Reporter’s Diary

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 34026, 15 December 1975, Page 3

Reporter’s Diary

H ttr casualty? WORKMEN demolishing an old house in Melbourne recently came across a carefully preserved copy of the Christchurch Press Company’s “Weekly Press” of October 6, 1915. It was roiled up in a watertight tube, and sealed off at both ends. The Australian visitor who brought it to Christchurch unfortunately did not know the history' of the house’s occupancy. It is likely, however, that whoever preserved the “Weeklv Press” was a close rotative of one of the New Zealand soldiers killed or wounded at Gallipoli. The six inside pages are entirely taken up with 150 photographs of those who were casualties “in the fighting at the Dardanelles.” On the front is a picture of a captured Turkish sniper, covered in greenery. “The Turk.” says the caption, “was ingeniously screened by a Jack-in-the-green arrangement of foliage attached to his clothing.” Another picture shows a Turkish prisoner cutting an Australian soldier's hair, and on the back page a picture shows Christchurch women packing Christmas presents for “our boys at the front.” Squirts AT LEAST one garage proprietor was cursing silently to himself on Thursday and Friday as one woman driver after another pulled up at his pumps to have her car’s tank topped up. They appeared to be doing it all day. taking no chances about being caught with an empty tank when the expected petrol price increase took place. Their purchases were of the order of 20c and even as little as 17c worth — just a squirt to bring the level up.

Medication APPARENTLY there is something you can take for an attack of political ambition. judging by a report in "Record.” the news-sheet of the Bureau of Importers and Exporters. “The bureau’s valedictory luncheon for Sir John Marshall was voted the best of the year by attending Auckland businessmen,” says the Secretary’s Notes, “when a completely relaxed Sir John kept his audience fully amused with antidotes of his 29 years as a Parliamentarian.” Etigers's ru istake A STORY remembered by Mr C. E. Wrighton, of Christchurch, suggests that it was penny-pinching that Jed to the captqre of William Eggers, the West Coast “highwayman” whose name has become attached to the memorial erected to his two victims on the G rey in outh-R u nariga road. He writes: “It was while Eggers was staying at the hotel in Greymouth watching the funeral of his victims pass, that one of the maids recalled reading that near the site of the murder, traces of someone using a hut there were noted, and the occupant had left a candle standing up in the ’id of a blacking tin. The lass mentioned that Eggers had a tin of boot polish in his room and the tin had no lid. This piece of careless economy led to his conviction.” Carol banned GOOD King W'enceslas, feted in the English carol for going out on the Feast of Stephen, will again not be allowed into English churches this Christmas. The carol about the mediaeval Bohemian king has been excluded from British