MOBILISED A STREET

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 23, 27 July 1934, Page 3

MOBILISED A STREET

A French naval officer has had a jnique experience which has given him a great regard for the Chinese tailor. Being in need of a tropical outiit he called at a tailor's shop in the native quarter of Shanghai. "I want six silk suits, twelve, shirts, and six pairs of canvas shoes," ho said "I want them by 10 o'clock tonight, as our boat leaves at midnight. You have exactly twelve hours in which to do it." He dared not go to a European firm with such a request, but the Chinese looked at him and said: "You shall have them." The measurements were taken and the work started. The shop was a very small room, and the Frenchman wondered how it could be done. He returned at the appointed time and found his packages all ready. The Chinese tailor had mobilised the whole street fo- the work and thus fulfilled his contract. When the bill was presented the Frenchman was surprised at its reasonableness and offered to pay more for the extra labour involved in doing the work so quickly. "We made no arrangements about payment, and therefore I must charge what is the usual price," replied the tailor.

"The only hope the South Island has of being included in the tours of overseas liners engaged in pleasure cruises rests in the lighting and buoying of Milfora Sound," said Mr. W. B. Steel, secretary of tho Otago. Expansion League, in conversation with a "Daily Times" reporter. Mr. Steel said that vessels engaged on extensive cruises, including in their itineraries Auckland and Wellington, %'oula" be unduly delayed by calling at East Coast South Island ports. At present, by spending three days in calling at the two i\ Torth Island "ports, they were able to allow passengers to rush through the North Island by rail, but there was no chance of their including the South Island unless by touching at Milford, which would not delay them so much as would an East Coast visit. Until Milford was properly lighted and , buoyed, however, if presented difficult navigation to a stranger, and would entail taking on a local pilot, which the shipping companies were not prepared to do. / Escaping from its cage at Mansfield, a ferret killed 497 chickens before it was recaptured. Youths sent to prison in Britain in 1932 numbered 2563, as compared with 1883 in 1931.