LOCAL AND GENERAL NEWS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20760, 31 December 1930, Page 10

LOCAL AND GENERAL NEWS.

The Herald will not be published tomorrow, New Year's Day. For the convenience of advertisers the Queen Street office will be open between 5 p.m. and 10 p.m. to-morrow.

Retail shops will observe the same hours for the New Year holidays this week as they did for Christmas last week. This evening they will be open until 10 o'clock, and to-morrow find Friday will be close holidays. On Saturday morning householders will have an opportunity of restocking their larders, for the shops will be open until ! l2.3o p.m. The banks will bo closed on New Year's Day and Friday.

A decline of twopence a dozen in the price of hen eggs was recorded in the city markets yesterday. Duck eggs showed an all-round reduction of a penny a dozen. With the hot weather of the past week and the increasing supplies of tomatoes the demand for eggs has fallen off, while heavy supplies have been coming forward to the Auckland market.

To enable people to see the old year out and the new year in, the Auckland Transport Board will run trams from the city a few minutes after midnight for all suburbs. The last buses will run only according to Friday time-tables, but on most services there will be additional buses.

A number of watch-night services of a religious character will be held to-night in the city and suburbs to mark the incoming of the New Year. An all-niglit revival service in the Fergusson building will commence at 7.30 p.m., but most services, like the Salvation Army one .at Ponsonby Road and that in the Mount Albert Presbyterian Church, will begin half an hour before midnight.

The ban on all-day parking in the city will como into operation to-morrow, and under the new by-law drivers will be unable to leave their cars unattended all day outside their places of business, as has been the practice in the past. The city council traffic department has decided to station officers in the principal streets affected for the first few days to remind motorists of the altered regulations. There is a number of streets to which the ban does not apply, but nearly all these streets are some hundreds of yards from the centre of the city.

Two meetings of creditors in bankrupt estates were set down for yesterday by the official assignee, but owing to the holidays there was no quorum in either case, and the meetings were adjourned until early in the new year. On Monday there were three bankruptcy meetings, and in no case was there a quorum.

Substantial reductions in the cable rates between New Zealand and Britain will be introduced to-morrow. They are the result of negotiations between New Zealand's representative on the Imperial Communications Advisory Committee and Imperial and International Communications, Limited. The extent of the reductions is shown in tho following list, in which tho old rates are given in parentheses:— Ordinary, Is 8d per word (Is lid); deferred, lOd per word (ll^d); Government, lOd per word (Is); daily letter, 10s for 20 words or less (13s 4d); week-end, 8s 4d for 20 words or less (lis 8d); press, 4d per word (6d); deferred press, 3d per word (4id).

A false call given by an automatic alarm in Victoria Arcade resulted in the city fire brigade being summoned shortly after three o'clock yesterday afternoon. There was a large number of people in Queen Street at the time, and in a few moments a crowd gathered outside thu arcade buildings, four police constables and a sergeant endeavouring to keep the footpath clear. As soon as the fault in tho alarm system had been rectified the brigade returned to the station.

Hundreds of motorisjs have passed through Tauranga during the holidays and the camp sites in the borough have been well patronised. Scores of motorists are in camp at Mount Maunganui and the number of visitors to Tauranga ?.nd the Mount is well up to that of previous years.

In common with other districts Cambridge has experienced hot weather lately and already the district is beginning to show signs of the dry spell. Rain would be welcome. The dry weather has had its compensations for its has enabled the farmers to harvest their hay crops under almost perfect conditions.

Residents of the Putiki Pa, who will man a canoo in the Maori War Canoo Championship to be held at the Wanganui River carnival to-morrow, have been carrying out, a, strenuous training programme, and have been seen on the river every night. One of the features of the carnival will be the Maori events, which, in addition to canoe racing, will consist of haka and poi dancing competitions. Rataria and Waitotara Maoris will figure prominently in all the events. The Parakino natives are concentrating on the canoe hurdle races, and have taken their canoes up the river in order to carry out their preparations.

People appear to be very careful about minor details in Penang, Straits Settlement. A pupil of the Stratford school wrote to Penang to get a penfriend—a person to correspond with for the exchange of views and customs of tho country. The New Zealander's letter got into the hands of tho education authorities in Penang, who returned it to the " Director of Education, Stratford," for counter-signature as correct. Mr. L. J. Furrie, headmaster of the school, completed this formality, and it is presumed that tho negotiation will now go forward prosperously, having the fullest possible official recognition.

Swaggers in fair numbers are to bo seen on the Canterbury roads, but they are not so numerous as they were a few weeks ago, and those who are seen adhere fairly closely to lite main routes Shearing and othe. work have absorbed a fair number of those who travelled in genuine search of work, and farmers suggest that a fair proportion of the other class have moved to the town to be near the relief depots.

Tho proposal fathered by Mr. D. Sykes at a recent meeting of the Christchurch Tramway Board, that a month's trial bo made on the Christchurch tramways of a Is 6d non-transferable trip-ticket, available over all routes on the day of issue only, is not to be adopted. Reports from Auckland and other centres in the Dominion, where such a ticket has been issued were of such a character that Mr. Sykes withdrew his motion.