LOCAL AND GENERAL NEWS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19626, 3 May 1927, Page 8

LOCAL AND GENERAL NEWS.

The body of a Dalmatian, Ante Sumunivich, 45 years of age, was found at 3.30 o'clock yesterday afternoon hanging from a tree on Pine Island at the back of the caretaker's residence. Deceased was a married man. His widow resides in Dalmatia and two sons live in New Zealand. The body was brought to Auckland last evening by the wharf police. The quarterly criminal sessions of the Auckland Supreme Court will open this morning. Twenty-nine cases, involving 37 persons, have been set down for hearing. Mr. Justice Stringer and Mr. Justice Herdman will preside. A .large number of passengers will reach Auckland from overseas by four steamers during the next seven days. The Shaw, Savill and Albion'liner Mataroa will arrive from Southampton this morning with 583 passengers, and the Shaw, Savill and Albion liner Arawa has reported that she will arrive next Sunday from Liverpool with 362 passengers. In addition, two Union Company's steamers will arrive at Auckland with passengers from Sydney at the beginning of next week, the Aorangi early on Monday morning, and the Marama next Tuesday morning. A splendid portrait of the late Prime Minister, Mr. Massey, has been hung temporarily in the members' social room at Parliament House. The Wellington artist, Mr. W. A. Bowring, depicts the late Mr. Massey standing in a characteristic attitude, with his hands holding the lapels of his coat. The portrait is a full face one and the artist has painted the expression of the eyes in a most lifelike manner. The folds of the Union Jack form an appropriate background in the portrait of one who played his part in Empire affairs as well as in Dominion politics. The section of the JEast Coast Main Trunk Railway line between Waihi and Katikati, a stretch of about 14 miles, which carries the railhead to within about three miles of the township of Katikati, was taken over from the Public Works Department by the Railway Department yesterday. A new time-table for the service on which both the passenger and goods traffic has been showing a marked growth since it was opened by the Public Works Department, has been drawn up and will corne into force fi-om to-day. With the improved facilities now being provided a further substantial increase in the volume of business may be expected. The connecting stretch to link the Waihi end with Tauranga is not expected to be ready for traffic much before the end of the present year. " I do not see how far we are going to get in solving all the big civic problems we have in Auckland until we have one big authority controlling the whole metropolitan area," said Mr. W. J Holdsworth, chairman of the Auckland Electric-Power Board, at the inaugural meeting of the Auckland Town Planning Association last evening. " There are 26 local bodies in the isthmus and each is going its separate way. Much of what these many local authorities are doing now will cost us untold money to undo in the future." The latest bulletin of the New Zealand Native Bird Protection Society states that during the late nesting season tuis were successfully bred in captivity by natives interested in bird preservation in the Wellington district. The tui is a difficult bird to keep in captivity, and an intimate knowledge of the bird's food habits and no small amount of careful attention and work were necessary to achieve success. Tuis invariably die in an aviary from fits. After it had been demonstrated that these birds could be bred, they were released. The opinion that the discovery at Kaitaia of the carved Maori lintel now reposing in the Auckland Museum should not occasion much trouble in the matter of identification, was expressed by Mr. G. Graham at the annual meeting last evening of the anthropological section of the Auckland Institute. "I do not wish to be dogmatic," he added, "but I believe it is identical with a sepulchral structure known in Java." How it arrived.in New Zealand was another question, but one theory was that it was brought with other specimens from Borneo by the captain of a French frigate who had a close interest in such objects, and had had to anchor in New Zealand waters owing to an outbreak of fever among his crew. Mr. G. Arcbey, curator of the museum, said the wood had been identified as a pine, and a specimen had been sent to Borneo to ascertain if it was a class of wood indigenous to that district.

Ingenuity in the training of very young animals was instanced by a youug man who assisted Sir Truby King in some of his earlier experiments with live stock. It was found, Sir Truby said, in an address at Gisborne last week, that young chicks would huddle in the corners of the coops, and that at times many were trampled to death by their fellows. The assistant overcame this trouble by feeding the chicks at night, by artificial light, and switching ois the light when they were in the centre of the coop, feeding After a night or two these birds forsook their old habit of crowding along the walls, and thus the mortality was greatly reduced. The story was used by Sir Truby to illustrate the plasticity of the infant mind, in animals as in human beings, and the ease with which lasting impressions could be made upon the embryo consciousness.

The more the returning officer, Mr. Albert Ireeman, sees of the checking of votes in the election of members to the Cliristchurck City Council, the less doe 3 he like the new voting paper, telegraphs our Christcburch correspondent. The system of voting by crossing out the names of the candidates not wanted he considers to be the worst he has seen.? "The system stands condemned," he said yesterday. "It is a negative form of voting and although the principal is good, in practice it ir, a failure. In a case such as voting for the Mayor or in which there are only three or four names to be dealt with it is all right, but when there is a paper containing 34 names and 15 or less have to be left in, it is very different. Never before has there been such a large percentage of informal votes in a Christchurch municipal election for over 4000 people have in.validated their papers."

"Field days" on the scenes of former pas will be among the activities of the anthropological section of the Auckland Institute in the next twelve months. The chairman., Mr. G. Archev, remarked at the annual meeting last evening thatone result would possibly be to dispel some "fabulous talcs."-