LOCAL AND GENERAL NEWS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19962, 2 June 1928, Page 10

LOCAL AND GENERAL NEWS.

An exceptionally large amount of mail from overseas will r£acb New Zealand within the next two days, lhe Tainui is due at Auckland from London at midnight to-night with 851 bags of parcel mail, and 44 bags of letters from England for New Zealand. The Royal Mail liner Aorangi, which is due at Auckland from Sydney early on Monday morning, has 600 bags of English, Eastern and Australian mail, all for Auckland. The .Royal Mail liner Tahiti is due at Wellington from San Francisco on Monday morning wi|h English and American mail, including 533 bags for Auckland. The Maunganui, which left Sydney 24 hoursafter the Aorangi, is due at Auckland on Tuesday morning with Australian mail. Nine cases of diphtheria were notified tn the Devonporfc area during May, the majority being children of school age. The incidence of cases has been spread evenly through the month. The slight outbreak at the Mangawhau School has now died down, no cases having been reported for some time. Through being struck by a motor-lorry in Albert Street yesterday afternoon, Mr. J. B. Walsh, an elderly farmer residing in Puhinui Road, Papatoetoe, received a severe cut on the forehead. He was taken to the Auckland Hospital in an unconscious condition by the St. John Ambulance. After receiving treatment Mr. Walsh recovered sufficiently to enable him to be taken to his home. The condition of Miss L. Humphreys, who was admitted to the hospital on Thursday suffering from a fracture of the right leg, is slightly improved. Miss Humphreys' injury resulted from a collision in l'onsonby Road between a motorcycle, on which sho was pillion riding, and a motor-car. The express from Whangarei, due to arrive at Auckland at 6.12 p.m., airived nearly two hours late last evening. The train was unusually consisting of 12 coaches, many of which were occupied by farmers from the North on a special excursion to the Waikato Winter Show at Hamilton. The chief cause of the delay was the collapse of some of the boiler-tubes of the second engine, making it necessary for one engine to pull the train up the two steep grades to Tahekeroa, where another engine was obtained. The departure of the second express from Auckland was delayed slightly to enable tho passengers from the North, bound for Hamilton, to change at Newmarket, instead of at Auckland as they would have done bad the train run to time. The Whangarei express arrived at Auckland soon after eight O clock.

H.M.S. Dunedin will leave for Hauraki Gulf next Tuesday to carry out exercises extending over 10 days. On returning to port she will. prepare for her annual cruiso to Southern Pacific Islands and will probably leave at the beginning of next month. The sloops Veronica and Laburnum are also to leave shortly for Pacific islands. Their programmes have not yet been completed, but the Veronica is expected to leave for Suva on Tuesday. The - Laburnum will be absent from port for several months.

The season for trapping opossums this year in the Auckland Acclimatisation Society's district will open ou Friday, June 15, and will close on July 31, both days inclusive. Licences to take or kill opossums must be Registered orchardists or their ' employees may kill opossums at any time in their orchards. In the case of orchards of more than one acre in extent opossums may be killed within half a-mile of the property, provided a permit is obtained from the secretary of the Acclimatisation Society in whoso district the orchard is situated.

An unusual position has arisen in connection with the new valuation of the borough of Takapuna, in that, besides the numerous objections lodged for the consideration of the Assessment Court by individual property owners, the Borough Council itself has filed no less than 125. These relate in every instance to what are considered to be undervaluations of properties in all parts of the borough. Neither class of objection can be dealt with until the Assessment Court is fully constituted, which cannot be the case until the ratepayers, in public meeting, exercise the new function vested in them by the Valuation of Land Act, 1927, of electing an assessor to represent their interests on the Bench, in lieu of the assessor hitherto chosen by the local body.

The additional restrictions on the use of the city streets as motor-car parks, which have been agreed to by the Auckland City Council, will not come into force for probably another fortnight. The council will be asked to confirm its decision at' its meeting on June 14, and thereafter a few days will be allowed to car-owners to familiarise themselves with the new order. The principal restrictions are the reduction of parking-time in Queen Street and Karangahap9 Road from 15 minutes to 10 minutes, the prohibition of parking in Shortland Street below O'Connell Street, and in front oi' the entrances to the wharves, and the elimination of the extensively-used central park in Albert Street. In this thoroughfare, parking will be permitted only on the west side for 15 minutes only.

The Transport Commission acted quickly yesterday morning when a telegram was handed to the chairman, Mr. J. S. Barton, S.M., stating the Mayor of Wellington, Mr. G. A. Troup, would arrive by the limited express this morning to give evidence. As it had been hoped to finish Mr. Troup's evidence this morning and allow him to go south again to-morrow evening, there was a hurried conference with counsel, and an urgent express-de-livery telegram was sent to Mr. Troup, urging him to catch the ordinary express at mid-day. Someone remarked that probably he would not get a sleeping-berth owing to the crowd of racegoers travelling to Auckland. However, in the afternoon the chairman announced that Mr. Troup had caught the train and was then on his way.

" It appears to be a very attractive proposition, but before commenting on it and expressing an opinion as to whether it can be adopted, I will have to go into the mailer further," said Mr. D. Rodie, commercial manager for the New Zealand Railways, at Christchurch yesterday when asked what he thought oi the Auckland Chamber of Commerce's suggestions for providing a day connection between Christchurch and Wellington, in conjunction with the night express services between Christchurch and Invercargill. Mr. Rodie added that he would be glad to look into tho Auckland suggestions, with a view to •seeing if they-could be adopted.