LOCAL AND GENERAL NEWS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18389, 3 May 1923, Page 6

LOCAL AND GENERAL NEWS.

Prices -for beef at the Westfield fat stock sales yesterday were about equal to last week's rates. Extra choice ox brought £1 2s per 1001b., other grades realising from 10s to £1 Is, according to quality. Cow and heifer beef brought from 13s to 17s 6d per 1001b. There was a good demand for sheep, values' being unchanged from last week. Wethers realised from £1 9s to. £1 18s, ewes £1 5a to £1 14s, lambs 17s 6d to £1 8s 3d. There was a good yarding of pigs, last week's rates being maintained for choppers and bacon pigs, which realised from £1 15s to £4.

Motorists passing through unfamiliar country districts are often at a loss to know just where they are, and the Auckland Automobile Association, sympathising with its members in this little difficulty, lately conceived the idea of requesting the Education Board to have the name of the school district painted on all schools so as to be visible from the road. The request came before the board yesterday, but members could not see their way clear to give effect to it by reason of the fact that there are 700 schools in the Auckland district, and the expenditure, about £1000, would be rather heavy. It was decided that no objection would be made, however, to the association itself painting in the names for the benefit of wayfarers.

The weather at Auckland yesterday was showery, light rain falling in the morning and evening. There was a fresh north-east wind, which caused a noticeable rise in the temperature. The barometer, which registered 30.40 in. on Monday morning, has. been slowly falling since, and last 1 night registered 30.05 in.

The value of building permits issued in Birkenhead sine© January is £19,000. The town clerk informed the Borough Council last evening that this was a record in the district for any similar period. " ~■ ".,'

The Remuera and Parnell fire brigades received a call to a residence in Selwyn Road, Epsom, about 2-30 yesterday afternoon. A slight fire occurred in the ceiling and walls of one room, and damage to the extent of about £15 was done. The house is insured for £3500 in the New Zealand office. A warning against 1 the practice of pedestrians using the railway line instead of the overhead footbridge at the Ellerslie railway station was given at the Police Court yesterday by a prosecution for trespass against an offender in this respect. "Defendant was convicted and ordered to pay costs. A woman accountant, Ivy Sumner, of Dargaville, has been adjudicated a bankrupt on a creditor's petition. A. date has not , yet been fixed for a meeting , of creditors. An individual who variously was spoken of as "Russian," the "big man," and occasionally by his name, an almost unpronounceable one, beginning with "Z" and ending apparently with "ski," was referred to many times yesterday at a meeting of creditors held at the offices of the official assignee. Such a "tonguetwister" did the name prove that finally the official assignee sairThe would refer to the man as "Z." After a number of the creditors had tried, not too successfully, to , pronounce the name, they, too, gave it up as a bad job, and fell back upon "Z." At the close of the meeting the official assignee said the name was one that, once seen, was hardly likely to be forgotten, which at once elicited the observation from a creditor that the official assignee had himself once or twice forgotten it.

Two large tenders for additional accommodation at Belmont and Cornwall Park schools were accepted by the Auckland' Education Board yesterday. Four tenders were received for the , erection of an infant .department at Belmont,' the lowest,. £5893, being accepted. For the Cornwall Park additions nine contractors submitted tenders, the one accepted being for £4970. /. .' "

• The condition of the rubbish dump near Little Shoal Bay was the subject of a report received by the Takapuna Borough Council last evening from the Health Department. The report stated that the dump, which was infested with rats, was in a very unsatisfactory state. The inspectors had said that residents had complained of smoke from the dump entering their houses. Rats were so prevalent that one man stated they had eaten all his garden crops. The council's officials reported that the dump was cleaned daily, rat poison laid, and wood put in to help combustion. It was kept in the best possible condition in the circumstances. The only way to improve the state of affairs was by installing an incinerator with a forced draught. The council referred the matter to the public services committee, and decided to make an inspection of the dump in the meantime. -.'.;'■

A campaign for funds for the erection of a new Methodist Sunday-school hall at Dominion Road was inaugurated at< a meeting held in the Dominion Road church on Tuesday ©veiling. Mr. J. W. Court, president of the Sunday-school Union, presided. It is proposed to erect an up-to-date hall, at a cost of about £3000, on a section- adjoining the Church, which was purchased for the purpose some years ago. The object or the present campaign is to raise £2000,. before next April so that operations may be commenced. During the evening promises of donations totalling £560 were received, and these, with moneys already in hand, .place the fund at £1170. A boy named Joseph Bolton, aged years, broke his arm yesterday through falling from a pile of pipes on which he was playing in Somerset Street, Hamilton. In the early hours of chilly dawn a well-known resident of Spring Creek, Marlborough, was awakened a few days ago by signs of a disturbance in. his fowl run. "Roosters were screaming in fright, and panicky hens were cackling in terror. With visions of stoats or weasels making a murderous raid on his cherished poultry, the farmer rose hastily from his bed, seized his boots and his gun, and made his wav at all speed through the kneedeep, dewy grass to the rescue of the terrified fowls, which continued their high alarm. A glance at the fowl run showed the cause of the commotion. The feathered tribe huddled trembling and terrified at one end of the run, while at the other two little kittens were busily and unconcernedly gnawing at a bone! The main business which is to be considered at the annual meeting of the NewZealand Council of Agriculture, which is to be held in Wellington on July 13, is the consideration of a proposal for the formation of a Royal Agricultural Society. The subject will come before the meeting in the form of a recommendation from the executive of the council, and in agricultural circles it is generally expected that the recommendation will be adopted. A good deal of money is required for the' establishment of such a society, and already promises of substantial support have been made by agricultural and pastoral associations, breed associations, and individual breeder?. These offers have come from various places throughout New Zealand. It is intended that the first Royal Show shall be held at Palmerston North in the spring ot 1924.

For the coming shooting season duck were reported to be very plentiful, state* the annual report of the' Palmerston North Acclimatisation Society. Pheasant were on the increase, and pood sport in .011nection with hare-shooting could be expected.

Community singing is to be continued in Wellington during the coming winter, an;! collections will again he taken up. y c , v song books are to be provided. Mr. A. Tarney. national secretary of the Y.M.C.A.," has been elected chairman o> the general committed.