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Otago Daily Times, Issue 20892, 5 December 1929, Page 8

The postal authorities advise. that an English parcel mail, consisting'of 14 receptacles, ex the steamer Cornwall at Auckland, should reach Dunedin at the end of this week. The tanker Callandia, which is due at- Wellington on Sunday from Sydney, is bringing five bags of Australian mail and 10 parcel receptacles for Dunedin. The mail is : expected to roach the General Post Office next Tuesday afternoon.

At the meeting of the City Council last night the town clerk {Mr G. A. Lewin) stated that nine additional applications for the position of city organist had been received, making a total of 20. Seven of the new applications came from Australia and two from New Zealand. The applications were referred to the sub-commit-tee previously appointed for a report.

After an extensive overhaul, the Union Company’s steamer Moeraki will leave Auckland for Sydney at 11 o’clock this morning (reports our special correspondent in Auckland). Work has been carried out on the vessel at the Central wharf. Since, she arrived from Suva on October 26. a large sum of money has been expended on repairs to the hull and on an overhaul of the engines and boilers. It has not been necessary to attend to the Moeraki’s furnishings..

. The monthly meeting of the Dunedin Drainage and Sewerage Board was held last night, and was attended by the Mayor (Mr R. S. Black), J, B. Shacklock, J. W. Munro, P. L. Lawrence, W. A. Scott, F. W. Mitchell,'J. Wilson, J, J. Marlow, W. Begg, J. Beattie, and C. Conn. The adoption of the Works Committee’s report was moved by Mr Wilson, who referred to the proposed harbour reclamation on the southern endowment. He stated that certain proposals had been made by the Harbour Board whereby the portion of the endowment adjacent to Manor place would be made available for receiving spoil from the harbour. This meant that practically the whole, policy of the Drainage Board would have to be altered, to suit the Harbour Board. If the Harbour Board could call on the Drainage Board to create facilities the expenditure of the latter would be practically doubled. The matter would have to be gone into carefully. The motion, which was seconded by Mr Marlow, was carried. The Finance Committee’s report was adopted on the motion of Mr Shacklock, seconded by Mr Mitchell. Two tenders were received for the construction of a drain-in-common in Epsilon street, and that of Mr A. E. Butters,whose price was £lO7, was accepted. Six tenders were received for the supply and delivery of one 30cwt motor truck, .fitted with tipping body, etc., and that of Messrs Hislop and Gibson, whose price for a Manchester truck was £4BO, was accepted.

A 3i-ton lorry, fully laden, with three men, including the driver, had a narrow escape from a serious accident on Saturday afternoon. The vehicle was on the main road to Palmerston Xorth, and was nearing the bend where the railway has crossed the sea beyond Porirua, when it ran off the road and down an Bft bank with an angle of about 40 degrees. It kept on its wheels and the driver managed to save it from going into the sea. He then drove for some yards on' the brink of the water until he reached a spot where he could, with help, climb the bank. A passing lorry rendered assistance and a wire rope was hitched to the front of the other and it was soon out of difficulty again. It was undamaged but it was a marvellous escape, for at the spot where it went over it looks as if it could not possibly have avoided rolling over right into the sea-

In moving the adoption of the Reserves Committee’s report at the meeting of the City Council last night, Cr Lawrence referred to the fact that there had been a considerable amount of correspondence in the press regarding the proposal to permit a hall for Boy Scouts to be erected at the Woodhaugh Gardens. The writers to the press, he said, had misunderstood the committee. The committee realised that the boys had no place to meet. The George Street School Hall was now being used for a classroom, and the committee had, therefore, looked around and had selected a corner of the Woodhaugh Gardens as a suitable place for the building. To his mind, it was a really good site. He did not see why the people should object to the removal of undergrowth in the vicinity, as it was .only a place in which bottles and tins were thrown. Moreover, the undergrowth was not a native growth, and was actually detrimental to the growth of native bush. The committee had since had a look at other sites, and had decided on a place opposite the Gardena. He hoped that when the proposal came before the council it would not object.— (Cr Begg: “It will.”) Cr Lawrence went on to say that there were about 80 Boy Scouts to be provided for in Horth Dunedin, and that the council gave playing areas to cricket and football clubs and allowed them to erect pavilions on them.

