LOCAL AND GENERAL

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXXI, Issue 4959, 23 February 1937, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL

Particulars of train arrangements and excursion fares in connection with the Te Aroha Races at Herriesville on '27th Februray and Ist March are advertised in this issue.

"When you have seen Naples from the bay you have seen enough of it; the main features of the town otherwise are dirty streets and skinny, overworked horses," said Mr. Ralph Wilson to the New Plymouth Rotary Club yesterday.

Meals in Germany are cheap, according to Mr. R. Wilson, a New Plymouth Boys' High School master who has returned from a journey abroad. He told the .New Plymouth. Rotary Club yesterday that in Leipzig he obtained a good three-course meal with a glass of beer thrown in for the modest outlay of ninepence.

The school children's long summer vacation is nearing a conclusion. The schools, which have been closed for ten weeks owing to restrictions necessitated by health precautions, will re-open on Monday next. The teachers, however, resumed duties yesterday, and they will be engaged all this week preparing their schemes of work and perfecting school organisation so that when school is resumed the routine work will not be delayed. For this work there will be the unusual situation of schools with teachers but no scholars.

An interesting old English custom at Winchester was described by Mr. R. Wilson to the New Plymouth Rotary Club yesterday. "At the St. Cross Hospital," he said, "some < legacy was left dating back to Henry VIIL, providing two gallons of beer for needy pedestrians. Of course we left our car some distance away and arrived on foot," he added.

The man obviously had a complaint (states an exchange). He burst in at the door of a city office and just avoided upsetting a large and imposing individual making a more leisurely entrance. He demanded to be shown instantly to the manager. "That's the manager coming in now," said the clerk, pointing to the large and imposing man who now bore down on the counter with a scowl in the general direction of the complainant. His confidence oozed out of him as, from his insignificant height, he gazed upward at the manager striding to his room and slamming the door determinedly behind him. "In that case," added the complainant, "I'll see the assistant manager. He'll do." -

"I venture to predict that within the next 12 months there will be no fit men left on the association's unemployment register," said Mr. W. E. Leadley, chairman of the Christchurch Returned Soldiers' Association Unemployment Committee, in a .report presented to the quarterly meeting of the association on Wednesday evening. Mr. Leadley said that during the last yeau a very large number of permanent jobs had been found for returned soldiers, and the number of registrations in the association's bureau was about 126 lower than at the corresponding period last year. "We have definitely turned the corner," Mr. Leadley added, "and the committee feels that we are hearing the period when the incoming executive will have to consider whether we are justified in continuing the work of the bureau."

A Hamilton resident who has just returned from a visit to Sydney and Melbourne says: "On returnng from Australia one has a peculiar feeling that things in New Zealand have shrunk, not only physically, although of course places like Auckland seem comparatively small and quiet, but mentally Australia is a land of big things; financially people talk in thousands of pounds, compared with New Zealand's £5 note, while mentally there is a wideness of vision that one does not find so general here. It is very stimulating."

"I wish to draw the attention of all operators to the new hours of work and rates of pay," remarked Mr. H. H. Langford, at the sitting of the No. 3 Transport Licensing Authority at Greymouth. "The operatordriver has been putting it across the man who has to employ labour, and the whole idea now is that men can do only a given amount of work in a certain time. New inspectors will make a great difference, and there is every chance that operators will lose their licenses if they continue to work in the evenings or during Saturdays and Sundays. The position, such as it is, will not be tolerated by the department."

"Auckland is our centre. We might get into a Hamilton district and find the Hamilton people parochial," said Mr. H. J. Hare at a meeting of the Paeroa School committee when the proposal to form a new educational district in Hamilton was mooted. He said he favoured the existing control. "It might cut the other way," said the secretary, Mr. J. H. Bartlett. "A board in Hamilton might be more sympathetic to country schools and their problems." The committee decided to support the division of the district.

The finding of a .22 calibre rifle and a box of cartridges concealed under the mattress of a bed in a Wellington hotel last week caused the Wellington police to think that a serious crime was in process of development. The whole matter was cleared up, however, when a a girl made a confession to the police later in the day. Apparently she had had a disagreement with her young man, and, wishing to shock him into coming back to her, she decided on the purchase of a rifle. She found, however, that a permit could not be obtained, so she stole a rifle from the shop of a local sports dealer. The rifle, which she hid under her mattress, labelled "Danger, do not touch," was not necessary to settle the argument, however. The girl appeared before Mr. J. G. L. Hewitt, in the Magistrate's Court, charged with the theft of the firearm, and was convicted and discharged.