NEWS OF THE DAY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 239, 8 October 1940, Page 6

NEWS OF THE DAY.

New School Bath. After construction entirely by voluntary labour on the part of parishioners, the new swimming bath at the Good Shepherd Convent School, Telford Avenue, Balmoral, will be opened on October 19. It will be blessed by Dean Murphy, and demonstrations will be given by the children. The pool will enable swimming instruction to be given to the 300 children attending the school. Mushrooms Out of Season. Very much out .of season, usually nourishing from February to April, a crop of mushrooms has made an appearance on the property of Mr. L. \V. Luxton, Awakeri, writes the ''Star's" Whakatane correspondent. They are not, as would be expected with such j freak growth, of midget size. One specimen, which excited much interest when exhibited in Whakatane, measured tHin across. Conscription of Farm Labour. The Churchill Government has placed farmers and workers alike on a sevenday week. Agricultural labour has been mobilised on a conscription basis, states the "Xew Zealand Dairy Exporter." By forbidding other employers to take on farm hands, and by insisting that all n.en with agricultural experience should return to the land, farm workers were increased by 40,000 men. The long and involved procedure which had formerly existed for settling agricultural wages was swept aside, and a national minimum wage was fixed for farm workers.

Proposal Finds Favour. A suggestion put forward by Mr. G. .T. Walker, at the last meeting of the South Canterbury Returned Soldiers' Association that small groups- of reputable business men should be set up in isvery centre to aesist departing soldiers in an advisory capacity in the matter of the disposal of their assets and chattels, has been accepted by the New Zealand Returned Soldiers' Association. According to a letter read at a meeting of the South Caaterbury body, headquarters had approved the suggestion, and was forwarding it to all associations in the Dominion for consideration, with a view to adoption. Discharged Volunteers. official Discharged Volunteers' Association badge is now being issued to members of the association. The badge is in the form of an oval disc carrying the letters D.V.A. and N.Z. with a fern leaf imprinted, and can only be obtained by volunteers who have been discharged from the military forces. At a recent meeting, re-employ-ment and other matters of interest to members were discussed, and it was decided to open other branches through the country and to expand the already large Auckland branch. Appreciation of the work of the association in assisting discharged men to rehabilitate them°selves in civilian life was expressed by those present.

Queer Fish Identified. The rare fish which broke in pieces when caught by hand in the waves on Matata beach has been identified by Mr. A. B. Powell, of the Auckland Museum, as a species of "great oar" fish which normally inhabits the depth of the open ocean. Occasionally such fish, for ,no apparent reason, come to the surface, and, being weak swimmers, axe caet ashore. Specimens have been found previously at Nelson, Purakanui (npar Dunedin), and the Chatham Islands. "Most deep-sea creatures," adds Mr. Powell, "are of delicate etnicturc which explodes the deep-sea pressure myth. After all, when internal and external pressures are equalised, there is no more strain on a structure than on land."

For the Soldiers. The way women and girls of New Zealand are helping in the national patriotic effort is illustrated in returns of knitted goode supplied in the first year of the operation of the National Patriotic Fund Board from the board'o store in Wellington. The greatest total w represented by balaclavas, of which 31,426 have been dealt with by the store, including 11,256 which have been consigned overseas to the board's commissioner. There are 11,799 in stock. Great work has also been done in the making and packing of hussife or sewing kits. The store has received 25,842 hussifs from various parts of the country, and between them the Army Department and the Navy Department have had 22,272. Of 17,661 pairs of mittens received, 12,732 are still in stock. Scarves received total 14,735, and 8028 have been distributed, including 4179 consigned overseas, and 2787 to the Navy Department. Other items include gloves, pullovers and skull caps. Redeeming Young Offenders. "This is one of the finest and most successful experiments made with younopeople who had broken the law," said the Minister of Internal Affairs, the Hon. W. E. Parry, when referring to an account of how seven Auckland boys had been saved from terms in reformatory institutions by the action of the Children's Court, which had six months ago deferred the hearing of charges preferred against them, conditional on the Child Welfare Department undertaking to train the boys in their proper responsibilities to society. The report stated that, through the medium of the child welfare officer, the boys had become proficient in branches of sport, and with the building up of their physique had gone, all their previous bad habits. "That clase of work cannot help Lut bring happy results wherever it is tried on the lines of the experiment made in Auckland," Mr. Parry said. "The boys in the cases referred to received training, the schedule for which was planned by the Auckland physical welfare officer and the child welfare officer actinc in concert."

Thirst of the Desert. The eternal thirst which is the outstanding of the many discomforts suffered by troops occupied in military manoeuvres in the desert in Egypt is referred to by a correspondent, who enlarges on the services rendered on these occasions by the Y.M.C.A. supply truck with its etock of cigarettes, pastilles, cordials and so forth. Writing home, one of the Y.M. workers, Mr. F. E. S. Long, says that he had a small primus and a two-pint billy on one of these stunts, and, the first evening out, not having had a hot drihk since breakfast, he boiled the billy and made hot coffee for himself and a nearby group of men. A dispatch rider came along and begrrocl a cup, and thereafter came a lonjr procession of dispatch riders, fagged" from long and arduous work over rough, arid and unknown country. That two-pint billy that night made gallons of coffee. and it instituted a regular coffee stunt for dispatch riders, and justified the motto that "where the troops go the X.M.C.A. is also thew*"