty Days." The hero of this story, Phileas Fogg, made the trip in the "fantastic" time of 80 days. Seventeen years later Nellie Bly, a reporter for the New York "World," made the trip in 72 days, 6 hours, 11 minutes, in 'spite of long delays caused by lack of transportation facilities. Jules Verne, aged author of the novel which had been considered a masterpiece of imagination a decade before, watched the early stages of the trip sceptically, but none was more enthusiastic than he when Miss Bly distanced the creature of his pen. The record stood for fourteen years, when Henry Frederick broke it. his record in turn falling before Colonel Burnley Campbell. Andre Jager-Sehmidt brought the time under forty days, more than halving the time of Verne's hero in 1911, and the present record was established two years later. •