Local and General

Hawera Star, Volume LIV, 7 November 1935, Page 4

Local and General

The Automobile Association (South Taranaki) has been advised that, although water still covers the LevinFoxton road in places, cars are able to get through.

A man, whose name was ordered to be suppressed, appeared before Mr E. Dixon, J.P., in the Hawera -Police Court this morning on a charge of incest. He was remanded in custody until Friday, no application being made for bail.

When question time came at Mr H. G. Dickie’s address to the electors at Kakaramea last night, one person, after asking most of the questions, said in reply to the chairman’s query regarding further questions that he hacl hundreds to ask. but he could not think of them. “I think you have had a fair go,” remarked the chairman (Mr R. J. Watt).

Drawing attention to the fact that some car radiator caps were fitted with sharp projections of a dangerous nature likely to increase the risk of injury, to pedestrians in the event of a collision, the Transport Department, in a letter received by the executive of the North Island Motor Union, at its half-yearly meeting in Palmerston North, asked that the use of this type of mascot be discouraged. The union resolved to make inquiries with a view to supporting the suggestion.

Traders who face the competition of cut prices are not, as may be imagined, contending with a new develof)ment in business methods. As long ago as 1726 the following paragraph appeared in a London publication: “A custom has prevailed among grocers to sell sugar at prime cost, and are out of pocket by the sale, paper, pack thread, and their labour in breaking and weighing it out. The expense in some shops in London for the paper and pack thread for sugars amounts to £6O or £7O per annum, but this they save upon other articles.”

A recital of unusual interest will be given in St. Mary’s Church, Hawera, this evening, when the choir will sing nine choruses from Handel’s “Messiah,” including the famous “Hallelujah” chorus. Most of the glorious recitatives and arias for the four voices will be sung, the soloists being Mrs J. A. Duffill, Misses P. Ekdahl and Merle Adamson (soprano), Mrs Buller (Wanganui) and Miss Doris Gilmore (contralto), Mr Alex. Galloway (tenor) and Mr Harold Ackroyd (bass). There will be a collection on behalf of the choir funds and the recital will commence at 8 o’clock.

As evidence of the interest of New Zealand youth in sport an incident in a Sunday school class at Palmerston North is worth recording, states the “Manawatu Evening Standard.” The teacher had. read an extract from one pf Robert Browning’s works, following which was the query: —“Now children, who was Robert Browning?” “I know,” said a small boy. “He’s a wrestler, and wrestles here this week under the name, of Lofty Blomfield.” Noisy opposition from a party of social credit enthusiasts was encountered by the Minister of Finance, the Rt. Hon. J. 0. Coates, during his meeting at Helensville. The hall was filled to capacity, but Mr Coates’ opponents, the majority of whom had arrived in a motor-lorry from distant parts, placed themselves in strategic positions among the audience and made early and determined attempts to interrupt the meeting. Early in the proceedings, when Mr Coates was outlining the measures taken by the Government during the last four years for the rehabilitation of the country, there were loud bursts of derisive laughter. For a time Mr Coates had difficulty in making himself heard, but finally he quietened tho noisy section by stating that anyone who regarded the worst crisis in the world’s history as a laughing mat. ter had no sense of responsibility, political or otherwise.

They made their roads solid in the early days of Paeroa, when the tovn was the transhipping centre for the Oliinemuxi goldfields. This fact was demonstrated this week when an excavation for a petrol tank in connection with a new bowser disclosed 4ft of road metal above the layer of fascines, and then 2ft of black soil above the clay. In the black soil was found a horseshoe, a. clay pipe and some tins and bones. The site is now a lane between a motor .service station and a legal office, but was once a private road to a big livery and bait stable, where a few of the hundreds of horses that hauled goods to the mines were stabled.

Early in August Mr J. Timms, a fisherman living in Kaikoura, obtained from the stomach contents of a groper, caught at Kaikoura in 80 fathoms of water, a fish which he forwarded to the Canterbury Museum for identification. Mr Timms has now received a reply from Mr R. Speight, curator, in which he states that at the time the fish was received it was not possible to identify the type, so the fish was sent to the Australian Museum, which replied that the fish is being returned to New Zealand. The report says that the fish is new to science and does not belong to any known species.

There is at present on view in the Auckland Museum a Jife-su.e painting of a rare and large bright red native flower. This is Xeronema calistemon, an isolated member of the lily family with flax-like leaves, a. plant unknown to science pirior to 1924, when it was found to be plentiful on the Poor Knights Islands, and two years ago on Taranga, or Hen Island (Hen and Chickens group). Xeronema consists of only tw 0 species, one in New Caledonia and the other in New Zealand. Xeronema is now growing well in several Auckland gardens, and i. will soon be a popular addition to our native flora on account of its large bright red flowers, which somewhat resemble an elongated Australian bottle brush flower, but with the flowers on oue side of the stalk like the bristles of a toothbrush. The discovery of Xeronema in New Zealand is very interesting, because it forms an additional link in the similarity of some of th© plants in New Zealand and New Caledonia. There are other links, such as the snail Plaeostyhis. the large New Zealand species known as the flax snail, and fresh-water shells.