Untitled

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19038, 7 December 1923, Page 4

The Mahia, from Newcastle, is due at Wellington to-day with 54 bags of Australian mail for New Zealand. The Dunedin portion is expected here to-morrow. The postal authorities advise that New Zealand mails which left Wellington by the Tahiti on October 30 for Great Britain, via San Francisco, reached London on Tuesday lagf. Mr A. F. Roberts, New Zealand Commissioner to the Empire Exhibition, will arrive in Dunedin to-morrow evening to interview the Otago and Southland District Committee prior to his departure for England. Exhibitors desiring to any nißltter before Mr Roberts should take advantage of this opportunity of a personal interview with him before his departure from Dunedin on Wednesday next.

Tho local branch of Messrs Mason, Struthers, and Co. has received advice that the fire damage sustained by its Christchurch house ■was not so severe as was first reported. Tho loss was confined to tho top storey of a bulk store, the upper floor of which was gutted, while the lower floors were damaged by water only.' The loss was fully covered by insurance. Brief reference to railway finance was made by the Hon. J. G. Coates (Minister of Railways) who, in a speech yesterday (reports our " Auckland correspondent) said that it was his responsibility, for the time being, to see that the railways paid. The way to do it was to give the general manager a free hand so far as was possible. He had a very hard row to hoe. As soon as a profit was made the country’s demand for lower freights, better carriages, and more trains could be met.

The spell of dry weather is telling on the Mosgiol water supply in common with neighbouring towns; but tho position is quite good all the same. Tho borough inspector (Mr Butcher) has the position under obser vation. He reported having visited tho intakes at Powder Creek and Loishman's yesterday. The City Council’s pumping plant at Powder Creek was in full swing, and the stream was consequently low. At Leidiroan’s the water was also level with the sill of the weir, and the borough was getting a full pipe. Though there is no cause for alarm, but on the other hand satisfaction that Mosgiel is being well served in a dry season, residents are requested to conserve the borough water supply. The use of hoses for garden or other purposes is strictly prohibited until further notice. Some' time between 9 p.m. on Tuesday and 5.30 on Wednesday morning the chemist’s shop of Mr Peter Souness at Kaitangata was burglariously entered, the thief obtaining entrance through a side window, and goods to the value of £2O were stolen. There is a fancy goods department in the shop, and it was this that was raided, the stolen articles comprising wristlet watches, silver watches, tiepins, etc. Constable Maiden has been actively investigating the case, but so far there is not the slightest clue to the identity of the burglar. A high official in the New Zealand transport service during the war paid a tribute in the course of a chat yesterday with a Times reporter to the waterside workers of Port Chalmers. In order to despatch a certain transport from Port Chalmers on a specified date it was necessary that the waterside workers should work all day on New Year’s Day at coaling the vessel. “Not a hope of their doing that” was the opinion expressed by an official of mercantile shipping experience. That was far from encouraging, but the official of tho wider responsibility decided to speak to the men personally. He adopted that course, and the man to man policy proved successful. He went on board the ship where the coaling was going on and pointed out to the men that national safety was a factor in the situation. No coercion of any kind’ was introduced. On Now Year’s morning every man turned up, and the work went on throughout the day without let or hindrance. “I have had a warm feeling for Port Chalmers ever since,” said the big war time official. On the occasion of the birthday of Queen Alexandra on December 1 (says an Auckland Press Association message) the Governor-General sent a message to her Majesty on behalf of the Government and the people of New Zealand. His Excellency has .received the following reply;—“Please accept my grateful thanks for the kind birthday greetings and assure the Government and the people of New Zealand how greatly I appreciate the kind thoughts of me. (Signed) Alexandea." At the quarterly meeting of the Otago Schools Committees’ Association last night Mr W. Jacobsen mentioned that children sitting for primary school scholarships were very often nervous on the first day of their examination on account of the strange surroundings, and for this reason he did not think that a hard subject like arithmetic should be given on the first day, as very often the candidates did not do justice to themselves. The examiners’ idea was, he said, to give the children the most difficult paper while they were fresh, but this advantage was minimised by the nervous strain. Finally, it was decided, on Mr Jacobsen’s motion, that a suggestion be submitted to the department that arithmetic, the hardest subject, be not taken first on account of the nervousness of the candidates through being unacquainted with their surroundings.

A ’private telegram received last night states that there was a full attendance at the conference of radio dealers, which opened in Wellington yesterday to discuss the mture of New Zealand' broadcasting. It was decided that one association control broadcasting in the four centres. The scheme is well under way, and good propositions have been arranged for the benefit of the four centres. The conference sat again last night, and will, meet the Government representatives to-day. The annual report of the New Zealand Amateur Athletic Association records the following affiliated clubs:—Auckland Centre, 8; Wellington Centre, 29; West Coast (North Island) Centre, 7; Canterbury Centre, 7; and Otago Centre, 12.

