CITY AND SUBURBAN

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 102, 24 January 1930, Page 13

CITY AND SUBURBAN

HAPPENINGS IN AND ABOUT TOWN

Two hundred traincars and 29 municipal motor omnibuses are engaged in the transport work of the city. Of these 117 are the standard combination ears, in which the more recent additions have upholstered compartments. The combination cars have accommodation for 37 passengers seated, and as many standing as can get on at peak load times.

Owing to the satisfactory results achieved by the electrical signalling-ap-paratus at the end of Courtenay Flace for the guidance of traffic, tenders have been invited for a similar installation at the junction of Lambton Quay with Willis Street. If this is carried through it will dispense with one of the three special traffic officers supplied by the Police Department, for each of whom the City Council pays £456 a year.

Twelve public holidays are observed in Wellington during the year, of which three are half days and the rest wfiole days. St. George’s, St. Andrew’s, and St. Patrick’s Days are the half-day holidays.

A- little time ago the Labour members of the City Council complained that the letters M.P. did not follow their names under the group of photographs of city councillors in the Year Book. The omission was quite inadvertent, as the names were photographed from the printed envelopes which were in use before the members became DLP.’s. The omission, however, is adequately compensated for a few pages later in the Year Book, where the names of the five Wellington members of Parliament and their districts are fully set out. Four out of the five are Labour members, and three of them are also city councillors.

There are now seventeen croquet lawns in Wellington for the upkeep of which the reserves department of the City Council is responsible. They are let to various clubs at an annual rental.

Of the four main centres, Wellington carries the heaviest levy for hospital and charitable aid purposes, and on few occasions bas it been exceeded by any other centre in the last five years. For 1929, with a population of 105,400, the levy was £59,750, or 11/4 per head, compared with a population of 97,370 in 1925, levy £41,687, or 8/6J per head. For the three intervening years the levy amounted to 7/10J,. 10/9 1-3, and 11/2 1-6 respectively. * In the other three centres the figures were as follow:— Auckland, 1925, population 90,540, levy per head 7/8}; 1929, population 102,070, levy 10/1 J. Christchurch, 1925, population 83,247, levy 4/9 1-3; 1929, population 88,100, levy 6/2}. Dunedin, 1925, population 62,315, levy 6/8}; 1929, population 57,100, levy 10/5. The figures are official, but some error has crept into the Dunedin figures of population, as they are 7000 to 8000 below those given for the preceding three years,-all of which are over 66,000.

The first meetings for the year of the Legislation, Leaseholds, and. Libraries . Committee, and the PubUc Health, Cemeteries, and Abattoir Committee of the City Council will be held this afternoon. When the liner Turakina was pulling out from Clyde Quay Wharf yesterday afternoon her anchor fouled some old dredge moorings which were lying on the bottoh. The vessel was delayed in the stream while her anchor was being cleared. Thanks to the fine weather which has set in, the risk of further earthfalls in Glenmore Street has been considerably lessened. Full advantage is being taken of the changed condition to construct a big concrete wall in front of Mr. T. E. King’s property, which is being given a central buttress of reinforced concrete of sufficient strength to ensure stability indefinitely. “My ship ..was delayed at New York for four hours,” said Mr. Hamilton Nimmo, who has returned from a trip round the world, “all because I was not a J.P. I was on the list for the honour before I left, but my name had not been gazetted. Had I been a J.P. I could have signed the paper—which had something to do with the health of the ship’s company—but because I could not place the magic letters ‘J.P.’ after my name there were formalities to be complied with which detained us at least four hours.” .

From the beginning of January to the end of March is the picnic season on the railways. Almost daily picnic parties, large and small, are taken by rail from Wellington to adjacent resorts, such as Upper Hutt, Belmont, Plimmerton, and Paekakakriki, and the numbers are increasing as the weather im-, proves. The motor bus services linking up nearby seaside resorts such as Eastbourne, Day’s Bay, Titahi Bay, etc., usually leave loaded to capacity, and the bays on the eastern side of Wellington Harbour have been unusually well thronged.

The special committee of the City Council set up to consider matters in connection with the site for the new Central Library and civic block held a meeting yesterday afternoon. As promised last year, the Mayor (Mr. G. A. Troup) presented a full report on the subjects under discussion. The report was not made available for publication, as it has yet to be considered by the Library Committee and the council as a whole.

In the report of the old settlers’ Anniversary Day gathering which appeared in yesterday’s issue of “The Dominion” it was wrongly stated that “three gentlemen named Hopper, Peter Molesworth and Francis Molesworth” formed themselves into a commercial firm on landing on Petone beach. The three gentlemen Mr. Pilcher was referring to were Messrs. E. B. Hopper, H. W. Petre, and Francis Molesworth.