General News

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 79, 9 February 1944, Page 4

General News

Rotary Conference The District Governor of Rotary for New Zealand. Rotarian C. 11. Taylor, of Christchurch, told th e Hawera club that he had no intention of abandoning the annual conference to be held at Christchurch on 14th and 15th March. If rotarians at Calcutta could hold a conference while the city was being bombed and make an outstanding success of it, he declared, New Zealand could make a success of its aijnual conference, in spite of the railway restrictions. Rotarians would be asked to find some way of getting to the conference. Dry Season at the Ral Last month was the driest January ever rdborded for the Rai Valley district. 16 points on the 18th being the total for the month. The lowest amount previously recorded for the month of January was 45 points in January, 1928, more than double the rainfall for January of 1944. Pastures are, in fact, drier than they have been for 20 years, and production from the dairy herds has fallen to less than half what it was a month ago. A welcome change in the weather, however, set in on 2nd February, when 32 points of rain were recorded, followed by 1.43 inches on the 3rd. 2.38 inches on the 4th, and another inch on the sth. An Unwelcome Visitor A sea leopard which has taken up its quarters on the foreshore of tl)e Anderson’s Bay inlet, Dunedin, is beginning to prove a nuisance, and it has been noticed reclining in the middle of Somerville Street, which is adjacent to the lawn tennis courts. The City Corporation had been prepared to carry the leopard, by means of a caterpillar shovel, to other parts, but it has found that it cannot interfere with the unwelcome visitor. The Marine Department is the authority which has to do with seals, sea leopards, etc., and the local office is communicating with Wellington to see if some action can be taken to remove the nuisance. An unusual Fish

Eight feet in length and about as thick as a man’s arm. a fish resembling a snake was gaffed by a party of fishermen off Whale Island. The fish, which made a great struggle, is not known in this locality and was brought back to Whakatane for identification. So far it has not been recognised. Light brown in colour, it has a silver underside, and a long, whiplike tail. There is no central fin, such as eels carry. The end of the tail is rounded. The head is small and the jaws are armed with sharply inclined teeth. The assistant-director of the Auckland War Memorial MuV eum, Mr A. W. B. Powell, said that from the description the fish was apparently a snake-eel. This species was not uncommon in northern New Zealand waters, but because it Usually inhabited deep water it was rarely caught. The fish grew to a maximum length of between Bft. and 9ft., and had a characteristic snake-like head.

Tahunanui School Improvements A proposal to improve the Tahunanui school grounds and to provide a learners’ swimming pool is at present under consideration. It is proposed to hold a meeting at an early date of all the local organisations interested, to discuss the scheme and to seek the assistance of the whole community in finding the necessary funds to carry out the proposals.

Another tribute to the virtues of the weed! Mr Robert Lynch a well-known English journalist, recently wrote: “It seems to me that pipes, cigarettes and cigars produce in life something of the effect that full stops, colons semicolons and commas produce fn prose They break things up .and so relieve the monotony for the weaker brethren.” But the beneficial effects produced by tobacco are not confined to the “weaker brethren.” “The magic herb” appeals to all, gentle and simple, brain- workers and manual toilers, the cultured and the uncultured. It helps immeasurably not only to dispel the “monotony of life,” but to cheer and comfort the despondent, the afflicted and the lonely. The one thing needful is to see that it is pure, and perhaps the purest tobacco procurable anywhere is the New Zealand. It’s toasted, and therefore harmless. And how good it is!-—the sweetest, most fragrant, soothing and delightful! There are six brands ,and they are equally popularNavy Cut No. 3, Riverhead Gold. Desert Gold, Pocket Edition, Cavendish and Cut Plug No. 10.*

More Robberies “Robbery is on the increase, alarmingly so." said Mr Justice Callan, when i addressing a jury in the Auckland Supreme Court, His Honour said that if it went on without, check all so- j ciety would dissolve into anarchy ancl chaos. Therefore the detection of bur- i glars, their arrest and punishment were matters or very great importance. It ( was a bad thing if guilty persons slipp- ! eel through the, fingers of the law, but a greater evil if a person was wrongly convicted. Rewards of Labour “I have a great objection to the relations between coroner and pathologist being interfered with by this most extraordinary Hospital Board,” said the coroner, Mr F. K. Hunt, at the conclusion of the Coroner’s Court, in Auckland. Mr Hunt was referring to the actioti of the board in not allowing its pathologist, Dr. W. Gilmour, to collect the full fees for his work as police pathologist. He does not do the work in the Hospital Board’s time,” said Mr Hunt. “And while he can arrange his work and discharge his duties to the board, he should be entitled to the rewards of his labour.” Army Harvest Labour There were three principal reasons why all the Army harvest labour had not been fully utilised by farmers this season, said the president of the North Canterbury executive of the Farmers’ Union (Mr A. M. Carpenter). in a statement. The first was the calling-up of the remaining Grade I men on the farms in the spring of 1943, when there were few, if any, Grade II men to take their places; the second was the unusually Wet spring, which had an effect on the area of land sown in crops; and the third was the dry summer which followed, making the harvest light in most parts of Canterbury. “For these reasons, heavy crops of oats, hay, lucerne, etc., just haven’t been about this season and that answers why the Army labour has not been fully utilised,” said Mr Carpenter. “I want to take the blame off the farmer; he can’t help it, and he has done a magnificent job in the circumstances. I know of farmers who did no ploughing for the reasons mentioned, and others whose crops had to be fed off to fatten their lambs,”