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Manawatu Standard, Volume LIII, Issue 136, 9 May 1933, Page 6

While the 80 men who made up the complement of the steamship Mahia, which arrived at New Plymouth last week direct from the Tyne, are drawn from almost every quarter of the globe, they are all of British descent. Places as far apart as Thursday Island and Skye, Adelaide and Newfoundland, and London and South Africa are represented.

It seems remarkable that any person in these days of financial stringency should accidentally lose a substantial sum of money in the street and yet set no inquiries afoot in the matter. Yet such is the experience of the Thames police, who were recently handed a small roll of notes picked up in Pollen Street, and all endeavours to trace the owner have so far proved unavailing, in spite of the publicity given to the find. The question was asked at last night’s meeting of the It.S.A. as to what attitude the Palmerston North branch intended taking in respect to political activities. In reply, the chairman (Mr B. J. Jacobs) stated that politics meant nothing to the association. “Immediately we step into politics, it will wreck us,” added the speaker, and the volume of assenting voices indicated that the members were of the same opinion. Tlie excavations matte for the recent removal of the Godley statue to a new site in Christchurch reminded onlookers of the work that at one time the Waimakariri River flowed over what is now Cathedral Square. The material turned up by the blasting and digging of the last week Or two has been a fine sandy shingle, which obviously formed part of a river bed hundreds of years ago, when the Waimakariri, which has steadily been working northward, discharged itself at Sumner. The fact that an enforcement is being made of the regulation that children who have attained the age. of 15 years cannot remain at primary school without the explicit permission of the School Committee was emphasised to the College Street School Committe last evening bv the headmaster, Mr W. A. Swinbourii. He said that the regulation had been in operation for a number of years but it was now being more strongly enforced. On his recommendation the committee agreed to two such pupils remaining at the school until the end of the year.

H.AI.S. Dunedin will again become the flagship of,the New Zealand Division of the Royal Navy at two o’clock on Thursday afternoon, when Commodore F. Burges-Watson will transfer his broad pennant to that ship from the Diomeae at Auckland. The transfer of the pennant will be made with full naval ceremony. The reflection of the sun’s rays by the windshield of a motor-car parked at the edge of the field delayed the commencement of the senior football match between Ponsonby and Otahuhu at the Auckland Showgrounds for a few minutes on Saturday. The owner of the car overcame the difficulty, at the request of the referee, by throwing a rug over the windshield. Over 400 children have been received into the Health Camp at Otaki in the last seven months, and have remained in the camp for from five to eight weeks. The entire cost during the period has been £IO3O 5s lid, an average of 10s lOd per child per week. This information was given by Mr C. H. Pinnoclc, at the annual meeting of the Wellington School Committees’ Association, last evening. It is anticipated by the Public Works Department that the widening and concreting of the longer Tawa Flat tunnel will be finished on October 12. This will leave the job ready for the rails. Inquiries of the Railway Department elicited the information that a decision has not yet been reached regarding the date when the laying of the track will be commenced, in view of the uncertainty regarding the extent of the funds that will be available to the Railway Department in five months’ time. An unusual accident occurred to Rex Simpson, aged 11, at Warkworth, when he received severe gunshot wounds in the thigh as the result of a cow stepping on his loaded gun and setting the weapon off. The boy was herding up the cows for the afternoon’s milking', and - carried his gun in case lie should meet game, in the shape of rabbits or birds. He laid the gun down on a hillside and went in front of it to drive some cows through a gate, when one animal strayed from the herd and stepped on the weapon, discharging it.

A reply by telegram from Mr F. Lye, ALP., to a request by the union that he should endeavour to obtain exemption from the tax on petrol used in milking and shearing sheds on backblock farms, was discussed' at a meeting of the Waikato sub-provincial branch of the New Zealand Farmers’ Union. .Mr Lye stated: “I have interviewed the Minister regarding exemption of milking and shearing sheds from additional petrol tax. This cannot be granted. Farmers have exchange inflation, reduced bank rate, manure subsidy and railway freight reductions. 'What more does the Farmers’ Union want while the country requires revenue?”

Some time last week Mr C. Tong, a drainer employed by the Omaeranui Drainage Board, Hawke’s Bay, unearthed a number of bones, which, on account of their size, he believed were those of a moa. He reported the discovery to Mr A. G. Pallot, secretary of the board, who communicated with the Hawke’s Bay Philosophical Institute. Over the week-end two members of the institute, Dr A. G. Park and Mr C. F. H. Pollock, went to the spot' where Mr Tong made the discovery, about a hundred yards' off the Omahu-Puketapu Road. Upon examination, the specimens were found to bo well preserved, and from the dimen sions the bird must have been a large one belonging to the “dinornis maximum” class.