ITEMS OF INTEREST

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume 52, Issue 32418, 14 April 1944, Page 3

ITEMS OF INTEREST

Cigarettes And Tobacco Pillaged Eight hundred packets of cigarettes and 1020 packets of tobacco in cases consigned from Wellington by the inter-island steamer express were pillaged recently before the cases reached three Christchurch merchants. The 8000 cigarettes and 12711 b of tobacco were pillaged from two separate shipments and it was not until the cases were opened that the merchants discovered their loss.

Seamen Ambassadors “War is a strange mixer of the human race,” says the annual report of the British Sailors’ Society (Wellington branch), adopted! at a recent meeting. “In addition to entertaining and caring for British boys, we have befriended American, Norwegian, Chinese, Dutch and Indian seamen. Each man visiting our rooms is an > ambassador who departs with some impression of New Zealand and its ! people which he imparts to those he meets throughout the world. So through seamen’s organisations and others who extend hospitality to seamen, our country is receiving favourable publicity.” Bibles In South America

South America, less affected by the war than any other part of the world, has been the most encouraging centre of circulation of the Bible during the last year, states the annual report of the British and Foreign Bible Society of New Zealand in a review of the world work of the sociey, and the astonishing circulation of 808,000 has been achieved in Brazil alone. Chile and Bolivia distributed 181,000 volumes during the year, Peru, Ecuador and Columbia 81,000, Argentina and Paraguay 67,000 and Venezuela 24.000.

Rat Hunt in Prison Camp A prisoner of war who has been in Stalag VIII B for more than two years and a half has written to a i e lative in Christchurch stating that at the time of writing “it is rat time over here, and for every rat’s tail the men pass in they get two cigaret.es. At the end of the week the man who has handed in the most rats’ tails receives 60 cigarettes.” Why They Were Captured Describing the capture of New Zealanders at Kalamata, in the southern tip of Greece, Major G. H. Thomson remarked to the New Plymouth R.S.A. last week: “We arrived at Kalamata and were captured because we ran out of ground and the Navy wasn’t there.” It was wonderful, he added', to recall the manner in which parties of New Zealanders chased' armed Germans all over the place on the first night at the point of the bayonet.

“No, girls didn’t smoke when I was a girl,” said a white-haired Wellington lady to an interviewer. “Didn’t dream of it! Now I’m told lots of them smoke as many cigarettes as their brothers or fiances do. Must be very bad’ for them.” “Oh, not necessarily,” said the scribe, with a smile. “Modem methods of culture and manufacture have revolutionised things. Take the most popular brands of cigarette tobaccos now—Riverhead Gold, Desert 'Gold and Pocket Edition. All are virtually free from nicotine, because they’re toasted, consequently hannless, are unequalled for quality. Life’s far more strenuous than formerly, and the genuine “toasted,” with its calming, soothing influence, is really a boon. The three other toasted brands —Cavendish, Navy Cut No. 3 (Bulldog) and Cut Plug No. 10 (Bullshead) —make excellent cigarettes, too, but are chiefly favoured by pipe smokers.” “Ah, well,” conceded the old lady, “times have changed, as you say, and perhaps modem girls (men too!) are fortunate to have these toasted tobaccos at their service.” “Believe me, madam,” said the journalist, “they are!”