General News

Press, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 26120, 24 May 1950, Page 6

General News

Family Gathering* Mr John Osborne, a farmer, celebrated his ninety-fifth birthday today, with most of his 290 living descendants gathered round him at Wallin’s Creek, New York. The National Fathers’ Day Committee, which described Mr Osborne as “the living father of the largest number of descendants in the United States,” gave him a prize of a 100-'dollar savings bond. Mr Osborne has 12 children, 76 grandchildren. 163 great-grandchil-dren, and 39 great-great-grandchildren. —New York, May 22. j j Conscientious Objectors p The Conscientious Objection Com- n mittee, established under the Military Training Act. 1949. to determine appli- s cations for registration in the register b of conscientious objectors, will hold I sittings in Christchurch on June 7 fl and 8. Twelve applications by youths, b due for service under the compulsory military training scheme, have been referred to the committee from Christ- h church. Judge Archer is chairman of v the committee. n Rain or No Rain ° Two scientists to-day prepared to ~ frustrate New York’s rain-making ex- E periments. The New York City au- L thorities are paying Dr. Wallace . Howell 100 dollars a day to attempt ‘ to produce rain artificially, but the 9 owners of tl)e Palisades Amusement , Park have hired Dr. G. Sykes and r Mr Edward Twardus at 500 dollars t a day to sabotage Dr. Howell’s work. Dr. Sykes and Mr Twardus set up their equipment on the New Jersev r. side of the Hudson river to-day. Dr. t. Sykes, who is 74, is well known for d his attempts to hold off rain for race : meetings and outdoor sports. “By ; broadcasting sound, light beams, and I electro-magnetic waves, we cause ; various disturbances which break up clouds and scatter them.” he explain- r ed. Dr. Sykes and Mr Twardus must ; forfeit WOO dollars for every day that 7 rain falls.—New York. May 22. Leave for Football Matches i A directive recently issued to the Department of Scientific and Indus- ■ trial Research by its deputy-secretary r (Mr W. A. Joiner) says that the Pub- I lie Service Commission had agreed t that as many members of the staff as s | possible should be released to attend I mid-week matches in which the visitI ing British Isles team is taking part. | The time so taken off will be treated , as leave without pay or as a deduction from annual leave. j Gamblers’ Luck J | Six bandits wearing lalse noses today held up 25 men at a cock-fight-ing pit in Henderson, Kentucky, and then escaped with 50.000 dollars and the victims’ trousers. The bandits, carrying machine-guns, forced their way into a barn where the men were betting on fighting cocks. They forced the gamblers to undress, took the money from their pockets, and , drove off with the trousers in a stolen , motor-car. —New York. May 22. j Centennial Float ! A float in the 100 Years of Progress < | procession on December 18, representa- ■ I live of its activities since its inception 1 lin 1875. will be sponsored by the j i Christchurch Drainage Board, “i hope < : we won’t get into the same trouble as ' the students did.” remarked Mr Reg. i ! Jones, amid laughter at last evening’s • i meeting of the board. “I don’t think j we will do that.” replied the chairman ■ (Mr E. H. S. Hamilton). Lectures for Prisoners The Workers'Educational Association : and the Christchurch Rotary Club will combine for the twenty-fifth year in 1 succession this year in providing a : course of lectures for Paparua Prison. | For 25 years the W.E.A. has arranged | the course, which usually lasts for l three or four months during the j winter, and the Rotary Club has pro- : ■ video transport for the lecturer, whose | services are given voluntarily. The { lectures are held on Saturday even- ■ ings. Higher Cost of Pipes 1 Pipes for the southern relief sewer I being built by the Christchurch Drain- | age Board will cost 2s lOd a foot more.

Die new price lor 42in pipes is 41s 6d a foot. The increased price, the board was informed last evening, was due to increased manufacturing costs by the contractors (Hume. Ltd.). Lemons and Bananas Coughs and colds in the winter usually produce a greater demand for lemons for hot drinks. Part of the demand in Christchurch should be met shortly when a shipment of 1750 cases of Australian lemons will arrive for distribution to city retailers. Distribution of a shipment of Island bananas should also begin in Christchurch soon. The V/aiana. which arriv'd al T *.DLei from Auckland yesterday. carrio-- about 7500 rases of bananas for the South Island. Sewers in Subdivisions A policy that subdividers of land will be required to provide for sowers in new streets of subdivisions within the drainage district, provided such subdivisions are located in the area zoned for urban development, was established by the Christchurch Drainage Board last evening. The policy was recommended by the works committee, which had discussed a subdivision in Mcßratney’s road. Queensbury street, and Birchfield avenue, about 10 chains away from the No. 5 sewer rating area. The committee considered that the sewer development could not be long delayed. Television in Britain The distinctive television aerial attached to the chimney was now making its appearance in working class areas in Britain, said Mr H. E. Garrett, a 1939 Rhodes scholar and now senior lecturer in farm management and valuation at Canterbury Agricultural I College, who has just returned to New Zealand. Television was becoming very popular in Britain, he said, and the coverage offered was being steadily expanded. A new station had recently been opened at Birmingham to serve the north. The television of the last Oxford-Cambridge boat race had done much to popularise the system, said Mr Garrett. The race was said to be the most exciting for 75 years, and television viewers had seen it over its whole length as from a following barge. Television of football had so far not been so successful, said Mr Garrett, apparently because the movement was too fast. Democratic Tradition of China “China, with the oldest tradition of democratic government in the world,” was discussed by Mr J. H. Ford, who is now living in New’ Zealand after spending many years m China, in a broadcast address. "For thousands of years family control of local government, and competitive examinations to choose the governing class for the whole country, have bred in the Chinese a sense of the innate equality of all their own people. They have always accepted philosophically any change of government so long as the real power lay in the hands of their own people. The new nationalism, crystallised by the war with Japan, may yet be directed inwards to rehabilitate their own ravaged country, and towards rebirth of their great traditions of art and of living; or it may be directed outwards.”