DAY BY DAY

Ellesmere Guardian, Volume XLV, Issue 3080, 14 April 1927, Page 7

DAY BY DAY

DOMINION HAPPENINGS

NEWS FROM EVEBYWHEEE,

A Maori flax beater and a carved stretcher for weaving were unearthed twenty feet below the level of the street when workmen Were recently engaged in excavations in New Plymouth, states the Taranaki Daily News. Both were well preserved, though they have probably been buried well over a century. The new building is on the site of the Puke-ariki pa, which was vacated by the Maoris about IS3O.

"Many highly . successful men have a puerile dread of figures,'' declared Dr. E. P. Neale, secretary of the Auckland Chamber of Commerce, in a lecture to the Auckland Commerce Students' Society. He said that the shy attitude towards statistics was, however, being changed by the use of machinery and the growth of business, and, on the side of raw materials, business men must delve to-day into economic geography, geology and botany; on the side of production they must study chemistry, mechanics, and electricity; on the side of labour management they must know something- of psychology, of sanitation, and of industrial law; on the side of selling they required expert knowledge of mercantile law, of customer psychology, and what not. A knowledge of economics I had become a necessary part of their equipment in all their activities.

The conditions under ' which Honolulu's municipal milk supply is obtained were explained to Mr A. J. Glasson, of the Agricultural Department's staff at Hawera, in the course of a holiday trip to the Islands recently. Speaking to a Hawera Star reporter, Mr Glasson stated that he was taken to inspect a huge model certified dairy, where between two and three hundred cows were milked to supply the municipality. The station where these cows were kept said Mr Glasson, was a wonderful place. It was as near perfection as could be imagined, and far ahead of anything he had seen in any other country. There were two exceedingly well-appointed sheds, scrupulously clean in every detail. In one the cows were first taken by attendants, and carefully washed down' and fed, before being taken into the second, where the, milking took place. Nothing better .or more hygienic could be imagined.

There arrived in Dunedin last week from Holland a letter bearing a curious address. The first line read, "New [Zealand, Dunedin, Esq."; the second 'line, "Bishopgrove, Leith, val."; and •the third line, "Dunedin, England." It was duly delivered to the person whom its Dutch writer intended it to reach. This is surely an achievement for which the Postal Service deserves credit (remarks the Dunedin Star). But ignorance in matters geographical is not confined to Holland. A few days ago a letter was received by a well known Dunedin citizen from one of San Francisco's leading business houses. The envelope bore an address perfect in every respect—quite a model of what an address should be, even from the postal official's standpoint. Yet in a post-script the Californian writer stated: "I hope this reaches you for so far as avc are concerned this address is a dead-letter here."

The passengers on the Tutanekai on her recent trip to Southern latitudes were afforded an unusual spectacle at the Antipodes. When the Tutanekai drew close inshore the stately penguin was seen, in occupation by countless thousands. The birds occupied practically every inch and foot of rock and earth. Captain Bollons said that the birds, and also mollyhawks, were as numerous as pebbles on a shingle beach. He estimated their numbers in tens of thousands. The penguins Avere so

closely packed together that passengers and members of the ship's crew had not an inch of ground on which to walk when they landed from the boats.

The vexed question of iiow sausages should be defined has again cropped up. Recently the Stratford Borough. Council proceeded against a butcher on a charge of vending meat in the borough, without a licence. The question resolved itself into whether sausages could bo called meat. The magistrate reserved his decision, but judgment has now been given dismissing both charges. The magistrate held that while sausages might be colloquially termed '' meat,'; the by-law defined .the word as being the flesh, of any slaughtered animal, whether intended for local con-

sumption or export, and he pointed out that special terms relating to the definition did not include cooked meats. Therefore, the sausages made by the defendant did not come within the legal definition.

Noticing the peculiar antics of a shag in the water, a Stewart Island resident steered his launch close up to the bird. As he drew near the shag appeared to be struggling against something which was holding it down in the water, and this, on closer inspection, proved to be a small octopus, which had one arm tightly round the bird's neck, and was trying to swim down to the bottom, dragging the shag with it. The theory, states the Southland News's correspondent, is that the octopus did not intentionally attack the- shag in the first place, but collided with it when the bird was diving for fish among the kelp. Another resident stated that some fifteen years ago he saw the same thing occur between an octopus and a mutton bird.

►Some straight talk in regard to the ! accommodation for. visitors at the fishing camps Avas delivered in Auckland the other day by a Californian fisher|man. "If the fresh water and deepsea sporting camps cater for wealthy visitors they should do good business, and attract overseas people in greater numbers," he said. "Obviously itraises the standard of the sport, and places it beyond the means of the average New Zealander, but the question boils down to, 'Do you want wealthy overseas sportsmen, or do you not?"' You have the most remarkable sportsmen 's paradise in the world. Are you going to use it as an attraction for overseas people? If y OU are, the wants and wishes of people accustomed to comfort must be studied. It is not the slightest use expending money in America, for instance, for attracting Ameri- , cans to New Zealand if they are to be ridiculed when they expect just a bit more than a tin bucket to wash in and one towel a week for thirty shilling a day board. Many of the overseas visi tors may be wealthy, but they are not jl fools. They may be stung once. It is j a good moral never to be stung by the j same bee twice." I

The work of the journalist is not only hard, but perilous. Mr Gedge, of the London Daily Mail, who had been | writing from Bucharest more about \ King Ferdinand's illness than the au jthorities desired, was told that if he t did not get over the border he would »be escorted there by the gendarmes— which the Chief of Police described as »,. " a very painful process.'' In America j.when an editor offends a citizen the > citizen drops into his office and shoots

{him. In China editors who publish jjwhat the authorities disapprove of {have their heads chopped off. In Japan, they are frequently gaoled. However, they have a way of keeping | things going in Japan. They employ editors whose sole job is to assume res-

ponsibility for anything that is published, and these editors "take it out" while the writing editors keep on writing. It is a system which if introducS ed into New Zealand, would give an ex- | tended liberty to a Press whose freedji om is somewhat restricted.

j The opal, most beautiful of precious r.stones, is now being found on a new field near Walgett, in New South Wales, and a "rush" has started. One stone from this field has been sold .in Sydney for £450. The opal is old in history as a lucky stone. The way it splashes colour makes it especially attractive; its hues are ever-changing and it seems often to emit sparks of fire. There were thousands of men digging for opal at White Cliffs, in the far nor'-west of New South Wales once, but these diggings were worked out, and White Cliffs is now only a name. There is a jeweller in Sydney who makes a specialty of opals, and his window display is a blaze of magnificence.

The decreased cost of British motor cars is responsible for a tremendous in crease of motor licenses in Britain. When British manufacturers go after thing they get them. Slack post-war trade taught them that they could no longer cling to the "take-it-or-leave-it" attitude, so they scrapped their inadequate machinery, went in for the methods of standardisation they had hitherto despised as merely 'something American,' and consented to give the, prospective purchaser what he asked for. The result is cheaper production and better selling, and the motor industry in Great Britain is beginning to boom as it never boomed before. So it is with other British industries, and with the new era comes promise of a great pi'ospertiy for the land that has so bravely endured years of trade stagnation.