LOCAL GOSSIP.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20970, 5 September 1931, Page 1 (Supplement)

L OCAL GOSSIP.

BY MERCUTIO,

; The thirty eighth anniversary of a run •~r the Auckland Savings Bank has just . ® i L . The best co.mment on this ciris that the likelihood of a Xtition is more than 38 times more ! e mote than ever. And that is so despite \j we hear'about hard times. A run 8 a bank is about ninety-nine per cent, psychological and the balance financial. ' ft is like the stampedes sometimes caused in crowded places by nothing more sub-i-tantial than a silly cry. As these panics often Start for no especial reason, so they can he stopped 'very simply on occafion, a „d the depositor who withdrew his all in a terrible hurry be induced to ' come hack, shamefaced, to deposit the I money again. Or-so it is said. Here i 5. a tale, for which Mercutio cannot absolutely vouch, about a run on ' a Melbourne bank many, many years ago, long before the crisis of the 'nineties. Hients were lining up and asking for their monev at a rate that made things look rather doubtful for the cash reserves. There was no reason for the panic that da y any more than the day before or the week before, when everything was | ca ]^ n _ Somebody had set a rumour nr.; afloatj that was all. Still, the rush had become rather more than inconvenient, and ' something had to 'be done. So a bright spark behind the counter seized a bag of golden sovereigns—they had a few in those | days—and slipped out to the back of the bank premises, where there was a fire burning. Pouring the coins on to a shovel, he heated them over the fire until they could not be held in comfort. Then he rushed back to tie counter and emptied the money on to it, exclaiming, Heie th r y arc, hot from the mint." Some people who tried to pick them up found . thev were hot from something, and felt ' might be the mint. Deciding that if " money was coming in as quickly and readily as. that there was no need to • 1 worry, they turned away to be leaders in an exodus'which left the bank safe. ■ i A moment's thought would have told thein money could not,very well come in like that. " Hot from the mint "is only a metaphor. But as thought had little part in starting rush, it had little part in stopping it. " The chap who conceived that little dodge ought to have gone far in the financial world. There is no record that he did. Plans are being made for the shipment of large quantities Of New Zealand eggs tfor sale in Britain. Has the political > situation anything to do with thi6? A general election over there is freely predicted as- being .probable before the end of the year;'in this country rumour is as busy as anything about postponement of the election due in a couple of months. Yes, you are quite right. The association of eggs and elections is a stale old joke. Jt-ia to be hoped the exported iggs are. a good deal fresher by the time they reach the port of disembarkation. ' <

Is there any limit to what may be bought by the instalment plan? There is a well-established jest about paying the doctor in this fashion and thus acquiring a clear title to the baby on the deferred payment system. Now the Auckland University College, in its benevolence, allows students to pay for the courses they take in the isame piecemeal fashion, thus possibly acquiring a degree on the instalment plan. If the church suggests contributing a weekly threepence in three -equal instalments of one penny, no dejosit and no interest, the sequence will be complete. • But, flippancy apart, if all that ■was offered on the deferred payment system implied as much desire for the things that matter as a full course at a University College, the system would deserve less criticism than it gets. In fact, «uch a concession for such an objective might wrill be- the firet to come and the last to go.

The municipal milk supply system of Wellington, originally established by legislative authority, comes up for discussion so often in Parliament that some members are becoming tired of it. Every session, it is complained, seems to produce its little milk bill, and the business of the nation has to stand still'while Wellington is'assured that its porridge will be moistened «r its tea mellowed with nothing but Simon pure municipal milk. The latest amendment, designed to make illicit dealing in milk more difficult, did not have a "wholly cordial reception. If the Wellington Council would only run a ten-foot _ barbed-wire fence round the city area and have officials to search every cart, van, ' orr y,_ car or perambulator suspected'"'of Containing milk 'before it was allowed to pass the barrier, there would be no need to trouble Parliament. Instead, it is trying to have cast pn the suspected farmer the onus of proving his innocence, instead shouldering itself the burden of proving m guilty. It sort G f reinforces the common suspicion that the liberty of the subject is becoming a mere figment of the imagination because of a rising tide j "u' r ?S u ktions, restraints injunctions ana the like. Tn Parliament it was suggested that the 'new bill would create - 4 ; fresh crime, that of vending " bootleg" ffiilk. One member said it brought milk w> the level of a noxious drug. There msy be milk that deserves it, but that point was not elaborated. As a matter of act, it seems rather to make milk, or *• roilk, the equivalent of moonshine nisky. An illicit cow would probably 0 easier to conceal than an illicit still, perhaps the proposed drastic legis,|°n may be necessary. But. its most lent feature is its illustration of what y be expected when the supply of all J_ ngS „ 5s na tionalised or municipalised as WDe folks wish it to be.

claimed by a veteran (hat he e last survivor of the Forest. Rangers / lmv,'- - W von Tempskv, took to the ! thf , r m .H ,e . Maori wars and matched * a j n . ' n hushcraft, in guerilla fight- '''• likllv <■ ,n SCO "'-' !I K skill. It is quite .K '. r rnan y long years have rolled £ Since those colourful fimes. Wire an * of tt nC r> SRnSe better' developed, the story a e '»<ingers, like those of many others 21 r the:r P art manfully* in as anv " / n tf l mof,c as (he historv of 'in dij "w y can * how > woul(1 be familiar inV fi, , ™ an ' wonn ' J anc ' child callSeL el T es New Glanders That Itlonlv V 'i anc * l ' ,p la '° i s n °t f'orn- - £V? (! - Thp P ionews New ZeaIS m ofn rri , any , nullities, but they were Pac<s it, 6 P establish legends and py them on to those who followed. They T . an - WOme " ° f action ' not of the ns.,«i l- • a ' because, despite f be romali g /, inß es, ' ma t2 of the t;dker, " speech 1 ? dreamer, without words, Breath J angu , a 8 e . how would man be *<>uld hi r b ° asts ,hat P erish ? Whnt foneht nT" " le Inen °f ac tion who Wk the poet th of Tr °y but for inortalispd «£ • rnan of worc}s . who imdeeds ? The Forest they shr>,.u V i? not tlieir P oet > anf) ttj ~;i| have. , Some day their counHa A W£l j en rf o them honour, ay does not yet seem at hancj.

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