NEWS OF THE DAY.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 90, 18 April 1927, Page 6

NEWS OF THE DAY.

Solving a Difficulty. One child was, for a time, evidently dissatisfied with the way tho primary school sports on lhursday were being conducted. "I won that nice," he sobbed. The little chap had evidently won his heat in tho event, and, having given his' ( hristian name instead of his surname to the oflilials, had not been credited with his successful performance. The result was that when the heatwinners lined up for the final, he was not allowed to run. It was decided that the best way to overenine the ditlieulty was to award the young athlete a consolation prize. Uneasy Gulls. Visitors to Albert Park between •_■;•.: lit and nine oVlock today were surprised to sec the park seagulls flying low and uttering excited cries, instead of parading in their usual confident fashion on the grass. The explanation of this unwonted liveliness was forthcoming when a beautiful grey Persian eat shot across the path from one clump of bushes to another. What pussy's intentions were will never Iw kno»vn; indeed it is doubtful whether a cat would i.-e safe in tackling a full-grown gull. But the birds weic very uneasy until the intruder had departed. Jamuna's Example. When the band struck up the opening bars of "C>nd Save the King"' at the Zoological Park yesterday afternoon, Jamuna, the popular elephant, stopped her ungainly movements, and, at a wore! from her keeper, raised her right forefoot and also extended her trunk high abova her head, remaining thus until the music ceased. Incidentally, this expression of loyalty could well serve as an example to those of the big crowd of visitors who did not bother to stand still or to stop talking, and to the men who did not remove their hats. Not a Fashion Plate. The advice, "Put your shirt on it." whi'-h may be cither good, bad, or indifferent i>o a racecourse, had no significance to one of '.he patrons at Kllerslio on Saturday. A Maori patronise.) the "outer.' , with Easter garb minus cither shirt or socks, and white sandshoes setting off a suit thai had seen much wear, and a singlet of s , ibst.inti.il material. Tht fashion parade on the lawn did not interest him, but the horses did, and judgiu? by the wide smile that overspread his featun .-. the outing was one of some profit. New Voting System. A new method of voting has been itii r< duivd in connection with the municipal elections a.id electors will have to take special care to correctly record their votes on April 27. The .n n thod will be the same as that in force for the Parliamentary elections, but the fact that there are 01 candidates for the Auckland City Council makes it a complicated procedure to delete names of candidates, and lea\e the necessary 21 names. In t!io rar-e of the City Council election, a voter, to make the paper valid, will be required to erase. 40 names. Plumping will cause a ballot J»»|«T to U , informal. "Unholy Traffic." 11l dealing with social problems at the conference of Associated Churches of Christ on Suttirdav, Mr. 11. Grinstead, of Palmcrston XorUi. made mention of the gambling evil. What struck him most, he said, was the apparent insincerity of the Government to prevent bookmaking. They made it illegal, yet they allowed bookmakers to send thrir correspondence through the post anil their telegrams over the wires. Though some of tho offenders had been convicted for the illegal use of the telephone, within a few days they were allowed the privileges of this service again. "Let the bookmakers be gathered up e.-ery morning and lined, and it would soon stop their unholy tr.ulic,"' ho said.

Fish Harvest. Dcvonport fishermen reaped a havve.-t, Inst evening when little li-h of the yellowtail and sprat variety were attracted in shoals to tho ferry wharf by the bright electric illumination. O;ie practised hand hauled in 300 fish in three hours, while the casting of lines by industrious boys was attended by similar success. A small line and hook, with a small portion of mussel attached, allowed to tkini the water, performed the trick. The catches might have been larger had it not been for the fact that at intervals t!ie ferries' propellers churned the water to foarj and frightened the fish away. Big Money Goes South. A drop of £424.1 in the totalisator receipts at Ellcrslie on Saturday compared with the opening day of the A.R.C. Easter meeting last year must lie considered very satisfactory when substantial decreases are being entered up at almost every galloping and trotting meeting throughout ti>e Dominion this season. It is only on rare occasions that locally-owned horses win any of the big prizes distributed by the A.R.C., and the order obtained again on Saturday, when the two four-figure stakes were won by visitors. The Easter Handicap, which with a sweepstake of £10 each for starters made the stake £2130, went to the Wanganui-owned and trained Civility, while the Ilinvke's Bay-owned two-year-old Gascony captured the Great Northern Champagne Stakes.

