DOMINION NEWS

Grey River Argus, 24 November 1942, Page 6

DOMINION NEWS

AUCKLAND DROUGHT. AUCKLAND, November 23 A heavy downpour is needed to revive pastures, crops and gardens in Auckland. A thunderstorm passed over quickly yesterday, bringing little benefit. The rainfall for November so far is .39 ijich, compared with the month’s average of 3.25 inches. - COMMISSIONER CONTROL AT THAMES. WELLINGTON, November 23 In a review covering the latest results of ten years of commissioner control of Thames Borough and Matakaoa County, the Minister of Internal Affairs, Mr. Parry, stated that borough rates oustanding in Thames had been reduced from £32,216 at March, 1933, to £7,195 last March and harbour rates from £4,488 at October, 1936, to, £738. In Matakaoa, where two-thirds of the ratepayer's were Maoris, who had paid only 1 per cent, prior to commissioner control, the collections in recent years had always been above 54 per cent.; and this small county’s £10,600 overdraft had been liquidated. Both districts, stated the Minister, had not only been, saved from bankruptcy, but their finances had been retrieved.

STUDENT'S FATAL FALL. P.A. CHRISTCHURCH, Nov. 22. After being admitted to the Christchurch Public Hospital on Thursday with injuries received when he fell from a window at College House hostel, Graham Stuart, aged 20, a student at Canterbury University College, died on Saturday. PRISON ESCAPEE RECAPTURED. P.A. WELLINGTON, Nov. 21. By prising up the wire grille covering a window and scaling a wall eleven feet high with the aid of a clothes prop, an eighteen-year-old domestic escaped from the women’s Borstal at Point Halswell this week. The bid for liberty occurred between 9 p.m. and midnight, when her absence was noticed, but within a short time of this she was apprehended by guards at Shelly Bay and returned to the institution.

The escapee was Eileen Ellen EJfreda Craft, who had served less than a month of a term of two years’ detention. On pleading guilty before Mr Stout, S.M., in the Magistrate’s Court, Wellington, she was sentenced to twelve months’ hard labour.

Charged also with stealing two cycles at Christchurch, where the offences _ were committed for which she originally appeared before the Court, she was convicted and discharged.

SECRETARY'S THEFTS. P.A. WHANGAREI, November 21. Thefts totalling £579 from the Bay of Islands Hospital Board were admitted by Angus Campbell Macmurray, secretary, at Kawakawa. Fifteen charges were involved. The Board Chairman said irregularities regarding the banking of the medical superintendent’s salary leu to the discovery' of shortages, for which Macmurray admitted full responsibility. They included shortages in a special Christmas comforts fund and £5O belonging to a patient who died. Macmurrav’s salary was £350, with a free house. Macmurray said he served in the last war with a Highland regiment. He v/as .invalided home from Egypt in 1940. All the money had been spent on beer, drinking possibly being due to domestic trouble orjiervous condition. He had no means of making restitution. The police stated that Macmurray was very anxious to clear up tha matter. He was committed for sentence to the Supreme Court.

SHARE MARKET. P.A. AUCKLAND, Nov. 22. Sales, morning unofficial: National Tobacco, 31s 6d. Noon call: Colon’al Sugar £5l 15s; Consolidated ’Brick 8s 6d. : 4' BOYS FIND £l3O. P.A. AUCKLAND, Nov. 23. Two boys playing in a vacant section in Cook Street, Auckland, yesterday afternoon, found about £l3O stuffed into a hair oil bottle. The money, which was a miscellaneous collection of notes, had been' hidden beneath a toi toi bush and was in good order. The bovs, who were about 11 years, old, did not remove

the bottle but immediately went in search of a constable. The money, which is thought to be the proceeds of a robbery, was handed to the police.