LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 5 December 1925, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

The Maheno was again held up at Sydney yesterday, when about to sail for Wellington, owing to a shortage of crew, and .she was taken to an anchorage at Rose Bay. The crew returned later and the vessel sailed at 5.20 p.m. The Trinity College second theory examinations of the year were held today in the Winter Show Buildings. There was a fair number of candidates.

Ait the Supreme Court at Gisborne, before Mr. Justice Reed, Harry Cowper, on charges of stealing eighty gallons of benzine, or, alternatively, receiving the benzine knowing it to have been stolen, was found not guilty and acquitted.—Press Association.

The schools schedule of the South Taranaki Winter Show has been thoroughly revised and brought up-to-date. Several* alterations which will be an improvement have been made. It is now being printed and will shortly be circulated.

A verdict that death was due to heart failure by septicaemia and acute inflammation of the right shoulder and was accelerated by ether administered for the purpose of a necessary operation was returned at the inquest on William Douglas MePlhee, aged 15 years by the coroner yesterday, .says a Press Association message. The boy died in the Ghriistdliuroh hospital on November 27 while under an anaesthetic.

James Hay, .aged about 05, died suddenly at his residence in Needle Street, Kaitangata last night, says a Dunedin message. He worked all day in the mines, returning home about 3 p.m. At 7 o’clock he complained of pains in the chest a,ml went to lie. down, but ho collapsed and died suddenly. A doctor is prepared to give a certificate of the cause of death, and an inquest will probably not be necessary. A fatal motor accident occurred on the Putaruru-Arapuni road yesterday, when a motor-car driven by Roy Sampson, and containing thre e passengers, crashed down a hillside into the Pokaiwhenui River. As a result a workman at Arapuni known as “Nuggett’’ Webb lost his life through drowning. The body has not yet been recovered. The driver and the other passengers, A. E. Bain and William Petit, escaped with their lives.

Nelson College has retained the Riddiford Cup, awarded to the best seconclarv school cadet corps in New Zealand. Scots’ College (Wellington) was placed second, and the Seddon Memorial Technical College (Auckland) third. It is worthy of mention that the Nelson Sea Scouts hold the Jellicoe Trident, the Girl Guides the Jellicoe Shield, and the City Cadets the Campbell Statuetee, all in Dominion competition.

A record sale for Dominion pedigree stock was concluded in the Waikato when the herd of Sir Thomas Church, of Te Rapa, comprising pedigree Jersey cattle, was disposed of by private treaty for a sum running into many thousands of pounds. The buyer, Sir W. H. Sliers, of Rototuna, is the former owner of Pretty’s Flirt, with which he established a British Empire record of 10101 b butter-fat. Sir Sliers secured all the great females comprised in the herd from one year upwards. Mr Sliers also secured a heifer, Jersey Brae’s Constance, Derby winner at the recent Hamilton show.

Rates for the current year, which concludes on Slaroh 31 next, were struck by the Haver a Borough Council last evening, and become payable to-day. The general rate amounts to 1 27-100 J in the £1 on the unimproved value, the hospital rate amounts to 4 70-100 d in the £1 on the annual value, while special rates over the borough, excluding the Nolantown area, amount to 269-100 d in the £1 on the unimproved value. Special rates on the Nolantown area amount to 78-I'OOd on the unimproved value. The water rate is levied this year at the rate of 4 per cent on the annual value.

Victor Slater, a motorist who appeared at the Magistrate’s Court at Christchurch, was ordered, as part of his sentence on a charge of negligent driving, to pay £SO compensation to Dorothy Osborne, a young woman who was injured in an accident caused by Slater’s negligence. He was fined £2 for driving a ear without a license (says a Press Association message). This is the first time that this pena’ty has been enforced in Christchurch. The new penalty is provided for in the Motor Vehicles Act, and the magistrate said he would impose it in all similar eases. TI 0 advised motorists to get insured. Wellington has experienced an exceptional amount of windy weather lately, not a little of it being in the form of strong gales. The latest visitation, a northerly of intense force, has made matters extremely unpleasant locally since Thursday evening, when signs of the approach of a storm were to he seen in the dark, heavy clouds which appeared over the western rangees. When the gale was at *its height its force was such as to severely test the solidarity of buildings, sheds, , fences, etc., in exposed positions. All through the night the storm held sway, and even in the most solidly constructed houses its strength was made very apparent. The Lyttelton and Nelson ferry boats were, delayed for an hour, and coastal snipping generally was interfered with. In connection with the appointment of a bishop for the Aotearoa Maori Diocese, Aebbishop A. W. A.verill stated yesterday that the Bishops of Wellington, Wainpu and Dunedin, and hi insert I as Archbishop, had duly met the Maori Synod in conference. The members of the Maori Synod thought it. wiser to postpone the conference until such time as they had been able to place all the matters, especially those referred to by the bishops, before the Maori people. Therefore it was decided that the conference should reassemble at 'a later date, probably in April, at Hamilton, when the bishops of the Church will be again gathered together for tihe consecration of the Bishop of Waikato. It is understood that up the present time no names have been mentioned as nominations for the office of bishop of the new Maori diocese.