An Act of Kindness. After all it is the* little things in life that count. An incident that occurred on the tramways on Saturday, little though it might seem, \v;is demonstrative of this fact. One of the returned soldiers in the city, to whom the world must ever remain dark, was a passenger by a Ponsonby car, and intuition told him that he had to alight at a certain point in Uobson Street. Tic stepped from the car when it stopped, as would any ordinary individual, but his hesitancy to move on told its tragic story. The motorman detected the afflicted man's dilemma, and, leaving his post, escorted him across the street to safety. The act of kindness did not go unnoticed, and was appreciated by the passengers. Teacher and Irate Parent. Direct action was taken by an irate parent in Xew Plymouth on account of what she considered were injustices to her children. A young lady teacher and her class at a primary school which the children referred to attended were startled by loud clamouring outside the door. vigorous application of apparently a boot or shoe on the outside of the door, and the swift and unannounced entry into the classroom of an excited mother. From the hard words flung violently at the teacher it appeared that the visitor's children had, according to her way of thinking, been wrongfully detained at school after the usual hour of departure in the afternoon, and also had been molested by other children on their way home after school. The assistance of the headmaster was invoked, and after a conference with him the lady departed more peacefully than she had arrived. Piecemeal Applications. The making of piecemeal applications to add county councils to the list of parties to awards is not favoured by the Court of Arbitration, which voiced its disapproval of this practice in a judgment delivered at Wellington on Thursday. The Court also pointed out the uudesirability, when several county councils were functioning in a district, of having only one or two bound by the Court and the others left free from restrictions. In the case before it, the Court left it open to the union to apply for a separate award, or to renew the present application for a group of county councils. In such future applications the Court suggested that unless the respondent council was prepared to admit that the union represented the wishes of the majority of the employees, a ballot ehould be taken tinder the auspices of the Labour Department. The result of the ballot would then be filed in the office of the Court, which would then be in possession of definite information as to the final views, of the workers, upon which it could act. Mr. A. L. Monteith dissented from the judgment of the Court,

HAPPINESS IN BACKBLOCKS. We live in the Imckblocks. We have an unmetallcd road in summer; in winter we have instead two dreadful ditches full of mud an<! water, into which, if we venture out at all. we must plunge the wheels or slide gracefully off the road into a bottomless pit. or wedge ourselves hard and fast in the water-table. So much for the road. There is no school, so between us \*e teach the children. There are no near neighbours, so we cannot have a maid even if butter and wool were behaving thenisel\e<. We have an overdraft that never in this world shall we l>e able to scale: but. apart from all the drcadfulncsscs, we l<ue tinlife.

The slopes below our home are covered with huge forest trees, and the big puugas in between are the graceful ladies, not bobbed or shingled, but old-world beauties, who, with every wind thai blows, curtsey and dimple to their haiuNome rugged cavaliers. Beyond is the river, swift, foaming over huge boulders, then range on range of bush-clad hills, blue with that mistiness which artists love. The day commences early with birds singing, children and men hungry and much ado to get breakfast over. Then we cook :neals. bake bread, make butter and do just the thousand and one things that arrive so daintily packed, delivered to your door in town. Poor bush women, isolated, out-of-date, and altogether countrified! Probably all those things. But there is another side. There is the hungry city child and the mother who has to keep her plate well hidden so that th ■ family will not see how little she puts on it? Butter is dull, but there is plenty in the larder. Sheep don't pay, but there is one to kill, and h big juicy grdled chop is not a luxury. At the end of the day there is such a fire that one is loth to go to bed because of its luxurious warmth. There is a wonderful happiness in it, and can one*be more than happy anywhere? City dwellers often read with kindling eyes stories of the wonderful wind-swept prairies. If the same people were caught there, they'd have some rude remark* tit make about that same beastly wind. Here in the backblocks of our own country is a finer thing than any prairie, so to those who can by any means, surely it is better to hold oil like prii:i death than drift to the towns. M..1.8.