A meeting of representatives of the Otago Hospital Board contributing districts, which had been called for the purpose of appointing a successor on the board to the late Mr R. W. Hall, lapsed yesterday afternoon owing to non-attend-’ ance of members of the Green Island Borough Council. The contributing districts comprise the Peninsula County and the Green Island and St. Hilda Boroughs, and the councils of these districts are empowered by Act to appoint some qualified person to fill such vacancy. Taking the view that the full councils should decide the appointment, the Green Island Borough Council refused St. Hilda's request to send two representatives. The town clerk of St. Hilda (Mr W. G. Griffin) stated last evening that the Green Island Council appeared to have misunderstood the position, as, irrespective of the number •of . representatives appointed to attend the meetirfg, each body is entitled to one vote only. Accordingly, the Peninsula Couniy and Green Island Borough Council have been notified that a meeting will be held in the Council Chambers, St. Hilda, next Tuesday evening. Unless the local bodies concerned make an appointment within two months of the occurrence of the vacancy—October 31— the duty will automatically devolve on the Governor-General.

There'was a sharp decline in the prices obtained for most classes of stock at the Burnside, sales yesterday. Fat cattle, sheep, and lambs were the affected sections. The reduction in. fat cattle prices was from £1 10s to £2 per head, while sheep declined to the extent of 2s and ss, and lambs from 3a to 4s a head. Store cattle, with the exception of cows, were sold at late rates, and the pig market was firm. The fat cattle entry totalled 280 head, consisting of good average to prime animals, with a few heavy-weights and a number of prime cow. Heavy bullocks sold to £22 10s, medium to £l9 sb, light to £lB 10s, heavy heifers to £l3, medium to £l7, light to £lO 15s, heavy cows to £l4 ss, medium to £l2 15s, light to £ll los. Prime ox beef sold round about 50s per 1001 b? The sheep entry totalled 2880. With the exception of about 450, the whole of the yarding was shorn. All classes were represented, with a fair proportion of heavy wethers, the balance consisting of mixed sheep. The opening sales showed a sharp decline on the high rates obtained a fortnight ago. The demand was slow, and the market showed no improvement with the closing sales. Heavy sheep sold at a reduction of from 4s to ss, and ewes at about 2s per head. Shorn wethers sold from 22s to 40s 9d, shorn ewes from 18s to 32s 6d, wethers, in the wool from 33s to 49s 6d, and ewes in the wool from 25s to 395. 6d.-, A number of hoggets sold from 27s to 31s 3d per head. Prime mutton sold to about 51d per lb. The lamb entry numbered. 277 The animals were well grown, being mostly prime, including lambs' suitable for show purposes. The yarding also included a few plain sorts. There was a good demand at reduced rates, prime lambs selling from 28s to 33s 9d, medium from 24s to 275, and plain sorts up' to 235. Prime lamb sold round about lOd per lb. About'3o medium two and three-year-old steers and a number of fair to good cows were included in the yarding of 200 store cattle. Three-year-old steers sold to £9 11s and two-year-olds to £7 12s 6d. The pig entry consisted of 150 fats and 145 stores. There was ■ a good demand, with little, if any, change in prices for all classes. Prime baconers and porkers sold on a basis of about 9d per lb.

On the application of -Mr V. Fletcher, Sydney Jamea Thomas Branson was granted his discharge from bankruptcy in the Supreme Court yesterday, on condition that he consented to judgment fox £lO.

Members of the operating staff of the Auckland Telegraph Office are greatly perturbed at an inquiry ■which is in progress relating to conversations over their social telephone during the course of the Takapuna Jockey Club’s spring meeting (says our special correspondent in Auckland). It is stated that the telephone was " tapped ” by means of a duplicate wire which was switched on to the line, and that an officer or officers “ listened in " to the conversations. As a result two inspectors have come from Wellington to interrogate all members of the staff who used the telephone on Saturday and Monday, particular attention being paid to talks having a bearing on racing and betting. The members interrogated are being confronted with a note of their exact conversation, and that of the persons at the other end of the social wire.