The preparation of the site of the new Waitomo Caves Hostel is nearing completion, and in five or six weeks the ground should be ready for the laying of the foundations (states the New Zealand Herald). The hill behind the present budding has been cut back and the spoil used to fill a, deep gully. When the work is finished about two acres of flat land will be avai’able. It is understood that the new building is to be of concrete, rough-cast, with a redtiled roof. About three times the present accommodation is to be provided. There wi'l be a large dining-room, a, sitting-room, smoking-room and a bi 1 - liard-room. The wiring of the Aranui and Ruakuri caves for the electric light to be supplied bv the Waitomo Power Board is practially complete, and a start lias been made on the Waitomo oi' glow-worm cave. Besides fights on the paths, stairs and passageways, important points of interest and the larger groups of stalactites are to be illuminated with .large flood lights. Extensive improvements have been made in the uatfis through the caves by means of| deekhoards and bridges.

At the Magistrate’!* Court at Hamilton yesterday, Charles Jackson, a tobacconist of Hamilton, was fined £75 for using his premises for the purposes of a common gaming house.—Press Association.

With three days of the third week still to go the attendance at the New Zealand and South Seas International Exhibition reached 260,463 la6t night (says a Dunedin message). The building of the Wellington court is completed except for the finishing touches, which cannot be added till the electricians and decorators are finished. The court should be ready for exhibition in a few days, but no date has yet been fixed for opening it. Sir James Parr is a strong believer in local government, and plenty of it. Speaking at the opening of a new wing of a school at Aramoho last week, lie said that the move local government the country had the betweek, lie said that the more local interest. New Zealand was ahead of other countries, such as Australia, owing to the. fine interest and sentiment shown in its institutions because of local government. An unusual accident occurred at the Now Zealand Co-operative Dairy Com. pany’s box factory at Frankton on Tuesday, when a “saw doctor” named Willi a u Tuck, aged 50, had his face very badly lacerated through an emery 'wheel bursting when travelling iifc high spooii. Tuck gol> tho full force of the flying splinters. After iirst aid had been rendered he was removed to the Waikato Hospital, where lie is making satisfactory progress. The control of sand drift at Lynll Bay has for some time given cause for much thought by the residents in the locality and the'Wellington City Council. A scheme calculated to remedy the position has been devised by the Lyall Bay Progressive Association, the members of which propose to place movable wooden or low barricades on the top of the sloping concrete wall of the promenade leaning outward at such an angle as to trail the sand whistled o.long 1 • the southerly. With the change of wind to the north, the position of the barricades or gates changed, that the wind can take the hanked, dry sand hack to the tide line. Work has been commenced upon the main drift area, a. big depression being at present filled in, preparatory to a final leveling and sealing with clay. New Zealand is spending about £3,000,000 a year on education, but the Minister ol' Education (Sir James Parr) has no apologies to offer on that account. He maintains that expenditure in providing education for the younger generation is the best possible investment a country can make. Speaking at Wanganui last week, Sir James said that over 300 years ago a wise man had stated that education had for its object the teaching of the young people to love industry, to think clearly, and' to pray. The interpretation of the statement, lie took it, was to teach the children to have proper reverence for the laws and authorities of the country. The first thing was to teach the children to love industry. In these days when industry was not much loved, and many people shirked hard work, it had to be remembered that no school could be successful unless the children were taught and encouraged to do the job for the _ job’s sake and to practise the old habits of thrift, initiative, and thoroughness. Replying to a deputation which waited upon him from the Christchurch Technical College Board of Governors, Sir James Parr (Minister for Education) said that those pupils who were not capable of passing the test to gain for themselves free secondary education would, in his opinion, not benefit from such a course were it open to them. One of the requests of the deputation was that the fees for instruction at the college should be reduced. “I think that any boy who can’t pass the proficiency examination in this country is a duffer,” said Sir James. _ “He piust be. My difficulty in acceding to your request is that the people for whom you ask concessions are not adults who, not having had the advantages of education in their youth, are now trying to better themselves, but they are young people who have had every opportunity and have failed. I have every sympathy with adults who have never had a chance,” added the Minister, “but with these young people it is different. They, as I have said, have had every opportunity, and have failed to pass the test. You are asking me to throw open the secondary schools to children who, in my opinion, would not benefit from the secondary course.” Sir James said that he would go into the matter carefully before coming to any decision.