LOCAL AND GENERAL NEWS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20366, 21 September 1929, Page 10

LOCAL AND GENERAL NEWS.

The 22nd anniversary of the proclamation of Now Zealand as a Dominion will fall on Thursday next. The official holiday will be observed next Monday in accordance with custom. The holiday will bo observed by legal and Government offices and banks. The Stock Exchange' and offices of members of the Real Estate Institute will also be closed.

As the result of o fall from a moving tramcar in Surrey Crescent yesterday afternoon Mr. Daniel Sheahan, aged 54, sustained sevoro injuries to his head. He was taken to the Auckland Hospital by the ambulance and his condition was serious at a late hour. The injured man is married and resides in Allen Road, Grey Lynn. The Pacific Cable Board's steamer Iris, which returned from Norfolk Island 6n Thursday, will make a short stay in port. On Tuesday the vessel is to leave for Norfolk Island again to renew the shore end of the Suva-Norfolk Island Pacific cable at Anson Bay. If the work is not interrupted by bad weather she will be away from Auckland about seven or eight days.

An engineer and a trimmer wore missing from the New Zealand Shipping Company's steamer Hororata when she was ready to sail from Auckland for Now York, Halifax and London at seven o'clock yesterday morning. The vessel anchored in the stream until substitutes were engaged in placo of tho absentees and the vessel took her departure at ten o'clock, having been delayed three hours.

A boy, .Tack Cane, who resides at Forrest Lake Road, Hamilton, waß admitted to the Auckland Hospital yesterday sutfering from a fractuVo of the arm. The boy, who is a pupil of the Marist School, received tho injury while playing foothall.

Tho Auckland Education Board has purchased 4J acres of land on River Road, Claudelands, as tho site for a future school. The area is elevated and overlooks the Waikato River. It is set in delightful surroundings, and will serve a rapidly-developing suburban area botween Fairfield and the river.

Where are tho police horses of yesterday? This question was asked in tho House of Representatives during the discussion on tho police estimates. Emphasis was laid on tho need of a good and sufficient supply of horses being provided for the police. Tho Minister of. Justice, tho Hon. T. M. W.ilford, replied that up to 1919 the police had a fine lot of horses. He know that in street trouble it was absolutely necessary to have horses. , The difficulty was to get the horses and tho horsemen. He himself was n lover of a good horse, as members knew, but things wero different now from when ho and others were boys and learned to rido at seven years of age. The ordinary men coming along now wero not good horsemen, some of them were very poor. Men went in cars and motor-cycles now.

Symbolic road signs wore generally considered an improvement by members at the .meeting of tho executive of the Taranaki Automobile Association at a meeting this week. < Tho old sign-post, the president pointed out, merely said "bad bend," but the symbolic sign-post . not only warned the driver of the bend, but indicated whether tho bend was to the right or to tho left. Tho custom-of laying no tur on tho insido corners of roads at bends was a distinct source of clanger, according to Mr. F. H.- Blundell. To keep on the tar surface the motorist swung naturally outwards instead of hugging the corner. It was stated that roads made in more recent time were much better in this respect.

Instances of a hawk; killing a weasel and of cats killing stoats were given by the president of the New Zealand Acclimatisation Societies' Conference, held in Wellington. This was cited as proof that the balanco of nature, in view of tho rapid increase of tho enemies of llitive birds,' was adjusting itself. Thero is an interesting history attached to the armchair in which tho chairman of tho Wellington Education Board presides over the meetings of that body. Its story is told in the inscription on the silver plato lot into tho panel at the lop of tho chair, which says, "This' chair is made from oak taken from Noah's Ark, formerly an American vessel, which stranded on tho Lambton foreshore in 1850, and now lies buriod under , tho Bank of New Zealand, Lambton Quay." .Tho granting of personal search warrants to enable rangors to convict poachers of using stroke-hauling apparatus was discussed at the Acclimatisation Societies' Conference in Wellington on Thursday. At present rangers have only tho power to search an angler's bag. It was stated that to defeat tho ranger the poacher had only to take off tho illegal tackle and put it in his hat and if the ranger asked to bo allowed to search him he was defied. Mr. Nash, a Southern delegate, raised the point that it was only illegal to use tho goar; possession was not illegal. Tho remit was carried.

In a lecture in Christchurch on "The Colonising Work of Edward Gibbon Wakefield" Mr. George Harper said:— " We, in Canterbury, who attribute all the honour of founding the province to those who cam© out in tho first four ships in 1850, should not forget those who worked in Canterbury 10 yoars before that. Most 1 of these people were living on tho Peninsula, and did great work as pioneers. Thero wero the Hays, the Rhodeses, tho Prices, the Sinclairs, tho Gebbies and some more well-known families whoso descendants aro with us yet."

It has been tho practice of certain persons to feed wildfowl on lagoons on their properties prior to the cpening of the shooting season and then invite their friends to the opening,- when the halftame birds provide good "sport." This was the subject of a remit at the Acclimatisation Societies' Conference in Wellington on Wednesday seeking to make it illegal for owners to feed wildfowl when the birds were afterwards to be shot, and in cases where the owner of the land has been prosecuted for any breach of the game laws that no permission should be granted for free shooting for two years. Mr. C. A. Wilson, of Otago, said they frequently found owners feeding birds for weeks and on the opening day the owner and his friends made tho bag of the soason for that district. Mr. R. L. Begg, of Wanganui, said he did not think it was practicable to deal with the subject and Mr. E. Russoll, a Southland delegato, expressed the opinion that the Government would never take away tho rights of anyone in respect of his freehold, but. the remit was carried On the casting vote of tho chairman, Mr. L. 0« JL [Tripp*