NEWS OF THE DAY.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 303, 23 December 1929, Page 6

NEWS OF THE DAY.

Holiday Publication Arrangements. fr The "Auckland Star" will not be published on Wednesday next (Christmas Day). It will appear as usual on Thursday (Boxing Day). A similar holiday arrangement has been made for New Year's Day. Visiting the Hospitals. Members of the Hospital Board have set out a big programme of visitations during the coming week. To-day a visit was paid to the Franklin Memorial Hospital at Waiukii, and to-morrow the Alexandra Home and Infirmary will be visited. On Christmas Day another visit will be paid to the infirmary, the main hospital will be thoroughly gone through ward by ward, and then at first opportunity a visit "will be paid to the hospital at Warkworth. ' Changeable Weather. Rain and sunshine alternated in Auckland during the week-end. A fine Saturday (for which cricketers, bowlers and lawn tennis players were duly grateful) was followed by a very wet Sunday, a heavy thunderstorm in the morning being followed by occasional showers during the afternoon and evening. Torrential rain fell during the night, the downpour being particularly heavy in the marine suburbs. It was noticed that at Stanley Bay the rain water, rushing over the sea wall, had cut deep gullies through the sandy beach. Minor flooding occurred in some parts of the city and suburbs, but no damage was reported.' A Labour of Love. "This is the most important work I do all through the year," was the remark made'by Mr. S. Donaldson, Mayor of Newmarket, when he was being congratulated : by a board member at the hospital for appearing for the ninth time as Father Clirjstinas to distribute the gifts from a Christmas tree to the sick children of the Princess Mary Hospital. With its coloured lights and decorations the room looked fairylike as the children were carried from the main wards to their places down the stairs. Some of them were helpless, and were carefully attended by nurses. They were, however, full of expectation and glee when Father Christmas arrived, wearing a scarlet robe, long whiskers, and blowing a loud trumpet. Native Ingenuity. Preaching in St. Patrick's Cathedral last evening, the Rev. Father Valentin, administrator of the Eastern Pacific charge of the Roman Catholic missions, told an amusing story to illustrate the simplicity and ingenuity of the native mind. He had mentioned the Scriptural injunction that women should enter the House of God with their heads covered. Lo and behold, the next Sunday the first native woman to arrive was seen to be wearing a hat. Once inside she threw it out of the window, and the next of the women waiting outside'put it on before making her entrance. The process was repeated time after time, and Father Valentin counted 40 women who had worn the same hat. "Any Port in a Storm." Aucklanders caught out of doors during yesterday's torrential downpour made for any place that was likely to prove a haven of refuge. Picnickers at Takapuna, when the first warning raindrops fell, clustered under the spreading arms of pohutukawa trees, but soon discovered that this did not afford sufficient shelter owing to the intensity of the downpour. They were faced with a thorough drenching or seeking other places of refuge. One party scuttled into a boathouse with a leaky roof, while an enterprising couple huddled on the verandah of a house that was unoccupied. People who ascended Rangitoto were stranded several miles from the Avharf, and discovered that exploration of the caves was preferable to braving the elements. The Happy Warrior. In addressing a gathering of military officers at Invercargill recently, General Sir Charles Fergusson, Governor-General, said he looked on soldiering in the Dominion not entirely from the military point of view. He looked on it in higher way than mere military work. Soldiering played a tremendous part in building up character. The reason was the greater effect military service had on the character of the young. He would almost subordinate military considerations to ideals of training boys in discipline. Drill simply meant teaching self-control. It made boys and men active and quick-witted. The essential thing in these clays was discipline for the young, the imparting of high ideals. Young officers were perhaps apt to think that they were expected to do nothing more than soldiering, but they should take a broader view. If military service were properly carried out in the Dominion it would givo the lie direct to the critics who considered that boys were being only taught to kill their fellow beings. Lost Ticket Retrieved. The visitor to Morrinsville who gained a little unsolicited mention in the "Star" on Saturday week by losing his train ticket down a chink in "the floor of the luggage room at the Auckland station a few days ago lias a good word to say for the businesslike methods of the Railway Department. Finding it impossible to retrieve his elusive ticket, he bought another ticket for Morrinsville, and later wrote to the railway authorities asking for the refund of the fare. With a promptitude that bears out the claim that the Department is keen to serve the public, the officials at -the Auckland station took up a board in the floor and discovered the ticket. It was then a simple matter to advise the claimant to call at the Morrinsville station, sign a receipt, and collect the cost of his duplicate ticket. As the jubilant traveller pocketed his refunded cash he was loud in his praise of the courtesy and attention of the oft-criticised railway officers. "Homeliness and Hospitality." "Mersey," the magazine of the Mersey Dock Board, contains an interesting article by Mr. R. Watson Rome, one of the principals of the staff, dealing with his recent tour of New Zealand. Mr. Rome recalls with gratitude what he aptly describes as the homeliness and hospitality of the people of the Dominion. "New Zealanders are justly proud of their great courtesy and of their birthright as Britishers," he says, "and all whom I met extended to me the most hearty welcome, and showed their anxiety that I should see as much as possible of their country. Their evident pleasure at meeting someone from Home at once made me feel as one of them. To one and all I am greatly indebted for the help and guidance extended to me during my visit." Referring to Auckland, he writes: "It is not often that a port can boast of two harbours, as Auckland dan, standing as it does on an isthmus separating the Waitemata and the Manukau. The Harbour Board has extensive new works in progress—new wharves and breakwaters, showing, as in the case of Wellington, great optimism for the future." Happiest Time in Life. • The old statement, of which a good deal of use is made at this time.of the year, that school days are the happiest in one's life, wa"s attacked ■by the Chief Justice (the Hon. M. Myers) at the prize-giving ceremony at.Wellington College. His Honor 3 said he had read in the-Press about boys having been asked to remember by speakers at schoof functions that the time spent at school was the happiest period in their lives. "Don t you remember it for a moment," enjoined the Chief Justice, amidst applause. "It should not be, and it is not/the happiest period of ones life. Certainly the responsibilities at school were not so ore-it but boys when at school were developing S sense of responsibility for their later he. Every successive period of one's, life should be die happier a person passed through. He thought he co fid honestly say that that was so. One shouS always have something to look forward to. • »*