LOCAL AND GENERAL

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXVII, Issue 4460, 21 October 1933, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL

We have to acknowledge the receipt of £3 3s from the Te Kuiti Racing Club, being a further contribution towards the Dowie Fund.

The Waikato Valley Dairy Co., Ltd., is making an advance payment of 11 y 2 d per lb. for finest grade butterfat supplied during September for the manufacture of butter.

During the discussion on ragwort extermination at this week’s meeting of the Piako County Council, one member declared that if he had even two ragwort plants growing on his farm he would be prepared to pay £5 per annum in rates to check the spread of the weeds.

Two Te Kuiti riders, T. Peterson and D. Watson, are competing in the mountain cycle race, which is to be held to New Plymouth to-day, and great interest is being taken in their performance in this road classic. The race will finish on the New Plymouth racecourse about 4 p.m.

The Commissioner of Taxes draws the attention of taxpayers to the notification appearing in to-day’s issue that the due date of payment of Land-tax for the current year is on Tuesday, the 7th day of November, 1933, and that the demands will be posted on or about the 31st day of October.

A report submitted to Parliament on Tuesday, containing criminal statistics, showed that a steady decrease in convictions for drunkenness had been maintained, the decrease for the year 1932 being 818 as compared with the previous period. Arrests for drunkenness last year were the lowest since 1878.

The Otorohanga plant of the New Zealand Dairy Company is now working at high pressure on a 50 per cent, increase of butter-fat, as compared with four weeks of this period of 1932. It is expected that the increase of this season, over last, of butter manufactured will be in the vicinity of 1000 tons (2600 tons were produced last year). An inspection of Napier was made last week by the London manager of an insurance company and the deputy general manager for New Zealand of the same company. In conversation with an insurance man of Napier, the London manager stated: “We are perfectly satisfied with the town, its buildings, and general conditions, and as far as our company is concerned, we will be pleased to accept all the earthquake insurance we can get.”

Ploughing where possible or grazing with sheep were the only effective ways of keeping ragwort down, was the opinion expressed by a member of the Ohura Couhty Council. A farmer dairying in ragwort infested land should subdivide his land extensively and graze each paddock in rotation with sheep. One councillor said that a careful farmer could keep his own ragwort in check, but could never stop his neighbour’s seed from spreading.

A question whether the Government contemplated overhauling legislation relating to goldmining, with a view to coping with modern conditions, was asked by Mr. W. J. Broadfoot (Government, Waitomo) in the House of Representatives on Wednesday. The Hon. C. E. Macmillan, Minister of Mines, said it was realised that a review was necessary. It would be a task of some magnitude, but it was hoped to commence it shortly.

Showers of sparks and loud hissing was heard from a power line near the bowling green last evening. In the high wind the two lines were evidently blowing together, they being somewhat slacker than is usual. At intervals the current, aided by a willow tree which was being blown across them, would make a connection, and then the sparks would fly high in the air. At least o'ne resident decided to treat them with care. Seeing this brilliant display and thinking that in all probability it was due to a wire being carried down, he made a wide detour and reached his home through a back route.

Killing two birds with one stone is nothing to the double feat performed by a member of a party of young men from New Plymouth who went on a pig-hunting expedition in the district near Matau during last week-end. After tramping for some time the party found two pigs side by side which the marksmen shot with one bullet striking one in the head and the other in the shoulder. Later two eels were found feeding on some rubbish in a creek. With careful aim and allowing for the deflection of the bullet by the water the same marksman shot both with the one bullet.

It was authoritatively declared in Parliament that the Prudential Assurance Company had not transferred any funds from England to New Zealand since the increase in the exchange rate. The Unemployment Board had approved the company’s application for a subsidy upon the wages cost of erecting its new building in Wellington. 'Work was to be commenced within six months from the date of approval. It was estimated that the building would cost £160,000 and the subsidy would amount to £16,000. The Ministerial denial clears up persistent rumours that the Prudential Company had taken advantage of the favourable exchange rate to transfer a huge sum to the Dominion, and that some of the money was to be used to obtain a building subsidy, the balance being later transferred to another country.

The detectives and police engaged on the Ruawaro mystery are now working on the theory that Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Lakey were both murdered.

In a part of his annual report dealing with the causation of mental disorder, Dr. Theo. G. Gray, DirectorGeneral of Mental Hospitals, says:— “One would be tempted to expect that the distress arising from the prevailing economic difficulties would be reflected in an increase in our admissions. Actually the total admissions, including voluntary boarders, are ten less than last year, and one can only surmise that the spirit of altruism, which is always at its height at periods of national danger and anxiety, is working as it did during the war years. The great occasion is one of real stresses which leave no room for petty vanities and morbid imaginings and introspections; there is a call to action, an exaltation of the community spirit and a self-discipline which tends to sanity.”

