LOCAL AND GENERAL NEWS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19633, 11 May 1927, Page 10

LOCAL AND GENERAL NEWS.

The departure of the Aorangi for Vancouver last evening attracted hundreds of people to the wharf. An unusually large number of New Zealand people were among the passengers. The vessel made a brilliant spectacle with her brightlylighted decks as she drew away from the wharf. This is the favourite time of the year for people to leave' the Dominion for warmer climates, and the Aorangi was a full ship. Two young kangaroos and a native Australian cat for the Auckland Zoo arrived by the Marania from Sydney last evening. The kangaroos are male and female, and are in good condition, the rough passage "across the Tasman apparently not having affected thern. An extraordinary practical joke upon a young woman employed as a cashier at the Waverley Hotel was perpetrated by a young man staying at the hotel on Monday evening. About seven o'clock, while dinner was still in progress and the lobby was deserted, the man approached the office desk, adjusted a white handkerchief over the lower part of his face and, pointing a dummy revolver in the face of the cashier. Miss Violet Dormer, demanded the money she was handling. Miss Dormer was inclined to take the demand as a joke, but the young man's persistence made a, different impression upon her. "Give me the bag, or I will shoot," he said. Miss Dormer began to argue with the man, but his appearance and determination frightened her, and she slipped quickly round the corner out of sight. A minute later, evidently disturbed by the approach of someone, the man disappeared. Miss Dormer was considerably disturbed over the incident, and the matter was reported to the police. It was only subsequently that she was convinced the whole thing was not in earnest. The New Zealand Shipping Company's liner Rotorua is due at Wellington from Southampton on Friday evening. She is bringing 294 third-class passengers, including 31 boys for Flock House. The Union Company's steamer Kakapo, which has been used as a coal-hulk in Auckland Harbour for some months, has now been fitted out as a store ship for bulk oil fuel. The oil will be carried in her double-bottom tanks and will be used mainly to replenish the fuel tanks of the steamer Waipahi, which has been converted into an oil-burner for the Cook Islands fruit trade.

A conference between New Zealand flourmillers and the Government will be held in Wellington to-day, when the Government's policy regarding wheat and flour will be disclosed and discussed. The growers' representatives have already received this information confidentially. A cablegram from the Government of Argentina has been received by Mr. H. Bidone, Argentine Consul-General in Wellington, with reference to the stamping of butter from Argentina with the word "Zelandia" in conspicuous printing on the box. The message states that it was a foreign firm that had adopted the brand.

" This is supposed to be a civilised country, but such things would not happen in a savage land," said Mr. W. L. Titchener at the meeting of the New Lynn Town Board last evening when reference was made to the action of vandals who nightly found an outlet for their energies by destroying • newly put down concrete kerbing. The chairman, Mr. W. G. Lovie, reported that every evening some damage was done to the new work, but on Monday the destroyers had had a "night out" by deliberately kicking down about three chains of the soft concrete. Pounds worth of damage was done every night and the evidence suggested that children had a great deal to do with it, A watch for the offenders is to be kept by the board's inspector in future.

It has been reported by INIr. H. J. Stone, an honorary ranger to the North Canterbury Acclimatisation Society, that a blue heron was recently seen at the mouth of the Ashley River. A hope is expressed that sportsmen will refrain from shooting these birds, which are absolutely protected, and which have become exceedingly rare of recent years. Shooters are subject to a heavy penalty if caught destroying the heron. Provision has been made on the estimates of the North Canterbury Hospital Board for the current year for the installation of wireless head phones. The secretary of the board, Mr. W. S. Wharton, said yesterday that enough money had been collected by public subscription to instal a receiving set and loudspeakers, but as it was considered that every patient should have a pair of phones so that those who wanted to could listen while those who did not want to would not be annoyed, the money was provided on the estimates. A passage in a letter fror. a North Island defendant if one of the betting cases, which was read out in Court <n "hrist church last week, produced a smile from the jgistrate. The passage ran: " I have never missed taking my family to a place of worship on Sundays." A few days ago a man picked up an electric wire that had fallen from a pole in a Dunedin suburb. Acting in the public interest, as he thought, he tied the wire round the pole, and rang up the electrical engineer's office. A Dunedin paper says: —"Such an act was laudable in purpose, but full of danger. In such circumstances the picker-up was ignorantly risking his life. What, then, is a person's duty if he sees a wire down ? He should leave it alone, ring up the department, and stand by until an operator comes, taking care that nobody goes near the wire. In an emergency—if for some reason it appears that the wire is a source of danger in the meantime —the most that the observer should do is to push it on one side with a dry stick." Motor competition against the State railwavs is not looked on wita approval by the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants, the largest trade union connected with the service. Its executive council, at the quarterly meeting now proceeding m Wellington," has passed a resolution urging all members of the society to travel by trains in preference to pri-vately-owned buses. One point which appeals strongly to the raiiwaymeo, is that the working conditions of drivers of motor-buses do not compare favourably with the working conditions of employees of the Railway Department. The Christ church City Council has decided to authorise the Reserves Committee to spend up to £2OO on immediate work for the most needy cases among the unemployed, ar.d to ask the Government what wqyk it proposed to do toward relieving the present position in Christ church.