LOCAL & GENERAL

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXIV, Issue 10, 22 December 1933, Page 6

LOCAL & GENERAL

There will be no publication of the “Tribune o on Monday next (Christinas Day) nor on the following Monday (New Year’s Day).

A wedding of interest was solemnised in when the lucky winner of a recent art union was joined in holy wedlock with the gentleman who presented her with the winning ticket.

A large quantity of English and American mail is being brought by the Boyal Mail liner Aorangi, which is due at Auckland from Vancouver on Tuesday morning. The vessel has 1319 bags Of ordinary mail and 180 bags of parcels for New Zealand.

During the eighteen months the Scout Farm Hostel at Rissington has been working, 60 boys have been trained and placed ir. permanent positions. There, are now no applications, so the work will be closed until after the holidays, when an effort will be made to

continue this important activity, if sufficient boys come forward. An audited balance-sheet will be published shortly and the donors to the funds can be assured that their money has been wisely spent and to very good purpose.

An intimation that a property of | about 3000 acres at Parawcra, formerly owned by the late Mr A. H. Ellieot, ; had been purchased by the Small Farms’ Board was received from the Minister of Agriculture by the Waipa County Council.

The following donations are gratefully acknowledged towards the Havelock North Board’s Christmas Cheer Fund:—Mrs J. K. Bogle, 10/-, Anonymous 4/-, Mr F. L. Bone £1 1/-, Havelock North Women’s Institute £2, Nimon and Sons 10/-, Anonymous £4.

To have served 40,000 afternoon teas is the splendid record of Miss Bertha Goddard and her band of voluntary helpers, who have worked untiringly at the Green Room, George street, Sydney, where £5040 has been raised, free of expense, for charitable organisations during the past three years.

A land transaction designed to provide Gisborne with a valuable recreation ground is authorised in the Reserves and Other Lands Disposal Bill. It authorises the Gisborne Borough Council to join with the Crown in acquiring the Gisborne Racing Club’s property of 106 acres as a public domain.

Before she left Wellington for Sydney on December 15, the Union Company’s liner Monowai was fitted with “talkie” apparatus. The machine is a standard one of portable type, permitting screening to take place either in tie lounge or on the deck, according to weather conditions? As a rule two screenings will be shown on each Tasman crossing.

The Union Steam Ship Company has decided to adopt the name “steamer express” to describe the service between Lyttelton and Wellington, as was suggested by the Canterbury Chamber of Commerce. The secretary of the chamber (Mr J. Roy Smith) has been notified by the company that the name has been approved ,and that the company proposes to adopt the new term in its publications and on its notice boards.

What is probably a record hard to beat has been ended by the death recently at Kaipara Flats of Mr Jas Morison, one of whose daughters married Mr H. B. Moore, of Warkworth. Until last week Mr Moore’s children could boast of having two grandfathers and two grandmothers living, whose ages totalled 358 years. Had Mr Morison lived a few weeks longer, the average age of the four grandparents would have been 90 years.

To-day is officially designated in almanacs as the longest day of the year in the Southern Hemisphere, the sun thereafter starting his northward journey again. Although it is also called Midsummer Day, its occurrence by no means signifies that half the summer is over. As a rule, considerably more summer weather may be expected after the longest day than before it. It will be a full fortnight before the sun sets any earlier than it does now; in fact, for another week or so it will be setting later. But the time of rising will gradually become later after to-day, but it will be some time yet before there will be any noticeabe difference.

An unusual indication of the valuable work done at the Auckland War Memorial Museum in instructing members of the boys’ club attached to the institution was given when a film showing a number of boys operating primitive drilling instruments was exhibited before members of the council of the Auckland Institute. The picture showed graphically how the boys, from studying articles lodged in the institution, had fashioned workable drills for boring substances such as stone and wood. Copies of drills used by Eskimos, Maoris, Melanesians, and North and South American Indians were among the implements used by the boys with a considerable amount of skill.

A large calendar, distributed by a West Coast brewery, has been the subject of some humorous comment at Greymouth. The subject is a highlycoloured seascape, supposedly representing sunset on the West Coast. The locale is apparently in the vicinity of the Ten-Mile, and the rays of the setting sun are illuminating the rollers dashing on to the beach. The only thing wrong with the production is the fact that the artist has reversed the laws of Nature, and the sun is shown as setting in the north, towards Westport, instead of in the west. The obvious conjecture, with those who notice the error, is: Did the brewery send samples of its brew to the artist!

One of the choice places of North Australia, awaiting development, js tho Barkly Tableland. It is bounded by desert country, of which an aeroplano observer writes that there is no difference of elevation between Barkly Tableland and the desert, yet, seen from aloft, “the dividing line is quite distinct.” On the Tableland is Alexandria Downs, “the second largest station in Australia. There are about 50,000 head of cattle in its 10,800 square miles, and its eastern and western boundaries are 125 miles apart. It took us about an hour to fly across it. From 2000 feet we could see 100 miles in every direction, and in all that area there was not one hill. We floated steadily over an immense brown disc.”

According to Mr Frank Walker, Fellow of the Royal Australian Historical Society, a curious expedient, said to have been practised in Ireland, was used by various Tasmanian Governors in defining the limits of land grants in the early days. Thia was to tie a string to a dog’s tail. When the dog stopped running, that was taken to be a mile. Mr Walker does not explain what happened if the dog did not run, but it may have been somebody's interest to make him run. The system seems to have had no mathematical merits. Thousands of acres were thus measured, says Mr Walter, resulting in endless confusion in the 1820’s from the claims arising out of this procedure.

The Mayor acknowledges three caroases of mutton from Nelson’s (N.Z.) Ltd. (Mr A. Kirkpatrick) and three iambs from Mr G. C. Williams, Waipawa, as gifts to tho Mayor's Christmas Cheer Fund.

Sir Charles Fergusson, now resettled in Scotland, does not forget New Zealand. Addressing the annual meeting of the Ayr County Nursing Association. Sir Charles praised the work of the Plunket system in New Zealand, and told his hearers that as a result of that work during the past nine years the infantile death rate had never been over 3 per cent. He would like the Ayr Association to spread its propaganda jn a similar way, and so educate the mothers.

The opinion that the gramophone and radio had assisted to raise the standard of music was expressed by the examiner for the Trinity College of Music, Mr A. Tyrer, at a presentation of medals in Auckland. He said that as much could be learned from hearing great musicians as from taking lessons. In connection with piano technique, he said that practice was most important. Progress depended largely on expert tuition. but the student who criticised bis own studies would make more progress than one who practised mechanically.