LOCAL AND GENERAL NEWS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19274, 12 March 1926, Page 10

LOCAL AND GENERAL NEWS.

Steady progress is being made with the duplication of the railway line between Penrose and Otahuhu. That portion of the track between Penrose and Southdown has already been completed and is now in daily use. It is expected that the remainder of the section from Southdown to Otahuhu will be available for traffic early next month. A visitor to the National Park yesterday advises that he motored to the Whakapapa Huts. There was ;i g° oc ' metal road from Waimarino, except for the last three-quarters of a mile, which is shortly to be completed. All the roads in the district are good. Preparations are being made in many directions at Birkenhead for electric light and power, which it is generally understood will be available about October 1 next. The Birkenhead Borough Council, which now maintains 22 gas lamps in the streets at an approximate annual cost of £350, has decided upon an initial programme of 100 electric lamps, the total annual cost of which will be only a little more than now expended on street lighting. These will be erected forthwith in the various streets in readiness for the turning on of the electric light. The positions of the lamps were definitely decided upon yesterday, when a tour of the borough was made by the Mayor, Mr. E. G. Skeates. The illumination of the streets of Onehunga by electricity was completed yesterday, when a powerful light was erected on the top of the Seddon Memorial Statue, at the Royal Oak intersection. The illumination of this important junction is a responsibility divided between the Onehunga Borough Council and the Mount Ttoskill Road Board, and the matter has been delayed for some months pending a decision whether the statue should be removed, as there has been an opinion in some quarters that in its present position it is a menace to motor traffic. The inside of the statue is utilised as a tramway waiting-room, and was also illuminated by electricity last evening for the first time. A striking feature in the lamp at the top of the statue is its immense height., and instead of the dazzling effect so often produced by powerful lamps it sheds a soft diffused light over the whole locality, as well as aiong the six thoroughfares which junction at that spot. A message of exceptional interest was received at the annual conference of the New Zealand Congregational Union yesterday. The Rev. J. E. James, in replying to the welcome extended by the chairman to the delegates from Australia, said that during his recent tour of the United States he had met the president, Mr. Calvin Coolidge. Mr. Coolidge is the first Congregationalist to hold the supreme civic position in the United States and he had asked Mr. James to convey to his brethren in Australia and New Zealand a special message of greetings. He exhorted them to do all in their power toward obtaining universal peace and goodwill. The much-needed rain experienced lately in Central Otago'has done an immense amount of good, says a report from Middlemarch. The farmers now require fine weather until all the harvesting is finished. The heavy rainfall has, in isolated cases, caused some oats to grow_ in the stook. Altogether things now look promising for winter feed, and the grass is. coming away again well after the scorching it hai3 had. There are some good crops in this district this season, and it is understood some very satisfactory yields have been forthcoming. Farmers in several cases here put lambs on the rape, and these are doing well. Good tenor voices are rare enough in any community to make the possessors welcome in musical organisations and Auckland is not unique in this respect. While the Auckland Choral Society possesses some tenors of considerable quality it was mentioned at the annual meeting that ip order to balance the choir properly the number of voices in the tenor section should be increased. "Those who speak of Danish competition forget that it takes 25 Danes to produce as much as one New Zealand farmer," was a statement made by Mr. A. Nicol at the meeting of dairy company representatives at Palmerston North this week. "You are wrong," replied a Shannon delegate. "Why, I tell you," said Mr. Nicol returning to the attack; "that in Denmark a Dane and his wife and family milk six cows, and not far from hero I know of a returned soldier who is milking 45." A case concerning a land deal at the Napier Supreme Court on Tuesday was going to involve many fine points of law, and as a result counsel on both-sides had at hand numerous books of reference and authority on law, which they might consult during the hearing of the case. In fact, the legal table was buried in a pile of books of law and some had to be stored oa the mantelshelf of the fireplace nearby. By the irony of fate this particular case, for which all this elaborate preparation had been made, was settled out of Court, and the counsels' clerks had to laboriously carry the 59 books of reference up the stair;; to the law library. They had not ev-.-n been opened. The destruction of two old yew trees in the front of the Public Works office at Otorohanga last week removes an interesting landmark. The trees dated back over 40 years, to a time when the township was non-existent. They were the only yew trees in the King Country. A visitor who strolled into the Christchurch Cathedral in the early part of January was astounded to see some of the workmen engaged on the organ nonchalantly smoking cigarettes! A writer in the Church News says:—"This is not unprecedented. In fact it is a common experience nowadays to find the workmen strolling in and out of a church hatted and smoking quite unconcernedly. It is not usually deliberate irreverence—it is simply ignorance. If these same men by any strange chance were to enter the same church on a Sunday, they would doff their hats and pinch the warm end of their cigarettes without hesitation." A lx>3 r , aged 14, asked Mr. H. A. Young, S.M., at Christchurch last week to exempt him from military service. "I belong to the Plymouth Brethren, and I believe in loving my neighbour." "Have you ever been tackled at school ?" asked the magistrate. "Oh, yes, bat only in play, and then I don't hit back." The boy's father said that he had been exempted from combatant service in England during the war. Mr.; Young decided that the son need not learn to shoulder arms and form fours.