Dr. Theo. G. Gray, Director-General of Mental Hospitals, states in his annual report, which was presented to Parliament this week, that at the close of the year there were 7194 persons on the registers of the Mental Hospitals Department, including 44 at Ashburn Hall private licensed institution, and 467 who were on probation in the care of friends and relatives; amongst those actually in residence were 266 voluntary boarders. “We were able,” states Dr. Gray, “to discharge 759 patients and boarders, of 54.3 per cent, calculated upon the admissions, but of that number only 599, or 42.9 per cent., could be regarded as having recovered. Our discharge rate is high, and this year our death-rate is the lowest recorded for 24 years.”

Baby cars (says the Timaru Herald) have many advantages, and one of these was demonstrated at the Theodocia Street end of Sophia Street, Timaru, one afternoon last week. A diminutive roadster was bowling along in a westerly direction behind a more substantial make of car when simultaneously two cars proceeding in opposite directions down Theodocia Street turned into Sophia Street. The driver of the leading car pulled up, but the brakes on the “baby” aparently were not functioning, for the driver swerved over an adjacent culvert and proceeded serenely along the footpath to the corner, where he found another culvert to take him back to Theodocia Street. The unusual feat of driving amused a number of passers-by, none of whom happened to be on the piece of path traversed by the car.

Mr. S. J. Fortescue, Otorohanga County Clerk, has just returned from a special trip to Auckland, to procure for his county three tons of sodium chlorate, for the use of relief workers in dealing with ragwort. Following on the decision of the. Crowd to place the responsibility on county councils, the sodium is being retailed to landowners at cost price. Mr. Fortescue was prepared to purchase a larger quantity, but found there was no more available, and none is expected until the beginning of December. The three tons have already been disposed of at the landed cost of between 6*id and 6%d per lb., according to the quantity taken. The county had made arrangements to employ 200 relief workers clearing ragwort, and it is obvious that the three tons procured will be totally inadequate to keep these men going throughout the growing season. State inaction is blamed by farmers for the bare supplies of sodium chlorate, as merchants were expecting the Government to import wholesale.

The efforts of Sir Apirana Ngata to foster dairying in the native race are fast bearing friut. Most dairy companies number Maori suppliers on their lists, and one factory manager considers that the quality of their cream leaves very little to be desired, as most of them take a pride in securing finest quality. The problems inseparable from dairy farming, however, give the natives a good deal of worry, and the secretary of a Waikato dairy company has received from a Maori supplier the following letter, written in a flowing hand which would arouse envy in many a high school boy: “I cannot come in to talk this matter personally to you. As it is very expensive for me. However, 1 hope you’ll understand in letterage. I have made ararngements with about his new separator. His motion was to transfer it to me and hand over my separator to him. I agree to this when I understood it was both good for him and myself. I mean by this, the sooner he gets my separator he will no longer send his cream which leaves me the same too. So please excuse my rough writings to you.”

“Curiously enough for a country that has suffered so much at the hands of bandits, the Chinese love a bandit,” said Dr. Regis Chevalier du Brusson, of Paris, during the course of a conversation with an Otago Daily Times reporter. “Just as all you English love a sailor-, the Chinese love a bandit, but he must be a good bandit. If he is the wrong sort he gets scant justice and a quick end when he’s caught.” Dr. du Brusson was referring to an episode of a recent tour of Manchuria, undertaken when conditions were at their worst in that troubled and harassed country. He was in the vicinity of Jehol, and happened to pass along a public street shortly after the capture of five of the wrong sort of bandits. Without any waste of time, but to the accompaniment of the most animated chatter, their captors exacted from them the extreme penalty for their folly. They were made to kneel in the middle of the street, and five swift blows of the sword removed five bandit heads. Idlers looked on quite unconcer’ned, and a few days later five heads appeared suspended in wire netting - containers from the cross-arm of a signpost which carried a warning to road hogs, inscribed in English, French, and Chinese. Not a few motorists with consciences covered the next 20 miles or so at very much reduced speeds in the mistaken fear that the ghastly contents of the suspended nets were intended as hints of what might be expected by dangerous drivers.

Arrangements are well in hand for the dance to be held on the evening of Labour Day in the Parish Hall. Phil Swift’s full orchestra will supply the music, while card tournaments have been arranged for nondancers. The dance should provide en enjoyable ending for the holiday.

“New Zeaalnd is really getting infinitely better value out of its school system, particularly in secondary schools than either the United States or Canada,” said Mr. Frank Milner, when addressing members of the Christchurch Rotary Club recently. He went on to say that if he gave them exampes of spelling in the secondary schools along with an analysis of their geography they would be convinced that he was right, but they had other proofs as well.

A few instances of the manner in which the name of “Poverty” Bay was regarded by outside people were related at the public meeting held recently to formulate a plan to advertise Gisborne. Dr. A. L. Singer said that while away on holiday he had copies of the Poverty Bay Herald posted to him. He left one of these in the lounge of an hotel and when the proprietor saw the word “Poverty” iii the title he asked Dr. Singer to leave, apparently fearing the ability of his guest to pay his acount. Mr. F. E. Wilson said a relative in England would never address letters to Poverty Bay, “because,” one letter said, “I cannot believe you live in ‘Poverty’ Bay.”