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Otago Daily Times, Issue 19271, 8 September 1924, Page 6

Detective Beer arrested a Maori on Saturday on a charge of breaking and entering the Seacliff railway station. Ho will appear before the court this morning. His Honor Mr Justice Sim has granted probate of the wills of David Strang (Green Island), William Martin Heckler (Warepa), and Isabella Hagan. Letters of administration have been granted in the estates of John Frew and Armstrong (Tokomairiro), and Duncan William Angus M'Larty (previously known as D. W. A. Trainor). An order changing the name of W. W. Stewart (Ltd.) to Stewart, Bell (Ltd.) was made in Chambers on Friday by his Honor Mr Justice Sim. on the motion of Mr K. Aslin. We understand that the business of Messrs H. E. Partridge and Co., tobacco merchants, who have branches in various parts of New Zealand, will be merged into the firm of W. D. and H. 0. Wills (Ltd) from November 1. "The Call of tho Snows,"' picturing groups of those fortunate people who took part in the second annual sports meeting at Ruapehu, occupies the front page in the illustrations in the Otago Witness to be published to-morrow. The Payne Trophy Rugby match and the fine Association game between China and Otago provide some very clever snaps of the play, covering some of the most critical points in the games. Of very different character is the set of pictures captioned "The Beautiful Ganneta Leave Cape Kidnappers," so long the nesting place of the migrants. It is feared that the heartless treatment to which the birds have been subjected hag frightened them away, but it is anticipated that steps will now be taken to protect them. A glimpse of tho Exhibition Building as it will be is shown- in the dome of festival hall at the head of the grand court, the dome forming a promi-, nent and striking feature of the buildings ' now in course of erection. .A photograph of Lieutenant-general Sir Charles Ferguson, the opening of the new St. Patrick's School at Waimate, tho opening of the cottage hospital at Milton, the Otago Hunt Club's meeting, the first tram to Opoho, a fine group photo of the students Resident in Knox College this year, students and professors of Theological Hall, Knox College, and the Executive of the Otago University Students' Association are among the features illustrated in to-morrow's issue. Twelve bankruptcies were notified in the latest issue of the New Zealand Gazette, nine of the number being in the North Island. Even in the gloomy confines of a prisoner's cell humour —and pathos—find their vent. This is revealed by an inspection of the white-washed walls of the little cells beneath the main hall of the old and historic Supreme Court building (says the Auckland Star). Here, men awaiting trial or sentence are compelled to spend their time. After a convicted man has heard the judge pronounce sentence, he stumbleg down the winding stairway from the dock, and is left alone with his thoughts. Soon tho van will take him to the stone-walled pile at Mount Eden. The cell is a foretast--of what is to come. The soul-destroying years stretch in melancholy vista before the prisoner; in such a mood, with the stub of a pencil, he makes the walls hideous or amusing—or pathetic, perhaps—according to tho trend of his thoughts. Many a on© has scrawled his name, adding the date, crime, and sentence. As if to say, "All hope abandon, ye' who enter here," others have executed a crude representation of' a cross, bearing an epitaph referring to the length of the sentence. "God will help you and me," remarks another inscription. 'Tis a grim study in criminal psychology. Considerable publicity in the Mother Country (writes our London correspondent) has been obtained, largely through the help of Mr H. T. B. Drew (New Zealand Publicity Officer), in making known the organisation started in Auckland known as "The British Isle 9 Association." An early and gratifying result has been the receipt by Mr D. R. Williams, who has come to London to make known the association and its prospects for usefulness, of many letters of inquiry. A number, of there have been received from ex-army officers who are on the eve of departure for the dominion; others are from parents whose sons already are in New Zealand. To them all tho purposes of the association make a common appeal, and one may express the confident hope that Mr Williams will receive sympathy and help from philanthropic people of many interests when they become cognisant of the existence of the association and its aims, and when they know the a?eis under which it has been started. Mr Williams has taken an office in Kingsway, where he will be able to deal with correspondence and arrange for personal interviews.

A special meeting of the "3T.M.0.A, executive was held on Saturday evening to meet Mr A. Varney and Mr S. G. Cresswell, of the National Committee, in order to discuss matters pertaining to the coming season’s Territorial camp work. Th© vicepresident, Mr H. K. Wilkinson, occupied the chair, and welcomed the visitors, who brought forward a scheme to employ a permanent secretary ’to visit all the camps in the Southern Command, th© work to be carried oat in’ conjunction with the Chaplains’ Board. The idea was approved, and the Rev. W. Walker, who was present. undertook to. place the matter in detail before the forthcoming conference of chaplains. The visit of Mr Reg Stephens, ex-chief stoker of H.M.A.S. Australia, was also discussed, and the series of meetings outlined by the Religious Work Committee, from September 16 to September SO, was approved. The secretary was instructed to approach the Central Mission authorities; with a view to securing the use of the Octagon Hall for certain Sunday meetings.

