Untitled

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIII, Issue 109, 5 April 1933, Page 6

A few more moa bones were unearthed by relief workers last week in the vicinity of Monck’s Bay, Sumner, Christchurch. From time to time these have been discovered, seme in fairly large numbers, together with old Maori weapons and other relics of past occupations. Survey work on the Lewis Pass Road to the coast has now been completed, and the five men engaged in the work, including Mr R. A. Wilson, an engineer, have returned to Christchurch, says a Christchurch message. The route is 24 miles in length, and the general grade is very easy. The record number of 10,075 patients was admitted to the Auckland Hospital during the year just closed. Although 800 more patients were admitted, the total cost had been about £6OOO less, being approximately £107,000, compared with £113,000 in the previous year. Rather a remarkable case of endurance and persistence on the part of an unemployed Aucklnnd girl has come to notice. She borrowed £1 from her grandmother, an old-age pensioner, with whom she was living, and then started off on the road, carrying a small pack on her back, to see if she could reach Wellington, and then take boat to Nelson, where she thought she might net a job in tlie hop gardens. On the way down sire received many lifts, and even got the pack carried by a goods train on one occasion. The settlers were very kind to her, and only on one occasion had she to sleep out in the open all night. She succeeded in crossing to Nelson in a small boat, but found when she got there that work was not plentiful, but managed to earn a little money while there. After a while she decided to take to the road again. Tramping and getting lifts, she finally reached Dunedin, where, although amongst strangers, her pluck was rewarded and she got suitable work. Writing home last week, she said she would soon be aide to repay the £1 she borrowed, and that, after all the tramping and trying experiences she has been through, she knows how to appreciate a good job.

Tliis year marks the centenary of the emancipation of slaves in the British Dominions, which was accomplished by an Act of Parliament passed on August 28, 1833. The Christchurch City Council has resolved to ban further Socialist Party meetings in Cathedral Square, as the Socialist Party will contest the municipal elections, and is therefore classified as a political party. Work is being started in Wellington shortly on a new Y.M.C.A. hut for boys, probably at Petone. The funds will come from £I2OO subscribed by New Zealand soldiers during the war for the erection of a memorial to tho war work of the association.

A family record of 102 years of police service lias been completed by the retirement of Inspector William .Murrells, of Streatham, near London. His father, grandfather, and great-grand-father were all in the force, and his son-in-law is at present serving. Despite the restriction of play in the second Test match to practically two days only, tire gate takings amounted to £1465, to which lias to he added the amount received from the sale of schoolboys’ tickets, expected to bring the total over £ISOO. The takings at the first Test, at Christchurch, amounted to over £2OOO.

There is nothing better for the youth of the country than football in these times of depression,” said Father M. Murphy, at the annual meeting of the Celtic Football Club in Timaru. “So many of our young men are out of work, and there is nothing like kicking a football about to keep the lads from getting the depressed feeling which is so prevalent.”

After having been in disuse for many years, the police gaol at Okarito, an isolated spot 115 miles south of Greymo.uth, has been officially closed. Farming, timber-cutting and gold-digging are the only industries carried on in the district, which has a population of about 60 persons. There is not even a policeman, and the only State official recorded as living there is the postmaster, who also happens to be the signalman. A marked increase has been noted in Gisborne this year in the number of births and marriages, compared with the corresponding period last year, and each month, with the exception of February, when the figures for the two years were much on a par. there has been -a definite upward tendency. The greatest increase is in the number of marriages performed by the registrar. Deaths for the first three mouths of the year increased only by one.

A purse containing between £6O and £7O in notes was discovered on Tuesday of last week by a woman employee of a AA'anganui tearooms. Tho woman handed the purse to her employers, but as no claim had been made by Friday the find was advertised, and one woman was able to prove her ownership. She said that she had given up all hope of seeing the money again. The reward she gave the finder for her honesty ra.n into two figures. On board the AY hi to Star liner Ceramic, now en route to the United Kingdom, via South Africa, is a small church bell, a South African war souvenir, which is being returned to the town from which it was taken more than 30 years ago (says the Sydney Morning Herald). A member of a New Zealand contingent, which earned a good reputation in its actions against the Boers, secured the bell after the capture of Bloemfontein, in the Orange Free State, and took it with him when his battalion was repatriated. Colonel Lindbergh, the famous American airman, is evidently impressed with the protection afforded citizens in Great Britain, as he lias decided to take up his residence in AYale.s where he will be near a married sister. Only a few weeks ago the police of lloanoke, Virginia, arrested Joe Bryant, aged 19, and Norman Harvey, 28, and charged them with attempting to extort 17,000 dollars (about £3400 at par) from Colonel Lindbergh under threat of kidnapping his second child. The men were seized when they claimed a package left as a decoy at a bank. They had been under surveillance by detectives since December 1. Colonel Lindbergh’s second son was horn last August. His first son was kidnapped a year ago and later found murdered.

“Thorndon School in my days was noted for more than its scholarship,” said the Chief Justice, Sir Michael Myers, when addressing the gathering at the diamond jubilee celebrations in Wellington on Saturday. “It had no small reputation for its pugilistic encounters. Those who attended the Sydney Street School will remember that there was not much playground, and certainly none sufficiently retiring to serve the purpose of such encounters. What the boys used to do was to scale the fence of Parliamentary grounds—then rather differently disposed from what they are now—and have it out there. Surely no school fights ever held in New Zealand took place in such aristocratic surroundings, for on the one hand there were the Houses of Parliament, and on the other Government House.”