NEWS OF THE DAY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 302, 21 December 1932, Page 6

NEWS OF THE DAY.

The Holidays. "The Auckland Stair" will not be published next Monday, December 26, which will be observed as a holiday, in view of Christmas Day falling on a Sunday. The following week the New Year holiday will be observed on Monday, and there will again be no issue of the "Star." A Schoolboy Bradman. In order to mark the success ill batting scored by Sam Matangi, cf the Okaiawa School, in the final cricket match with Kaponga, thej committee has purchased a chain and medal.to be presented to him as a memento of the great feat of scoring 126 rune in 55 minutes. Local Bodies Win. Three requests for donations were before the Harbour Board yesterday afternoon. The Auckland City Mission and the British Sailors' Society will be. informed that the board regrets it cannot make a donation, but the Local Bodies Labourers' Union will receive a cheque for £4 4/ to assist the picnic fund. "All That Glitters" — An application by two men for a license to carry out prospecting on the foreshore at Takapuna wae before the meeting of the Auckland Harbour Board yesterday. Both the harbourmaster and engineer reported unfavourably, and the. board decided to instruct its solicitors to oppose the application. Infirmary Bootmaker. The old people at the Auckland Infirmary are rather beyond the age of hiking, and the farthest most of them go is to shuffle along Green Lane from the home to the Manukau Road corner, and back again; still, they get through a fair amount of footwear in the year. One of the inmates, a bootmaker by trade, has become the official bootmaker, "by appointment," at a gratuity of £1 a month. He has justified hie new rank, for, after allowing for cost of material, the Infirmary Committee finds that he has saved at least £100 a year in the replacement of boots and shoes. Hospital Reorganisation. An important report 09 hospital administration has been presented to the Hospital Board by the medical superintendent, Dr. Craven, and it ib to be considered at a special meeting of the board. He recommends, among other things, that the nursing units at the hospital, the infirmary and other institutions be made interchangeable, with a matron-in-charge for the combined staffs. Another important suggestion ie to make certain alterations at the infirmary for the accommodation of male convalescent patients, thus relieving the congestion at the hospital. Other innovations are the proposal to appoint an obstetrician, and the provision of an operating theatre in the Prin- j cess Mary block for children. Friday Appeals Stopped. At its last meeting the Wellington City Council decided to grant no more permits to hold street collections or processions on Fridays. Mr. Duncan said that he did not want to prevent street collections altogether, and suggested that some other day than Friday, the main shopping day, should be arranged. Further, he suggested that some control should be imposed on the manner in which the collections were made. He had even seen a stall —one of the many blocking the footpaths —from which books were being sold right in front of a book shop. Similar views were expressed by Mr. R. Seniplc, M.P., who said that the shopkeeper was having quite a bad enough time as it was without the driving away of business from hie doors on the main business day. Windfall For Farmer. The pleasure of lifting a windfall of about £S0 is shortly to be the experience of Mr. H. W. Cleland, a Gordonton farmer. Forty-nine ypars ago, when he was a lad of 11 years, a sum of money was placed to his credit in the Post Office Savings Bank by relatives, and the accumulated interest has brought the total to about £80. Mr. Cleland received the news on his sixtieth birth'day, and he signed a declaration before a justice of the peace in Hamilton yesterday stating that he was the person in whose name the account stands. He had forgotten about the deposit, and cannot recall the amount of the original credit. He was traced through hie bankers. The account will be transferred to Hamilton. Farthest North Cemetery. A reminder that settlement began many years ago in New Zealand is an overgrown native cemetery in Tom Bowling Bay, the farthest north cemetery in the Dominion, Long ago there was a Church of England mission church there, but to-day the building has gone, and the scrub is fast reclaiming the clearing where it stood. Among the thick scrub there are some tombstones tliat record the names of Maoris born before New Zealand became a British colony. The oldest perpetuates the name, if not the memory, of a Maori who wae born in 1818, 114 years ago. Other old stones are over the graves of men who died respectively in 1829, 1831 and 1835, the last-mentioned ante-dating Hobson's landing by five years. Death on Roses. While there is no doubt that the opossum has formed a source of revenue and employment, there is a section of the public, especially suburban residents, who. are interested in fruit or flower gardens, who detest the very name of this industrious marsupial. Every season there is brought to light some new plant which has suffered from the ravages of opossums. The latest • report from the Wellington director of parks, Mr. J. G. MacKenzie, is. that opossums have eaten back the young shoots on pungas, completely destroying them. A very fine sample of Paul's Scarlet rambler rose has been eaten back i so much that the plant is unlikely to survive the pruning. Roses, indeed, eeem to be the chief delicacy of opossums. Anyone with banksias, or ramblers which are intended to cover a large space, knows that where there are opossums the plant remains a bush. Mesembryanthemums, the buds of primroses, and, in fact, most growth that is not exceedingly bitter, suffers in the same way. The application for a permit to. destroy opossums on the Onslow reserve was made because the shrubs there have suffered considerably. "Past Carin'."

There are not many people who have more money than they know how to look after, these hard times, but several of them may be found in the Auckland Infirmary. For some time past it has been the custom to allow the old-age pensioner inmates 0/ a week pocket money out of their pensions. It was reported at yesterday's meeting of the Hospital ' Board that it had been found that much of the money given out got into wrong hands, or was entirely waeted. It was estimated that 90 per cent of the recipients were unable to appreciate or put any value on the money. Very few of them were able to give a valid receipt, and the Audit Department had called attention to that fact. The chairman of the board, Mr. William Wallace, eaid there had also been cases of pilfering; some of the old people were quite incapable of handling even such a small sum of money. The infirmary committee reported that there would still be a number of worthy cases, and it was suggested that they should apply for the gratuity, and the medical superintendent would, then report whether the allowance should be granted or not. Sir. M. J. Savage said that would entail too much trouble for the old folks, and at his suggestion it was agreed that no application would be necessary; the medical superintendent would pick out those inmates capable of handling the money from those to whom the niojie,y was-jteelees. - .