LOCAL GOSSIP

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22468, 11 July 1936, Page 4 (Supplement)

LOCAL GOSSIP

Tea Tipplers' Subsidy r pHE new labour laws may bo responsi bio for increasing the price of the morning and afternoon cup (or cups) of tea. What will Mr. Savage do in face of this dire possibility? Surely it is a clear case for a subsidy—there can Ik? no graver national issuo than this, except it bo a striko of totalisator clerks. Supposing each tearoom proprietor were given a subsidy of one penny a, cup to keep the price down to fourpeneo, that would save the situation for the Government but might ruin Mr. Nash's Budget. After all £1,000.000 would subsidise no more than 210,000,000 cups of tea, or a miserly J(SO oups per throat per annum. Undertakers on the Move Of course it had to come. This is tlio era of associations, unions, federations, guilds and all manner of organisations. The undertakers of tlio Auckland province have just formed an association which is to consider "policy matters." Evidently, after all, they are not as slow as a funeral! John Citizen regards the move suspiciously and is asking whether the threatened increase in the cost of living is'to be accompanied by a rise in the cost of dying. One wonders! Still, the formation of an undertakers' association should not bo treated as a subject for jokes. It is really a grave undertaking. Mr. Semple's Wet Towel

Although Mr. Semple expresses amazement at tlio late Government's policy regarding the unfinished northern railway he still thinks that there is something to think about. Having inspected the much discussed gap between Dargaville and Tangowahine .and "looped the loop" at Kirikopuni, he is going to tie a wet towel round his head and think it all out in the seclusion of his sanctum sanctorum in Wellington. Of course, if ho cannot manage it ho will throw in tlio towel! Ho seems to be realising that the problem is not as semple as it looks.

The First Hundred Thousand Twelve additional inspectors have been appointed this week. It is understood that this raises the strength of the inspectorate to 139.099 or one to every 15 of the population. It had been hoped that tho number could be rounded off, except that there seemed no call for appointing the 100,000 th. Although they were carefully minding other people's business, the 99,999 did not complain of overwork. But Mr. It. 0. Grose has solved the problem by demonstrating that there is "one clear call" for an Inspector of Statues. The Goal-kicker's Dilemma

Hundreds of pounds change hands in Auckland each week, they say, as sporting enthusiasts risk 6d or Is in an effort to draw the winning number in various sweeps 011 Saturday's football matches. The story is told of an All Black who had drawn a number in a match in which he was playing. His team scored between the posts in the last minute, giving him the requisite number for a substantial first prize. He had to take the kick. If he converted, the prize was gone, if he missed his team lost. Finally, 110 converted, the ball striking an upright and falling inside.

By MERCUTIO

Paying For Patching Tlio chap who suggested that the hospitals should have a cut out of the petrol tax becauso of the large number of road accidents nowadays certainly started something. The idea was strenuously opposed at a meeting of one of the automobile associations, apparently because the meeting consisted of motorists. Nobody actually said that the hospitals got the accident cases, and shouldn't lie greedy, but the whole affair was heavy with that suggestion. Anyway, it was advanced that if hospital boards were to be. given a contribution, it should come from the insurance companies, not the petrol tax. Seeing that the insurance companies are very liable to have to pay out for accidents anyway, it is not easy to understand why this suggestion was made; unless it happened there were no insurance meii at the meeting. Actually the remedy is very simple. Make the victims of road accidents pay double the fees charged other patients. What right have they to go getting hurt in road accidents, anyway?

A Railway and Migration The various railway construction or completion projects now being set in motion are all based oil the soundest social and economic principles. Tho •Government of the day has s.ijd so, and who is any mere individual that he should dispute it? All the same, one lone valiant voice was heard piping up the other day about the South Island Main Trunk railway and the completion thereof. The owner of it—the voice, not tho railway—asked a little gathering what was the purpose of it. There were various answers, some according to the gospel of the Government and some not —decidedly not. I he questioner flatly contradicted them all and when challenged to give true reason said: "To help along tho drift of the South Island population to tho North Island. " Fireworks " at Tarawera With nil that has been written on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the Tarawera eruption, nothing has been said regarding the eruption of indignation on tho part of an elderly ladv of the time who was residing somewhere within the broad neighbourhood of the Hot Lakes area. Being awakened by the sound of the upheaval in the early hours of the morning the old lady, according to a chronicler of the period, concluded that tho noise was being caused by Mnoris firing guns or "letting off fireworks," in the course of some native ceremonial or other. "They ought to be told about it," she said, "wasting all that powder and preventing folks from sleeping." The reports of the eruption were heard as far awajv iit least, as Christehurch, while an electrical display, attributed to the Tarawera outburst, cast an unwonted radiance over the sky round about Dunedin. " Some fireworks!" Will the Price Rise? Because of the way things docial and industrial are moving, the prices of many classes of leather goods have been increased. At the risk of giving another rub to a subject already wellworn, it must still be asked: running shoes are made of leather, aren't they ?