Manawatu Herald TUESDAY, AUGUST 16, 1932. LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Manawatu Herald, Volume LII, Issue 4796, 16 August 1932, Page 2

Manawatu Herald TUESDAY, AUGUST 16, 1932. LOCAL AND GENERAL.

-\Y. Hussey (smin.) was placed second in the Levin Cycling Club’s 28-mile road race! on Saturday. The directors of the Bank of New Zealand have allocated the sum of £4OOO for relief of women and children in distress in the four chief centres in the Dominion. The first whitebait of the season were on sale in New •Plymouth last Wednesday. The. run up the North Taranaki rivers and streams is earlier this year than usual. The administrators of the MacCarthy Trust have allocated £7O to the Brigidine Convent, Foxtoii, and £SO to the Foxton Blanket Society this year.

The fourth mcmjber of tin 1 crew of the Southern Cross for the impending' Tasman flight will be Mr. T. Pcthybridge,.who will be mechanic and engineer. He is Australian trained, holds a pilot’s ticket, and was mechanic and engineer at the Tasmanian end oL the Australian National Airways -Company.

A Wood villa relief worker who complained to the Borough Council about his gas bill stated he was using 51bs of candles every month to save gas. The gas manager reported having tested the meter and fittings and found’ them in order. He added that he noticed a gas ring going merrily as well as a coal tire in the range so that it was not fair to place the whole cost to lighting purposes. No action was -ta-'ken.

To lose the nether portion of one’s garment and not know it seems incredible, but that is what happened to the least -burly of the players at (Central Park, AV aipukurau, on Saturday last when the Takapau-Old Boys match was in progress. It was only when he heard imperative calls of “Sit down!” “Sit down!” from his fellow players that he realised that something was amiss. Perhaps he found the ground cold when he did sit down, but that is not recorded. Anyway, it- appeared to many of the spectators that it was adding insult to injury to supply this small player with a new pair of strides that reached (almost) from his ankles to his armpits.

An interesting purchase of old postage stamps, and one which is considered to be the biggest in the history of New Zealand philately, has receiitlv been made! of the comprehensive' collection of the late Mr. Henry Baigcnt, of Nelson. The collection, which was Valued at abont £BOOO, has been bought by Mr. A. Brodie, of Auckland. The highest priced stamp is one of the first penny stamps £>f New Zealand, valued at £l5O. Other rarities are the bisected London printed stamp used as a sixpenny stamp in New Zealaud, the penny polure, 13 perforations, the rare serrated sixpenny pelure, and a fine lot of alt New Zealand from 1855 to the present date. The collection is also rich in Pacific Island stamps, including early Cook Island and Samoa stamps on laid paper, early British Guinea ss, Barlbadoes £5, Great Britain Is, 5.R.1., etc.

Charged with having taken a protected bird and with cruelty to animals, a market gardener of Mangere, Ah Chung, pleaded not guilty in the Onehunga Police Court (states jUze “New Zealand Herald”). The evidence of the police showed that .on 21-st July the defendant had tethered a seagull to a stake in lii.s garden. On the bird’s breast was a severe wound, as if it had been penetrated by a bullet from an airgun. It was unable to fly and had been destroyed. A schoolgirl said she released the, seagull,'which sin l took to her mother, who informed the police. The defendant said he was annoyed |by a flock of seagulls. He tried to scare them away, as they were destroying his seeds, and he caught the bird in question. Hr noticed that it was unable to fly, but saw no wound on it. He admitted tethering it hy one leg to a stake, intending to release it next morning. The Justices imposed a fine of £5 and costs on the charge of taking a protected bird, and 30s and costs for cruelty.

