Untitled

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21244, 27 January 1931, Page 8

The postal authorities advise that an English parcel mail, consisting-of 75 receptacles ex the steamer Ruahine at Wellington, reached Dunedin yesterday. We have been asked to state that there is no agreement in existence at the present time between the Otago Hospital Board and the Otago United Friendly Societies’ Council providing for_ concessions to members of friendly societies in hospital. “It is the fine types of the Otago pioneers, as revealed by their portraits, which principally attracts the attention of visitors to the Early Settlers’ Association’s museum,” said the secretary (Mr W. Paterson) to a Daily Times reporter yesterday. “ They cannot help being impressed by them,” he added. The past month has seen visitors from all over New Zealand, and from Australia and the Old Country, all of whom have expressed great admiration for the society’s efforts to retain the fast disappearing links with the early history of the province. _ One party of tourists from Great Britain, having travelled all over New Zealand, proclaimed the museum as the most interesting spot in the country. r One case of scarlet fever was discharged from, and one case admitted to, the Dunedin and Fever Hospitals during the week ended at noon yesterday, five cases still remaining in both institutions. One case of ophthalmia neonatorum also remains in Dunedin Hospital. At a sitting of the Magistrate’s Court yesterday morning, before Mr J. R. Bartholomew, S.M., Frederick Holden, of Port Chalmers, sought exemption from the closing requirements of the Shops and Offices Act. He stated there were two shops in the vicinity of his, which, having exemption, carried on business similar to his. His Worship granted the application, on condition that the tobacconists hours were observed in respect to the part of the applicant’s business which dealt v with .the sale of tobacco and cigarettes. In the Magistrate’s Court yesterday morning, before Mr J. R. Bartholomew, S.M., a further hearing was given to the case in which C. H. Slade and Go., of Sydney, claimed from A. Horwood and Co., of Dunedin, the sum of £42 17s 6d as the amount due to the plaintiffs for goods sold and delivered .to the defendants on May 16, 1930. The plaintiffs alternatively claimed to recover from the defendants £42 17s 6d for the amount of damages which the plaintiffs had suffered by reason of the defendants’ wTongful refusal to accept delivery of the goods. Mr H. E. Barrowelough appeared for the plaintiffs and Mr E. J. Anderson for the defendant. It was claimed by the defendant that the consignment was not up. to the quality of- the sample he had been shown when he had placed the order. His Worship reserved’ his decision. At Hamilton yesterday Frank Kerr was charged with the attempted murder of Gertrude West, at Te Awamutu on Saturday, and was remanded to February 9 (states a Press Association telegram). A previous telegram stated that the couple were believed to have been engaged and to have become estranged. Kerr, a carpenter, is alleged to have gone to the girl’s home and shot, her in the abdomen. She was removed in a serious condition to the Waikato Hospital. •

Mr J. Rentoul, chairman of the Export Honey Control Board, while in Dunedi% received the following cablegram from Mr H. W. Castle, representative of tho board in the United Kingdom:—“Refused permission to sell sixpenny exhibition samples at British Industries Fair in February on the ground that 4oz jar* are too much, notwithstanding that permission has been,granted to England and Wales to sell existing stock of 4oz jars. Am declining to exhibit. High Commissioner’s Office has done everything possible.” Mr Rentoul, who is accompanied by Mr E. A. Earp, senior apiary instructor, left for the south last evening.

People have curious ways of venting their spite (says the Christchurch Times). In one ease, which is causing a number of persona a good deal of trouble at present, a novel way has been adopted. Seeking revenge for some fancied wrong, a young man in the city first tried to get' even by ringing his enemy at various hours of the night and dragging him out of bed. To get peace the second man changed hia number, but his tormentor found a new way. At all hours of the day and night taxis are pulling up outside his door and drivers are loudly expressing their wrath on being told they have been hoaxed. At times there are as many as three cars arriving at the same tinxe.

The planetoid (asteroid, or minor planet) Eros, .which every 30 years cornea to a distance of about 16,000,000. milca from the earth, was successfully. photographed early on Monday morning by Messrs R. C. Hayes and T. L. Thomsen, using the ninerinch telescope at Kelburn Observatory, Wellington. The attempt (states the Post) covered several weeks, owing to unfavourable weather, but two plates were successfully exposed after midnight with an hour’s interval between them. The large movement, about a degree a day, was clearly shown by the small black traces on the plates, the telescope remaining pointed to the same part of the heavens. Eros is being photographed all over the world just now, and the Kelburn Observatory is associated with the general campaign, the results of which may take years to co-ordinate. Eros is less than 20 miles across.

“How rotten can fish get?” asked a disgusted citizen of a Wellington Post reporter the other day. “ Five men I have just met have cried stinking fish so thoroughly that I am wondering whether, like superheated steam, there are not greater possibilities in super-putrid fish than in the ordinary decayed kind. None of these five men are as yet seriously endangered by the financial position, and with the exercise of sense should emerge from it rather better off than most, .and yet all of thern were sedulously anticlpat. ing disasters That will probably never touch them. The effect of this on people who are affected by the present situation can be imagined. Let us face facte by all means, but why start to make next winter a hard one now? ” > '

That the aeroplane will be a factor in building uj our base public hospitals is the opinion of many of those who have recently returned to New Zealand after studying to some extent the hospital- system in older lands (says the Auckland Star). Patients who have been severelyinjured in collisions are. made quite comfortable in aeroplanes and in a few minutes are landed without any jolting, as was often the case with road ambulances, in the hospital ward. .1 . Because an Australian banknote in New! Zealand is not worth so much as one issued, here, some shopkeepers have assumed (says the Christchurch Press) that Australian silver coins have also depreciated in value. Acting on that assumption, they' have refused in some cases to accept them, from customers. Actually, of course, Australian coins as legal tender are worth just as-much in New Zealand as they are in the country where they are minted. •It is not-regarded as likely that the present adverse exchange fate will increase the amount of Australian coinage in New Zealand. As the manager of one bank pointed out, tourists from Australia might bring more silver in their pockets, but they could not do that to any-great extent because of-the weight ■of • the • coins. He did not see that there was any, necessity. for an.embargo on the import of Australian coins. Training secondary school teachers' on lines equivalent to the training of primaary school teachers'was advocated by Professor J. L. Wrigley, of, Melbourne University,- in a lecture to the Teachers Summer School in .Christchurch. He described the present system in Victoria, where secondary teachers must be trained. The professor said that in any discussion of the qualifications required of teachers in secondary schools, general agreement was found on the. necessity of adequate knowledge, academic status, and P er ~ sonality, but not of professional training. But times were changing, and an increasing answer in the affirmative, was being given to the question: “ Why_ should not the secondary teacher be required to prepare himself as carefully on the professional side as his colleague m the elementary school? ” Professor Wrigley said that ideally a long course was desirable were it not for financial conditions and the question of supply and demand. He art. vocated a two-years’ course, consisting of six months’ work in school, observation teaching of small groups, and much supervision and discussion of the elements of method, then a course of one year of the ordinary diploma type, followed by a sixmonths’ probation appointment, with return to the training centre two afternoons a ‘week.