A somewhat unusual letter was read at the meeting of the Otago Centre of the New Zealand Amateur Athletic Association last night. The letter, which was signed “Start the Sport Young,” suggested that a baby show should be held at some of the sports meetings conducted by the Centro as it would “bring a crowd of proud fathers and mothers, along with the rest of the family, and would swell the gate money.” Apparently the suggestion fell on stony ground as the letter was merely received with smiles.

Addressing the Plunket Society yesterday, Mrs J. A. Johnstone (president) made some important remarks on infantile mortality. The infantile death rate for 1922 for the four main cities of New Zealand, she said, was the lowest on record—namely, under 4.2 per TOO births. In 1921 the rate was 4.7 per cent. For the four dities the infantile death rates in 1922 were:—Auckland, 4.5 per cent.; Wellington, 4.9 per cent.; Christchurch, 5.4 per cent.; Dunedin, 4.0 per cent. “Last year,” the president continued, “we drew attention to the steady decrease in the death rate of infants from the beginning of the second month to the end of the first year —the rate having gone down from 4 per cent., when the society started, to 1.7 per cent, in 1921. During the same period the death rate in the first month remained practically unchanged—namely, 3 per cent. In 1922 the rate from the beginning of the second month to the end of the first year had declined further to 1.4 per cent., while in the first month there was also a slight reduction.” The War Pensions Appeal Board, composed of Sir Frederick Chapman (chairman), Dr Fergus (representing the R.S.A.), and Dr S. Moore (representing the Government), commenced its Dunedin sittings yesterday morning. There are about 40 cases to come before the board during its stay in Dunedin, which, it is anticipated, will extend to Wednesday next. The proceedings are of a private nature in the meantime.

Mr J. M. Hickson at the last of his healing mission services here yesterday morning gave a generous testimonial to the influence for good of the daily press. They were grateful to the press, he said, for the sympathetic way in which it had reported these services. He did not know why the secular press should not be used to guide thought in spiritual things, and surely through the secular press a part of the Gospel of Jesus Christ had been preached to the man in the street, to the man who did not go to church or read religious papers. He was very difficult to reach and get hold of, but ho would read the daily papers and in them he had been reading about Jesus Christ and His wonderful work and ministry of healing and comfort and help. It was indeed a sign of the times that we were beginning to move out of that material age into the spiritual, and men were beginning to think spiritually, to look up. They wanted to know something more than the sordid things of this life, and they looked to the papers to help t them and to guide their thoughts. They should thank God that that was being done through this mission. Hedgehogs are plentiful about Dunedin residential areas just now, especially in the hill districts. A number of householders are inclined to encourage the animals owing to their taste for garden pests, while, as exterminators of mice, they axe extremely valuable.

Excellent testimony to the value of the work of the Plunket Society was laid before the annual conference in Dunedin yesterday by Dr Truby King, who, in hia opening remarks, said he wished to congratulate Dunedin in its absolutely unique record in regard to the stamping out of the one serious scourge of early infancy, infantile diarrhoea. For the last two years, not a single child under two years had died in Dunedin. In 1907 this fell disease carried off 25 infants per 1000 births in their first year, besides gravely damaging for life at least six times that number. With the object of as nearly as possible endorsing his estimates in relation to the Leith canal, the Harbour Board engineer (Mr J. M‘G. Wilkie) has had a model of tho canal constructed at the Forth street bridge. The model, which is on a scale of half an inch to a foot, is 88ft long, 2ft across at its widest part, and between six and seven inches deep. The watershed of the Leith is about 10,000 acres, and, as Mr Wilkie has estimated the maximum rainfall at an inch per hour in the event of flood, it is thought advisable to provide capacity in the canal for 10,000 cubic feet per second—a very liberal total, and one that is thought scarcely likely to be attained except in the event of a phenomenal downpour. It is partly with the object of testing his estimate that an addition of five feet to the canal walls would meet this demand that Mr Wilkie has constructed the model in which the proposed addition has been allowed for. Incidentally, some further insight will be gained into the probable position at the cantilever and new railway bridges in the event of 10,000 ouhio feet coming down the bod every second, and it is satisfactory to note that, at least so far as the model is concerned, everything in them goes smoothly. Tests are being carried out by the board’s engineering staff under all conditions of the tide and varying discharges of water, and while the figures will not be fully gone into until the tests are completed (in a few days) they so far approximate closely to Mr Wilkie’s first estimates. A feature hard to account for is that from the stop down to the position of the railway bridge the rise when the maximum head is being sent down is not noticeable by the eye as the tide goes to the full, but the measurements will probably indicate a small fluctuation. From the railway bridge down, however, there is a noticeable change. Mr Wilkie is 'certainly to b© commended for exhausting all available sources which are likely to be productive of data that will lead to tho better control of the troublesome Leith, and to the layman the model appeals as a potential contribution to that much-desired end. There- was a “clean sheet” at the City Police Court yesterday. A E. J. Blakeley, dentist, Bank of Australasia, corner of Bond and Rattray street* (next Telegraph Office). Telephone 1859/ Advt. Diamond Engagement Rings.—Before purchasing compare our values; large selection, superior quality.—Peter Dick, direct importers jewellery, watches, silverware, 4SO Moray place, Dunedin.—Advt.