LOCAL & GENERAL

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXIII, Issue 16, 30 December 1932, Page 6

LOCAL & GENERAL

The “Hawke’s Bay Tribune” will NOT be published on Monday next, January 2..

A reminder is given of the Saturday night jazz dance in the Favourite Hall, Hastings.

The Hastings Permanent Building Society advertises its next pay-day as Wednesday, January 4,

A flannel dance will be held in the Haumoana Hall on Monday evening. A free bus will cater for Hastings dancers.

The opening of the shooting season for godwits has been postponed from Sunday, January 1, 1933, until February 1. It is considered the birds will be in better condition by the later date. The birds began to arrive on the North Auckland peninsula in large numbers from their nesting homes in Siberia and Alaska about two months ago. They commence their return journey in April.

Was it a result of the earthquake at Napier? Forty-eight hours after the catastrophe in Hawke’s Bay in February, 1931, the Chilian coast, which is not subject to heavy surf, was visited by heavy breakers. “It was the heaviest I ever remember,” said Mr H. S. Hurle to a reporter at New Plymouth yesterday. “It was so unusual that it attracted crowds to the beach for a couple of days.” Mr Hurle first went to Chile in 1913.

“A guid New Year to ane and a’.’’ Hastings Scots will have the opportunity of passing round this old-timo greeting at the Ingleside to-morrow night. Arrangements have been made to hold the Hogmanay gathering in the Tea Kiosk at the racecourse, entrance by Southland road, where, with a spacious hall and a good floor, members can indulge in “TTooching” until the New Year arrives. The Ingleside will start at 8 .30 o'clock nharp.

Bunks throughout New Zealand will be closed on Monday and Tuesday, January 2 and 3.

What Sir Kingsford Smith calls his ■‘old bus,” the aeroplane Southern Cross, still has two records to its credit. On one occasion it lifted a loud of petrol and pilots equal to 75 adult passengers, of 481 b. per square foot of wing surface—a world’s record that still stands. The machine also holds the record for the longest ocean flight —Honolulu to Suva. 3380 miles.

The Lyttelton watersiders last week received a Christmas box in the form of back pay amounting to between £5OO and £6OO. Since last August they have been working on a flat rate of 1/11 per hour, but as the result of negotiations the employers conceded the men an extra penny an hour, and in making this payment retrospective to August paid out the amount in one sum. The payments in individual cases ranged from 2/3 to 35/-. The decision of the employers affects the whole of the New Zealand waterfront.

Although the wrecked Southern Cross cost some of the generous English friends of the Melanesian Mission £25,000, she was a one-shilling ship as far as the Board of Trade was concerned. Bishop Baddeley explained the situation to a Hamilton audience the other evening. Theoretically he was the owner of the vessel, which wag registered with the Board of Trade in his name, [n -order to become the “owner,” he wrote out a cheque for one shilling, and he was duly registered. The cheque, which was never cashed, was afterwards framed and kept as a curiosity.

From Sunday onward a new system of helm or steering orders will be in use on all merchant ships and in the navies of the principal maritime countries of the world. New Zealand is included in the change. In the Gazette notice to mariners it was described as “the change from the present indirect system in use to the direct system as required by the Merchant Shipping (Safety and Load Line Convention) Act, 1932.” In such prosaic language does officialdom deal with the death of a miutical custom which has passed through the ages, at least from the days of the Vikings.

The operating profit on railway refreshment rooms during the last hnanical year was £15,487, as compared with £18,238 during the previous year. Out of this amount there was paid to railway revenue £1291 in interest on capital, £9lOO in rent, and £3415 in freights and fares, making the net profit for the year £l6Bl. Salaries and wages paid during the year totalled £28,570, compared with £40.514 during the previous year, and the value of provisions consumed was £29,664, as against £46,670. The total receipts from refreshment rooms amounted to £82,234. as against £116,665.