Children's Court

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 76, 16 May 1941, Page 4

Children's Court

Two boys who admitted the conversion of a canoe and the theft of a pair of oars and a paddle appeared before Mr T. E. Maunsell, S.M., in the Children’s Court this morning. One boy, who had previously been before the Court, was committed to the care of the Child Welfare Officer for two years. The case against the other boy, whose father had already paid £lO towards the cost of repairs to the canoe, which was badly damaged, was dismissed. In No Hurry The announcement made recently that the railway line between Picton and Blenheim was having curves eliminated so that trains can be speeded up when the South Island tiunk railway is completed seems to spell the death knell of one of the slowest of New Zealand's railway journeys (says "The Post”). The distance between Picton and Blenheim by rail is only 18 miles and at no place on the journey does the line rise to a greater height than 246 feet, yet before the train breathlessly pants into Blenheim it has been on the go for 70 minutes. Approximately 15 miles an hour is the speed averaged over that section of the line. But when the train proceeds to Ward, 30 miles further on, it requires another two hours and forty minutes to accomplish the trip. Obviously tired from its previous effort, its average speed over this section is only about 11 miles an hour.

Fight Against Flies at Tcfcruk With the setting-in of hot weather, medical worries, due to flies, have arisen. writes an Australian war correspondent from Tobruk. The problem was tackled at the outset, and a huge campaign has been launched against dysentery risks. The Italians left huge dumps of fly-spray here, and this has been generously distributed. Strict supervision is being maintained over all possible sources of disease, and every man in the garrison has become fly-conscious. In this important mattei we are in a far better position than the enemy. The whole of the Tobruk aiea has been lived in for years, and there has always been some attempt at sanitation, which the garrison can improve 100 per cent. The position of the enemy living in open country outside is much more precarious in this respect. The Germans are not used to the hot climate, and all their cooking and sanitation arrangements must of necessity be primitive, because of the nature of the country. Dust and flies can easily be as big a factor in this campaign as armaments. Along our sector there are many good beaches, and swimming is fast becoming the main relaxation. Organised bodies of reserve troops are already visiting the beaches, and hundreds of naked men can be seen swimming and sun-baking, whilst others man Bren guns set at intervals along the beach in case of air attack. World-Famous Officer The appearance in Egypt of Lieutenant Davies, the man who became world-famous as the officer in charge of the bomb disposal unit which removed a huge bomb that menaced the safety of St. Paul’s, in London, is related in a letter which has been received in Dunedin from a New Zealand officer now in Egypt. “Yesterday I attended, together with my colleagues of all units of the British army here, a lecture on bomb disposal, that is, the removal and rendering harmless of unexploded or delayed action bombs, given by the very famous Lieutenant (now Major) Davies, the man who won the George Cross for removing the bomb from St. Paul’s Cathedral,” he writes. “You will have seen his photo in every illustrated paper in the last few months. He has certainly done some wonderful things, and his talk was very interesting and produced a few pieces of good wit, the best of which was —‘The essential characteristics required of a volunteer for bomb disposal are a strong back and a weak mind.’ He also astounded us concerning the number of bombs his squads had successfully removed in England in the short period of three or four months.”