Reporters Diary

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33791, 13 March 1975, Page 3

Reporters Diary

Filling the Bench CHRISTCHURCH is still without its badly needed seventh magistrate. The theory held among the legal profession is that the Justice Department cannot find a suitable lawyer willing to accept the job. Lawyers say that quite a number have been approached throughout New Zealand but have declined. Apparently a good man can make more money in private practice these days than he would get as a magistrate, and the accompanying superannuation is less of an attraction now that it has been matched by the provisions of the Superannuation Bill. Another factor is the ambition of many lawyers to become judges. Traditionally magistrates do not become judges, and although the present Minister of Justice (Dr Finlay) is known to favour judicial promotion, he hasn’t promoted any magistrates to the Supreme Court yet. Meanwhile, back on the Christchurch Bench, the situation seems likely to get worse before it gets better. Magistrates in Dunedin and Timaru are due for leave (they take three months at a time) and Christchurch magistrates will have to relieve them — putting the local case list even further behind. Nothing enclosed SOME publishers are starting a trend which could send the envelope business into a decline. The journal published by the Meat Board arrives not in the customary maniila envelope, but with a wrapper stapled on as an

extra outside page attached in the printing process. A little protruding flap is stuck down to enclose it and the address added on the front. And from the United States comes another magazine which is simply secured at the edges by a little sticky tab. The address is printed in a convenient gap on the magazine’s front cover. Illustrator KAY STEWART, who draws the illustrations accompanying “The Press’’ reports of Arts Festival events, is an Australian artist who has decided to settle in New Zealand for a few years. She has studied painting and drawing in Australia, Britain, Austria and Italy and has had her work published in a number of well-known publications including the English women’s magazines "She” and “Women’s Own,” For a number of years she was an illustrator for the Australian national newspaper “The Australian.” Ip to scratch SHOWING a complete lack of sensitivity, the British Pest Control Conference has invited a flea circus to entertain delegates at its banquet next month. In spite of some hard feelings, “Professor” Len Tomlin, owner of the last flea circus in captivity, has agreed to put on his act for the pest controllers. “These pest control people are doing so well,” he grumbled, “that I have difficulty in getting performers.” His show includes charioteers, tightrope walkers, acrobats and a “strongman” flea. Little bottler IT WASN’T quite the same as driving a Rolls Royce with a coin standing on edge on the engine

— but it did impress the driver. He lives well up Dyers Pass Road on the Cashmere Hills, and rushed out the other morning with four milk bottles only to find that the milkman had been and gone. The nearest other source was a shop at the bottom of the hill, so he jumped in his Jaguar and hurtled down the steep grade. It was only when he got out to buy his milk that he found he had left the four bottles on the roof of his car — and there they were, still standing at attention. Bad joke CROWDS stampeded to escape from newly built soccer grandstands in Joao Pessoa, Brazil, last weekend after one man stood up and shouted that the stands were collapsing. The man raised his false alarm after 43 minutes of play in the opening match at the new stadium, and 32 people were injured, 20 seriously, in the ensuing panic. The culprit was arrested and taken to the state penitentiary for questioning. Lost the way CARPET-LAYERS must be under considerable pressure these days. A Papanui housewife decided to have a bedroom carpeted, bought the carpet, and showed the man into the bedroom to measure for it. She told him she would not be home on the day he was coming back to lay the carpet, but arranged for him to let himself in. When she got home on the day of the carpet-laying, she found that he had done the job — but in the wrong room. Now she has to decide whether she likes wall-to-wall carpet on her kitchen floor, or whether she should tell the firm to rip it up.