LOCAL GOSSIP

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22000, 5 January 1935, Page 1 (Supplement)

LOCAL GOSSIP

by mepxutio

Well, it':; over now: the community can say "If that's our Christmas-New Year holiday, we've had it." And a, dashed ungrateful community it will be, too, if it puts things that way. But then it is ungrateful. All communities are, and particularly just at the end of a holiday. Still, it's no use grousing, the thing is past and done wi±h for another twelve months. To some, a fresh Christmastide will be here before they have time to turn xoudd. To others it will drag on leaden feet, seeming as if it will never come. It all depends on , one's age. In the earliest years of life the seasons loiter along with Christmases and birthdays separated by whole eons of time. A little later and the years rush by on greased rails, so , that middle age merges into old age with practically nothing to divide them. That's the worst of the dregs of a holiday period, the situation always seems to set one philosophising.

To return to the season which 5s just over, if" the community doesn't return to work admitting that jt has been very fortunate, then it doesn't deserve holidays. True, New Year's day might have been better, and the day after produced a good solid thunderstorm with rain and a little hail accompanying. But considering the conditions earlier, the most ardent holi-day-maker or race-goer—if you believe the two are identical, just think it over a little —surely cannot very well grudge the farmer the Christmas box that came at the New Year. He wanted the rain badly enough, goodness knows.

Probably 'he thinks it hnsn't heen ■enough even yet. It seldom is enough i until it becomes too much. But before

growing too impatient with the farmer let those who have really had a holiday reflect how much rest and change of scene the season brings to the busy farrier. It will be a nice thought to take back to work.

Now that the Royal guest has left Auckland, reference can be made to one feature of the decoration of the city in honour of the Duke of Gloucester. The civic authorities were highly praised for having refrained from the daughter of native trees to provide greenery for the occasion. Quite right. The sight of whole nikau palms and tree ferns tied to posts and gradually withering away is a sad one, not a proper sign of joy and gladness. But. on the other hand, was a display of Pinus insignis trees in tubs really appropriate? His Royal Highness was being welcomed to a New Zealand city, not to the Californian coast. Yet it was specially noted that no native greenery of any sort was used in the civic display. Surely a compromise could have been found between the wholesale daughter of New Zealand trees and their wholesale banishment from the ficene. Nikau and fern fronds can be cut judiciously without killing the tree in either instance'. The City Council (should have men able to do this. and to use the foliage with discretion in the beautifying of the Town Hall. In this instance the decorations werfe not wanted for long. They could have been removed before' they withered and grew stale. If the council has decided as a fixed policy that there is to be no cutting of native greenery at all—and there is something to be said for it if it has—why not grow a few trees or shrubs that really belong to this country, jn pots or tubs, for # the next time a distinguished visitor is to be welcomed? Such a job would take time, admittedly, but the life of a city is long, and some day it. might be possible to show a little of the vegetation no other country can duplicate on occasions of ceremonv.

Considering the number of hard words that have been hurled at public bodies ■over this same slaughter of the native forest, it may seem carping criticism to object to total abstinence this time. .But really the opposite extreme which has been adopted now does show a lack of imagination. Still, one could understand the civic folk saying, in face of such remarks, "Is there no pleasing people?" There isn't and who ever was responsible may as well recognise the fact right away. To be shot at from all angles is part of the fun of being in public life.

What's gone ■wrong with the North? While other parts of New Zealand have been parched, or fed rain by the spoonful, North Auckland has gone dissolving into floods on the smallest provocation. Some parts have had less than enough of a good thing, while the North has had far too much of it. So far as the tendency to flood goes, it can be explained quite simply by the drastic clearing of what once was among the most heavily timbered regions in this country; but that does not account for rain by the many inches in the northern peninsula while other places gasped for it. Of course, the old joke about the winterless North is hound to come to mind at a time like this. For its acceptance, the phrase depends wholly on the way you define 'the term winter. If it necessarily means snow and ice and blizzards, then th« has no winter. Of course, if you aren't hardy, and consider that rain and plenty of it makes a winter, then you'll get it in tbe North right enough. After all, in the good old days before the motorist demanded roads and saw that he had them, the mud of the £>orth was proverbial, and you can't nave mud of that degree of liquidity a good ration of rain. Very Well, then: it is established that in the season which is winter elsewhere, there was plenty of rain in the North. There°re > to judge by recent experience, tne North is winterless because it rains ?° much in the summer that there ' sn t any difference. It is quite easy -o prove your case—any case—if you argue at it long enough.

A Wanganui man thanks the Duke °f Gloucester for having sat down to a meal coatless; because he, the Wanganui man, was thereby able to showto his wife triumphantly the paragraph recording the fact, and, thus make a breach in her determination not to Permit similar free and easy habits in the home. It is'a nice little domestic story, almost enough to bring tears to the eyes of any married man. But ln some details it does not hang together entirely. For, see here: the nanganui man says, " I have never °Bce had a meal at the table in my l lr t sleeves." No? What does he do? ake off his shirt? If not, he does ave his meals in his shirt sleeves. If i?' "I s w ii« is quite right in insisting uat he keeps his coat on. After all, ■i ere ' s a limit, and while in these days it may be pardonable to appear at table without a coat, no gentlean would demand the right to leave shirt off as well.

t on siderable quantities of chilled beef r Ve open, or are about to be, shipped kef 11 T* W ea^ar| d for the British marare to believe all we hear v f the meat situation there, the 6BT.+-half so chilly as the reP ion it gets when it arrives.