NEWS OF THE DAY

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 68, 17 September 1936, Page 8

NEWS OF THE DAY

Teachers' Work and Scheme Books. Advice has been received by the Wellington Education Board from the Education Department that it has been decided to issue- teachers' work books and scheme books free to public school teachers. At the meeting of the board yesterday afternoon Mr. J. J. Clark said that all teachers would be pleased at this decision. It was something over which they had had a long-standing grievance. Sewing Instruction. The Wellington Education Board had before it yesterday afternoon a.memorandum from the Education Department intimating that capitation payments under clause 2 of the regulations relating to manual and technical instruction have now been restored. The board' is now at liberty to employ sewing teachers in sole-teacher schools in- which there is not a female teacher. Electricity Charges to Schools. A request that the City Council should,agree to a lower rate for the supply of electricity to schools was made to the tramways and electricity committee on Tuesday afternoon by a deputation representing the school committees of Wellington. The deputation stated that school committees considered that the commercial rate, which was at present imposed, was too high in view of the purposes served. The Mayor (Mr. T. C. A. Hislop), as chairman of the committee, said that the proposal would be given full consideration and would later be referred by the committee to the full council. Children from Ngahauranra. A letter was before the Wellington Education Board yesterday afternoon from the Education Department intimating that owing to the unusual circumstances existing, the children living at Ngahauranga and attending the Kaiwarra School will in future be permitted to travel on free school season tickets from Ngahauranga to Kaiwarra. "This is a matter we have been agi-, tating for for years and at last it has been conceded. I think it is a cause for congratulation," said the chairman, Mr. W. V. Dyer. The board intends congratulating the Minister (the Hon. P. Fraser) on this decision when it forwards a letter of congratulation to him in respect of other improvements that have been notified. An Expensive Letter. Unstamped postal matter, especially from foreign countries, is liable to be fairly expensive to the man to whom it is sent, as one Blenheim business man has discovered to his cost. The letter in question was one from an ex-resident of the town, Mr. D. S. Weir, who is now on his way to take over a position in the Falkland Islands. On his way Home Mr. Weir thoughtfully posted a letter at Vigo, a port in Spain, on which he placed a shilling stamp and sent it by air mail. Actually the charge for airmail carriage turned out to be Is 3d per half-ounce, and as the letter weighed two and a half ounces its cost should have been 6s 3d. A shilling taken from that amount leaves 5s 3d, and doubled, the penalty for short postage, it comes to 10s 6d, which was the amount the recipient had to pay when he took delivery. He is now gaining some solace for the infliction through planning a scheme for having his revenge. Memorial Wall? The suggestion that something in the nature of a memorial wall might be erected on Mount Victoria at the Centennial celebrations, to preserve the memory of outstanding men in Wellington's history, was made, by the Town Clerk (Mr. E. P. Norman) when addressing a gathering of members of the Local Bodies' Officers' Guild last evening. He said that busts or similar simple means could be used, without undue elaboration. Mr. Norman's remarks were made as a preface to a lecture on glimpses of the life of the Duke of Wellington. It was a great honour, he declared, that the city should be named after one of the most wonderful men the world had seen, and steps should be taken to' acquire books and other data on that great personality for the new public library. Mr. Norman reminded his audience that the changing of the name of the city from Britannia to Wellington was the fulfilment of a promise made to the Duke by Edward Gibbon Wakefield, as a mark of gratitude for assistance in sponsoring a colonisation scheme for South Australia. Through circumstances over which he had no control Wakeiield was unable to name the capital of that State Wellington, Adelaide, the name of the Queen, being chosen instead; but when he became a director of the New Zealand Company he made amends. Mr. Norman chose the Duke of Wellington as his subject because of the increasing interest in the Centennial.

The Handshake. The custom of handshaking was a surprising thing to find among the natives of the newly-explored central area of New Guinea, said Dr. R. A. Fortune, distinguished New Zealand anthropologist, when speaking to W.E.A. members last night. They had not got it from the Europeans, but probably from the same source that we did, he said. When friends mot Ihey would transfer their weapons to the left hand and clasp with the right. So treacherous were ttiese savages that occasionally one would hang on and his companions would then spear his erstwhile friend. Even brothers-in-law would so behave. Central New Guinea. Although their country consisted of grass plains much the same as in Kenya and the climate was colder than that of New Zealand, the newly-dis-J covered people of central New Guinea were unlikely to be exploited, said Dr. R. A. Fortune at a W.E.A. discussion last night. The isolated nature of the land would prevent that. Roads were impossible. A Mussolini might get them constructed, but the territory was under the control of Australia and there was still plenty of room in the Northern Territory for settlement. So far aeroplanes were the only means of contact. Gold freight was about the only type that paid for itself and the few prospectors who had been through the area had found few traces of the mineral. The missionaries, of course, would be sure to get through. Having great influence in Australia, they could not be stopped. However, he doubted whether all the diseases —mumps, measles, and tuberculosis— that the white man might introduce could do more harm to the natives than they did to themselves. Only 50 per cent, of the men, women, and children died in their beds. He was sure of this from genealogies he had studied among them.- He had also seen many^ corpses with eight or more arrows stuck in, them. Having had little experience of rifles and the whites, the 200,000 inhabitants of the region had boundless confidence in themselves and had murdered several missionaries and prospectors.