The after-shocks experienced since the big Murchison earthquake are blqssings in disguise, according to Mr H. T. Ferrar and Mr L. I. Grange, who, in the last issue of the New Zealand Journal of Science and Technology, detail the results of their investigations. These aftershocks indicate that earth stresses were being released rather than accumulated, hence the ‘longer they continue the less likely is a repetition of the big shake. These authorities add that the Murchison earthquake, in which some 2000 cubic miles of solid granite and other rocks were raised from five to 14 feet, seems to have broken several of the accepted rules and regulations of these phenomena. Longdormant faults, for instance, have hitherto been accepted as of little danger. The Murchison earthquake, however, was generated along what is known as White Creek fault. This fault is at least seven miles long, and although apparently dormant, suddenly came to life and allowed an earth-block to rotate. This earthquake also seemed to differ in another respect from other earthquakes experienced in Zealand, in that it was in the nature of a double earthquake with foci on two nearly parallel lines of weakness, namely, the White Greek and the Konhahu fault zones.

To the fruit farmer the small bird pest proves troublesome at this period of the year, and many are the devices to offset the nuisance. A Manawatu orchardist, who has great expectations from his strawberry patch, has adopted an ingenious idea which differs from the usual run of scarecrow as a means of keeping the birds at bay. He has fitted up a line of tins and has a string connecting them with the house. On waking in the early morning, he gives the string a pull while still in bed, so as to set them rattling. At while fulfilling her household duties, his wife likewise gives the string attention, and as a result the ravages of the birds have been appreciably reduced.

Do the public of Hew Zealand realise just to what extent the praises of their country are recognised overseas? The following extract from an American coiw temporary is noteworthy:—“ For coiw centrated scenic wonder no country in the world offers the tourist a greater! i paradise than does Hew Zealand. Front ! majestic snow-clad peaks with their glaciers, winter sports, and the placid cliffbound fiordland, to the volcanic wonders of Rotorua and the deep-sea fishing in the sunny Bay of Islands—and all in an area of less than any one of the 48 United States! The Tourist Department of the Hew Zealand Government is doing a very real work in assisting visitors from overseas, and a wider knowledge of their activities would undoubtedly result in an increase in the tourist traffic to this Dominion.” Regarding this statement, a correspondent of the Evening Post suggests that, while the ad\ ertising activity at present operaf*ve in the United States, through the Publicity Department of the Hew Zealand. Government, is laudable and praiseworthy, it would appear that, if these two departments were rolled into one and the resultant saving in overhead expenditure spent in advertising, a definite and practical step would be taken in developing the. overseas tourist traffic to which Hew Zealand is justly entitled.

The sendees of the City Fire Brigade were called on at 11.15 a.m. yesterday to extinguish a chimney fire which had occurred in a house in Taieri road.

■ . fh® pupils of' Miss Mollie Andrews, will gi\ e a recital at the Princess Theatre on Saturday night. The Otago Motor Club will hold a social evening on Friday in the University Club rooms. The annua] sale of work of the Horth • Taieri Presbyterian Church will be held on Saturday afternoon at Mrs Shand’s residence. Lodge St. Andrew, Ho. 432, S.G., hag sent us £1 Is' for the Hospital Board’s Christmas Cheer Fund. I'liuse desirous at having electricity ineta I led in their houses should consult the Stewart Electrical Company, 171 Rattray street. Time payment* arranged, from 2a n week.—Advt Christmas, presents—shop early and • secure the pick. We buy direct from best French and'English houses.. Cameras a speciality from 10s each, with full in- • .structions. Soaps, t Perfume Sprays, nippy Concrete and Face Powders; quality and service guaranteed.—H. L. Sprosen, Ltd., Chemists, Octagon, Dunedin.—Advt. ■ Take' a sea line ’with you on your motor trip. All sea fishing tackle in stock.— Barth ■ Electrical Supplies, Ltd., 90 Princes - street. —Advt. W. ■ V. Stumer, G-A.0.C., D .8.0.1., optician. Consulting room, 2 Octagon, Dunedin. -Most modern scientific equipment for sight testing.—Advt. A. E. J. Blakeley and W. E. Begley, dentists. Bank of - Australasia, corner of Bond and Rattray streets, (next Telegraph Office) Telephone 12-353.—Advt Diamond Engagement Rings.—Before purchasing compare our values; large selection; quality.—Peter Dick, the most reliable jewellers, watchmakers, and opticians, 490 Moray place, Dunedin, Advt.