LOCAL & GENERAL

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXIV, Issue 230, 11 September 1934, Page 4

LOCAL & GENERAL

Wairoa is to have a hew Court-house. The Minister of Justice (Hon. J. G. Cobbe) stated to-day that the Government had approved of the item for the work being placed on the current year’s estimates.

Mr. R M. Watson, S.M., who has been transferred from Feilding to Napier as successor to Mr. A. M. Mowlem, who retired earlier in the year, took up his duties in this district at this morning’s sitting of the Napier Magistrate’s Court. There was only a light criminal list, and the civil list was only of average length. Later, at nwm, Mr. Watson presided at the adjourned meeting of the Napier Licensing tjpnimittee.

A skeleton of a moa has been restored by the curator of the Alexander Museum, Wanganui. The specimen is of one of the big species,. Dironis ingens, the bones of which have been found in both the North and South Islands. A fact that makes this skeleton of particular interest is that all the bones were found a few miles from Wanganui, most of them in the swampy land on the Paul Estate, Riverlands. They were very fragile and much patient work was required to assemble them.

Great interest in the mascots ou H.M.S. Dunedin, a bulldog and a cat with four kittens, was shown by the large crowds which visited the cruiser at Auckland on Sunday afternoon. The cat, Minnie, had a comfortable bed on a gun platform, where the kittens were born when the ship was last at sea. When the big guns are being fired Minnie and the bulldog, who are accustomed to the sound of action, remain on deck, but the kittens are taken below where the noise is somewhat muffled.

The recent warm weather and rains have resulted in a phenomenal growth of grass on most pastures in Poverty Bay. Hand feeding has ceased in many cases, stock of all kinds being m fine condition. Lambs are going ahead well, and pastoralists are looking forward to sending large drafts away by early shipments. The season is one of the best experienced for years. The demand for fat stock in the Gisborne district for shipment to Auckland continues, and the .Margaret W. sailed on Friday with a further consignment of cattle and sheep, the cattle comprising 57 fat cows, and the sheep numbering about 300.

The spring recruiting of boys in all parts of the Dominion to be trained for service in the New Zealand Division of the Royal Navy is still in progress. Applicants are being examined in the various centres and those selected as complying with the physical and educational standards laid down will go to Auckland for final examination toward the end of the month. Eight stokers hom the training ship H.M.S. Philomel were recently drafted to the two cruisers H.M.S. Dunedin and H.M.S. Diomede, and 10 seamen boys who have completed their training in the Philomel will join the cruisers before their departure for Australia next week.

The suggestion that to ask old cricketers to sit for an examination before their appointment as umpires was something of a bogey to them was made by Mr C. G. Wilson at the annual meeting of the Wellington Cricket Umpires’ Association. Technical points, such as questions relating to the circumference of a cricket ball, the width of a cricket bat, height and width of the stumps, etc., could be raised, he said, and they would “catch” members of the association and many old cricketers. He contended that old players, for fear of being caught on some technical point, would not undergo an examination. It was necessary, of course, that an umpire should be qualified to act, but there was no need to go into technical questions. Mr D. McKenzie said that a member of the association was only required to pass an examination before appointment as a senior umpire.

While searching among the . rocks near Little Beach, east of Waikawa, Southland, a party who had gone there to fish discovered an unusually large star fish feeding on the limpets which live in the pools and shallow water along the coast. The fish, which had seven legs, adhered to the rocks so tightly that it took the combined fofee of four sheath knives to pry it off; many of the suckers remained sticking to the rocks. When these were touched with the hand they inflicted a powerful sting. On placing the creature in another pool, all the shellfish inhabitants left the place, seeking refuge above the waterline. The measurement of the star fish when died was 12J inches across. When first caught, and before it was dried,‘the creature must have been considerably larger.