CITY AND SUBURBAN

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 264, 3 August 1929, Page 13

CITY AND SUBURBAN

HAPPENINGS IN AND ABOUT TOWN

“That the book, “All Quiet on the Western Front’,” be not placed in the Public Library for circulation.” This recommendation from the Libraries Committee to the City Council was adopted without comment.

According to the Financial Statement of 1879 the public debt was then £23,222,311. It is now over £264.000,000. The population exclusive of Maoris in 1879 was 463,729. Now it is 1,404,956.

An announcement appears in this issue respecting the proposed formation of a Welsh Male Voice Party in Wellington. It is understood that a meeting of those interested will be convened at an early date.

Severe lacerated wounds on the third and fourth fingers of the left hand were suffered by G. Ritchie, a carpenter, who resides at 21 Graham Street, Petone, and who had a hand caught in a saw yesterday afternoon. He was taken to the hospital by the Free Ambulance.

There was a temporary hold-up in the Kelburn cable car service yesterday. Through a guy rope used in connection -with the reconstruction of the bridge over Salamanca Road, fouling the track, a wheel of one of the cable trams, upward bound, jumped a line about 9 o’clock and caused a stoppage of the service for 15 minutes. No damage was done, and although the stoppage occurred at one of the rush periods of the day, Kelburn residents on their way to work suffered little inconvenience. Many walked down the tracks to town until matters were put in order again.

The City Corporation is making a first-class job of the new concrete wall that is to divide upper and lower Roxburgh Streets (the section at the foot of Macfarlane The wall itself varies from 2ft. to 3ft. in thickness, and in the centre is about 7ft. in height. This improvement, which was contemplated when Sir John Luke was Mayor, will add to the width of both sections of the street, as formerly a good deal of the width was taken in by a sloping clay bank.

Petone is progressing, and now boasts of. a Chamber of Commerce. After several preliminary meetings the Chamber was inaugurated on Thursday evening. The Chamber has as its main objects the welfare of the borough and the interests of the ratepayers, business men, and the community in general, and is non-political. The following office-bearers were elected :■ —President, Mr. James Kerr; vicepresident, Mr. G. D. McEwen; secretary, Mr. E. S. Neill; treasurer. Mr. S. G. Clarke; auditor, Mr. J. W. Longman : solicitors. Messrs. G. Findlay and G. M. Dickson; executive cot.. 41, Messrs. Orsborn, T. Tremayne, Bennell, Cairns. Lockhead, Bonthorne, B. Tremain. Daniell, Stirton, Cousins, Jacobson, Williamson, Noble. Gray, and C. Odlin.

A request to the City Council from the Eastbourne Borough Council for a water supply has been referred to the Wellington City .and Suburban Water Supply Board for consideration.

The following extremely short but effective conversation took place in the Magistrate’s Court yesterday : —Court Orderly: “Remove that hat!” Culprit (in bored tone) : “Pardon?” Court Orderly: “Silence!” And silence reigned supreme.

A greenstick fracture of the left leg was suffered by Colin Miller, a four-year-old boy who resides with his parents at 4 Picton Avenue, and who was knocked down by a motor-lorry at the corner of Riddiford and Hall Streets shortly before 9 a.m. yesterday. He was attended to by the Free Ambulance and taken to the hospital.

The official opening of the new premises of the United Services Club, Wellington, was performed on Wednesday evening by His Excellency the Gov-ernor-General, Sir Charles Fergusson, in the presence of a full attendance of members. The new quarters comprise a handsome suite of rooms, specially designed for the purposes of the club, on the top floor of the new D.I.C. building in Panama Street, and have been suitably furnished. The president of the club, Colonel C. G. Powles, presided, and had associated with him MajorGeneral R. Young, General Officer Commanding the New Zealand Military Forces, and Commodore G. T. C. I*. Swabey, Officer Commanding the New Zealand Naval Station.

Wellington is generally developing European ways. Time was when the citizens lived in peace and amity, and seldom allowed their angry passions to sway them. If a fight had to be conducted, it was left to the menfolk to thrash the matter out. Shortly before 7 o’clock last evening, a battle royal was waged at the foot of Church Steps, which leads from Boulcott Street' to The Terrace. Two women, two girls, and a man were the principal actors in the drama, and to give th man credit he did his best to maintain the peace, and contented himself with endeavouring to keep an irate female, whose language was of the Billingsgate variety, away from his wife. A few yards further down the pathway, the two girls, who could not have been more than sixteen years of age. were fighting like two drunken sailors. It was no parlour game they were playing. Both w<. e two-handed fighte , and they hit straight, and judged their distance well. “Please send along the first policeman you meet,” called the man to some people who were proceeding down the steps. He then went down, and separated the two girl combatants, one of whom had got the other by the throat this time. “Now, take your hat and go.” he remarked to one of the girls, “or I will kick you down into Boulcott Street.” .