NEWS OF THE DAY.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 124, 28 May 1928, Page 6

NEWS OF THE DAY.

Versatile Applicant. Recently the Canterbury College office advertised a vacancy for a caretaker for the Girls' High School, Avonside, and close on 200 applications have been received. Remarkable versatility was shown by one applicant, who had also applied tor the recently-vacant registrars hip. which carries a salary of £700. Eclipse of the Moon. If the conditions are favourable a total eclipse of the moon will be visible throughout New Zealand on the evening of June 3. As far as the ordinary observer is concerned, the eclipse will commence that evening at 8.48, while the period of totality will be from 11.1 to 12.18. The eclipse will be the second of live occurring during the present year. Long Trip by Ambulance. "Auckland to Thames, return/' was the order for an emergency trip which one of the St. John Ambulance cars made yesterday. Auckland Hospital was left at 10.30, a woman patient being the passenger. Thames was reached at 1.30, and the ear was back in Auckland by a o'clock. In spite of the bad weather the journey was made in comfort, and the patient suffered no illeffects. Spectacular Smash. 'there was a spectacular smash iu Queen Street on Saturday evening, a motor car driven by Mr. \\. McK. (ieddes, of Wvnyard Street, being sandwiched between a tramcar and an overhead wire pole at the Fort Street intersection. There was a shower of sparks from the trolley wire, the car was badly smashed, the heavy iron base of the pole was shattered, and the control gear of the tramcar was damaged. Nobody was injured, .Mr. (ieddes having a lucky escape. Nutritional Values of Pastures. Dr. J. B. Orr, the world's foremost authority on the nutritional value of pastures, who is visiting New Zealaud in connection with the work of investigation into the mineral content of pastures conducted by the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, will arrive in Wellington to-day. Dr. Orr comes to New Zealand from the Rowett Institute at Aberdeen. He will leave almost at once for the King Country and Rotorua, where the main mineral deficiencies occur, and will be accompanied by Dr. E. Marsden, Secretary to the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. A Very Old Hangi. Mr. E. A. Marchant, a well-known surveyor of Wanganui, made a discovery at Nukumaru which is of interest to those who make a study »f Maori history (says the "Star's" Wanganui .Correspondent j. He was engaged in looking for an old trig station when he came across the remains of a Maori oven, or hangi. This was in sand below a deposit of loam of about 9in. To the casual observer this would not convey much, but to a practical man it meant a good deal. In the first place, loam deposits on sand ao not form rapidly, and to get that depth would take at least a thousand years or more. This gives some idea of the age of the hangi. "Manawatu." "When is the next move to be made in the changing of the name of the. town?" asked Mr. R. A. Noedl at a meeting of the council of the Palmerston North Chamber of Commerce. The president (Mr. W. A. Eliott) stated that it was proposed to take action at the same time as the Borough Council moved to have the town proclaimed a city. A population of 20,000 was needed for that, and the time when Palmerston North would reach that figure was very near. In connection with the changing of the name of the town, Mr. James Cowan, a well-known authority on early New Zealand history, has written in a recent publication as follows:—"The only fault one has to find with the wide-spreading place of line buildings and shady parks ami bright flower gardens is its inappropriate and meaningless name. 'Manawatu' has often been suggested as the fitting name for the town, and it would become it exceedingly well. As the metropolis of the wealthy farming district of the Manawatu Plains, it could bear no more convenient and euphonious name."' China Tea Clippers. When steam ousted sail in the China tea trade the clippers had to engage in any business that was offering, and a number of tit em appeared in New Zealand waters, writes "Shellback." The barque Lotliair, one of the fastest sailing vessels ever built, made several trips to the Kaipara before being sold to the Peruvians. The Dilpussund. a composite barque of about 600 tons register, built in London in IH(>4. which took part in the famous tea race of 180(5, was for many years carrying timber to Sydney, and coal from Newcastle to Auckland. The William Manson. of Sydney, and the Mary Blair, of Hobart, were both composite barques built in Aberdeen specially for the tea trade. In their clipper days they all carried sky-s'ls on the fore and main, and stuns'ls up to the royal yards. They were not very profitable vessels iu the timber trade, being so sharply built they could not carry a very big deck load. Thev were unlike the Nova Scotian-built vessels, which could comfortably carry Bft of a deck load, and sail without anv ballast. The Smallholdings Movement. Complimenting Mastertou Progress League on starting a smallholdings movement, the "New Zealand Smallholder" says: "One of the bad blots on our food supply system is the great disparity between the price on the farmlet and the price in the shop window. Yet shopkeepers apparently are not making fortunes. The smallholding movement can do good work by finding out what are the causes of the disparity and to what extent they can be obliterated. There is also the question of the disposal of surpluses. This is a most vital matter, and it is a matter that has hitherto been somewhat neglected. We have directed all our energies toward the production and marketing of the ultra-superior product. We have treated the products of secondary and tertiary quality as something to be regretted, apologised for, guiltily concealed and sent to the destructor as quickly as possible. That is quite wrong. The secondary and tertiary products have, or should have, their use. To destroy them out of hand is to throw away money. The stock argument against marketing second-grade products is that they compete against the firstgrade article and bring down the price. That is not logic. They do not, or should not, compete against the first-grade article. Tlicy should travel into money along entirely different routes. The unfortunate truth is that the different route has never been properly surveyed and laid down. Let's get busy and find secondary markets for any possible surplus in any possible kind of product that smallholders can produce."

Loyal Chinese. .V striking testimony to the loyalty of Oriental Christians to their European teachers in time of peril is provided by Misses H. and L. Reid, of the Chinese Inland Mission, who are on furlough in New Zealand. The missionaries, who were born and educated in the Dominion, have spent the past 35 years in the Central China mission fields, and they had many thrilling experiences in the time of civil warfare before they sailed for this Dominion. As an example of the loyalty of the Chinese, the Misses Eeid relate how on one occasion when a party of soldiers arrived at a certain mission station, the Chinese schoolgirls formed a ring round their European teacher, defied the armed men. and succeeded in protecting the missionary. On another occasion at great personal risk the Chinese civilians concealed their missionary in a well from the marauders, the worker having to remain in a most uncomfortable position for several hours until the danger was past. It was of the brigands, however, whom the Chinese stood most in awe, and although they were themselves in constant terror of these men, the first consideration was to protect the missionaries, Avho were assured that no harm would, beiall them.