LOCAL & GENERAL

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXIV, Issue 11, 23 December 1933, Page 6

LOCAL & GENERAL

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

The Union Company’s R.M.S. Maunganui, which left Sydney on Thursday afternoon for Wellington, is due about 7 o’clock on Monday morning. She is to leave st 3 p.m. on Tuesday for San Francisco, via Raroj tonga and Papeete.

The editor is in receipt of a particularly pleasing calendar containing best wishes from the children of St. Hilda’s Home, Otane. The calendar is prettily and neatly designed by the children themselves and bears their individual autographs. The editor heartily reciprocates the good wishes.

Good crops of stone fruits are coming off Gisborne trees. Plums are already plentiful, while peaches and apricots are being retailed in small quantities. Nectarines can be expected during January. The first of the early apples should make their appearance in the shops during the next week or 10 days. Small fruits also have been fairly plentiful this year.

The municipal authorities have contributed their share towards the encouragement of an atmosphere of gaiety in the main business area of the town. Strings of coloured lights will help to brighten up the appearance of Heretaunga street, whilst the Municipal buildings have been gaily decorated with bunting, Heretaunga street should be a gay promenade this evening. ,

A suggestion that some of the property owners in Gisborne might be willing to throw their gardens open for inspection by visitors has been made by Mr. T. E. Toneycliffe, who intimated that he would be only too glad to set a lead in that direction. Mr. Toneycliffe stated that one of the largest hotels in Auckland had a list of private gardens which were open to visitors, and this example, he said, might well be followed in Gisborne, where there were many particularly fine homes and gardens.

A judgment debtor who was examined at the Opunake Magistrate’s Court could certainly not be called a pessimist. Sixty-eight years of age and an old-age pensioner, he said he purchased a small house, paying for it with £3Q that he had borrowed on the security of the house, with the understanding that if he did not pay back the loan within five years the house would be taken over by the mortgagee. Asked how he hoped to pay, he remarked that he might not always be poor. Needless to say, on that evidence the magistrate declined to make an order with regard to the judgment debt, which was not connected with the deal mentioned.

Magpies are multiplying rapidly in the Wanganui district, and are spreading. A few years ago these birds confined themselves to certain localities, but latterly they have spread to almost every district along the coast. At nesting time the magpie is a determined bird. Both the male and female will go to extremes to defend their young. It is on record that a lad at Westmere tried to rob a magpie’s nest, but was chased out of it by the two parent birds, who were so incensed that for days afterwards the lad could not stir from the house without either the male or the female swooping at him.

Mr. David Jones, chairman of the Meat Producers’ Board told a representative of the Christchurch “Press” that a little more than a year ago a well-known English meat retailer wrote asking the Meat Board to send him a list of all the works in New Zealand which had a down-grade. “As a Canterbury man 1 felt it keenly that we were able to send him a list of works in practically all provinces except Canterbury,” said Mr. Jones. “In consequence of that we lost the competition of a large retailer who wanted the highest class of meat for his business. That is the reason why certain North Island works are getting a higher price—not because of the quality, but because they put up a ‘down-grade,’ " he concluded.

Gisborne’s orchards are in a most satisfactory condition in regard to fireblight control, and only a very small amount of infection has been noted this season. It was reported recently that no infection had shown up at that time, but that it would be too much to expect that the season would conclude without some fireblight becoming apparent. This expectation has been realised, and outbreaks confined to a very small number of trees have been reported. Commenting, the orchard instructor at Gisborne, Mr. P. Everett, stated that this year’s blossom and fruit infection was confined to about a dozen in the same orchard, the frees referred to being of a most susceptible variety, while cankers from infection during the previous season had been found in three other orchards. The infected parts had been cut out immediately on discovery and burned. All this year’s blossom and fruit infection, he added, was on apple trees and the cankers from infection during the previous season were on pear trees.

“Whatever the fact that men hang about on the streets may indicate, it applies to the unskilled labourer and not to the skilled man,” writes Dr. E. Wight Bakke in “The Unemployed Man.” “Whenever I came into contact with a skilled man on the street, he was there for some definite purpose; getting a newspaper, waiting to see someone about a job, or other like purposes, and he was usually careful to explain to me why he was there. Occasionally I found a formerly skilled man who had been out of work for such a long period that he was in the •willing to take anything’ stage, with no hope of getting back to his own work. Whether it is pride which will not allow a skilled man to admit before all eyes that he is out of a job, or whether it is the comparatively attractive nature of his home, or whether it is the more extensive occupation with the alternatives to work, such as looking for a job, working the allotment, or fixing up the house, which keeps the skilled man off the street, I am unable to say. Perhaps it is a combination of all three. But the fact remains that the loafers are reoruited largely from unskilled labourers. M

The price of benzine was raised by a penny a gallon in Hastings to-day. The rise took place at noon, and was imposed in accordance with the new price-fixation regulations.

A successful euchre tourney was run by the New Relief Workers’ Association last evening. The prizes were won by the following:—Women: Mrs. Martin and Mrs. McKeegan (tie for first); men, J. Williamson 1, J. Golds and Mrs. Austin (playing as man) 2. The chairman thanked all patrons and wished them the compliments of the season. The winner of the Christmas hamper was Mrs. Weldon. The tournaments, having proved so popular, are .to be continued each Friday.

For some hours on Wednesday night, commencing at midnight, just at the height of the storm, a great display of fireworks was seen on the electric light pole at the corner of Glen and Waterview roads, Stanley Bay, Auckland. Residents in the thickly-popu-lated areas were awakened by a piercing light flashing on their windows, and most people thought that there wa s a house on fire in the neighbourhood, and rushed to their doors to see what had happened. As soon as they saw that the display was caused by the electric lighting system, a rush was made to turn off the electricity at the meter in their houses, as no one know the cause of the outbreak, or what it might lead to. It was expected, however, that the brilliant sparking and flashing would soon work itself out, but such was not the case, and it continued to alarm people right up till daybreak. There must have been a high voltage behind the display, and with such a high wind blowing, residents could not avoid imagining the general risk of electrocution, should any of the wires become loose.