LOCAL AND GENERAL

Evening Star, Issue 18136, 28 November 1922, Page 2

LOCAL AND GENERAL

A Wellington message slates that, the Public Health Department has received authority for tiio erection of a maternity hospital and additions to the .nurses’ quarters of tho Stratford Hospital at a cost of £5,950. Additions to tho mew nurses’ homo at tho Auckland Hospital at an estimated cost of £52,000 have boon authorised also. There, ore in Auckland over 200 nurses, and extra accommodation is said to ho much needed.

Tho Public Works Department has been authorised to accept the following tenders:—Rotorua •water supply and piping, A. D. Riley and Co., £3,524 11s; Katcro r<j&d formation, C. H. Speck, £921; Opouri River bridge, F. Neal, £557.

“With a ballot embedded in her left thigh, Winifred Orane, of Moor street, Fitzroy, Melbourne, limped into tho St. Vincent’s Hospital on November- 7 and told a strange story. 'She said that she was walking along Nicholson street, Fitzroy, on her way home, and as she was passing tho Exhibition Gardens a man sprang out of tho shadow and fired eight shots 'from a revolver or automatic pistol. On© bullet entered her left thigh, and another went through her dress. The remaining bullets flow wide. Sho managed to limp to her homo in 'Moor street, where she remained until 11 o’clock next morning. Sho then went to tho surgery of Dr Meagher, who sent her to tho hospital. After having extracted a bullet of small calibre from tho woman’s thigh, the hospital authorities communicated with the Fitzroy police. Plain-clothes constables hastened to tho hospital, but when they arrived tho woman had left the institution. The hospital officials .desired to admit her, but sho refused to stay. Tho constables then went to Moor street and interviewed a man who said that Crane had told him that a man had fired at her while sho was walking along Russell street. Tho police have so far been unable to trace Orane.

' Tho healing of llio Kim's rays on mirrors at tho back of a small show case outside Miller’s fur shop at tiho corner of Bourko and Swanston streets, Melbourne, caused tho celluloid handles of several women’s handbags displayed in tho case to become ■ignited recently • (says tho ‘Argus’). Before flames were seen the shop was filled with smoke from the show case, and, fearing that a serious fire had broken out, an assistant in tho shop rang tho fire alarm. Tho whole fire-fighting equipment was sent from headquarters, and detachments were despatched from out-stations. Soon after tho arrival of the brigade tho show case was opened and the flames went out. With tho exception of slight damage to the show case and the loss of several handbags, no damage was done. Had tho flames spread to tho display window next to the show case, containing feathers and furs valued at hundreds of pound.?, the fire would probably have been serious. A case was heard at tho Supreme Court, Wellington, yesterday in the guise of a petition of right by M. C. Symons, of Waipukurau, for a refund of ad valorem duty paid. The real question at issue is whether the statute can divest a taxpayer of existing rights to a refund of duty, and it was stated that tho decision would affect £600,000 of revenue already received for agreements for the sale of land cancelled by agreement when tho boom burst. The original law gave the right to a refund, if an agreement to purchase was not carried out and a refund was applied for within twelve months of the making of tho agreement or six months after its cancellation. Tho Finance Aot of 1920 repealed the : earlier legislation and allowed six months’ margin only. In the case before the court the application was in time if the earlier legislation applied, 'hut was too late if the Finance Act applied. For the supplicant it was contended that a right had accrued which could not be taken away by subsequent legislation, and the Finance Act could not operate retrospectively. For the Crown it was argued that supplicant merely had a privilege which he did not take advantage of before the Act was repealed. Decision was reserved.

