NEWS OF THE DAY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 260, 2 November 1932, Page 6

NEWS OF THE DAY.

Railway Construction Costs.

When the first railway line in Taranaki was opened between New Plymouth and Waitara in 1875, the *6st of construction was about £5000 per mile. Other lines constructed later cost over £8000 per. mile. Recent figures given as to the cost of the Stratford line show that the Matiere section cost £33,000 per mile, which figures would make eOme of th* pioneers in railway construction ga6p if they were here to see it. The cost of 52 miles of railway from New Plymouth to Hawera, completed in 1881, cost less than £(5000 per mile.

No Depression in Babbits. Ample evidence that there is no depression in the rabbit world in Otte part of New Zealand was obtained by a party of five Auckland sportsmen when they went rabbit-shooting during the week-end at a spot in the Bombay district. Arriving at noon, they had quite a busy time, and at 4 p.m. they departed with a bag of 75 rabbits. One of the- party went off by himself -with a pearifle, and hie'contribution to the bag was 34 rabbits. Wages For Prisoners. Reference to recent protests against the way in which the Paparua prison was a competitor with private enterprise was made by Mr. R. M. Laing at the annual meeting of the Howard League for Penal Reform at Christchurch on Friday (reports the "Press"). "It seems to me the proper thing would be to pay the men at Paparua the janie wages for the work they do as men receive for doing similar work outside the prison," he said. "Then there would be no unfair competition." Mr. Laing added that this was done in some parts of the world, including Russia. A Memorial Paten. A silver-gilt paten, in memory of Mrs. Margaret Constance Carrington, wife of the Very Rev. C. W. Carrington, a former Dean of Christchurch, was dedicated by Bishop West-Watson in the Christchurch Cathedral on All Saints' Day, yesterday. The paten, which was presented by the Cathedral branch of the Mothers' Union, was designed and made by Mr. Arthur Gurnsey, and will be used at the high altar, in conjunction with the chalice at present in use. The chalice was presented without a paten. Cruisers in the South. The cruisers Diomede and Dunedin are at present away from Auckland visiting Southern ports. A telegram from Lyttelton reports the arrival there yesterday afternoon of H.M.s. Diomede from Timaru. The vessel is scheduled to return to Auckland on November 24. The Dunedin, which arrived at Dunedin last evening from the West Coast Sounds, is not expected to return to this pOrt until December 9. The sloops Laburnum and Veronica are both undergoing annual overhaul at Devonport, and are to be docked for cleaning and painting next week. Wanganui Harbour Foreman. For the job of harbour foreman at Wanganui, which was filled this week, there were 113 applicants. The place fell to an Auckland resident, Mr. R. C. Coss, of Manurewa, who served his apprenticeship at the shipbuilding trade in Devonport, England, and arrived in New Zealand in 1906. While in the Dominion he worked as foreman in charge of silt-shifting barges for the Gisborne Harbour Board, had charge of Nelson Bros.' plant at Giebome, and of the Fletcher lightering plant at Whangarei. He also had experience in Suva and Fiji for a few months as foreman shipwright. Match-box Tops. A popular craze In Auckland at the present time is the'collecting of safety match-box tops, and it is not an uncommon thing to see a small boy rummaging through a street rubbish basket in search of additions to his collection. Overseas steamers arriving at the port are frequently visited by ardent collectors, some of whom carry New Zealand- postcards with which to barter. Auckland, it seems, is not the only place in the world where the craze has caught on, for when the British steamer Haleric was in China waters recently one of the officers was asked by no less dignified a person than a Shanghai pilot whether he had any old match-box tops to give away.

Suggested Melbourne Eisteddfod. Apropos the recent formation Welsh society at Hawera, it is interesting to learn that the Cambrian Society of Victoria has suggested to the Melbourne Centenary Committee that a feature should he a national eisteddfod in 1935, with participation by a delegation from Wales, to be conducted with full bardic ritual and regalia. The Australian Welsh societies are federated through the National Union of Weteh Societies, with similar bodies throughout the world, this being an outcome of a euggestion made to the Australian delegation which took part in the Eisteddfod held at Liverpool in 1929, when the Americans chartered the Laconia to transport a choir 250 strong, with 400 supporters. An English choir won, with the Americans in fourth place. In the great Welsh Eisteddfod, it may be mentioned, the public hears only the most talented three performers in each class that have survived preliminaries, and thus the competitions are completed in a week.

Vanishing News. Considerable interest was taken in all parts of New Zealand in the running of the Melbourne Cup yesterday, and radio installations were unusually .popular; for. the moment. The uncertain nature of this form of news-getting was well illustrated by the event, for even where reception was good listeners-in informed their friends that the result was "Peter Pan, something I couldn't--make out, and Shadow King," or "Peter Pan, Urinda, Shadow King." In reply to inquiries, they could not remember if any of the New Zealand horses did any* good. In most instances in town there were so many sets tuning in, and so much interference, that lis-teners-in could not be sure even of the winner's name, making out that it was either Peter Pan or Peter Jackson. One fan, who said he had got a first-class reception, rang up a newspaper office immediately the order of the first three horses past the post was announced, to find that the cabled news had reached his journalistic friend a minute earlier. The cabled news of the four placed horses was received in Auckland a minute and a half after the horses had passed the winning post.

Slang in Court. There was a time when to use slang in a court of justice was quite as heinous a crime as to keep one's hat on. It may bo remembered that an Australian judge had to lecture a woman barrister for checking a. witness with "Half a mo." We have not heard anything quite so unconventional in Auckland, but if some of the old starched legal luminaries could return to earth they would be mildly shocked by the absence of formality in the speech of the presentday courts. In the old days even the witnesses checked the easy familiarity of their conversational style and endeavoured to model their diction on what they imagined legal phraseology was like. To-day the witness tells his story in a plain, unvarnished way, and any judge who tried to stop the use of slang would seriously lengthen the course of justice—many a witness can express himself in nothing but the idiom of the day, and that is far from resembling legal phraseology. In a case yesterday afternoon a witness used the expression "welshed," and uo one professed to be shocked or mystified. "Crook" also cropped up quite naturally in the crossexamination, and even learned counsel referred to certain people getting a "whack" of a 6um of money without being pulled up and asked just precisely what might be the meaning of that rather uncourtlike word. Courts may be tolerant over the matter of slang, but justice still has a fitting idea of the respect due to the sacred precincts, and the other day it will he remembered a man was admonished 'in an Auckland court for going into the witness box in a costume that would have been most suitable at a picnic, but was quite out of place in a court of justice.