SYDNEY SCENE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 304, 23 December 1940, Page 5

SYDNEY SCENE.

BIG SHOPPING RUSH. SPENDING £500,000 DAILY. (By Air). SYDNEY, December 19. Although no one feele very much like Christmas celebrations this y#tr, there are many signs that people, with war worries and big deductions from their pay for Federal income tax ahead of them next year, have made up their minds to forget it all for a few days and have a good holiday. According to estimates by banks and business houses, Christmas shoppers in Sydney are spending aibouC £500,000 a day. Serviceable gifts have been in demand and there lias been such a run on toye that the stores have had difficulty in replenishing their stocks. All holiday resorts are booked out and there are indications that despite petrol rationing there will foe heavy motor traffic, many motorists apparently having saved up their coupons (for a final trip.

This Christmas shopping hae been done during , a heat wave in which a succession of extremely humid nights and days have proved trying and sent Sydney's consumiption of ice cream, beer and ■water soaring. Despite the heat, however, miners in various coalfields towns who declared .beer black when the price was raised after the increased excise announced in the Federal Budget, so far have stoutly maintained their ban. Big Budget Protest. A big crowd turned up at Sydney Town Hall last night to a meeting called by the Labour Council to protest against the Federal "Soak the Poor" Budget, which places unprecedented taxation on low wage and salary earners. Although the official Labour jwrty, after patching the compromise with the Government, voted for the Budget, it could not refuse the invitation of the Labour Council and eent along one of its members, Mr. C. E. Martin, to join in the protest. Mr. Lang represented ■ the non-Communist break-

away Labour party and Mr. J. R. Hughes the State Labour party, the only one of the three which opposed the Budget from the outset.

It was significant that while Mr. Martin and Mr. Lang were subjected to catcalls, hisses, booing and" yells, Mr. Hughes, who had drawn the*last place as speaker after all this violent display of feeling, was loudly cheered. During Mr. Lang's speech an A.I.F. man in uniform rushed to the front of the hall calling out, "Leave Jack alone, he's my friend." He then jumped on to the platform beside Mr. Lang.

Mr. Hughes eaid that a pamphlet, 'Budget Robbery" which had been issued for the meeting- by the La;bour Council had .been viciously censored. Resolutions were carried by the meetiii" calling on trade unions throughout Australia to support the Labour Council's hgtot against the Budget and demanding that the Labour party should withdraw from the National War Council. Detective's Appeal. The Police Appeals' Board is still hearing the appeal of Detective-Sergeant Mcßae against his dismissal from the force after he was found guilty of having committed adultery with Mrs. Freda Agnes Caeear, a young woman of 25. It was alleged at the trial that Mcßae had induced Mrs. Caeear to consent by promising her that he would get her father, who was a member of the police force, out of some trouble. Mrs. Caesar's husband finally caught his wife with Meßae at Mac's Hotel in Pitt Street. The Appeals Board gave the proprietor of the hotel permission to make a etatement about it. The proprietor said a great injustice had been done to the hotel, which did not cater for "that sort of people." He eaid that since the Caesar divorce case "thousands and thousands" had called at the hotel wanting to book a room.

Mrs. Caesar refused the Appeals Board's request to show them the room at the C.1.8. offices in which she'said shel had committed adultery with Mcßae. She eaid she had more than enough of the whole business. It was revealed a few days ago that Mre. Caesar had asked the Police Commissioner, Mr. McKay, for a job as a police woman, but his reply was: "Not on your life!" Shei also told a newspaper reporter that Mr J. W. Shand, the >barrieter,,wlirr*ppeaTed for Mcßae,- was her ideal man. Mr. Shand said 'be found this surasiag but

[annoying, and advised her not to say much more. Mrs. Shand, however, took it as a joke, and said she did not agree with Mrs. Caeear by any means.

New Paralysis Theory. The medical outlook on infantile paralysis, one of the most dreaded of diseases, is expected to be revolutionised by the experiments of an Australian research worker. Dr. F. M. Burnett, at the Hall Institute, Melbourne, has demonstrated that the cavity behind the mouth, at the top of the throat, is the main pathway of the disease, and that paralysis infection can be swallowed and absorbed from the stomach or intestines. This conflicts with the theory previously held that infantile paralysis infection was inhaled through the nose. The old theory was the result of experimental work on Rhesus monkeys, but Dr. Burnett used Cynomolgus monkeys from the Malay Peninsula, which he found far more susceptible.

Another piece of medical news came this week from Adelaide, where surgeons were astonished to find six teefch attached to part of a lower denture in a man's breathing tube near his left lung. Four years ago the patient fell during a violent fit of coughing and broke his false teeth. He picked up the scattered pieces but eix of' the teeth were missing. It was not until an X-ray photograph was taken recently that they were found in his breathing tube. Doctors were amazed that so large a foreign body -could have been inhaled and that it should have stayed there for four years without causing trouble. Apparently the grooves in the denture allowed air through to the lungs. Tribute To Workmen. Following the naval authorities' decision to equip all Australian ships with paravanes, devices invented in the last war which spread out on each side from the bows of the. ship and cut the cables of any mine in its path, thus bringing the mine to the surface, where it can be destroyed, three Sydney firms have been going "flat out" manufacturing the apparatus. Xavpl experts at Garden Island have described the local manufacturing as almost unbelievable. The contractors had only designs from England and had to manufacture all the tools' and gauges-necessary for the work. One naval-official'eaid * job had been done in half <Lhe time it took English workshops to.4*-ib~Ma&'had ateo cost lees.