NEWS OF THE DAY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 219, 16 September 1938, Page 8

NEWS OF THE DAY.

Definition of a Committee. "A committee lias been defined as a body M-liieh keeps minutes and wastes hours " said Mr. A. K. (i. Lyttle, of Christchurch, when responding to the toast of the Now Zealand Institute of Secretaries at the annual dinner of the institute. Summer Time Starts. An official notification that summer time will commence at 2 a.m. on Sunday, September 25, and end at 2 a.m. on Sunday, \pril 30 1!>39, appears in the "Gazette," saya a Press' Association message from Wellington. The time will, therefore, be advanced 30 minutes on September 25.

Use of Old Anchor. The big sailing ship's anchor which 'was picked up in Lyttelton Harbour, near Godley Head, a lew months ago, has been purchased by a resident of St. Albans and will b- used us pint of h garden decoration scheme The purchaser, whoso fainil- was connected with the early sailing ships, has made a hobby of collecting relics of the old days of sail. Church and Races. Church and gambling go hand in h.-vnd in the United States, according to Mr. J R. McKenzir, Christchurch, who returned recently from a tour there. Ho was amazed to find that nt Ooshen racecourse, where the greatest trotting race in America is run—the Hambletonian Stakes—women of the Wesleyan Church provided a cold lunch in a tent They charged 75 cents. J Youth Hostels.

A total of 259 members of the Youth Hostels' Association of New Zealand visited Banks Peninsula during the last year, says the annual report of the association. During the same time the hostels in Weetland were visited by 34 trampers, and 11 trampers made use of the Oxford hostels. During the year 210 women stayed at hostels, ond the number of men who used them totalled 118. An attempt is now being made to establish a chain of hostels in tho Wellington province similar to that on Banks Peninsula.

Films at Museum. Saturday mori ig film programmes, arranged at the Auckland War Memorial Museum as an adjunct to education work at the institute, are attracting large audiences of school children. Six free programmes have been arranged, the first being tha* screened last Saturday, when a film, "Round the Horn in a Windjammer," was provided. Next week the film set down is "Wonders of the Deep," which deals with various strange and interesting fish and marine species. As an added attraction a humorous film is provided for the children at e«ieh programme. The series will continue for another five weeks. Ingenious If Unethical.

A surprise answer from a Maori pupil was received by a master of the Matainata District High School, following a talk on rotary ploughs. After giving details of the wonderfully quick work these powerful implements accomplished, the teacher emphasised that the cost, about £500. would be prohibitive to many farmers. Having emphasised the value of co-operation, the teacher sought to draw an answer that several farmers could combine to purchase a plough, and to this end he asked how the prohibitive cost might be overcome. Only one hand shot up, and. when questioned, the Khrcwd Maori lad replied: "Cet the plough on a week's trial, plough the paddock, and then send the plough back."

New Zealamder in Scotland. Writing from Edinburgh to a relative in Te Awomutn, Mr. D. V. Bryant, the wellknown founder of the Waikato Land Settlement Society, etatee that he and hie party are thoroughly enjoying an extended Hour through England, Scotland and Wales. "We have been about five weeks travelling round Scotland," he writes, "and- have found the Scots people a delightful race; they show us every possible hospitality, and in many places we have been invited to stay with folk as gueets. Because we have come from New Zealand they want to show us extra courtesy. We find that both English ami Scottish people have a very high regard for Xew Zcalanders, perhaps higher than we actually warrant. These Scottish people have a wonderful dignity, and are particularly modest. I like their art of making one feel at home as soon as one meets them." Tennis Season's Approach.

Earliest of summer sports in Auckland, hard court tennis will lx>gin rn Saturday, September 2t, when 12 of the city and suburban clubs will open. On the following Saturday, October 1, 20 clube will open, and the remaining six will start' , their seasons' play on October 8. The grass court clubs, of which there are 10 in and nrmtnd Auckland, will not open until October 20, the Saturday following Labour Day. With about I*ooo players in the 54 elnbs, the season will be a busy one, and will receive an early impetus from the visit to Auckland of the Australian Davis Cup team, which will be invited to meet local ehampions on their arrival by the Monterey from San Francisco on October 28. The Dominion championships, which were held at Auckland last sumrn--, will take place fit Christchurch from December 31 to January 7, and the Auckland championships will be held from January 20 to 30. Rare Maori Heirloom. . There was noticeable a elight but interesting variation, in Mr. Lawrence Tibbett's formal evening attire when the popular baritone stepped on to the Town Hall platform last evening. Against the white background of his dress shirt there appeared what, from a distance, seemed to be a miniature hockey stick or else a putter suitable for Mr. Tibbett'e very "short game." A more intimate view, however, revealed the fact that the decoration, which wae suspended from a cord encircling the singer's neck, was a beautiful greenstone pendant, a fine example of Maori craftsmanship. This was presented to him by the Princess Te Puea Herangi v-hen the celebrated baritone visited her pa at Ngaruawahia recently, on fhe journey down from Rotoma. This is a rare Maori heirloom, and naturally is much prized by Mr. Tibbett. The' Princess herself was present at the concert last night, having motored down specially to hear Mr. Tibbett. Melanesian Mission Stamps. Pictorial stamps, illustrating scenes of native life in the Melanesian Mission area, and bearing portraits of Bishop Selwyn, founder of the mission, Bishop Patterson and othw prominent figures in the movement, have been received by the Southern Cross Mission Society in Auckland for sale in the Dominion. the entire proceeds to go to the reduction of the £10.000 debt faced at the ena of last year. There are 19 different stamps on each sheet of 24, each posts one penny, and. with 50,000 sheets received from an anonymous English donor, it is hoped' to raise approximately £5000 from their sale. The stamps, which are most attractively produced in blue monochrome, were desismed and printed by the eame firm as that which prints the British Government postage stamps, and by the same procee9. F.aeh design was taken from an original photograph, and all are beautiful works of art, with every detail and '.ine shown clearly against definite backgrounds. One of the most outstanding varieties depicts an THawa village and another the mission stenmer Southern Cross, while all the portraits, both •)f native* .tnd 1-Tders of the mis-;; in. are as clear and distinct as actual photographic prints.

