Oddments

Greymouth Evening Star, 24 October 1947, Page 6

Oddments

Britain’s food position is having some interesting results. A councillor in Kent declares that rooks are selling for 6s 3d each and starlings for 2s 6d. He added that he knew a man who sold more than 2000 rooks in two hours. Police patrols are reported guarding nearly-tame moorhens on the Royal military canal at Hythe in Kent. There have been several early morning raids. « s’: :S SS ♦

Some laughter was caused at a meeting of the Greymouth Borough Council in its improvised chambers, in the Gas Department’s building in Tainui street last evening when one councillor’s speech was interrupted by a rat trap “going off.” The trap had been set, cheese and all, close to the chair of the councillor concerned, and the temptation to set it off proved too much for one of those present.

The boycott is apparently making the West Coast “beer conscious.” There was an immediate reaction at yesterday’s meeting of the Inangahua County Council when the inspector’s report disclosed that the Reefton brewery had used much less water than usual during the month. One councillor even remarked jokingly that the council would have to join forces with someone and try to get the boycott lifted (the council sells the water to the brewery). It was later explained, however, that the councillors were wrong in their inference that the boycott had affectr ed the position, as it had not«even started in the period referred to by the inspector’s report. *s* * *

A notice outside the Auckland law courts states that smoking inside the buildings is strictly, forbidden. Inside a notice requests smokers not to throw their butts on the floor. Something in the nature of a switch round’ might improve matters generally. The following notice used to be seen in gold letters in the buses of a Yorkshire seaside resort: “Spitting prohibited. Please ask conductor to adjust window.” A passenger told the conductor one day that he would like to spit; would the conductor kindly adjust the window? The conductor saw the point, and soon afterwards whether by coincidence or not—the notice, in. that form, disappeared. It was a joke, too, that spread like wildfire round. Manchester’s most famous school, when some years ago a notice forbidding spitting appeared on the upper deck doors of the tramcars. For it had been placed immediately above a standing advertisement which urged everyone to “Use the Ship Canal.”

—The Seeker