NEWS IN BRIEF

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 298, 13 September 1941, Page 11

NEWS IN BRIEF

Makara County Rates

Rates on the basis of capital value were struck yesterday by the Makara County Council for the current year as follows: —General rate, 1.8-64 d. in the £; hospital rate, 36-64 d. in the £. The latter is required to meet the council’s contribution of £2893 payable to the Wellington Hospital Board.

Small Fire at Camp. There was a small fire at the mobilization camp, Trentbam, last night, when a film caught alight during a screening in the Y.M.C.A. The blaze was quickly extinguished and no ’damage was done to the building.

Control of Ragwort. The statement that there was not a great deal of ragwort in its area, except at Horokiwi, South Karori and parts of southern Makara, was made at a meeting of the Makara County Council yesterday, following receipt of a communication from the Department of Agriculture seeking co-opera-tion in the control of ragwort. It was agreed that the incidence of ragwort was no such that it could not be handled by the department’s noxious weeds inspector. Prisoner of War.

A letter received from a Wellington soldier, now prisoner of war in Europe, "mentions that another Wellington soldier, Patrick Fletcher, is also a prisoner of war, and was, when the mail Heft in June, in a hospital suffering from a shattered elbow, the result of a Tommy-gun wound. It is stated that both the writer and Fletcher had been up in a huge German war plane together, the inference being that they were flown to their present location.

Cheaper to be Bald. A graduated scale of charges for haircuts on the principle of less hair, less to pay, was.advertised by a Christchurch hairdresser a few days ago. His portrait, which appears in the advertisement, shows him to’ be decidedly bald. The price-schedule runs: Standard rate, 1/3; semi-bald, 1/-; “just like me,” 9d. Soldiers, sailors and airmen may have haircuts at the “semibald” rate, but inferentially any of them who can claim to be as bald as the proprietor will not be charged more than 9d.

Makara, Building Figures. “Building figures show a marked increase on those for last year, but are still over £17,000 below the 1938-39 total. This is to be expected owing to the shortage of some'* building materials, and to the present building restrictions,” stated the building inspector’s report submitted to the meeting of the Makara County Council yesterday for the year ended March 31, 1941. Matters concerning public health and buildings in the county, lie added, were in a satisfactory; state.

Councillor Claims Justification. “Go on. you are suspicious,” commented a councillor to the chairman, Cr. J. Purchase, at the meeting of the Makara County Council yesterday, when he said that, judging from the Parliamentary debate he had drawn the inference that the Soil Erosion and Rivers Control Bill had power to deal with more merely than erosion. Cr. Purchase said he might be suspicious, but, knowing the men dealing with the Bill, there was some justification. Aid for Air-Raid Victims.

Twenty-two packing cases containing 5C60 garments, mostly new, have been dispatched from Salvation Army headauarters in Wellington for aii-raid victims in’ Britain, and six more eases are ready packed awaiting shipment. These have been made or provided by members of the Army, most of whom are members of the Home League. Among the many beautiful articles just to hand are a dozen cot covers made by a member who has been an invalid for 41 years, and who did the machining with one foot. Harbour Shed Clearance.

“Most importing merchants are to be commended for their action in removing. goods promptly ffom harbour sheds and so facilitating the vital quick turn around of deep-sea ships,” says the Wellington Chamber of Commerce in a circular letter to members. “Improvement in some quarters is, however, still possible and necessary. Coastwise cargo is the main difficulty at present, and as a result of searchings of marks we have written many letters to merchants outside Wellington, advising them of goods which have lain in the shed for some time and suggesting that they appoint a local agent.” Hit in the Knees.

In a second letter received from Sergeant H. J. S. Plimmer, of Wellington, this week from a prison camp somewhere in Europe, he conveys the information that he has two tiny pieces of steel in his left knee and about half an inch of steel under his right kneecap, which he had been told would work out in time. In the meantime his wounds were not worrying him. “The weather where we are,” he writes, “is blazing hot, and I am as brown as a berry. All we have to do at present is to lie in the- sun, with nothing to do. There are no smokes, and just enough food to keep a man going. Taking it all in all it has not been hard so far, but we are not yet in a real prison camp, but in a kind of convalescent home. The joys of a real prison camp are yet to come to those who were wounded. When I was taken prisoner by the Germans I had to leave most of my gear behind.”