NEWS IN BRIEF

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 189, 8 May 1941, Page 11

NEWS IN BRIEF

Blackout And Churches

The effect of the lighting restrictions on attendances at evening services in churches and the possibility of a demand for a change in the hour of service were raised at a recent meeting of the Auckland Presbytery. It was pointed out that any alteration in the hour would have to be adopted for all churches. No definite recommendations were made. “A Thing of the Past.”

“I am inclined to think that Scheme 13 will soon be a thing of the past, as it is in some parts,” the Minister of Public Works, Mr. Armstrong, said at Rangiora when a suggestion was made that unemployed labour could be used in repairing the recent flood damage at Waikuku Beach. The present was a golden opportunity to get rid of the scheme altogether, Mr. Armstrong said, but if men were available they might be employed on useful work. New Czechoslovak Army Badge. Typifying the unbroken spirit of the Czechoslovak nation is a new army badge, a specimen of which is possessed by a New Zealand soldier recently invalided home. The badge, which is of bronze, Is made in the form of a scroll, bearing the Czech lion. Ou it is the date September 28, 1940, and the words “We inarch on: Faithful to ourselves, faithful to Britain. The Czechoslovak Army.”

Sixty Grey Duck. Several good bags were obtained in the, Waverley district tin the opening day of the shooting season. On Mr. W. R. S. Brewer’s property a party of six guns, Messrs. J. Handley, M. Broderick, T. Sampson, W. Hunter, A. L. E. Maysmor and H. Strauchon bagged about 60 grey duck. On one occasion one shot brought down four swan.

Church Army Work. Surprise at the number of young people who were willing to give their services to the Church Army was expressed by Captain S. R. Banyard, director of the Church Army in New Zealand, in an address to the Council of Christian Congregations in Auckland recently. Contain Banyard said that, though the Church Army was a young body in New Zealand, having been formed about five years and a half ago, there was already a staff of 45 iu various parts of the Dominion. London is Undisturbed. “We get constant daylight raids from Nazi planes in singles and pairs,” writes a Dondoner to a friend in Auckland. “Bast Friday a raider came over Regent Street. The guns in Hyde Park got into action and shells were bursting all round us. I was looking out of oiir office window, and though this schimozzle was going on overhead I could see the people in the street below walking about and stopping to look in shop windows as though nothing was happening. The Indifference of the people to daylight raids is amazing.

Jean Batten Plaque. To commemorate tlie achievements of Miss Jean Batten, 0.8. E., and specially the skill and courage she showed in her solo flight from England to New Zealand in 1936, a plaque is to be affixed to the western wall of the National Bank building in Jean Batten Place, Auckland. Fashioned from bronze, it shows a low-wing monoplane flying out of the sun. The plaque is to be donated by the Fletcher Construction Company, Limited, and on Tuesday the mayor of Auckland, Sir Ernest Davis, expressed the city’s thanks to the donors.

Pictures for Auckland. Three oil paintings which were bequeathed to Auckland for the Art Gallery by Mr. William Elliot, who died in 1934, have been handed over to the gallery following the death of the testator’s widow. Two arc domestic scenes, “A Frugal Meal” and “A Busy Housewife,” by Bernard Hoog, a Dutch painter who Is believed to have worked in England in the latter part of the last century. The third picture is a, landscape with sheep and figures of ir man and woman in Highland costume, by Richard Ansdall, R.A. It was exhibited in the Royal Academy of 1866. The city council has accepted the pictures with thanks.

Greek Day Appeal. The Greek Day appeal iu New South Wales yielded £42,422. In accepting it at the hands of the Premier, the Greek Consul-General in Sydney, M. Vrisakis, said that the money might night have to be forwarded to Crete, or it might be administered from Australia. partly through the Red Cross Society. Tn the course of his remarks M. Vrisakis said: “There is no struggle in our history that will bring us greater honour. We have shown the world we prefer death to tyranny. In granting all possible ait- Australia has done magnificently. Despite the heaviest odds the Anzacs have fought with undoubted courage.” Conscientious Home Guardsmen. In the far north people are enthusiastic about their Home Guard. The small township of Awanui, estuary port of Kaltaia, boasts 200 guardsmen. Many of these are Maoris, and though some live 30 miles from headquarters they rarely miss a parade, riding on horseback over clay tracks and along beaches of Doubtless Bay to carry out their training. An Auckland visitor to the native settlement of Whatuwliiwhi, near the northern end of Doubtless Bay, was surprised early one morning to see a Maori guardsman marching by himself on a lonely beach with a baton as a rille. He shouted vigorously orders at himself, not omitting a few terse epithets when he failed io carry them out to Ins own satisfaction.