CITY AND SUBURBAN

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 176, 22 April 1929, Page 11

CITY AND SUBURBAN

HAPPENINGS IN AND ABOUT TOWN

While playing football in the match, Petone v. Lower Hutt, on Saturday afternoon, T. Taylor, of 10 Campbell Terrace, Petone, fractured his right leg. The Free Ambulance removed him to the public hospital.

Motorists were appreciative of the fact that the electric signals were operating in Courtenay Place yesterday, and hope that henceforward the various crossings will be as free from accidents on Sundays as they have been on weekdays since the signals were installed there. The action of the traffic department is much appreciated.

During the year the Hataitai School Committee has been pressing the Education Board to make a decent playing area out of the lower ground at the school, and negotiations have proceeded so far that the board has agreed to erect a retaining wall which, when completed? will permit of the necessary’ levelling being done. The committee has agreed to contribute £lOO towards the cost of this work.

A printer, E. Hollow, of 44 Torrens Terrace, sustained a fractured right leg, scalp wounds and shock on Saturday afternoon as the ■ result of the motor-cycle he was a passenger in the side-car of colliding with a motor-car. After being attended to by Dr. Rawson he was removed to the public hospital by the Free Ambulance.

■ On Saturday afternoon, an amateur fisherman caught more than he bargained for. Casting his line into the sea from a jetty at Shelley Bay, he soon decided that, as the fish were not biting, he would try some other point. When endeavouring to pull in his line, however, he found that it would not move. Thinking that a hook had caught on a submerged rock, he walked along the jetty in an endeavour to release it. Eventually, he succeeded in pulling in the line, but the dead weight of It convinced him that he had caught a plentiful supply of weed. Imagine his surprise when he hauled In an octopus of no mean dimensions!

Apropos of the announcement in “The Dominion” on Saturday that those who suffered as the result of flood damage to Moera Settlement, Lower Hutt, were to receive compensation from the Government, the member for the district (Hon. T. M. Wilford) pointed out that the statement that 77 houses had been affected is incorrect; the number was actually 37, situated principally in Elizabeth Street, Rand Wick Road, and YorkStreet. “It is correct,” said Mr. Wilford, “that £lOOO has been granted by Cabinet in connection with the matter, but it was not a compassionate allowance, but merely an undertaking by Cabinet to recognise claims which could be agreed to as reasonable after the claims had been gone into by an officer of the Public Works Department and Mr. D. McEwan, acting for the property holders.”

On Saturday afternoon Miss G. Lewis, a domestic, of 130 Derwent Street, Island Bay, sustained injuries to her right hip as the result of having a fall. The Free Ambulance conveyed her to the public hospital.

People are asking by what authority are notices exhibited prohibiting through traffic along the Marine Parade, at Eastbourne, between the.wharf and Windy Point. This is a full-width street, and is a very handy short-cut to and from the wharf.

As the result of falling off his bicycle at the corners of Luxford and Rintoul Streets on Saturday evening, K. C. H. Banks, a mechanic, of 5 Knoll Street, sustained injuries to his left thigh which necessitated his removal to the public hospital. He was conveyed there by the Free Ambulance.

The inmates of the Home for the Aged and Needy were given a very enjoyable entertainment on Thursday night by Mrs. Ethel Hardie’s concert party, when numerous encores were accorded. Supper was afterwards given by the entertainers. The contributors to the programme were Mesdames Metcalfe, Hardie, Misses Nita Hardie and Ila and Hazel Wright, Master L. Hardie, Messrs. H. Wilkinson, Turner and V. Wilkie. The accompanists were Mesdames Hardie and Metcalfe—

Dealing with the vexed question of accommodation, the annual report of the Hataitai School Committee . says: “Once again this question is to the fore, and your committee has done its utmost to obtain the correct solution —the building of additional rooms on the southern boundary. Both by letter and deputation has this need been pressed upon the board, but beyond being received with the utmost courtesy, nothing has been done, and, so far as your committee can judge, will it .be done. The reason offered is that the question of junior high schools being in a State of flux where the department is concerned, the building policy of the board is in abeyance so far as new work is concerned.”

Such is the thickness of the metal chips left on the roads that were sealed a second time about five or six weeks ago, that lads with bicycles, under the influence of the dirt track racing idea, are using the stuff for safety bicycle “broadsiding.” They ride down a sloping road at a fairly good rate of speed, and at the bottom steer into the metal chips, and make a sharp turn, with the result that the machine broadsides for a foot or two before it pulls up. by which time the rider’s foot is on the ground. The presence of the metal chips on the road so long after the sealing is sheer waste. With temperatures such as are now being experienced no more metal can be ground into the bitumen surface, so that it is just powdering up under the influence of traffic, and when the winds increase there will be the same old dust nuisance that the sealed surfaces were to end.