NEWS IN BRIEF

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 60, 4 December 1937, Page 13

NEWS IN BRIEF

Road Safety Council

Miss M. Magill, a member of the i Eastbourne Borough Council, and a i former president of the New Zealand Educational Institute, has been appointed to the National Road Safety i Council. In announcing her appointi merit yesterday, the Minister of Trans- ! port, lion. R. Semple, said that for a long time he had thought it desirable to have the interests of women in road safety directly represented on the council, and he had much pleasure in appointing Miss Magill, who would broadcast an address on road safety as affecting women and children from the National Broadcasting Stations on December 20. Extensions to Rongotai College. At the direction of the Minister of Education, plans are being prepared for permanent extensions to Rongotai College. The extensions are to consist of a music-room, an art-room and two class-rooms at the western end, and an enlargemen t of the staff-room at the eastern end. Property Sale. Having disposed of their freehold property in Dixon Street to Woolworths (N.Z.) Ltd., Messrs. T. Ballinger and Co., Ltd., have purchased _ a block of 2 roods 20 perches in Daniel Street, Newtown, from Mr. F. S. Driller. This block of land will give the firm 27,000 square feet of space. “Mystery Parcels.” A highly successful sale of “mystery parcels” was conducted in Wellington vesterday by the Smith Family. Practically all the parcels, numbering 10,300, were sold. The profits are to be added to the Christmas Cheer Fund, and about 800 families will benefit. Yesterday’s sale was the third of its kind conducted by the Smith Family. Evans Bay Road. The possibility of a footpath being constructed round Point Jerningham and on the seaward side of the Evans Bay Roa.d as far south as the patent slip was mentioned by the Wellington city engineer, Mr. K. E. Luke, in reply to an inquiry by "The Dominion.” Mr. Luke said he particularly desired to have the whole length of this road in good order for the opening of the Centennial Exhibition, to which the road will be an important route. Skeleton of Great Auk. A skeleton of a great auk—a species akin to the penguin which became extinct in 1844—has been received by the Canterbury Museum from the Museum -of Comparative Zoology, Harvard, America. Fishermen killed the last of the great auks, which were the Northern Hemisphere counterpart of the southern penguins, though a smaller species still exists in Arctic seas. The great auk is similar in many ways to the penguin. Sale of a Hotel. Possession of the Western Park Hotel, in Tinakori Road, was taken over on Thursday by Mr. Otto Ballin, acting for Ballin. Bros., brewers, of Christchurch, who have acquired the freehold of the property from Mrs. Bridget Clay. The price was just under £20,000. This hotel, under its former name, the Shepherd’s Arms, was one of the oldestestablished hotels in Wellington, and was for many years in the old days run by the Gillespie family. The hotel recently underwent a complete overhaul.

Panama Canal. There is at present being exhibited in the lounge at the D.LC. a large model relief map of the Panama Canal Zone. The mottel, which is on loan to the New Zealand Shipping Company, Limited, by the Panama Canal Zone Administration,, is supported by a number of enlarged aerial and other photographs of Panama City, Balboa and points of interest in the Canal Zone, and together they give a very clear impression of one of the most .wonderful engineering feats of all time. A Second Dunedin.

Everybody is not aware that there are two Dunedins in tlie world. Situated on a small landlocked bay about midway up the eastern or Gulf coast of the peninsula of Florida, United States, is the town of Dunedin, which is only about one-fourth the size of its New Zealand namesake. There is, however, at least one point of similarity, and that is in the ancestry of the pioneering stock, for the Dunedin of America was founded by a party of wandering Scots in 1875. The town faces the sunset and the ever-blue waters of the Gulf of Mexico, and is one of the many popular resorts along that favoured shore. The Otago Expansion League has been in communication with the younger Dunedin, and intends to develop this connection by further correspondence.