LOCAL AND GENERAL NEWS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19939, 7 May 1928, Page 8

LOCAL AND GENERAL NEWS.

The new parking regulations adopted by the Auckland City Council will come into operation in a month. Mr. G. R. Hogan, chief traffic inspector, slated yesterday it would take that- time to frame the bylaws, which would he put into force at the one time.

While working on a roof on Saturday morning Mr. Robert Lamb, of 265, Sussex Street, Grey Lynn, sustained a fracture of the ankle as the result of a beam falling on his leg. Mr. Lamb was removed to the Auckland Hospital.

Reports received from the country last evening by Mr. R. E. Champtaloup, service officer of the Auckland Automobile Association, stated that both the Paeroa and Helensville roads were open to traffic. Mr. Champtaloup said that if the heavy rain continued he expected portions of these roads would be under water today. He also anticipated floods in the Te Kuiti district.

A bag containing Archbishop Averill's robes and pastoral cross was discovered on board the" Melanesian Mission steamer Southern Cross after the vessel had left Auckland on Friday afternoon. The Southern Cross signalled a passing inwardbound steamer near Tiritiri, and the bag was transferred to the vessel being delivered at Bishopscourt later. The bag had been left in the hall at Bishopscourt with luggage for the Southern Cross, and a taxi-driver had taken it with the other articles to the steamer.

To elect school committees in districts where the required number of householders did not meet on April 30, annual meetings will be held in the Auckland education district on May 28 at 7.30 p.m. The meetings will be held at the main school in each district. Nominations must reach the chairmen not later than 8 p.m. on May 21. In districts where the average yearly attendance at the school or schools does not exceed 240, nominations may be made at the annual meeting.

Throughout the Empire yesterday the eighteenth anniversary of the accession to the throne of King George V. was celebrated. Prayers of thanks were offered in the churches, where reference to the occasion was made, while flags were flown from the warships in port, the Laburnum and Wakakura. Twenty-one guns will be fired from H.M.S. Philomel at noon to-day, as a salute, which would have been fired yesterday had it not been Sunday. King Edward VII died on May 6, 1910, after reigning for over nine years.

The Auckland Transport Commission spent Saturday morning upon a further inspection of the tramway system, including the workshops at Epsom. The sittings will be resumed at 10 o'clock this morning, at the Town Hall. Mr. A. E. Ford, general manager of tramways, is still under examination.

There is a keen demand for the autumn excursion tickets issued by the Railway Department. As schoolchildren are now having their autumn vacation, numerous families are travelling, and all trains were full during the week-end. While there is a steady exodus from Auckland, there is also an influx of visitors, most of them coming from Wellington, Rotorua and Hamilton.

One of the most serious education problems in New Zealand—the number of young people fully qualified for professional or clerical positions, yet unable to find an avenue for their talents—was referred to by Mr. R. Hoe, a member of the Auckland Education Board, at the opening of additions to the New Lynn School on Saturday. Large numbers were faced with this position every year, but New Zealand was a country dependent on primary production, and the opportunities offered on the land were becoming greater every year. A boy or girl with a sound primary ed&cation had a great future in agriculture or kindred occupations. Provided the primary education had been really efficient, a child went out into the world very well equipped.

Mr. W. A. Nealr, a retiring Waikaremoana farmer, now residing at Wairoa, called .attention some days ago to what he believes is an entirely new pest attacking the blackberry. A whole length of blackberry hedge appeared to bo attacked by a small insect which has made its home on tho underside of the leaf, where it works .beneath a shield. The leaves appeared to be quite riddled, and Mr. Nealo stated that tho pest also attacks tho fruit in the green stage and prevents it from ripening.

The Wellington acclimatisation district is becoming known as the best opossum area in New Zealand and fresh inquiries are constantly being received from trappers. One of the latter, who was proud of a tako of 500 skins for two men in another district, was rather surprised when ho was told by the Wellington Acclimatisation Society's secretary that the take for 365 trappers last season was 56,000 skins, the best take being that of 1200 by two men in the season of six weeks. The 319 skins taken from two men who were recently convicted of illegally having skins in their possession at the Upper Hutt Court, and were fined £4O for possession and £2O for illegal trapping respectively, were sold at auction last week and realised £l2B, the best skins fetching 14s 2d and the most inferior Is lOd.

A petition signed by 45 employees of the Gisborne Borough Council requesting that they be granted a week's annual leave was unfavourably received by the council last week. The petition set out that in 1926 the employees had received such a holiday,, but last year the concession was withheld. The newly-elected Labour Mayor, Mr. D. W. Coleman, pointed out that the previous council had seen fit to grant the holiday, and he would like to see the men placed on tho same basis as the indoor staff. lie moved that a week's holiday should be granted to each employee who had served the council for a year, but the motion was not seconded, and lapsed.

In the basement of a building in Wellington it was once customary for a number of lads to have their lunch. The scraps thrown away in a corner became the prerogative of a rat who waited for his lunch until the basement was vacated. But to reach his meal the rat, journeying from a hole in the ceiling, made a connection between two wires connected with an automatic fire alarm. Day after day at about the same hour the fire brigade received a call to this building, only to find no fire, and it was some time before the cause of these false alarms was discovered.