Smallest Newspaper. At Thursday Island there is a newspaper which has the reputation of being the world's smallest. It is a quarto sheet printed on one side only. It has only oue advertisement, year in, year out. Sometimes this miniature paper is partly liltmk; no radio news has come In, and as for local news—weli, just nothing happened. Old Shipmates Pass. The two surviving passengers of the Phillip Laiiig, which nrriv.'d.at Tort Chalmers on April Jo, 18-18. died within a day of each other. Mrs. M. Stewart. of Wellington, died on August 30, and advice wne received yesterday of the death in Sydney on August 29 of Mrs. J. L. Soutter. aged !>:'{. Up to the time of her death Mrs. Soutter was in excellent health, considering her great age, and was very alert mentally.

Square Pictures. "I don't like squnre pictures," said Professor Tennant, when speaking at the Ruter Art Society Exhibition at Wellington, though he admitted that many of Nugent Welch's charming studiee are pqiiare. The psychologist told them, he added, thnt the human eye saw most pleasantly and effectively when the vision was limited to an oblong roughly to about 4 by 3. A cathedral with square doors and windows' would Iravo them architecturally cold, perhaps even shivering, added the professor, but not only for this reason, bnt also because they expected the main lines and form masses to lead the eye inevitably upwards. Baseball in South. For the Inst IS months a small band of enthusiasts has played baseball regularly in Christchurch. In the coming summer an attempt will be made to place the game on an organised basis, and thVre is every prospect of up to ten teams taking rmrt in inter-cl'ib competitions. This is the third attempt to introduce the national game of the United States to Christchurch. Organisations interested in the new move include the Royal New Zealand Air Force staff at Wigram aerodrome, Addington workshops employees, various gymnasium and physical culture schools in the city, and the- prime mover in the scheme, the Clirwtehurch Baseball Club.

" Mind the Ladder." Superstitious Aucklandnre may have felt gratified by the action of two workers in Queen Street yesterday. They had erected a bidder in such a way that only a narrow strip of footpath remained negotiable without the neceseity of walking under the ladder. But between the ladder and the vail they stretched a piece of rope with a red rag attacked, seemingly to prevent careless people from incurring the wrath of the gods. Actually the rope and the rag served a much more prosaic purpose. The former was to keep the ladder from slipping on the smooth paving, and the latter gave warning of the rope to those who might othe. ise have tried to walk through it. Lot of tfte British Farmer.

"What if lot of labour there ie attached to farming at Home; so much provision for the winter," writes a New Zealand farmer at present on holiday in Hritain, "The summer is so short and the winter so long, stock have to be housed for six or seven months, and this entails a great lot of labour. We found * lot of the Kngltah farmers severely pressed. They s«id it was almost impossible to make farming pay. The prices of sheep here have been much lower than was the cas> a year or so ago; lamb at about !fld per lh, beef 8d to M per lb «! adweight. Hut then those who are fattening cattle «re giving them a lot of oil cake, even in the summer time. We have seen some places when- they can keep up to 100 head of cattle inside all the winter."

Need for Blood Donors. An urgent need for more blood donors was reported by Mr. S. K. Langstone, secre-tary-manager of ihe Auckland branch of the i St. John Ambulance Association, recently. Members of the association's blood transfusion service had responded to 71 calls during the two months July and August. This month 23 calls had already been answered, and it wee possible that the total figures for the month , would establish a record. Ninety per cent of the calls received were for donors classed ae type four, wh > were ablo to {five a donation to a person of any other blood type, but only approximately 50 per cent of the* donors offering were of this type. Persons in any of the other three blood types could only give a donation to those whoso blood was of the same type, but ty\>e four was a "universal" and would serve for any transfusion. Exhibition Parking Plan. A comprehensive sell erne for parkin" 11,000 motor care, at Rongotai, Kilburnie and Lyall May has been laid before the directors of the New Zealand Centennial Exhibition at Wellington. This disposes of what was at first considered one of the most formidable problems that would be created by holding the exhibition in that part pf the city. Aβ the figures given do not include vehicles parked in Wellington city, and as the entire automobile census of Wellington is only 12,000, it ia considered thnt the problem is largely solved. A special sub-committee, including representatives of the Wellington City Corporation traffic department, the Automobile Association and the exhibition management, was appointed to investigate parking areas, and the committee reported on the facilities that would be available in 1940 and put forward the proposed scheme.