NEWS IN BRIEF

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23023, 13 August 1949, Page 6

NEWS IN BRIEF

TAURANGA MAN MISSING.—A resident of Papamoa, Tauranga, Mr. Walter Henry Garrett, aged 78, has been missing from his home since August 6. The police are conducting a search.

THE KIWI AND THE EGG.—An egg has been laid by a 12-year-old Kiwi at the Hawke’s Bay Acclimatisation Society’s game farm at Greenmeadows- The long task of incubation has now been begun by a 22-year-old cock bird which will have to sit on the egg for 76 to 80 days.

DEPTH CHARGES CLEAR CORAL.— Three depth charges from the New Zealand frigate Hawea freed a main shipping channel from the danger of insidiously growing coral five miles from Apia, Western Samoa. This was one of many tasks performed by the ship in a 10,000-mile cruise of the Cook, Society and Tokelau Islands in the South Pacific. A patch of coral 200 yards square was threatening ships in the coastwise channel between Pagopago and Apia. Two depth charges fitted for delayed firing were placed carefully by a whaler’s crew from the frigate and after these had been exploded a charge was dropped by the ship herself in a high-speed run across the growing reef.

“A CITY WITHOUT A HEART.” “Canberra is a beautiful city—a city without a heart,” according to Mr. G. Helson, who lived there for several years as Commonwealth scientific and industrial research organiser. Mr. Helson arrived at Auckland by air yesterday to become Dominion horticulturist to the Department of Agriculture. Canberra, he said, always gave the impression of being beautiful but artificial. The city was an example of extreme socialisation. There was no local government. Every public utility was Govern-ment-owned and a man could not even buy land for himself.