LOCAL AND GENERAL

Evening Star, Issue 23863, 18 April 1941, Page 6

LOCAL AND GENERAL

Highcliff School is celebrating its seventieth, anniversary, and a fun programme has been drawn up for this wee K-end. .Proceedings open to-mgnt with a ball in the scnool nail, but tne mam function, at which tne speeches will be given, will tase place to-morrow afternoon. Mr James Wallace was to uavo presided, but illness intervened, and Mr \V. It. JUrugli will take his place. Mr J. 11. 1 airbairu will speah on behalf of the old pupils, aud Mr JL>. A. J. Kutlicrford, a former master as well as a former Director of Education in Samoa, will repiesenb the teachers. Opportunity and time for the renewing of old friendships will be given, aud the celebrations will conclude with a concert at night. A suggestion by Professor Alexander, of West Australia, that a chair of American history or American civilisation stiould be established,in Australia has been supported by the Vice-Chancellor of Melbourne University, Mr Medley. “ Australia is definitely 'backward in the study of her Pacific neighbours,” said Mr Medley. ”In Sydney there are facilities for Oriental study, but Melbourne has made no provision.” He added that there was much to ibe said in support of a plan to have a visiting American professor tour Australian universities instead of having a fixed post. Encouragement of American postgraduate students to study in Australia was an excellent scheme. If it was carried out it would have the effect of improving relations with Australia’s American neighbours. The recent performance of ‘ Hamlet ’ in Wellington is not the first occasion on which Shakespeare’s tragedy has been presented by amateurs in that city (says an exchange). More than 50 years ago a group of young people let off their protean steam by attempting the tragedy in the old Theatre Koyal (on the site of the present headquarters of the New Zealand Police Department). For some reason or other the audience considered the performance tedious. After audible comments, some of the habitues of the pit could stand it no longer, and, to end the show, advanced upon the stage, whereupon the actors fled. It is said that the Hamlet of that occasion sought shelter in the timber yard of Waddell, M’Leod, and Weir, next to the theatre. Now an octogenarian, that Hamlet is a resident of Auckland.

“ There’s just one thing that struck me—why should a visitor to this country get 41 gallons of petrol a month for his car when a Now Zealander using a car of the same size, 10 h.p., can only get eight?” said Mr A. C. M'Qombie, a Malayan rubber planter, who is in New Zealand on leave. “ That’s hot what I call winning the war. Of course, I suppose they say ■ it’s the foreign tourist’s money they want, but money’sall the same whether it’s New Zealand or Australian, and petrol has to be imported. I don’t like to abuse your hospitality, but that was one thing that struck me.” - Stones and rifle bullets are responsible for considerable expense on the part of the Hutt Valley Electric Power Board and discomfort on the part of residents in the board’s territory, according to evidence produced at a recent meeting of the board. Numbers of large insulators were placed on the table, all showing damage from rifle fire or stones. Mr E. F. Hollands, general manager, said that insulators of the type shown cost £4 erected, and that, as they had been made in France, similar ones were very hard to procure. Damage caused by one .22 calibre rifle shot would be sufficient to cause a stoppage of work for thousands of people until the fault could be located. Seventy-six years ago this week gas lighting was introduced in Auckland. The gas was turned on for the first time on a Saturday night, and crowds thronged Queen street to see the new street lamps and the lighting of business premises, regarding the event as marking a new era in the town s progress. Unfortunately the installation was not in full working order for the first display, which had been hurried on in response to the popular and the results were not quite up to expectations. The defects were soon remedied. Incandescent gas lighting came into use about the end of the century, and the first public electricity supply was inaugurated in 1908. A lone elephant with footmarks 19m in diameter gave one New Zealander a greater scare than the _ enemy m country roumL Nairobi. Writing of Ins experience. Lieutenant L. vx. “" wood, formerly of Now Plymouth, said that the elephant wandered to witmn 20ft of his bed, 11*1011 was in the middle of the shadiest hush he could find. Identifying his visitor as soon as he heard it breathe, he retreated barefoot. After that experience he had several nightmares. His cries alarmed his companion, who thought they came from one of the big baboons which the men had been used to seeing in the trees overhead. Constant vifdmnce is necessary against _ attacks from wild beasts in this region. “ Some nights I feel I should like to be inside a cage myself,” said the writer.