NEWS OF THE DAY.

Auckland Star, Volume LVX, Issue 268, 12 November 1934, Page 6

NEWS OF THE DAY.

Yesterday was the 65th anniversary o the birthday of King Victor Emmanuel oi Italy. The Italian ling was flown to-day iron the office of the Italian Consular agent, Mr M. J. Sheahan, and from the consulates o: other countries in honour of the occasion King Victor has been ruling for 34 years. S Legion of Frontiersmen. A well-attended church parade of A Squadron, Legion of Frontiersmen, was hek ; yesterday at St. Matthew's Church. Captaii W. Palmer, officer commanding, was in charge of the parade, which marched to the churcl headed by members of the Old Contemptible! Brigade. The St. Andrew's Pipe Band was ir attendance, t 3 Rebroadcast Prevented. I Atmospheric conditions last night were ! too bad to allow the New Zealand Broadcast- [ ing Board to rebroadcast a running com- , mentary on the Armistice Day service at the \ Cenotaph in Whitehall, London. Those whe 5 listened heard 11 o'clock strike, and then 1 there was the two niintues' silence. Part of i the religious service could be heard, but the I singing was distorted. By contrast, the bugle calls came over with remarkable clarity. ! ; The Price of Fame. I To be celebrated is to incur many penal- . ties. In the pig pens at the Waikato Show . there was one huge animal, a sow. It filled , one pen, and wanted to overflow into the - adjoining one. It grunted disgustedly, and wheezed, and in the hot pavilion it possessed ' the unmistakable piggy smell. Due care had > been given to the choice of its name. It had . to be aristocratic, like the pig, a princess among her kind. The owner had called the ' pride of his heart "Marina." -, Art of Piano Playing. "We want a male pianist here;" said a , Waipukurau resident recently. He then com- : mented on the large number of boys who are ! taught the piano, and how few, in later life, could sit down and play the accompaniment [ for a singer or instrumentalist. "In the smaller communities men's organisations are often at a loss," he continued, "to secure, a competent male pianist to play at various functions. It is a great pity that boys who show special ability in this direction do not develop an art that gives much personal pleasure, I am sure, and is of great service to the social life of the community." Swims Ashore With Entry Money. A race was held on Saturday by the Ponsonby Cruising Club 6ff the Western reclamation, for which "post" entries were allowed in addition to those made in the usual way. This entailed payment of the fee of 3/ before the boat was eligible to compete. Before the start of the 18-footers' race the skipper of Maia stood in and notified the officials that he would race. With the wind right on shore, it was too risky to come alongside the stones protecting the sea wall, so one of her crew, Stan Mason, dived overboard and swam ashore, pulled a knotted handkerchief from the pocket of his dripping pants, and paid the fee. The yacht stood in again, and the energetic member of her crew swam out, got aboard by the backstay, and took his place on the mainsheet in time to get a good start. The Wellington Haircut. Commencing next Wednesday, barbers in Wellington will charge 1/3 for cutting men's hair, 9d for shaving and 1/0 for setting razors. Hitherto the charge for cutting hair has been 1/ in most saloons. The change has been decided on by the Wellington District Retail Tobacconists and Hairdressers' Association, and affects over 100 establishments in the city and suburbs. An executive member of the association stated that the new prices were the result of a movement to bring about an improvement in the working conditions in the trade. There was, he said, a uniform wage rate for journeymen hairdressers, but hardly any of them in Wellington were able to get the award wage. The increase of 25 per cent would allow more men to be employed at the proper wage. Statistics showed that the increase would amount, on an average, to only 3d a month to each man who got his hair cut, but it was going to make a great difference to the man doing the work.

Jade and Greenstone. The term jade, as applied to a precious stone, declared a Christchurch. professor at a lecture last week, is used in a very loose and unsatisfactory way, as it described jadite and greenstone (nephrite). Jadite was slightly heavier than greenstone, he said, and in colour ranged from white to a deep apple green. From the earliest times these stones had been valued by primitive and civilised peoples, especially by the Chinese and Japanese— exactly why he did not know. The Chinese were very skilful in carving jadite. Most of the jadite had been obtained from Burma. The Chinese aleo used nephrite (greenstone) obtained from mines in Turkestan. The name nephrite was derived from a word meanjng kidney, and the Chinese made drinking cups of nephrite because it was supposed to benefit the kidneys, bujb, as his hearers knew, Chinese medicine was very peculiar indeed. Is an Air Gun a Firearm? The question of whether an air rifle could be defined as a firearm under the Arms Act was placed before Mr. J. L. Stout, S.M., at Palmerston North recently. In order to make investigations regarding the definition of a firearm under the Act, the case was adjourned. The question was raised as the result of John Armand Borlace allegedly discharging a firearm without reasonable cause so as to frighten, endanger or annoy passers-by. Defendant's counsel submitted that an air rifle did not come within the definition of the Act. Senior Sergeant Whitehouse intimated -that the police could not find any definition of a firearm other than those which were cited in the Court last week—that firearms were weapons which discharged projectiles by means of ignited powder or combustion. The magistrate said that under the circumstances he would have to.dismiss the case.

Caractacus, the Croc. Caractacus was a Oft crocodile—or possibly an alligator— a ship's pet aboard the Blue Star steamer Trojan Star from Panama nearly to New Zealand. Three days out from Opua, the steamer's first port in New Zealand, Caractacus collapsed and died before medical aid could save him. After the chief officer, Mr. C. Worth, bought him off a native while the ship was passing through the canal, Caractacus received the best of attention. A sand bath was provided, each night he wae placed in "cold storage," and every day he was promenaded on deck by various members of the ship's company. He occasionally snapped at those aboard, but he was too slow to catch even the cuff of a trouser-leg. When it was time for the daily promenade, the owner or some other volunteer lifted the alligator's tail with one hand and grasped him behind the head with the other, and so led the pet round the deck by his neck. Mr. Worth decided on the voyage out that Caractacus would probably not brave the change to winter temperature when the steamer returned to the Northern Hemisphere, so it was his intention to preeent the alligator to the Auckland Zoo. However, Caractacus decided his own destiny when one day he slowly rolled over on his scaly back and kicked liis last.