LOCAL AND GENERAL NEWS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19222, 11 January 1926, Page 8

LOCAL AND GENERAL NEWS.

The prompt action of Mr. Charles Neads at the Sugar Refinery Company s picnic at Brown's Island on Saturday resulted in saving a boy from drowning. Tho lad, tho son of Mr. F. Halloran, while playing fell into the water and was in serious difficulties whon Mr. Neads jumped into the sea fully dressed and brought the boy ashore. The picnickers, numbering 900, demonstrated their appreciation of the rescue on the return trip by giving Mr. Neads three hearty cheers. The fusing of an electric cable outside the Girls' Friendly Society Hostel in Wellesley Street East was the cause of an alarm being given to the City Fire Brigade at 8.30 a.m. yesterday. The fire was carried by insulating material into the building, but was extinguished by the brigade before any damage was done. There were 170 applications for employment at the Government Labour Bureau last week. Of the applicants 148 were classified as fit for heavy work. Unemployed labourers numbered 69. There were 10 motor-drivers and 10 cooks and hotel workers. Of the 11 gardeners and handymen, three sought light work only. Painters numbered five and farmhands and storemen four each. Fifty-ono boys who completed their schooling in December are seeking engagements. Eleven wish to enter the carpentering trade and a similar number seek apprenticeship as plumbers. Others wish to learn motor, electrical and general engineering or plastering, painting and furniture-making. A motor-cyclist, Albert Johnson, aged 19, was thrown heavily from his machine through colliding with a motor-car on the Panmure Road on Saturday. He was admitted to the Auckland Hospital suffering from minor injuries. On one of the recent hot days a wellknown Kihikihi farmer, in the Waikato, had been mowing blackberries with a twoliorse machine. The waters of a stream nearby, combined with the sultry weather, induced him to halt the team alongside and take a " dip." His plunge into tho water startled the horses, which forthwith bolted. The farmer scrambled up the bank in pursuit, but his lack of attire was too much for the animals, which set off a second time. They were recaptured without injury, but their owner has since put in all his spare time removing blackberry thorns from his feet and legs. Anglers who have returned to Christchurch from holiday trips report having had good sport, the. fish running well in the Rangitata, Rakaia, and Ashburton Rivers. Several fish tipping the scale at over 81b. were secured, and it is reported that the average weight of fish caught in the Rangitata was in tho vicinity of 41b. Speaking on the antiquity of bowls at the smoke concert extended the British bowlers in Palmerston North, one of their number, Mr. G. L. Harding, said that, at Southampton, there was a bowling green which was established even before the time of Drake. It was, in fact, some 600 years old, and, accompanying the team on its tour, was a member of the club owning the playing area in question. Tho club had records going back 500 or 600 years. People who want to go to the North Island this week, and have not booked their berths, have small hope of making the journoy, said a Cliristchurch paper of Thursday last. A Wellington man called at the office of tho Union Steam Ship Company on Wednesday and asked for a berth for Wellington. He found that he would have to wait until the special trip on Sunday, all tho available accommodation having been booked up.

Ifc is reported that a movement is on foot to abolish the resident magistrate at Westport and work the whole district from Greymouth, says a Southern paper. An agitation is in progress at Westport against the rumoured change. r The Railway Department has received an application from the British Imperial Oil Company for a siding at the far end of the Whangarei yards below the railway cottages for an oil store. It is the intention of the company to carry the oil to Whangarei in balk in specially constructed trucks and pump it direct to the vats from which the needs of the district will be supplied. Some observations on the progress of the Government's irrigation schemes in Central Ota,go were made by Mr. H. M. Chrystall, of Christchurch, who recently toured in that district. Mr. Chrystall said that great progress appeared to have been made with the irrigation schemes. Practically the whole of the Ida Valley had been taken up, and the country had good prospects for people prepared to go there and work. The conditions existing there were probably not available in any other district in the Dominion. The land was rich, and only needed a collective system of irrigation to provide water for these blocks of land. The country appeared to bo carrying about the same amount of stock as it was carrying 18 months or two years ago, when he previously visited the locality. Great progress had been made in scientific methods of cropping, the principal crops being lucerne, grass, clover and roots. Traces of old Wellington have been revealed by the excavations for the foundations of the new Dominion offices on a block of land between Old Customhouse Quay and Wakefield Street. Quite close to the line .of Old Customhouse Quay, some 6ft. to Bft. of filling has been found above the gravelly sand of tho old beach, and here and there the remains of Stout old: birch piles, in a good state of preservation, have been uncovered. These are the remains of Robertson's Wharf, and are a reminder of those days when a good deal of shipbuilding and repairing was done in that corner of Lambton Harbour. Another evidence of the old times was laid bare in a conglomerate of iron shavings, the refuse from J. and H. Barber's tin works, where tins used to be made for packing meat for export to the Islands> and for local consumption. Thanks to the work of the Reserves Department in steadily clearing plantations of undergrowth, fires on the Town Belt and other places have been much less frequent than in past summers, says a Wellington paper. However, the long spell of dry weather has certainly increased the fire risk for the time being, for the tall grass is like tinder, and a small blaze spreads rapidly. So far there have been no serious burns, but within the last few 1 days fires have been started no less than four times in one small area of Mount Victoria. Evidently the fires were started off deliberately, probably by children, ar.d the matter has been referred to the police. Action will be taken against any persons caught at so stupid an amusement.