LOCAL AND GENERAL

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 85, 8 October 1923, Page 6

LOCAL AND GENERAL

A feature of the largely-attended Health. Week gathering in the Town Hall on Saturday evening—a gathering concluding the formal programme of Health Week—was the treatment of hygiene and child-nourishnjent from two different angles, by Mr. Peter Fraser, M.P., and by Dr. Ada Paterson, Director of the School Hygiene Division of the Health Department. Their speeches are worth reading as contributory to different, aspects of the same truth, and the Rev. Feilden Taylor's "home-truths" about parental control complete the trilogy. The president of the Health Week Executive, Mr. H. D. Bennett, reviwed the campaign. Portions of the proceedings are reported on pages 4 and 10.

Afc a meeting of the Dominion executive of the Boy Scouts Association, Brigadier-General A. W. Andrew stated that he had received a letter from England asking the association to place Boy Scouts who. wished to emigrate on the land. However, the matter was outside the association's limits, and it had been referred to the Government Immigration Department, but no reply had yet been received (reports the "Lyttelton Times"). Mr. H. H. Smith remarked that not one of the lads would be suitable for the land; they were clerks, machine workers, etc.

'/See that woman take her kid of nine years into a shop' and give it a bag of abominations. No wonder its teeth go. The excessive sale of lollies is due to a lack of public opinion."—Rev. Feilden Taylor at the Town Hall. Mr. Taylor added that owing to the fall in the purchasing power of money (only he didn't use these doctrinated words), a penny nowadays would buy a child nothing save a penn'orth of abominations; so the abominations were bought, with sad results. The Health Week audience smiled. "Yes, but go home and think about it," persisted the speaker.

Extensions to the., Auckland City water supply system by the construction of an impounding dam in the Huia Valley were considered by the Auckland City Council last wiok, and this proposal, involving the construction >of a reservoir to hold 500,000,000 gallons, together with_ an additional pipe line from Titirangi to Khyber Pass, was approved. The proposed pipe line becomes necessary, as the existing line has. a capacity of approximately nine million gallons per day, and the present demand of the city is nearly seven million gallons, so that the steady growth of the city demands this further provision for future heeds.

As was announced some time ago, the Motor Vehicles Bill is being redrafted. The Government is considering with,the parties interested the' following proposals:—Licenses: Motor-cars, £2 per car, including 1-ton tracks with pneumatic tires; lorries with pneumatic tires, £■$; lorvies with solid tires, £5. It is proposed to limit the weight to 6001b for each inch width of tire, and the maximum load to 25,00f11b, or about 10 tons. It is understood that the allocation of moneys between the different islands will be fixed according to the number, of vehicles in each. It is assumed that the number of vehicles in the North Island is 27,000, and in the South 18.000. Bylaws aro now being prepared by the Main Highways Board for the guidance of District Highways .Councils.

Dr. Truby King has others enthusiasms than that which has made him possibly the greatest New Zealander. At the Town Hall on Saturday evening he spoke on the healthful pleasures of gardening, and was about to illustrate with some kntern slides when an important part of the apparatus disappeared. After a peTsonal reconnaissance in the gallery, Dr. Truby King returned to the stage and informed the audience that though, in the course of thirty years of mental hospital management, he had met many difficult situations, he found himself unable to show lantern pictures without a lantern. (Sympathetic applause.) Mr. Peter Fraser (chairman) suggested that if there could be any possible compensation for the loss of the lecture, it was the manner of the explanation. The lecture will be given at a later date.

Levelling up of holidays in the Government service is one of the matters to ■which the Uniformity Committee is at present devoting attention. At present some of the Departments are on a somewhat different footing to others in respect to holidays, and the Uniformity Committee is deciding how best to bring them all into ■ line. Recently the Railway Officers' Institute sought to have payment for labour Day and the Sovereign's birthday to be made at the same rates as for Good Friday and Christmas Day. The General Manager (Mr. R. W. M'Villy) replied that thlre was a difficulty, and the matter could not rest altogether with the Railway service. "We have got a Uniformity Committee," said Mr.-sM'Villy, ."and everything has to be uniform in the Government ser'ice. This question is engaging the attention of the members of the committee at the present time." Somnambulists have varied experiences, and the experience, a few days ago, of a Timaru sleep-walker, a'lad of fifteen summers, was an unenviable one, remarks tho "Timaru Herald." He was sound asleep about midnight, when it apparently came into his mind that he was a competitor iv a natatorial contest, for lie suddenly stood on his bed and "dived" clean through the window of his bedroom, which ripens on to a verandah. Then, still unconscious, he jumped back into his room again through tho broken window and returned to bed. His brother, who was sleeping in the same room, awoke just as th# somnambulist was jumping through the window, and the latter knew nothing of what h e had done until he was aroused and told about it. It did not take much to convince him that his brother was not telling him a fairy story when he saw b'ood on the shattered window glass and felt the pain in his legs, which were severely cut.

