Local and General

Hawera Star, Volume LIV, 17 June 1935, Page 4

Local and General

The Kaponga Dairy Company lias disposed of creamery butter, make for May, June and July, at IOJd on a finest grade basis.

Assistance was given to 37 families in the Normanby, Okaiawa and Hawera districts on Saturday by the distribution of rations to relief workers. The following commodities were parcelled up and issued: Tea 191 b, sugar 1601 b, flour 2341 b, oatmeal 611 b, rice 431 b, barley 81b, butter 35-lb, bread 81 loaves.

“Seven times round the world,” said the blind man, busily at work making those nets used as racks in railway carriages and buses. “Seven times round tho world,” be repeated with a busy smile, as fingers plied more nimbly and more .quickly than was possible for one with his sight. “What, a sailor, then?” the sole member of his audience asked, because they have strange persons in the New Zaland Institute for the Blind. “Sailor?” he smiled again- “Sailor, nothing. lam referring to the length of net I have made since I started.” The experience ot a Scottish visitor to New Zealand suggests that the attractions of Stewart Island: need better advertising in the north. Miss Todd, of Dumfries, Scotland, has been spending a year in the Auckland district teaching, and before returning to Scotland expressed: a desire to see the south, inchiding Stewart Island. She was advised against tho project and urged not to go to “that dreadful place, Stewart Island.” By a curious circumstance, Mr and Mrs Fenton, of Dundee, who have lately been touring in parts of Africa, travelled to the island on the same day as Miss Todd. They also lia-d been advised in the north "not to go to Stewart Island.'

The unusual spectacle of two lunar rainbows being visible at the same time was Witnessed by a resident of Kerikeri, Bay of Islands, about 11.30 on Tuesday night. The rainbow, which was of considerable brilliance, was followed later by a single bow. A lunar rainbow is formed in the same way as a solar one, by the moisture in the atmosphere reflecting the light of sun or moon. As the lunar bows are generally faint, it is not often that the typical colours of the solar type can be detected in them.

“I have heard that these materials are highly inflammable,’ 5 said Dr P. R. Woodhouse at a meeting of the committee cf the South Canterbury Agricultural and Pastoral Association when samples of a German synthetic wool fabric were exhibited to members. On being given permission to learn from a practical test if his information was correct, Dr Woodhouse, ignoring warnings from members lest the material burst into a fierce flame, applied a match. Contrary to Expectations, the fabric burned slowly, showing that its reputation for inflammability was not justified. “As a woolgrower, I am greatly disappointed,” said Dr Woodhouse amid laughter. Golf is said to he the only game in which the player has only himself to blame for bad scores. This might apply to metropolitan courses, but on country links there are certainly outside factors which add to the difficulties of players, and of which they have no control. On the IP litany u golf links last week a player ran a ball on to the last green and was nonplussed when he saw a pig seize it and dash away. The golfer set out in hot pursuit, and hurled a. club at the animal, which dropped the ball after travelling some distance away from tho hole. Recently another player had a hall chewed up by a cow, and last season another had the run of his drive stopped by a hare. Many members of the All-India men’s hockey tonring party will remember Gore, .for Tuesday evening was the first time in the lives of more than half the party that they had actually seen snow. One or two of the visitors had seen snow in the mountainous country of India, hint most of them were from tho plains. On enquiry being made as to how they liked the show, one member of the party remarked: “We will like it a lot more when wo can got out and have a snowball fight.” With heavy snow covering tho town and countryside, many members of the Indian party were among the early movers in the morning, and cameras were clicking in picturesque and unusual roundingsThe South Taranaki Herd-Testing Association with an average production of 25.801 b of fat for each of the 5884 cows attached to its seven groups heads the list for April for associations comprising more than one group affiliated to the Dominion Group HerdTesting Federation. South Taranaki possessed the group comprising over 1000 cows with the highest average, Kaponga-Mangatoki-’Uatapu with 1101 cows averaging 28.201 b fat. Taranaki Association tested the highest producing herd, a herd of 20 cows in the Waitoitoi-Pukearuhe group averaging 46.81 b fat, while South Taranaki was runner-up, a herd of 11 cows in the Meremere - Turuturu - Ohanga group averaging 43.b31b fat. Taranaki Association also tested the highest individual producer, a cow in the Wai-toitoi-Pukearuhe group producing 841 b fat.

“Touch” typewriting is one of the accomplishments of the modern tele-graph-operator, who lias toi bo able to Vise a- typewriter keyboard without looking at it. Jn telegraphic communication, as in so many other things in modern life ) this is the machine age, and very few telegraph messages today are transmitted by hand through the medium of Morse signals. New Zealand telegraph operators are trained to operate a typewriter keyboard without looking at it, the keyboard being screened from their eyes while they type words which are reproduced not in the ordinary way, hut appear on a tapo in the form of perforations. This perforated tape when put into a telegraph transmitter sends impulses along the wires which reproduce at the other end the familiar Arabic characters. It involves 250 to 300 hours of supervised practice to attain the degree of proficiency required before an operator is entrusted with commercial telegraphic work.