General News

Press, Volume C, Issue 29699, 18 December 1961, Page 14

General News

111 Years Ago Flags flown from the old ball station at East Lyttel- ■, ton on Saturday marked the I one hundred and eleventh ; ; anniversary of the arrival of ! the First Four Ships. The i senior boatman of the Lyttelton Harbour Board (Mr John I Fellows), hoisted a red flag at the south yardarm, at 8 , a m., which was once a norb mal procedure to indicate - the arrival of a ship off the , heads. At 1030 a.m. the numt bers of Charlotte Jane were . hoisted, There were the code flags. N.R.B.H. They were t, lowered again at 430 pjn. Puffed Out > The Newmarket Borough ;! Council quailed at the pros- , pect of blowing up hundreds ',of balloons at an annual ■children’s function in the : borough. Members decided . the children could do their ;own puffing this year. Mr E. ’[ Corrigan, the Town Clerk. ■, complained that after last , year’s exhausting effort he was blue in the face. He said he had blown up 165 balloons 1 in about an hour. Held By Horns An Auckland hunter, Mr , C. J. Sutherland, who was on a trip in the Coromandel 1 bush on Saturday morning, i found a goat hanging from a ; tree by its horns which were ,21 inches long. Their circumference at the base was 1 eight inches and they were , four inches apart. Mr Sutherland said it was an ordinary New Zealand goat. It was ■, still alive when he reached ■ it He climbed the tree, which ■ was growing from a small cliff, and killed the goat.— 1 (PA..) if Old Bandsman Mr Walter Reid, who is 101 • years old, received a pleasant : surprise at the week-end , when his friends from the Royal New Zealand Artil- ■ lery Band arrived at the private hospital in Auckland J where he is staying. The band gave Mr Reid and other j patients a carol service and ; I also played a few of Mr i Reid’s favourite tunes. He is . the oldest surviving member of the band and the oldest . gunner in New Zealand. He . was a sergeant in the artilI lery and also played the ; euphonium.—(P.A.) More Than Ever I The people of Britain spent 'more on tobacco and drank ! more beer and liquor during '1960 than ever before, according to the annual Customs and Excise report just ■| issued. The report, for the . year ended last March, said that tobacco earned the British Exchequer £825 million. ’ a £37-million increase “due ’ wholly to a higher rate of duty imposed by the 1980 Budget." But with no change in tax rates, and an • unfavourable summer, Britons drank 27.500.000 barrels ,of beer, about one million • more than in the previous ijyear. Revenue increased by .;more than £3 million to £22 I million. Consumption of 'spirits (mostly whisky and ; igm) was up by 1,600,000 gallons to 15.800.000. Revenue 'totalled just under £163 mililion, the report said, “an ini, crease of no less than £l7 4 'million.’’ Sky Phenomena A halo round the moon, peculiar streaks in the sky! and a wandering star were 'reported by persons who telephoned “The Press” late last I evening. Mr C. S. L. Keay. (lecturer in physics at the | University of Canterbury, (said that the wandering star would most likely be the satellite Echo 1. A Weather Office spokesman said that cirrostratus cloud formations . <high-altitude ice crystal . clouds) often had the effect of producing a halo round the moon or sun Last evening the cirrostratus clouds , were in streaks from west of ' north to east of south. Wool Salvage Nineteen years after being (sunk in a collision with the United States battleship New Mexico, the hulk of the 7000ton American freighter Oregon. containing 14.096 bales of South African wool, has been discovered in 160 ft of water about 50 miles off Nantucket Island, on the AmeriI can Cape Cod coast. The cargo, because of its greasy , state and because it was oacked under pressure, is [ expected to have suffered i little damage and the salvagers are con fldent of success The value of the wool, if recovered, is estimated at about 5.600.000 dollars.