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Manawatu Standard, Volume LII, Issue 108, 7 April 1932, Page 6

A close season for opossums has been declared by the Wanganui Acclimatisation Society. This is partly due to the fact that the skins are bringing sucli n low price in tlic msxrkots. The statement that unless steps were taken to give relief, and if further flooding occurred through silting from the Tutaekuri River, the port °f Napier would cease to and all the export trade of the district would be diverted to Wellington, was made this week by a combined deputation to the Hawke’s Bay Rivers Board. Homeward bound from Wellington to London, the motor liner Rangitane ran down a huge whale three days before she arrived at the Panama Canal. The impact was felt throughout the whole ship. The ship’s engines were stopped, and as the vessel s speed slackened the whale slipped away from the bow and immediately sank. The whale showed no sign of life after it had been struck, and the water was dyed crimson over a wide area. Apparently it was killed outright.

An example of the prerogative of a British subject to petition the King was provided recently when a woman residing in the Waikatp, having a grievance against tlie actions of a local body wrote to His Majesty setting out her view of the case. A reply was received from the secretary to the Gov-ernor-General, Lord Bledisloe, stating that the matter had been referred to His Excellency, and that the petitioner would be communicated with later. A petition, meaning generally a prayerful request for redress by a person aggrieved, may be made in Great Britain to the Crown or its officers, or to either House of Parliament. In certain cases it may be made to Courts of Justice. The right of petitioning the Crown was recognised indirectly as early as Afagna Carta and, diiectly, at various periods later.

Parishioners of St. Peter’s Church are invited to attend a welcome social to their new vicar (Rev. D. J. Davies) and Mrs Davies in the Parish Hall to-morrow evening at 8 o’clock.

Between three and a-half and four tons of sardines were caught the other day near the Great and Little Barrier Islands.

One definite case of infantile paralysis has been notified in the Blenheim health district and two or three other suspected cases are under observation. Mr J. W. Chinery was motoring to Wanganui yesterday when his car slipped and fell 100 feet over a steep bank. The occupant escaped with injuries to his ribs, necessitating treatment in the Wanganui Hospital.

Distribution of lucerne cultures developed by the Plaint Ilesearch Station at Palmerston North during the past twelve months has assumed large proportions, and sufficient have been sent out to 653 farmers to inoculate 46,(XX) lbs. of seed.

Anglers who visited Tokaanu during the holidays report that, owing to rains before Easter, the river rose sufficiently to enable the trout to run from the lake up to the various pools and as a result good fishing was obtained in the river and at the delta. A total of 24 industrial disputes occurred in New Zealand during the year ended December 31, according to the Government’s monthly abstract of statistics. On account of them, 48,486 working days and about £44,544 in wages were lost. Sixteen of the disputes concerned the coalmining industry, six being in shipping, and one each in freezing works and threshingmills.

Notwithstanding the fact that there is at present an enormous over-supply of whale oil in the world, it is understood that the Norwegian fleet, which for several seasons has been operating in Boss Sea, will resume activities towards the end of this year (states the Southland Times). At the base in Price’s Bay, Paterson’s Inlet, alone thirty “men, all Norwegians, are busily engaged repairing the larger fleet of chasers.

Owing to a mishap incurred in the course of his work on Tuesday afternoon, Mr It. I', ltees, of the Horowhenua Power Board’s electrical staff, is at present an inmate of a private hospital in Levin. Ho was with tiro foreman on a transformer platform near the Kuku dairy factory, when by some means lie received a shock. The foreman heard Mr ltees call out and immediately turned round, seeing him fall over the railing to the ground. As a result of the fall, Mr Rees sustained concussion; he had also experienced some slight burns.

The Onelrunga Borough Council is being threatened with legal action by the State Advances Department for the recovery of £342 12s, the balance of an interest payment due last January. The council received a letter this week stating that unless the money was paid within 14 days from date action for recovery would be taken under section 77 of the Local Bodies Loans Act, 1926. Mr S. Vella explained that this sum had been held back by tire council when paying the interest due to the State Advances Department, as a contra account for water, payment for which was due to the council on properties which had reverted to the Crown in the borough.

That the city corporation is liable for the damage is the decision reached by Mr J. S. Bartholomew, S.M., in the case in which Edward Howlison sued the Mayor, councillors and citizens of Dunedin for £32 11s 2d, on account of damage to a plate-glass window which was broken when a boy playing cricket on the Oval hit a ball through the window of Mr Howlison’s garage. The magistrate quoted judgments on similar cases, and said it was held that it constituted a nuisance for a golf club to have a hole where players were in the habit of slicing on to the highway. He could not see how this could be differentiated from cricket played in too close proximity to a highway. A cricket ball was as dangerous a missile as a golf ball. Boisterous weather is prolonging the work oi transferring the Dominion end of the Sydney-New Zealand cable from Wellington to Muriwai, Auckland. The cable steamer Recorder, formerly known as the Iris, is at present engaged in lifting the cable, cutting out faulty sections, and splicing tho good pieces. It is estimated that 80 miles of repaired cable will be obtained in this way. When this part of the job is completed, the steamer will call at Wellington to replenish her coal bunkers before going north to Muriwai. The Sydney-New Zealand cable will be picked up at a point about 350 miles west of Wellington and joined to the end of the cable buoyed 80 miles off Muriwai Beach. As the work is easily delayed by adverse weather, it is impossible to say how long it will be before tho job is completed. “Lying in bed in the morning in Aharon, I have heard the tui s notes in the eucalyptus trees.” Mr Cowan writes thus in tho New Zealand Raib ways Magazino, explaining how tui and bellbird can be lured to the towns by. the attractions of an Australian tree, and by other suitable bird-food trees. At Akaroa, at any rate, “the native birds have not all been frightened away into the heart of the remnants of the bush. The bellbird and the tui breed and find their food in close company with the homes of man. They have adapted themselves to the happy blending of native and introduced trees. The little trilling riroriro nests in the trees where the English thrush sings, and the makomako, the bellbird, is everywhere in the shady copses and orchard groves. When the pears are ripening, the tui and the makomako are there before the orcliardist, but I must say that I never heard any complaint against the fruiteating ways of the Maori birds. Akaroa folk, true Nature lovers, like to hear the tui nnd its mellifluous little cousin in their gardens, and they do not. begrudge them food payment for their songs and their company.” A curious instance of the varying effects of certain poisons on the systems of different creatures is supplied by the übiquitous New Zealand tutu shrub, in whose luscious-looking black berries lurks a poison that is instinctively shunned by most animals. Mr James Drummond, E.L.S., the wellknown student of New Zealand plant and animal life, states that to tuis and other birds the ripe tutu berries are delicious fruit, and are eaten by them yvith impunity. Statements that fowls have died from tutu poisoning are discredited by him. A fowl, deprived of food for two days, was offered a heaped plate of tutu berries. It took between an ounce and an ounce and a-half, and showed no effects of poisoning. Settlers who arrived at Port Albert, Kaipara, North Auckland, 70 years ago, found tutu berries ripe, plentiful, and attractive. One of them took the berries freely, and gave some to his wife and to a young man, each eating several bunches. His wife immediately became violently sick, but recovered in a few hours. The young man became delirious, frothed at the mouth, and beat his head on the ground. Alter two days lie recovered. The settler, who had taken 10 times as much as the others, felt no ill-effects. Again, varying effects of poison from eating tutu are observed among sheep and cattle. Some old settlers declare that the liquor strained from ripe tutu berries is both refreshing and innocuous to the human system. The diverse effects of tutu consumption on birds, stock, and human beings appears to otter scope for useful research in New Zealand—Otago Daily Times.