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Manawatu Standard, Volume LIV, Issue 149, 25 May 1934, Page 6

Addressing a gathering of accountants, the Lord Mayor of Sydney said that interest and sinking fund on loans took 75 per cent, of the city’s rate revenue.

While walking along the beach one evening last week a South Brighton (Christchurch) resident, Mrs W. H. Gravestone, was caught by a heavy gust of wind and blown into the sea. Fortunately, there was a passer-by on the foreshore at the time, and Mrs Gravestone was hurriedly rescued. The French liner Cephee, which is due at Melbourne on June 3, is bringing some small trees from the battlefield of tlie Somme. They have been sent by the French Government to the Premier of Victoria (Sir Stanley Argyle) to be planted at the Shrine of Remembrance during the centenary celebrations.

A bullock wagon, drawn by a team of eight, passed through Akaroa the other day on its way to Flea Ba.y, states the Christchurch Press. It was driven by Mr Tracy Priest, of Okain’s Bay. Bullock teams were a common sight, on Banks Peninsula in the days when timber milling flourished, but residents of Akaroa say that such a team has not been seen in the town for more than 25 years. Part of one of the canoes that were used to transport Te Rauparalm and his followers from the North Island to make an attack on the pa at Ivaiapoi about 100 years ago has been secured for the Canerbury Museum. The canoe is said to be about 200 years old, and for many years it has been lying at East Bay, Queen Charlotte Sound, where, exposed to all weathers, it has gradually rotted away. The Christchurch Times states that local members of Parliament to whom the Blenheim telegram relating to a separatist movement in the South Island was referred had not heard of the party. They were inclined to doubt its existence. Mr H. Holland said he had heard nothing of the movement, and Mr H. S. S. Kyle accepted the title with mirth. “I wonder what their slogan is,” he remarked. A business man, interested in politics, suggested humorously that, a former Christchurch M.P. was behind the movement. ’"’Someone is either having a colossal ‘leg-pull’ or it is a new political party,” he said. The clerks of the various local bodies near Christchurch had heard nothing of the organisation.

The grand carnival dance, to be held in Bunnythorpe to-night, is a splendid opportunity of spending a delightful evening. Music by Bubb’s Hot Rhythnq Syncopatore (the novelty dance orchestra), balloons, streamers, coloured lights, good Monte Carlo prizes, lucky spot and statue dances, togother with a dainty supper, will assure a real joy night.

The deficiency in the Auckland Transport Board’s accounts for the year ended March 31 amounted to £15,757, and a deficit of £11,634 is estimated for the current year. As a result of the Commonwealth Government’s decision to purchase H.M.S. Phaeton from the British Government, the personnel of the Australian Navy will be increased by approximately 600 men within the next 12 months.

In appreciation of the interest of the Governor-General, Lord Bledisloe, in fruitgrowing, a new apple has been named after him. The apple is a cross between the Delicious and the Gorgeous Crab, and has been named the “Bledisloe Crab.” Within the next two months it is likely that more scrap metal will be exported from New Zealand to Japan. In all, about 30,000 tons were exported from this country to Japan last year, and this was worth more than £1 per ton to the sellers.

As it will be some weeks before the repairs to the port engine of the Faith m Australia have been completed, Mr C. T. P. Ulm and Mr G. U. Allan, the co-pilot, have decided to go to Sydney in the meantime. They left Auckland in the Wanganella to-day, and will return to the Dominion when the machine is ready for the return flight across the Tasman. Mr R. N. Boulton, the engineer, will remain in Auckland. The death has occurred at Oruanui, near Taupo, of a Maori named Kobe Kobe, aged 79 years. In 1869, when Kohe Kohe was 14 years old, he ate some raw karaka berries, and shortly afterwards became paralysed. As time went on his body became terribly contorted, and he was in such a state that he was unable to feed himself, and it was impossible to dress him at all. He used to be wrapped in a rug and placed in the corner of a room, and this had been his whole existence for the past 65 years. His brain seemed to be the only part of him alive. To undertake the baptism of an infant might appear to be quite outside the activities and duties of a Justice of the Peace; but provision exists, though this is not very generally known, for Justices of the Peace to baptise infants when the circumstances are such that the services of a clergyman are not obtainable. It fell to the lot of Mr W. E. Simes, a Christchurch Justice of the Peace, to baptise an infant at the Clarence accommodation house, 14 miles from Hanmer Springs, over Jollie’s Pass, on the way to the Tarndale and Molesworth stations, and to Lake Rotoiti this week.

“There has been a further improvement in the finances of our county,” stated the chairman (Mr J. Peters) at the annual meeting of the Dannevirke County Council this week. “Up to March 31, 1934, we collected 84.96 per cent, of the current year’s rates, as against 76 per ‘cent, at March 31, 1933, and in addition we received payment of arrears of rates amounting to £3854. The payment of this large percentage of arrears, and also all highways subsidy being paid in full to March 31, enabled us to conclude our financial year with a surplus of receipts over expenditure amounting to £2795 6s, and the general fund account of the county was in credit £14,784 10s lOd.” Out of every 100 people, 17 are born strongly right-handed, three strongly left-handed, and the remaining 80 have equal capacity for either (states a writer in a Sydney journal). In the adult, however, out of the 80, only two, as a rule, are ambidextrous, the remainder having acquired the right-hand habit. Many theories have been advanced as to the reason for the predominance in the skill of the right hand over the left. They may be tabulated as follows: —(1) Nursing and infantile treatment; (2) result of practice in writing and drawing; (3) acquired habit; (4) the outcome of war, education and heredity; (5) the result of internal organic structure; (6) instinct; (7) result of visceral distribution; (8) due to arrangement of blood vessels; (9) result of brain onesidedness. Left-handed people or people who have their left side well trained (thus training the right side of the brain) hardly ever suffer from aphasia. This ambidexterity is well worth cultivating for that reason alone, so, although left-handed people should cultivate the use of the right hand as well, right-handed people should cultivate the left hand. The Maoris of the various settlements extending for 30 miles up the Waimana Valley, Bay of Plenty, assert that owing to an old tribal feud they have been denied the opportunity of participation in the native land development schemes (says an Opotiki correspondent). The Waimana Maoris are very anxious to give evidence before the Native Land Commission. At Ruatoki, up the Whakatane River, and other parts of the Whakatane County, on the one hand, and eastwards of Opotiki to Capt Runaway, on the other, large sums have been expended in helping the natives to develop their lands, but no help has been given the Maoris of Waimana, Tanatana, Matahi, Tawhana, Maungapoliatu, and Raroa settlements, which lie long the Waimana River. The Maoris there are having difficulty in securing sufficient food for the present winter. Work is unobtainable, and owing to several late summer frosts in the upper valley crops were considerably damaged.’ Numerous expeditions have been organised to hunt wild pigs, which have become very numerous during the last few years, and this source of meat supply is standing the natives in good stead. A considerable number of Maoris on the _ river flats took up dairying, but owing to lack of funds for developmental purposes, manures and fencing material, are finding it very difficult to carry on with butterfat at present prices.