It happened in ontpof the larger Auckland stores on ■*> recent halfprice day. The shop . s full of [bargain hunters, seeking, .. vine of them, they knew precisely not what. All they wanted was contained in that elusive word," bargains. One woman was trying on a hat under the difficult circumstances always associated with half-price day. To facilitate matters, she had taken off her own, and set it on a table near her. She finished her inspection of the article she had intended buying, and then turned to put on her own hat again. Just as she turned she noticed another customer also trying on a hat. There was nothing unusual in that, but the hat the second customer was pulling about and inspecting closely in a mirror seemed strangely familiar. It was her own. But the matter did not end there. Before the real owner of the hat could do anything, the other had grasped it firmly in one hand, and raced up to one of the saleswomen to clinch her bargain. She was only with difficulty convinced of her mistake.

In to-day’s advertising columns the Railway Department announces the replacement of the present Foxton-Palmerston North train service with goods services after Saturday next, 20th instant. In Sydney recently 100 people stopped and gaped and women squealed, while a well-dressed man in Pitt street, with a rat inside his trouser leg, leaped and yelled like a fanatical dervish for nearly five minutes. Eventually the rat dropped from its most embarassing position of refuge and a man in the crowd jumped on it and killed it. Some groceries were being carried from a motor lorry when the rat sprang out from a case and disappeared up the man’s trousers. After it had left him he hurriedly disappeared. The Waikato Hospital Board decided yesterday to accept -500 shares in a co-operative company in settlement of a claim for £OBO for hospital treatment. The secretary said the case wms one in which a man had been a patient in the board’s hospital for over four years aid had died. Prior to that, he had received substantial compensation, but the board had no legal right to any part of this money. The Minister of Health had promised to introduce legislation to afford hospital boards better facilities for the collection of fees in such cases.

The following simple formula will give the approximate weight of hay in a stack with straight sides, says the Adelaide .Chronicle: —Multiply the average width in feet by the “over” (i.e., the distance over the stack from the base on one side to the base on the other), divide the product by four, and multiply the quotient by the length. This gives the contents of the stack in cubic feet. For hay that has stood for less than 30 days, divide by 512; for 30. to 00 days, by 422; over 00 days, by 380. The quotient gives the tonnage of the stack.

For some time there have been rumours that wild pigeons were being shot in considerable numbers in the country back of Opotiki (says the Auckland Star). It is now reported that local police made a raid last week, and came upon a large party of Maoris, who endeavoured to get away in a motor car. Reports of the raid state that while the suspected poachers were being pursued, a number of pigeons were hurled from the car over a steep bank. It is understood that the Maoris were caught with a considerable number of birds still in the ear, (but some of the Maoris man aged to elude the police. A sequel to the raid will probably be heard in the Court at Opotiki. Work at the Bell Block (NewPlymouth) aerodrome in preparation for the arrival from Sydney in September of Sir Charles Kingsford Smith in the Southern Cross is progressing satisfactorily. Relief workers have been engaged, and already great transformations have taken place. Tons of spoil have been removed from hilltops to fill up depressions, so that when the airman arrives the machine will have a minimum, runway of 900 yards in all directions. A sum of £9OO had been authorised by the Unemployment Board to carry out the work. The hangar at the Bell Block aerodrome is not large enough to accommodate the Southern Cross, and arrangements are being made to shelter the aeroplane during its visit to New Plymouth and to protect the vital parts from the weather.

On June 20 a Bradford wool sorter who opened a bale of New Zealand wool found an envelope with the words, “Finder please open.” He followed instructions and read this: “:If you are a British citizen I will be very pleased on receipt of your name and address, together with this note to send you free of cost a New Zealand frozen lamb. I buy nothing but Britishmade goods. If you buy only Empire produce, meat, butter, and cheese, we in the colonies will be able to buy more of your Britishmade goods to our mutual benefit. Please acknowledge the receipt of the lamb when you get it.” The sorter was a man of action. He told his employer of the letter, gave a. story to the “Yorkshire Observer,” the leading Bradford paper, and t-hoit evening wrote to the Southland farmer who had sent the wool, claiming the frozen lamb. Excerpts from this letter are as follows: — 1 “I am a wool sorter working in a Bradford factory, and I think you will be glad when I say that it could not have fallen into better hands, as I am a great believer in Empire trade. I really do believe if we bought more from one another we should both benefit.”