In the Graphic of April 30 last (writes our London correspondent) a paragraph appeared stating that a well-known New Zealand artist and sculptor, living in England, had offered his services free to model tho figures which were to grace the entrance to the New Zealand Pavilion at Wembley, that he was refused, and later through'the architects ho was given by the New Zealand Government a round sum for the work. In reference to this statement, isir James Allen has received the following letter from Mr A. R. Fraser, who apparently is 'the sculptor referred to: —“My attention has been drawn to an that appeared in the Daily Graphic of April 30, 1924, regarding the cost of modelling the panels for the New Zealand Pavilion. I have also been informed that this article or part of it has appeared in some paper In New Zealand. As the statement is absolutely untrue, and any extract from it might mislead public opinion considerably, I hasten to inform you that I was not in any way connected with its publication.”

The report of the Government Statistiin the Monthly Abstract of Statistics for August states that the index number for th© three food groups as at July 15 was 1590, a degrease of 14 points as compared with that for June (1604), and an increase' of 48.60 per cent, as compared with that for July, 1914. A fall of seven points in the groceries group was due mainly to a fall in the price of sugar in several towns. Considerable decreases in tho prices of eggs in the various towns caused a decline of 48 points in the dairy products group. Meat prices were practically stationary during July.

An interesting' experiment is at present being carried out at the Botanio Gardens, Christchurch, by Mr James Young, curator. The. experiment consists of the installation of a set of electrio lamps in one of of the propagating 1 houses, with a view to forcing th© growth of a number of annuals, which are: Lobelia, salpiglossis, campanula, marigold, phlox dmmmcndii, alyssum, godetia, amaranthus. asters, nemesia, coreopsis, stock, and salvia. The electric lights are switched on automatically at 8 p.m., and turned off at 1 a.m. By this means the plants are given five hours' additional light daily, and as a result the growth is stimulated. It is not considered that the period of sleep the plants are thus deprived of will in any way adversely affect them, this having been already demonstrated by experiments previously carried out in Britain and the United States. 'Up to the present time Mr Young's experiment has been carried out for about 10 days, and the beneficial residts are already obvious. By way of comparison plants similar to those mentioned were put out at the same time in boxes to grow in a room adjoining, rio extra light being allowed to penetrate to them, so that they are being grown under normal conditions. An examination of the two lots of plants shows that those grown beneath the electric lights have made on an average a 25 per cent, greater growth than the others (states the Press). If the experiment turns out to be as successful as it gives promise of being, it should be of great advantage to horticulturists, because it should enable them to force the growth of certain plants, and thus obtain the high prices paid for early-grown flowers, which are at present supplied by growers in wanner climates. Our London correspondent (writing on August 2) says that in its Banking Supplement the Financial Times mentions that considerable prosperity has been experienced in the past 12 months by the New Zealand banking institutions. The 12 months ended with June 30 has been the best period since the setback of 1930, and the country has taken a big step ! forward towards rn■xjvery. ' Public finances are in a healthy state; produce has realised remunerativeprices, with a phenomenal advance in wool. With few exceptions producers have made progress towards regaining the losses of 1920-21; confidence has returned, and the ■ future is faced with much hopefulness. Perhaps the only exception is the unsatisfactory position and prospects of the meatfreezing industry. For the first time in the history of New Zealand a normal year's exports exceeded £50,000,000 last year, while »an overseas trade of about £96.000,000 is a very high figure for a country Vith so small a population. Napier is described as "the greet East Coast centre" in one of the excellent special supplements issued' by the Napier Daily Telegraph. In an historical sketch tha writer says: "Eighty years ago, in November, 1844, George Augustus Selwyn, an Anglican missionary, preached from a small rock' in a gully of Scinde Island. The preacher and his audience are now but a memory, but the rock remains, and it might, with- some justice, be regarded as one cf the most t tangible relics of Napier's inception as a city. Within the 80 years a city had grown up around the little boulder from which Bishop Selwyn preached. T&at rock is now set in the well-shorn sward of Government Lawn, Napier—a spot which has altered materially since those ancient days—and now is passed daily by hundreds of pedestrians who ignore its existence. Out to the east from Petane are the bay and the anchorage, and these have shared in perhaps tho greatest triumph of 192*. For on a sunny May morning there slid into tho bay five great ironclads of the world's greatest navy, and with her satellite subordinates the Hood, monarch of warships, rested in mighty calm upon the waters. Only 150 years previously, a time that the lifetimes of two men could bridge, Cook's Endeavour had slipped into this same bay, but under what vastly different conditions! She was a tiny, timber-sided craft, beating under weather-worn canvas, welcoming the fertile shores of Maorikmd because here were found relief from tho scurvy, the fevers, and the 'monotonous weevily food,' that beset her hardened crew. On the contrary, the Hood was the personification of power, and as well, oempared with the Endeavour, the embodiment of luxury." A "first aid'' incident, in which Viscountess Jellicoe figured, occurred at the recent Gisborne Hunt meeting. When one of the men present was injured, her Excellency stopped her horse- and insisted in his going over to her car to be attended to. She got out a first aid ease and herself bandaged his broken finger. A little later in the day ehe was speaking to one of Gisborne's medical men, and got him to have a look at the* injury. "That's bandaged perfectly," said the doctor to his attendant. "Write out a cheque for 10s 6d for her Excellency and take it to her with my compliments." This was done, and Lady Jellicoe thoroughly enjoyed the joke. "During the war 1 rendered first aid to" hundreds of cases," sho said, "but this is the first time I have been paid for my work. «■