NEWS OF THE DAY

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 138, 12 June 1936, Page 8

NEWS OF THE DAY

Taxi Stand Telephones.

c The suggestion' was made by Councillor P. M. Butler at the meeting of 2 the Wellington City Council last night I that consideration should be given by the bylaws committee to the question of taking over the control of the street telephones used by taxi companies. ' Councillor M. F. Luckie said he thought ■ it was no part of the council's busi--1 ness to undertake the control of the 1 telephones. "If we once take control in that way," he added, "we shall become taxi proprietors ourselves before ■we know where we are;." Councillor t A. Parlane said he thought it was well j worth the council's consideration to take over the telephones and let them out to the taxi companies. The Mayor J (Mr. T. C. A. Hislop) said the commit- - tee would take the suggestion into . consideration. The matter was not t really before the council at the moment. 3 Milk Sales for the Fast Month. A report placed before the City Coun- [ cil last evening by Councillor L. McKenzie, as acting chairman of the milk ' committee, stated that milk sales for 3 May averaged 5818 gallons daily, which i was 574 gallons (or 10.95 per cent.) in excess of the sales for the corresponding month of last year. By the same ' comparison, cream sales showed an in--5 crease of 17.25 per cent. Sales of i milk to nearby farmers averaged 325 . gallons daily, whereas for the corresponding month of last year they were ' 207 gallons. Not Recommended. ' Two brief clauses in the report of : the tramways conynittee to the City ' Council last night end immediate hopes s for transport services. The Ohiro • Ratepayers' Association asked for the extension of the tramway service to [ Ohiro Bay and the second request was I for a bus service between Berhampore i and Mornington. The committee rei commended unfavourably in both cases. : Quay Lighting to Remain. A few weeks ago the Lambton Quay , Business Area Association made com- . plaint to the tramways and electricity ' committee of the' City Council about • the type of street lighting installed on • the quay, maintaining that shoppers obi jected so strongly to its greenish col- , our that business was driven elsewhere.' ' The committee has since discussed the matter, but has recommended against • a change. The committee also consid- . ered that the request made by the association lor a reduction in commercial | lighting and heating power charges 1 should not be met. Licences for Perch. Regulations governing perch fishing are gazetted. There are perch in many parts of the Wairarapa round the lake, and large bags have been taken. The perch licence is fixed at ss, only one rod to be used by the same person, and any other acclimatised fish such as trout which is taken by the holder of a perch licence must be immediately returned to the water. The season is fixed from June 1 to August 31 inclusive. A Directory Problem. The popularity of the words "New Zealand" in the titles of organisations and firms creates a little problem in connection with telephone directories. Careful thought is given to their arrangement, with the object of causing the minimum amount of difficulty in finding a subscriber's number. Every entry has to appear in strict alphabetical order, so that the prefatory words "New Zealand" occurring in a large group serve partly to obscure a large number of the entries. The Wellington directory, for instance, has 200 entries commencing "New Zealand," but the Post Office is unable to make any rearrangement of this long list for the purpose of achieving easier reference, as the great majority of the entries are the registered legal titles of companies or incorporated bodies. The telephone service is growing fast, and looking ahead, the time will come when too many "New Zealands" in the list will become embarrassing, particularly to subscribers in a hurry. From a reference point of view, the most suitable title for a firm is that which gives an indication of its business in the first word.

Date-stamps' Long Life.

Sample impressions of the datestamps used in post offices throughout New Zealand were recently obtained by headquarters so that those which are giving indistinct impressions can be replaced. One of the interesting points discovered was that some of these datestamps whose impressions are so familiar to everyone have been in regular service for twenty years and are still giving clear impressions. They are designed for long life, for the letters upon them stand out in high relief deeply engraved on steel. The changeable dates in the centre of the stamp are also of metal. The pantograph principle is used in the engraving machines, one arm of the pantograph following a stencilled plate on which has been cut the letter to be engraved, the cutting arm of the machine reproducing this outline exactly but on the much smaller scale seen on the date-stamps. The steel discs used are softened for engraving, and afterwards hardened so effectively that twenty years' efficient use is not regarded as remarkable.

Accumulated Air Mall.

By the time the Wanganella leaves Sydney for Auckland tomorrow, there will have accumulated at the former port no fewer than four air mails from Europe. Neither the Makura nor the Monowai when they arrived from Sydney this week brought any air mail, the connections having been just missed, and there have been no cargo boats in the meantime by whjph the mail could be sent. Much of the time saved by sending letters from England to New Zealand by air mail is lost again when delays like this occur. As long as the Tasman Sea part of the journey has to be accomplished by steamer, such delays are always liable to occur when steamer connections are missed, History Must be Vital.

"Generally speaking, the treatment if history still awaits a wider concepion," remarks the annual report of he inspectors of the Wellington ichools. "The time-worn procession if kings and battles is but tardily yieldng to the more vital and more interring pageant of man's social and educational progress down the centuries. In classes where the teaching is limited :o the text book—and these appear to be all too numerous—it is not surprising to find that the subject has been robbed of its natural appeal to children. Where, on the other hand, vital oral teaching, supplemented by such visual aids as time charts, pictures, etc., has awakened a purposeful interest and a desire to read, the subject takes its right place in the forefront of liberal human studies."