NEWS OF THE DAY

Manawatu Times, Volume 64, Issue 13, 17 January 1939, Page 6

NEWS OF THE DAY

Item from the Camping Ground “You must have been brave to come down in a parachute in a 60-milc-an-hour gale like this." “I didn't come down in a parachute. I went up in a \ tent! " Fall From Scaffold Through falling from a scaffold at the Woodvillo lime works, where ho is engaged in the construction of tho buildings to house tlvo plant, Mr. William Woodd, aged Cl, builder, of Wliakarongo, received a fractured left wrist. He was admitted to the Palmerston North Hospital. Snow at To Pohue A few flakes of snow fell at Te Pohue yesterday morning, accompanied by a bitterly cold wind. Although it became warmer before mid-day, the wind still blew strongly and there was some rain. It was raining in tho early afternoon. The bush and scrub fires which started in that district last week arc now burnt

Shifting Sands. A Castlecliff (Wanganui) resident who has lived within sight of the beach for many years states that the present summer is the worst he can recall for seaside cancers. Never before had he seen the contours of tho sandhills change as rapidly as they have done during the last two months of westerly gales. 11 Thousands of tons of sand have been shifted at Castlecliff," he said.

Canterbury Blood Donors. Nearly 30 lives have been saved by members of tho North Canterbury branch of tho National Blood Transfusion Service of New Zealand, who provided 116 donors for blood transfusion;* during 1938. Eighty-five of the cali.s were to tho Christchurch Public Hospital. The Canterbury branch has a membership of IST, including 152 men ana

5 women. The honorary medical ad iser of the branch, Dr. Edgar Thorm on, has resigned as he lias been givein important position in Australia.

Parcels to South China The Director-General of the Post Office has been advised from Hong Kong that, owing to the disturbed conditions in South China, the parcel-post services are temporarily suspended for the provinces of Kweichow, Anhui, Hunan, Hupeh, Shansi, Shensi, Iviangsi, Honan. Kansu, Kwangsl and Kwangtung with the exception of the ports of Swatow and Amoy. Parcels cannot thereforo bo forwarded except to Swatow and Amoy until further advice is received that the services in South China can bo resumed. Novel Use for Sword.

A universal boating of swords into ploughshares seems to be as far off now as ever, but one Takapuna resident is showing the world a way in which they can be used for more useful and peaceful pursuits than hamstringing enemies. He was seen on his hands and knees on the lawn mowing awkward buffalo grass —the bane of so many Auckland householders—with the greatest ease. An envious neighbour /could not make out what sort of sickle he was using with such powerful effect, and was surprised, on making closer investigation, to fine, that it was an old cavalry sword. Medical Fees Paid.

As one of several medical men In Dunedin who commented on tho position, said, there must be higher ideals among patients in Dunedin than in New Plymouth, where patients have ceased to pay bills because of the Social Security Act. Seven Dunedin doctors were asked whether the pending introduction of tho Act was influencing their patients over the payment of their bills and each unreservedly stated that accounts were being paid promptly, though reservations were naturally made at this time of the year for shortness of ready cash occasioned through holiday spending. Body and Mind.

Symptoms of physical illness might be due to a psychical cause, but the reverse was also true, said Professor D. W. Carmalt Jones, of Otago University, in the 1938 Cawthron Lecture at Nelson.

“A patient was sent to me complaining of ‘neurasthenia' —general inability to stand up to the stress of life," he continued. “She had a bad psychical history, had lost a mother to whom she was devoted, and was very antagonistic to her father. There seemed ample psychical grounds for her condition. I advised about her case in that sense. Sho gave up her doctor, as patients will, ami met him again a year later in excellent health—having had a tuberculous kidney removed."

Company Names. From an evident sense of humour, and perhaps in a mood of challenging optimism, some persons floating a company in the North Islnd have chosen as a name for the company the phrase ‘ ‘ now then," which has come to be popularly associated with the Prime Minister, lit. lion. M. J. Savage, through his frequent uso of it. Tho company, whose full title is “Now Then, Ltd.," sets out to be, in the official wording, financial agents, brokers, underwriters, attorneys, etc., and incidental. Another group of persons in Christchurch seems to prefer an association with sartorial elegance or, perhaps, with the sartorially correct gaiety of some metropolis. This group has chosen to call its company the Top Hat Finance and Agency Company, Ltd. Rabbits Keep Cats Fit.

Tho conversation turned to the subject of “huntin' " and some of the older members of tho party, whoso rifles, liberally coated with mixtures to keep away the rust, lamented that they had now to go long distances from the city to shoot an unwary rabbit, says tho Auckland Star. The creatures, they said, were almost extinct. One of the more observant and “city wise," however, recommended a visit to the vicinity of the oil tanks at Freeman’s Bay. There, he asserted, one could see many rabbits of an evening, and only recently he had noticed seven or eight skipping around the locality, hotly pursued by those vigorous animals—Freeman’s Bay cats. Tho pussies, with their hunting instincts aroused, were getting in a bit of stalking practice, but unless they carried the customary piece of salt it was unlikely that they gained anything more than feline excitement from their sport. The rabbits seemed as fleet as their country c/Ousins.