NEWS OF THE DAY.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 282, 28 November 1929, Page 6

NEWS OF THE DAY.

Quite at; Home. "I couldn't help feeling at home when I arrived in Auckland," remarked Mr. George Armitage, of the Hawaii Tourist Bureau, in his address to members of the Advertising Club at their luncheon yesterday. "For one thing, your Government Tourist Offices are in Queen Street, near the junction of Fort Street. In Honolulu the headquarters of the Hawaii Bureau are in Fort Street, near.. Queen Street." Another Public Reserve. Another valuable piece of land of 14 acres has come into the possession of the Mount Roskill Road Board to be used as a public reserve. At the last session of Parliament legislation was passed providing for the transfer of section 30 in the Waikowhai estate from the Auckland Harbour Board to Mount Roskill for that purpose. The Lands and Survey Department is now taking the necessary steps to have the area vested in the board. Arbitration Court Sitting. The final quarterly session of ■ the Auckland Arbitration Court will be commenced on December 7, when fixtures for a busy sitting will be made. The Court will be fully occupied with business until the Christmas vacation. When the Court appeared in the city, several months ago, Mr. Justice Blair was acting as president, in the absence of Mr. Justice Frazer in Australia. The latter lias resumed his duties, however, and will be making his first appearance on the Bench in Auckland since his return to New Zealand. New Railway Station Drainage. In connection with drainage from the new railway station Mr. A. J. Entrican expressed the opinion, at the meeting of the Auckland and Suburban Drainage Board last evening, that, as the Government paid no rates, it should bear some proportion of the cost of pumping sewage from the new station to the Drainage Board's sewer at Constitution Hill. He added that in Dunedin, when the new railway station was built, the Dunedin Drainage Board approached the Railway Department, which agreed to pay £150 per year. The matter was referred to the Finance and Legal Committee, with power to act.

Procession of Stoats. Five stoats, an adult and four young, crossing Guyton Street in the vicinity of the Purnell Street intersection at Wanganui made a strange sight. They moved in single file, an inch or two separating each of them. Scared by passing traffic, they made a fast crossing, and scurried through the fence on the opposite side and into the grounds of a private residence. It so happened that a small* boy was running across the roadway at the same time, and the stoats, racing behind him, made it appear to spectators approaching from the direction of the railway line that he was dragging a string of sausages.

"Splendid Native Race." "I do not think you New Zealanders realise how exceptionally fortunate you are in the country you have inherited," was remarked by the British Trade Commissioner, Mr. L. A. Paish, at the conclusion of the commerce train tour, in the course of which many interesting touches of Maori life were encountered. "I think you are the only people in the world with a native race which gives you no racial problems," added Mr. Paish. "If you look round the Empire to countries like South Africa, Indja and Egypt, as well as to countries of other nations, I think you will congratulate yourselves that in this paradise of the south you have such a spleAdid native race."

Trainees for Mission Field. A course of medical instruction is planned by the Bible Training Institute for mission students preparing for the foreign field. Lectures have been tentatively arranged to begin in March next, and will be delivered by members of the medical profession in Auckland. Twenty-five students complete their graduate course in mission work during December, and a number of them will probably leave New Zealand early next year. At a meeting this week the institute accepted seven new candidates for admission next year—four men and three women. Candidates accepted for next year's session, it was stated, now numbered 54. An enrolment of 57 had been made for the correspondence course, and the examination papers submitted by the candidates were of a high standard.

Auckland Museum. , The opening of the War Memorial Museum in the Domain caused an old resident to recall the day of small things, when the first collection of curios was housed in the building in Princes Street now occupied by the Northern Club. "As a young boy," he said, "I went to a school on .the site now occupied by the Magistrate's Court. During the dinner hour some of us boys often visited the Museum, and gazed with wonder on the preserved Maori heads, which I must admit fascinated me more than anything else. Father took me to the function when the new museum building was opened. I remember that, while I was gazing at the skeleton of a giraffe, a lady came along with her daughter. The girl asked, 'What is that, mother?' Evidently only looking upward at the long neck, the lady replied, 'That, my dear, is a moa, the giant bird of New Zealand which is now extinct.' Father said to me, 'First time I knew the moa had four legs with hoofs, instead of two with claws.'"

The Humorous Side of Amalgamation. "There are some funny reasons urged for the amalgamation of the North Shore boroughs," said Mr. Aldridge, Mayor of Devonport, when addressing a meeting of munipipal delegates last evening. "The best I ever heard was given at a public meeting in Takapuna, when one speaker urged the change because 'the present Mayors of the four boroughs were no darned good.' I would respectfully submit, gentlemen," continued Mr. Aldridge, "that you would hardly amalgamate two fish barrows on such grounds as personal dislike, nor would you fuse two such businesses because the fish had been swimming in the same sea, or because they smelt the same when cooked." At a further stage in the proceedings Mr. W. Cassels-Brown was urging a rational viewpoint, and instanced the difficulty- of using in a practical way one road roller both in Devonport and Birkenhead. Mr. J. Guiniven scouted the difficulty by pointing out that the Railway Department ran the same repair locomotive from Auckland to the Baurimu Spiral. "You don't put that forward as a serious contribution to the discussion?" said Mr. Brown. "Yes," nodded Mr. Guiniven. "Then that's another amalgamation joke," was the reply.

Dazzling Rotorua. The holiday town of Rotorua has been furbished up and painted in readiness for the coming tourists' season, which promises to be a very satisfactory one. Owing to the unfortunate habit of the Rotorua atmosphere, only white paint will stand for any length of time, and the consequence is that every house, shop and shed is painted that hue. Added to this, the pumice roads of the township are also white, and the combined effect of streets and buildings is painfully dazzling these sunny summer days. Quite a good trade is done in the township in snow-glasses, such as they sell tourists in Switzerland when going up the Jungfrau or any of the other perilous climbs, done per railway, to. reach the virgin snows. Apparently it is hopeless to expect the Rotorua peopie to paint with a less dazzling colour, such as a soothing buff, like the deckhouses of the P. and 0. steamers, a colour chosen after numerous experiments to eliminate glare in the tropics. What Rotorua might do, however, is to seal its roads, using bitumen or tar; a dead black would be some relief from the present painful glare, and so get rid of two evils at once —the dazzle and the dust. There is no reason why Rotorua should be dusty, and it is rather remarkable that the go-ahead local body has not tackled the problem long ago; it is the one blot in an otherwise delightful spot in which to while away a few weeks of leave.