NEWS OF THE DAY

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 291, 8 December 1944, Page 4

NEWS OF THE DAY

Female Boot Repairers "We wish to discourage the employment of females in the boot repair industry, as we consider it is not one in which they should be employed," said Mr. W. C. McDonnell,. Dunedin, in the Court of Arbitration, Wellington, when advocating a new award for boot repair workers.

Grapes Sent by Air The early appearance of hothouse grapes on the Christchurch market recently enabled a fruit and produce firm to meet the last wish of an Invercargill resident for some grapes. The head of the firm received a telephone call late at night from a Southland fruit and produce firm, and the next morning a pound of grapes was dispatched by air. The fi-uit was delivered five hours before death occurred.

Holiday Rush With Christmas week-end only a fortnight away, the rush for railway reseryations increased to-day. This morning the queue of intending tr-avellers outside the Government Tourist Bureau extended from that office along Queen Street and up Swanson Street for a distance of 50 yards. The earliest arrivals waited from about five o'clock until nine o'clock, when the office was opened. In order to avoid congestion people were admitted into the office in batches of ten.

Road Fatalities During November there were 11 fatalities in which motor vehicles were involved—nine on public roads and two on private property. The list includes five occupants of motor vehicles, three cyclists and two pedestrians. The eleventh was a 15-month-old child who had managed to clamber, without being observed, on to the front bumper of a car. When the car started the child fell under the wheels. Eight 'of the accidents were in the North Island and three in the South. Three occurred on the same ,day, the 23rd. Seven were collisions and two were overturnings. In November of last year there were six fatalities, in 1942 11, in 1941 four, in 1940 nine, in 1939 13 and in 1938 18. Deaths for the year to date total 125, an increase of two on the total for the same period last year.

A New Social Order ■ "Our problem is to devise a social order which will avoid the slavery of State Socialism on the one hand and the injustices and inequalities of the present economic system on the other. It is fundamentally a spiritual problem, because it is concerned with human and therefore spiritual relationships," writes the Bishop of Bristol, Dr. C. S. Woodward, in an article quoted by the Church News. "It must therefore be tackled by those who believe that spiritual and not material values are of paramount importance; and this is where the Church should come in. But no one whose eyes are open to the facts can' feel for a moment that the Church is adequate to the task. It has become so entangled in its own machinery, so preoccupied with the mint and cummin of ecclesiasticism that it has lost the prophetic note. Leaders and people alike have ceased to' see visions or to dream dreams.".

Novel Birthday Party Though 12,000 miles separate an English naval officer from his three-year-old daughter whom he has seen only once, and then but for a few days, the child's birthday party was celebrated in New Zealand on Sunday in traditional style. To mark the occasion the officer gave a party at which the guests were some 40 Rodney Sea Scouts and members of the executive. The little lass so honoured lives in England, and her father is at present serving in a ship in New Zealand waters. Golf Balls Collide in Flight

The rare incident of two golf balls striking each other in flight was witnessed at the Hokowhitu links recently. A ball was played from the tenth fairway to the green by a left-handed golfer and drifted towards the fifteenth fairway. At the same time a player in a faur drove off from the fifteenth tee. It was noticed that his ball, in skimming above the turf beyond the roadway, had struck something white which rolled away to the left, while his own ball stopped suddenly. On reaching the spot, the two balls were discovered not far apart.

Standard of Students "In view of the criticism of the standard of education of first-year university students, we made careful comparisons between the standards of attainment of present and past students," said Mr. F. C. Lopdell, principal of the Wellington Teachers' Training College, in his address at the breaking-up ceremony. "There are no reliable criteria for exact judgments, but it is the unanimous opinion of the staff that our present students compare favourably with past students in their ability to think and express themselves in English. In their attitudes to work and in their sense of responsibility, and in initiative and self-reliance, we see no appreciable difference. Some differences because of age we have observed. If we accept percentage of passes in university subjects as a valid criterion, this year's students have the advantage over any group for several years past." Wolf in Sheep's Clothing

.An English soldier who had "escaped" from the Nazis in Belgium, was informed, sub rosa, of a certain convent that might help him. He was told to go there at night as the Germans were on the alert. Obeying these instructions, he was received by the reverend mother, who informed him she had helped several soldiers back to England. He was given a nun's robes, and he dyed his hair black and wore a dark pair of spectacles. He was instructed to keep quiet, as the Germans occasionally visited the convent. Next morning the soldier was nosing around the precincts of the culinary department, when he saw through a door partly ajar a "nun" about to regale herself with a mug of ale. The soldier was very thirsty, and inordinately fond of beer, so when the "nun" left the room he tiptoed in. He was just finishing the beer when he received a'blow on the jaw that sent him reeling against the wall, while a stentorian voice yelled: "You blanky blightah! I've been since Dunkirk, but you only came in last night, -and the first thing you do is to beat me for my blank}' beeah!'"