General News

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21746, 31 March 1936, Page 10

General News

Railway Building Blown Over The railway shelter shed at Kew, on the Bluff line, was blown over yesterday by a strong wind which sprang up on Sunday morning and continued throughout the night and again yesterday with unabated force. At Waipahi, north of Gore, the wind caught a goods train which was standing on a siding while some shunting was being done and forced it backwards down a back-stop. The guard’s van struck the post with some force and capsized down a bank, but was not badly damaged. The. rest of the train remained on the line.— Press Association. Damaged Trousers A -claim for replacement or compensation for damage to a pair of trousers was received by the Riccarton Borough Council at its meeting last night. A letter was received from a relief worker who stated that while attending a lodge meeting in the Riccarton Hall he had moved back on his chair and a protruding nail had made a large rent in a new pair of trousers valued at 17s 6d. “I suggest that Cr. McKellar send him a spare pair,” observed the DeputyMayor, Cr. R. G. Malcolmson. Cr. McKellar expressed some doubt as to whether he could fill the order satisfactorily, and the letter was received. Capricious Weather The Christchurch weather yesterday consolidated its reputation for fickleness, for though the morning was sunny, with blue skies, noon brought ominous clouds with a threat of more rain. In some parts of the city a few spots of rain fell, but in the afternoon the weather again cleared and the sun shone as brightly as in the morning. At the Christchurch Magnetic Observatory, one point of rain was recorded. With summer passing almost as speedily as the rainfall total mounts, gardeners are beginning to wonder whether this summer’s weather mean§ an early winter or one comjJensatingly dry. So far this year 14.25 inches of rain have fallen in the city, compared with 3.03 inches to the same date last year. Two Good Fridays 'The novel experience of observing two Good Fridays on consecutive days will fall to the lot bf passengers and crew of the Blue Star liner Australia Star during her voyage across the Pacific to Panama, en route to London. The Australia Star, according to her present schedule, will cross the one hundred and eightieth meridian on the night of Friday, April 10, and her calendar will then be set back a day. The Spanish and Maoris Did the Spanish have contact with the Maoris before the British came to New Zealand? A curious fact suggesting that they may have done so was mentioned by Mr J. W. Shaw at a meeting of the Historical Society at Auckland. Among the Maoris of the East Coast, near Gisborne, said Mr Shaw, the name for dog is pero, and that is exactly the Spanish word for dog. “You cannot build anything on that,” Mr Shaw admitted, “but it is interesting to speculate.” Destructiveness of Deer A suggestion that reports from various quarters regarding the ravages of deer had been exaggerated and that there had been an element of propaganda for those who were finding profit from their destruction, was put forward at the annual meeting of the Palmerston North branch of the Wellington Acclimatisation Society. Mr C. Lane said that scrutiny had shown that the actual damage done to bush by deer was far less than they had been credited with. Much more damage'was being done by the elements; hundi’eds of trees were dying from natural causes for every two or three that were rubbed by a stag. Nor were they destroying the undergrowth freely as was so often alleged. Many of the statements against deer were inspired by those interested in their wholesale destruction. Museum and Library Conference ' The conference between the City Council and the Canterbury College Council to discuss the future ,of the museum and library was held in committee yesterday afternoon. The Deputy-Mayor, Cr. E. H. Andrews, who presided, stated afterwards that it had been decided that each council should give the matter further consideration, and that another conference should be arranged later. Healthy School Children Although the unsettled weather has caused many colds, and cases of influenza and other ailments allied to are heard of frequently in the city, sickness has not affected the children of Canterbury and the West Coast to any extent in the last few weeks. Proof of this is that the Canterbury Education Board has not one school under its jurisdiction closed for epidemics, and there has been no school closed for such a reason for some weeks past. Thought He Had Gold In his short explanatory statement to a Wanganui farmers’ committee about' his recent trip to Chile in search of saw-fly insects to attack bidi-bidi, Dr. David Miller, chief entomologist at the Cawthron Institute, made one or two humorous references to the people of Chile. He explained that it was difficult enough to get into the country but a good deal harder to get out. The Chilean Government, seeing his heavily-laden suitcase containing tins of soil as beds for the saw-fly grub, thought he was exporting gold. Rightly or wrongly, they wanted the cases opened up, but he refused. “It made me miss my steamer,” the doctor added, “and I had to have the cases lodged for safe keeping with the British Consul, or I would have been robbed.” China To-day A regenerated China is working out its own salvation in the same quiet, reasonable way in which it has always fashioned its national life, according to Mr E. Ling, a Chinese merchant who recently arrived in New Zealand, in an address at New Plymouth. He said China was putting its house in order, not so much because it feared Japan or any other nation, but because a large section of its people realised that their country was slowly but surely sliding to destruction. “It was life or death for China,” said Mr Ling. The two main reasons for the national degeneration of China, said Mr Ling, were the effect of indiscriminate Westernisation and, rather strangely, the effect indirectly of the Confucian teaching. Western ideas had flooded' too quickly into China, he explained. In consequence they were often accepted without understanding. Nor .did the Confucian teaching offer any anchor to people thus troubled by a sudden presentation of utterly new conceptions. It was too old and too powerful; it had too little vitality. In the words of Mr Ling, “everyone knew all about it and so nobody bothered to think of it.” Tl\e Story of the Pacific “Romance, heroism, and trade are strangely mixed in this Pacific story of ours,” said Mr D. M. Rae, principal of the Training College when addressing the Auckland Historical Society. “It always puzzles and amazes me, and I think it is a most dramatic thing,” said Mr Rae, “that the Dutch people did not follow up their discoveries. Why did they leave Australia and New Zealand to us? Perhaps Providence had a hand in it, but that is not history, is it?” A period of quiet in the Pacific followed until the coming of Captain Cook the real Columbus of the Pacific, whose three voyages left little to be discovered in that area, said Mr Rae. Romance had not faded away evfen in modern times. Speaking of early Christian missionaries in the Pacific, he referred to.the voyage of the Duff in 1796, which took 36 missionaries to various parts. During the early part of last century ‘the missionary was the only positive force for . good in this great area. They should think of the graves of John Williams, who died at Erromanga in 1.839, the first martyr of the Pacific, and of men Ime Bishop Ps.tteson and James Chalmers Among the Amazing heroic tales of adventure in the Pacific none was more remarkable than the story of Bligh of the Bounty, who was responsible for one of the most wonderful feats in the history of navigation.