General News

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 21991, 15 January 1937, Page 10

General News

Health Stamps to be Withdrawn The Health Stamps which were issued on November 2, 1936, will be withdrawn from circulation on January 16, and all surplus stocks will be destroyed. Advice to this effect has been released by the Post and Telegraph Department The department has also said that at the opening of the new Chief Post Office at Dunedin it will make available, free of charge, souvenir envelopes printed in either blue or sepia and bearing an appropriate illustration and wording. Quite distinctive machine and hand cancellations will also be used on the day of the opening, which is expected to take place either early in March or perhaps at the end of February. Anyone who wishes to post covers at Dunedin on the opening day of the new office may send their postings fully stamped direct to the chief postmaster at Dunedin, but the department will not undertake to affix the stamps to the covers. A limited supply of the special covers are available at the post offices at the four main centres. Additions to St. Helens Improvements which have been decided on at St. Helens maternity hospital in Christchurch will add greatly to the facilities available for the staff. Tenders have already been called for the work by the Public Works Department. A staff dining-room, with inside dimensions 22ft by 15ft 6in, will be built on to the present building, and in addition the present nurses' living quarters will be improved by the erection of a glassed-in verandah to protect them. Other minor improvements include the erection of a milk-cupboard and an addition to the laundry. Evans Pass Road Public Works Department workmen. are making good progress with the work of widening the Lyttelton side of the Evans Pass road. Several of the smaller corners have been built up with concrete walls, and work will start shortly on the largest corner. This involves building a concrete wall from 30 to 40 feet high and several feet thick. Legal View of Milk Shakes A milk shake is milk with certain things added. This is the opinion of Mr J. H. Luxford, S.M., given in a judgment in the Magistrate's Court at Wellington yesterday. He held that the sweetenings and flavourings added to milk to make a milk shake were merely additions and did not change the article into anything else. The judgment was based on a case in which Tiffins, Ltd., milkbar proprietors, were charged with selling and being in possession of milk without a license. The action was taken under the Wellington City Milk Supply Act, 1919. Holding that the sale of a milk shake is the sale of milk within the meaning of the act, the magistrate entered a conviction without a fine. The defendant was ordered to pay costs.—Press Association. Conservation of Fish Supplies That it would he wrong to allow the taking of fish 10 inches in length was the opinion expressed by Mr B. Barnao, prominent in the fishing industry in Wellington, when asked to comment on the attitude of Stewart Island fishermen to the Government regulations. Wellington fishermen found the local limit of 12 inches quite satisfactory, he said. The bulk of the blue cod taken was smoked and small fish so treated was useless. He also denied that all of the fish thrown back died when taken from shallow water, as at Stewart Island. They would live if thrown back quickly enough. He mentioned that some time ago the fishermen of Blenheim were sending ridiculously small soles into market, with the result that next year there was a scarcity of soles at Blenheim. A similar situation occurred at Napier. Mr Barnao also objected to the practice of taking crayfish all the year round. There were certain times, such as when young crayfish were spawning or old ones changing shells, when they should be protected. He considered that some form of close season was necessary to maintain the stocks of crayfish, soles, and blue cod.—Press Association. Film of Marlborough Completing a fortnight's visit to Marlborough, where he has been taking moving pictures of the sounds and other scenic attractions, a photographer attached to the staff of the Tourist Department spent about half an hour flying over Blenheim and the surrounding district yesterday morning taking shots from the Marlborough Aero Club's Moth machine. These pictures were practically the last required to complete a film of the province for which the Progress League made arrangements with the Tourist Department last December. The film includes several shots of the regatta at Picton on New Year's Day, the Grove, Ship Cove, the Portage, Tennyson Inlet, and Pelorus Bridge. For the flight yesterday morning arrangements had to be made for fitting the camera to the aeroplarfe, and the photographer occupied a precarious position in the machine, with one foot in the cockpit and one out.— "The Press" Special Service. Large School of Kahawai More than 90 kahawai were caught by fishermen at the mouth of the Opihi river this week. One man landed 27. All the fish were reported to be well-conditioned, and the school of fish is said to have been as large as has been seen in the district for years. From one fisherman's description "the sea was black with fish. There were thousands upon thousands of them." Others agree that the run of kahawai was phenomenal and unprecedented. It is reported that the Waitaki is quickly clearing, and it promises to be in excellent order at the week-end. Several good catches have been made. Scope for Christianity A tremendous scope exists in China for missionary work, according to the Rev. G. W. Gibb, director-general of the China Inland Mission. Mr Gibb, who is making a world tour visiting branches of the mission, said in a lecture at the Radiant Hall last night that there were at least 166,000 towns and cities in China without a single Christian. The situation was such as to demand that Christians should remind themselves of their responsibilities to assist in spreading the teachings of their faith. The Chinese were quick to sum up the missionary and to know if his life and his preaching were in accordance with his faith. The mission had been founded 72 years ago, and to-day 1400 missionaries of practically every denomination were carrying on its work. Harbour Board's Sixtieth Anniversary On Monday, January 18, the Bluff Harbour Board will have been in existence for 60 years. The first meeting of the board was held on January 18, 1877. The chairman of the board (Mr W. A. Ott) mentioned this at the last meeting of the board, and a member jocularly remarked that the members should celebrate the occasion by taking a trip in the Marama, which is to sail for Melbourne that day. Improving Broadcasting On his first visit to Auckland since his appointment as Director of Broadcasting, Professor James Shelley said . that far-reaching schemes for improving the standard of broadcasting were now under consideration, but no details could be divulged until Cabinet had discussed them. "My main consideration at present is the development of agencies by which the standards of work in the studios may be raised," said Professor Shelley. "I am not concerning myself very much, just at present, with the programmes. They will change naturally as we grow up, as it were, from beneath." Professor Shelley remarked that few people seemed to realise that there were only 24 hours in the day, and that in that period it was totally impossible to broadcast everything that the listeners might wish to hear. Events from time to time made alterations in the studio programmes immediately necessary. Since the outbreak of infantile paralysis, for example, not only had the stations had to broadcast warnings and medical advice, a service that they willingly undertook in the public interest, but they had also to announce the cancellation or postponement o£ many important functions. Had they dealt individually with all such as were received the whole 24 hours would hardly have been sufficient to broadcast them, so that there was bound to be some resentment among members of those organisations whose notices had to be omitted. __^_^.