General News.

Press, Volume XLIV, Issue 19391, 17 August 1928, Page 10

General News.

The Tramway Appeal Board will sit on Monday next to hear the appeal of D. Fraser, motorman, against hie dis* missal.

Three members of the staff of a firm which has branches throughout the Dominion happened to meet recently, without prearrangement, on the station platform at Ashburton. On comparing notes they found that the aggregate of their length of service with the firm was 120 years. All are now connected with the Christchurch branch. "Although the beam services have proved so successful, the experience gained in respect of any one of the services has proved to !>e no safe guide in making plans for another," states the annual report of the PostmasterGeneral. "The South African service is largely immune from 'fading,' but each of the other services has its fading periods, which vary sometimes according to the time of the year, and at other times which cannot be predicted. The efficiency of the beam service between any two countries, therefore, is not. an infallible indicator of its value in other countries." After a spell of beautiful weather—unoeasjnable, perhaps—Christchurch experienced a real southerly buster on Wednesday and yesterday, cold fierce winds and heavy driving rain making conditions most unpleasant for holidaymakers at the races and elsewhere. Conditions, however, were slightly improved yesterday. There is no doubt that the wet weather has done the country and the City gardens a great deal of good, for lawns and flower-beds, with the first green traces of spring apparent, were showing the effects of the continued dry weather. The Bailway Department intend opening a tourist bureau on the Christchurch railway station; the accommodation previously occupied by the bookstall is to be used for the purpose. It is hoped to have everything in readiness for the November holiday season. When in operation the officer in charge of the bureau will map out tours, give all information possible, and also book passages, trainß, steamers, and buses in any part of the Dominion. The bureau will be in charge of an officer who possesses first-hand knowledge of all the Dominion's tourist resorts. This is the first bureau of its kind to be provided in a New Zealand railway station.

The Federal Steam Navigation Company's steamer Cambridge, which arrived at Auckland this week from Liverpool, brought what is believed to be a record cargo. In her holds were stowed 14,000 tons of general merchandise, and when she left Home she.was loaded right down to the plimsol mark. Owing to the depletion of her fuel oil bunkers and stores, however, she carried a fair amount of free-board when she came into Auckland harbour. The Cambridge brought two Alsatian dogs for Lyttelton and a wire-haired fox terrier. She also had on board on arrival a Cleveland bay stallion for Mr Spencer, of Auckland.. All the animals arrived in good condition after their long sea voyage'.

It may not be generally known that it is illegal to transmit broadcast musical items over the telephone. The annual repoit of the P. and T. Department states-that with the development of radio broadcasting such a practice has grown up. The practice causes inconvenience to subscribers wishing to obtain the attention of those so using their telephones, and brings about unnecessary wastage in batterypower. The practice is liable also to cause a somewhat serious restriction upon the use of calling-facilities at automatic exchanges. It> was deemed necessary to prohibit the use of telephones for this purpose, and with this object in view a regulation made by was gazetted on October 20th, 1927. The committee which has in hand the establishment of an endowment fund for an agricultural scholarship tenable at the Pukekohe Technical High School as Franklin's memorial to the late Prime Minister. Mr Massey, has received subscriptions totalling £361 14s 7d, while further subscriptions are expected. The committee is applying to the Government for a pound for pound subsidy. It is proposed that the trustees of-the fund shall be the M.P. for Franklin, the chairman -of the Franklin and Manukau County Councils, the Mayors of Pukekohe and Otahuhu, the president of. the Franklm Agricultural and Pastoral Society, and the principal of the high school. The annual value of the scholarship is to be £l2 10s, and children attending primary schools within the present ok former boundaries of £he Franklin electorate are to be eligible to compete for itAn automatic mail-bag-exchanging device for use in dropping and picking up mails from fast-moving trains was successfully operated at Levin on March Bth. 1928, when the south-bound Main Trunk express,, travelling at a speed of thirty miles an hour, dropped a mail for Levin and picked. up one for Wellington. The Postmaster-Gen-I eral (the Hon. Mr Nosworthy), in his annual repojt to Parliament, says that the use of the exchanger enables certain correspondence from th& Auckland, Taranaki, and Napier districts, and from Palmerston North, to reach Levin nearly four hours earlier, and certain correspondence from Levin to be delivered in Wellington some eighteen hours earlier. The exchange is still undergoing trial. Should it continue to function efficiently, exchangers will be provided at certain other places where their installation would result in material benefit. The romance of the rubber industry was briefly referred to at Auckland by Sir William Furse, director of the Imperial Institute, London, who was a through passenger by the Niagara to Sydney. Recently, he said, one of the institute's galleries had been used for an exhibition of the products of the rubber industry, and he recalled that the plantations in Ceylon, Malaya, Java, and Sumatra were the outcome of the initial work of Sir Henry Wickham, who, curiously enough, was a visitor to the Institute's exhibition. All the plantations of the countries named which were the principal producers of rubber, were the result of seedlings produced at Kew Gardens, continued Sir William. He stated that 52 years ago Sir Henry Wickham. then a young man, went out on behalf of the Government of India to Brazil, *and penetrated five or six hundred miles up the Amazon. His mission was to collect seeds of the rubber plant. He was successful, and two thousand seeds were germinated in Kew Gardens. Of these. 1919 were sent to Ceylon and Malaya, while later on seedlings were sent to Java and Sumatra.

Lovely Silk Eiderdown Quilts. —Attend Jones, McCrostie Connanys Auction Sale at 1 p.m. to-day (Friday) in their Rooms, corner of Cashel and Manchester streets. Now on view. Latest colours and designs, pure down. —6

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