Ihero are five cases of diabetes receiving insulin treatment at the Christchurch Hospital, and an ample supply of insulin is available. In reply to inquiries made at the Hospital on Friday morning by a "Lyttelton Times" reporter, doctors of the, Pathological Department stated that they had no fixed conclusion yet as to the treatment; and observations would hive to be made for some months to come. Persons who were not severe diabetics certainly did respond quickly, but with grave "cases the stubbornness of the disease prevented any magical improvement. The process of treatment in such instances was a prolonged one, at considerable expense to the Hospital, before results could be expected. This type did not respond easily to dieting or to insulin.' "It is a distinctly helpful adjunct to the present treatment," said one doctor in commenting on'the use of insulin, "but it does not constitute the whole measure of treatment. I believe that, it would bo effective in preventing a person from dying."-

The Postal authorities have received advice from Sydney that the Manuka left at 4 p.m. on the sth instant for Wellington. She carries 773 bags cf mails for the Dominion, including 134 bags from Australia, 580 from beyond, and o9 parcel receptacles.: The mail from beyond includes eight bags from the East. ■ °^

''So many new ideas are to the fore, mid so many appeals are being made, that 1 tear the kindergartens are being forgotten," said Dr. Ada Paterson in the Town Hall on Saturday evening (Health Week demonstration). "The Wellington kindergartens," added Dr. Paterson, "are still there, are doing splendid work, and are needing help as badly as ever."

Resident Chinese are going to observe high holiday on Wednesday, when they celebrate the 12th anniversary of the Bepublic of China. It will not be a time solely of feasting, for a sports meeting is to be held at Karori Park, and the Chinese Consul, Mr. Li KwangLeng, will be present to give an official air to the proceedings. The young Chinese are very keen on athletics. . On Friday afternoon, between 5 and 6 o clock, Mrs. J. D. Anderson, a' farmers wife residing at Hawkins, while preparing tea for the family, was standing outside the door with an earthenware dish in her hand when the. dish was struck by lightning -and' smashed to pieces. Mrs. Anderson was thrown •three or four yards away and rendered unconscious by the shock, states the Lyttelton Times." Her children pulled her inside, where she recovered. As a result of the accident Mrs. Anderson has one arm discoloured and swollen, as also are both legs from the knees down. On a recent occasion the Manawatu?i r?iS P?^ r B, oard cm Ployees left bix 11,000-volt insulators at the foot of a pole, and when they returned with » ladder to put them up discovered that they had been taken away. A few days later a child approached one of the men and asked "if they had any more of those brown cups as mother wanted some more because they made such nice flower pots! ' Considering that the so- » j c flower pots" cost the Power Board 6s 7d each, the board officials are naturally seeking {he return of the insulators.

were extended by the Minister of Education (the Hon. C J Parr) on Saturday afternoon, to the residents of Eoseneath, whom, he stated, had a very energetic school committee, the members of which were not afraid to take, off their coats to help the school. They had already raised £152 for school improvement, and, _in addition to this, had received a Government subsidy The Mimsteiv mentioned that three and' a half million pounds had ,been spent upon education during the past year, and 972 schools had made application for subsidies upon sums that had been raised. He thought that this spoke very well for the interest that was being taken in school matters.

"Most parents love their children but most parents love them the wrong way. Ihe idea of a mother taking to her boy s bed a cup of tea,, when he should be taking the cup of tea to her bed." Thus the Rev. Feilden Taylor on the habit of late rising, particularly the late u Sm&.°L boP and S'ris.- He told hi» Health Week audience on Saturday evening that this sort of bringing-up produced a weak race, and that men worked much less hard in New Zealand than they did in England thirty or forty years ago. Lying in-bed was a rotten habit, and excessive, attendance at indoor amusements was another He' had seen a boy too blase to look at a picture show for more than a quarter of an hour. That boy Jjad had too much amusement. A picture show twica a year was enough .for a boy. Then ho would appreciate it-.