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Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIX, Issue 162, 10 June 1929, Page 6

According to the annual report of the Otago Education Board, there were 252 schools under its control in 1928. There were 758 teachers, and the average roll total was 20,862. The average attendance was 19,269, a percentage of 92,36.

The personnel of a tribunal to make preliminary inquiries in connection with the Auckland harbour bridge project was decided upon last week at a meeting of the Harbour Bridge Association. It is to be suggested to the Prime Minister that the tribunal should comprise the Director of Town Planning (Mr J. W. Mawson), the chief engineer of the Public Works Department (Mr F. W. Furkert), a judge of the Supreme Court, and a prominent business man.

A queen carnival organised to raise £BOO with which to complete the purchase of a children’s camp site to be known as Camp Fergusson at Raglan concluded at Hamilton _on Saturday evening. The receipts totalled £1295 18s. Mrs F. D. Pinfold (Hamilton West) polled 37,040 votes; Miss D. Shelton (Frankton) 24,214; Miss N. Valder (Claudelands) 23,043; and Miss 0. Kirby (Hamilton East) 19,375. Mr W. A. Curteis, headmaster of the Hamilton East School, told the School Committee last week that members of the staff were developing inferiority complexes. The school is old and out of date, and it is seriously overcrowded. There are 000 pupils on the roll and each term sees the number increased. There were 22 new pupils this term. Repeated representations to the Education Department liavo been of no avail. The Minister of Education, the Hon. H. Atmore, is to be approached personally and asked to grant a new school and more playing areas.

The Maunganui arrived at Sydney this morning from Wellington. The Makura arrived at Sydney yesterday.

A very unusual and amusing incident occurred on the Miramar links on Saturday, when a heifer grazing on the course picked up a player’s golf ball in the most matter-of-fact manner, nodded its head, and swallowed the ball.

The revenue of the Hawke’s Bay Electric Power Board for the past year totalled £39,757, the sales of electricity bringing in £36,826, an increase of £18,548 over the previous year. The purchase of electricity cost the board £20,284, an increase of £10,540, while interest on loans cost £11,723, an increase of £8320. It is anticipated that the revenue for the coming year will be between £45,000 and £50,000.

A district high school, at which special attention will be given to instruction in dairying and sheep-raising, is to be established at Tikitiki, in rthe Waiapu Valley. Mr Neho Kopua, a Gisborne chief, has offered to give 20 acres of land for the school. The erection of such a school had been recommended by Mr T. B. Strong, Director of Education, who recently inspected the native schools in the valley, and who was impressed with their proximity to one another and with the large number of children attending. The question of locality of the new building was left to tho tribe to settle, says a Gisborne paper.

The chief steward of the steamer Port Nicholson was loft in Australia when the vessel was forced to take a hurried departure from Port Kembla, recently, owing to a severe gale arising suddenly. The steamer was moored in tho harbour, which is formed almost entirely by a breakwater. The force of the gale caused two mooring lines to snap and had it not been for the quick use of the engines the steamer would have been driven against the quay. It was deemed advisable to leave for the open sea at once, and the vessel’s departure was taken, although the chief steward was not expected to return from Sydney until the next day. He will rejoin the ship in New Zealand. Workmen are still repairing the damage done to the stonework of the Christchurch Cathedral tower by the recent earthquake. The Church News says:—The spire is, as generally known, not of stone. After the eaithquakes of long ago, when tho old spire was broken off, a framework of timber covered with copper, with a plumbbob balanced connected with the cross on top, was constructed. It rests on the top of the square stone tower. The spire is intact, but the upper stones of the tower were shaken loose by the last earthquake. Otherwise, the tower and spire withstood the shock excellently, and sustained no other damage. The cost of the present work is under £150.”

An effort to reopen negotiations with the Levin Borough Council with a view to setting up a scheme of health inspection for the Horowhenua County and the boroughs of Levin, Shannon and Otaki, was made by Dr. Ritchie, Medical Officer of Health, Wellington, in a letter which came before the meeting of the council. Since the matter was gone into last year by the council with Dr. Shore, of the health department, the borough inspector lias been appointed by the council as its health inspector. The communication which put forward a suggestion that traffic control might be combined with health inspection duties in tho person of a district inspector, met with negative receptibn, the council adhering to the existing arrangement. “The restriction of water heaters during peaking load hours has become a vital necessity to the WanganuiRangitikei Power Board, and, from experiments of various means to control these service, it was found that time switches were the most efficient having regard to the convenience of the consumers and the definite reduction of the peak load upon which the board has to buy its supply from the department,” stated Mr W. A. Waters in his “News of the Month,” submitted to the Manawatu-Oroua Power Board to-day. “These instruments are costly, and in most cases, the chairman remarks, ‘the supply authorities have directly or indirectly charged the cost to consumers.’ The instruments are being installed without charge of any kind and the saving effected by such control will ultimately be reflected in reduced charges for other services.”

Difficulties to be met with in identifying old paintings were referred to at Auckland by Dr. E. B. Gunson in a public lecture. The speaker said that there were, in European galleries alone, seven times as many paintings attributed to Rembrandt as that painter could have made in his whole lifetime. Scienco was coming to the assistance of the expert, he added, in the critical examination of pictures. Modern work could be identified because aniline pigments, which were first used about the middle of the nineteenth century, transmitted the rays of light rather freely.. The mineral pigments of the old masters were comparatively opaque, with the result that an examination of the pigment was a useful guide in identifying the work of particular painters. Lantern slides shown Dr. Gunson with ordinary and X-ray photographs of the same picture side by side, revealed, in some cases, one painting made on top of another.