Remarkable statements bearing on tho habits and moral tendencies of children of school age appear (says the Melbourne ‘Argus’) in.a report which has been prepared by a special committee of tho Presbyterian Assembly, and which is published in tho current issue of tho ‘Presbyterian.’ From the report it appears that tho committee has definitely concluded that the criminal class obtains its recruits direct from the ranks of the children attending our schools. “There can bo no doubt,” the report states, “that among children attending school criminal acts or acts indicating criminal tendencies and dispositions are of far more frequent occurrence

than is generally realised. Theft, ■untruthfulness, truancy, coarseness, and even immoral conduct are offences which nfo surprisingly common. . . It is no exaggeration to say that a, definite percentage of our school child ran, under our present system, will inevitably enter upon a career of crime or immorality, whilo_ others will 1 join the ranks .of loaf ere and incapablcs.” A system, of controlling and correcting wrong tendencies in children until they are of a "mature age, and oven longer when necessary, is advocated) by the committee. Tho Stale should receive ,tho .active support of the Church in, a movement of this sort, it, is added, and no time should be lost in tho inauguration of a system and', in the establishment of - a special institution on the lines of ono , already in existence in America.

“The present deep-seated conflicts in society probably mean that wo have lost sight of tho real end of life,’’ remarked Professor T. -A Hunter in a lecture to Territorials at the Community Club, Wellington. “The present age is inclined to estimate life in terms of' material wealth. It is the ago of statistics; it is the -day of counters. May not -the ancients and the medievalists have had a sounder conception of life when they stressed the development of personality'/ If society paused and considered whether progress might not bo up the hill of development of personalities rather than _ down tho slope of acquisition of material goods, would it not 'be wiser? Raskin, as you know, did not at all approve of tho tremendous Increase of the power of themachine in human life. To him it meant the destruction ef craftsmanship, art, and personality, and there is a measure of truth in this point of view. Everywhere 10-day wo see evidence of tho soul-deaden-ing influence of monotonous labor associated with machinery. Shall vye give up machines, then? Can wo imagine modern society without them? Surely not, and it is quite unnecessary. Can wo not use machinery and not bo used by it? As a writer has \ # evy well expressed it: ‘Men may use what mechanical instruments they please and bo none tho worse for their use. What 'kills their souls is when they allow their instruments to use them.'” Tho rough trip of the small steamer Minerva, a boat of twenty tons not register, from Auckland to her now homo on tho Kaipara, is causing a good deal of talk for tho way the gallant little ship rode out tho storm and finally crossed the Mamikau bar to sail up the haibor to Onchunga after failing, through stress of weather (and tho signal being against her), to crSss tho Kaipara, -bar. Probably no small -craft which crossed tho Manu-k-au bar had such a rough time as the ten-ton sailer which took tho Marquis of Salisbury down the ooafit to New Plymouth in August, 1852 (slates the Auckland ‘ Stiar The Marquis, who afterwards became Prime Minister of Groat Britain, never had a more dose call than on that -adventurous voyage. Ho was wet through during the long journey, and when he sat down on a log after landing at his destination he littered a prayer of thankfulness that hia life had been spared. Wo arc told, too, by the early historians of New Zealand of his long tramp down the coast, along the sea beaches, and finally of his arrival in Wellington. There is no actual proof of it, but it is .generally supposed that if tho trip in the small craft down tho coast had not been such a -rough -one, it was tho intention of the visitor to have sailed 1 right down to Wellington, but ho had had enough of small craft, and be preferred tho discomforts of the long tramp of probably 250 miles over difficult country to the trip by sea under suoh unfavorable circumstances.

A settler in the Eahotu district met -with an alarming experience recently (states an exchange). Ho had been sitting down with his family, and left his chair to get something from the next room. On his return he was in the act of removing his chair preparatory to rcoccupying it when there was a Teal of thunder, a flaflh of lightning, and a splash on tho floor where tho chair had been as if molten lead had dropped. The electric discharge—for that was what it was—just missed him. Had he not moved a minute or two before he must have received tho full shock, with fatal results. It was a very close call. A peculiar coincidence is that about thirtyfive years ago the same settler was standing alongside his horse near where the Opunako saleyards are now situated when there was an electric discharge alongside him. The horse was killed outright, and he escaped with, a slight shock. Evidently the settler was not horn to ho killed by lightning 1