LOCAL & GENERAL

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXV, Issue 162, 25 June 1935, Page 6

LOCAL & GENERAL

Meeanee Rata. Yesterday afternoon the Hawke's Bay County Council decided to strike a rate of l|d lor tho Meeanee riding. Last year the rate was IJd. Prize Budgerigars. Mr. E. Wyatt, of Tomoana road, Hastings, a well-known exhibitor of budgerigars, was successful at the Palmerston North Show in gaining live firsts, two seconds, one third and two v.h.c.’s out of 12 entries. N.Z. Dairy Conference, An invitation to hold tho 1936 conference in Hastings has been extended by the Mayor of Hastings, Mr. G. A. Maddison, to the annual New Zealand Dairy Conference, which is being held in Palmerston North to-morrow. Simplified Parcel posting, A simplified procedure now confronts the poster of parcels. Hitherto it has been necessary to fill in a docket giving the address on tho parcel, and also the name of the sender. But now the parcel is just handed in and a receipt is given for it, a procedure which greatly expedites matters, and which will bo welcomed by all who have parcels to send.

Raids By Wild Pigs. The settlers in the Aotuhia district of the Taranaki hinterland have secured tho services of a pig-hunter, who will bo subsidised by the Unemployment Board. Tho district covers _ a Government reserve, where the wild pigs roam in hundreds and raid the adjoining farms as soon as the lambing begins. Last year the board’s man accounted for more than 100 pigs, and materially reduced the percentage of lambs destroyed. Goldminers for Fiji. Three Thames prospectors, Messrs. W. Walls, J. Newton, and J. Holmes, who have been engaged on the Unemployment Board’s subsidised scheme in the Thames district, and two from Coromandel, Messrs. G. Horne and H. McNeil, have been selected from a number of applicants by the Tavua Goldfields Company for work on its areas in Fiji, states the “New Zealand Herald.’’ A local student at the Thames School of Mines has been recommended as an assayer. Those selected will leave Auckland to-day to take up their new positions. Rat Tackles Sleeper.

A 12-year-old Wanganui boy had an unenviable experience when he was savagely attacked by a rat. While sleeping the boy was bitten on the ear by the rat, which proceeded to inflict further injuries by using its teeth on tho youth’s face. The pillow-slip and tho "bedclothes bore ample evidence of the amount of blood lost by the boy, who was rushed to a chemist to undergo treatment for the wound in his ear. Beyond suffering from tho shock and tho loss of blood tho boy appeared to have come through his trying ordeal without tiny further ill-effects. Wood Disguised as Stone. Referring to the tendency to disguise the true nature of building materials in order to make tljpm appear more expensive than they were, Mr. E. C. Simpson, in a lecture on art at New Plymouth, < ited the Government Buildings, Wellington, as an example. Pointed out three times, so that visitors would not forget, as the largest wooden building in the southern hemisphere—or in the world —it was laboriously disguised as stono. Tho wood was painted as stone and grooved to give tho impression of slabs. Thin lathes of wood round a drum formed the apparently marble pillars and everywhere were small details to enhance the same effect. If tho materials in tho building served their puipose why try to disguise their nature? asked Mr. Simpson. Havelock North Concert. The management committee for the “Pageant of Nations’’ concert held at Havelock North recently in aid of the Cancer Research Fund met to receive tho secretary’s financial statement. Mrs. H. Gilbertson, senr., the organiser, presided. Tho secretary (Mr. P. 11, Leigh) reported that he had handed in £2O to the fund, £l5 14/6 being the net proceeds of the concert and the remaining £4 5/6 being the total of various donations received. The committee desired to endorse the remarks made by tho Rev, It. B. Waugh near tho close of tho concert, sincerely thanking all those visiting artists who undoubtedly contributed largely to the success of tho entertainment. Tho meeting closed with an expression of appreciation of the work and time put in by the organiser and tho secretary.

Her Sense of Right. A Dunedin jeweller had an experience that is certainly unusual. A lady walked into his shop and asked if he remembered buying a gold chain from her and paying £1 11/-. It so happened that he did bear in mind the transaction, so without turning up tho entry in his book he answered in the affirmative, whereupon the lady said: “Before I came to you I had the chain valued by another man, and he offered £1 4/6, so I’ve come to pay back the 6/6 that you overpaid me.’’ The jeweller remarked that a bargain was a bargain, and told tho lady that he would not take the 6/6; but nothing that ho said satisfied her until he accepted the return. The lady evidently believed that the 6/6 was not rightfully hers, lor she was obviously pleased to get rid of it. Japanese and Maori.

An interesting sidelight of comparative philology was referred to by Dr. Tovoliiko Kagawa, in the course of an address at New' Plymouth. He had, lie said, found an amazing (similarity between many Japanese ami Maori words and roots. Already he had discovered nearly 50 words of only slightly varied pronunciation with the same or similar meanings. He recalled that nearly 20 per cent, of the original Japanese stock had migrated from the south so that it was possible that the Japanese and the Maori had common ancestors. Incidentally, for every one similarity he had found between Maori and Japanese, he had found 10 similarities between the language of the ancient Egyptians and modern Japanese. Shintoism was also closely related in many of its principles to the religion of ancient Egypt.