LOCAL AND GENERAL NEWS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19698, 26 July 1927, Page 8

LOCAL AND GENERAL NEWS.

There are 45 cases of diphtheria in the Auckland Public Hospital. Questioned yesterday as to whether any members of the nursing staff were included in this total, Mr. W. Wallace, chairman of the Hospital Board, said only one nurse had contracted the disease, and she had not been working in the diphtheria ward. Several other nurses were off duty on account of colds. A Ford limousine motor-car was found abandoned in Great South Road at Ramarama, near Tuakau, on Saturday afternoon. No car of this description has been reported to the police as missing. The locked rudder at the bow of the ferry steamer Lake Takapuna was damaged through collision with a piece of floating timber on the trip from Auckland to Bayswater shortly before nine o'clock yesterday morning. The mishap was not apparent until the return trip, when difficulty was experienced in steering. Owing to the narrowness of the channel leading to the Bayswater Wharf the vessel could not be turned, so the ferry put back to the wharf. The vessiel was finally turned by means of hawsers, and the return trip was made, using the undamaged rudder. The steamer Ngoiro will take the place of the Lake Takapuna while the latter is laid up for survey. A cow attacked a boy on the East Tamaki Road on Sunday afternoon, but the lad escaped with slight injury. Mr. R. F. Wood, town clerk of Otahuhu, who was approaching in his motor-car, witnessed the incident, and he sounded the horn of his car, hoping to frighten the animal. The cow kicked the boy, inflicting a slight injury, but on the approach of the motor-car the animal ran away. The War Pensions Appeal Board did not open its sittings yesterday as intended, Mr. Justice Stringer, the president, being indisposed. Mr. Justice Stringer will take part, with Mr. Justice Herdman, to-day, in the hearing of the criminal sessions of the Supreme Court. Unanimous objection to the City Council's proposal to prohibit horse-drawn traffic in Queen Street between 4.30 p.m. and 6 p.m. was voiced at a special meeting of the Auckland Carriers' Association yesterday. The view was taken that the measure was in restraint on the normal commercial activity of the city. Members expressed the opinion that attempts to relieve the congestion in the main thoroughfare should be directed at the haphazard parking of private motorcars rather than at any business transport unit. It was stated that 90 per cent, of the short-distance conveyance of goods from the Auckland wharves was handled by horse vehicles. A resolution urging the City Council to receive a deputation was carried. The difficulty of forming an international football team in a country the size of Canada was mentioned by the manager of the Canadian Association football team, Mr. J. Adam, at the Rotary Club luncheon yesterday. Mr. Adam said the Canadian Association had to select its representative players from a population of 10,000,000, spread over an area of 3,700,000 square miles. Some of the players chosen had to • make a two weeks' railway journey in { order to assemble at Vancouver. The goods traffic between South Island ports and Port Waikato is rapidly expanding and on her fortnightly trips up the West Coast recently the steamer Progress has been always fully laden. The steamer arrived at Port Waikato direct from Lyttelton yesterday carrying 340 tons of cargo. Freight was offering at Wellington and New Plymouth, but the steamer was unable to handle it this trip. The Progress has riot previously made a direct trip from Lyttelton. As a mark of respect to the memory of the late King Ferdinand of Rumania, the ensigns of the naval vessels in port and the cable steamer Jris will continue to be flown at half-mast, until further instructions are received from the Navy Office, Wellington. "Nothing causes so much havoc with electric-light lines as trees," said Mr. W. J. Holdsworth, chairman of the Auckland Electric-Power Board, at a meeting yes terday. He referred to a recent case in the South Island where an owner of trees won his case against a power board which had attempted to shorten them and thus clear them from contact with a power-line. A remit before the recent conference of power boards id Wellington aimed at protecting boards in the matter. The Auckland Board experienced considerable trouble in the 11,000-volt area on July 14, when during a storm branches of trees were blown across lines. The engineer reported that steps were now being taken to have all trees endangering the lines cut down. A holiday-maker from Auckland, Mrs. W. G, Marks, who met with an accident on Mount Egmont at the end of December, as the result of which both her legs were fractured, has been transferred from the New Plymouth Hospital, where she had been lying since the accident, to the Auckland Hospital, and is now progressing favourably. At the time of the accident the party of which Mrs. Marks was a member was within 1500 ft. of the summit of Mount Egmont, when a large boulder bounded down the mountain side. Another climber shouted a warning but it was foo late, and Mrs. Marks was struck on both legs. The task of bringing the injured woman down the mountain was a strenuous one. It was reported to the Wellington police last Saturday that some mischievous person at the Wellington Winter Show had been cutting small pieces from the backs of ladies' coats while these coats were actually beiug worn. The commissioner of police stated that a special staff had been engaged to detect the offender. Commenting on the case of men tramping through the country in.soarch of work a well-known Wanganui farmer said he had had scores of these callers at his house lately, as many as seven in a day Personally, he had never turned a man away without a meal, but lie could quite understand that some of the residents living near main roads were becoming tired of meeting the demands for food which had been made during the last two months. No doubt many of the men on the tramp who were sensitive about begging had a very hard row to hoe. At any rate, he could picture them getting more rebuffs than substantial meals. Farmers in the Raetihi district report that much damage is being caused by dogs worrying sheep, states our Raetihi correspondent. One 'farmer has lost 40 sheep. Another farmer who lias had considerable losses has laid poison in the hops of averting further loss.