Idle and Disorderly

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22833, 18 March 1936, Page 8

Idle and Disorderly

In the City Police Court yesterday, Peter Stanley Cottingham, 10 years of age, appeared before Mr J. It. Bartholomew, S.M., and pleaded guilty to being an idle and disorderly person in that he had no lawful visible means of support, and to having stolen a rug valued at 10s, the property of James Houlahan. Applying for a week’s remand, Sergeant O’Shea stated that the accused had only been released on licence from the Borstal Institute on March 12. He had been given employment by Mr Houlaban on his farm, but be bad left last Sunday night, taking the rug with him, and was subsequently found sleeping under the trees at Logan Park. A remand until Tuesday next was granted.

Membership Contest The mid-month figures in the membership contest held by the Dunedin and Christchurch Returned Soldiers’ Associations indicate that Dunedin still retains the lead established early in the year. The figures at March 15 were as follows: —Dunedin 2511, Christchurch 2339.

Two Important Bills An amusing story of the ways of the British Parliament was told by Mr F. M. B. Fisher to the Business Men’s Club in Christchurch on Monday. He said that one day he went into the House to hoar the debate on the Colonial Bill, which involved an expenditure of £30.000,000. The House was by no means filled, and from his seat in the distinguished strangers’ gallery he could hear little of the proceedings.. The vote of £30,000,000 was eventually passed and then began a great bustle of excitement as members hurried into the building and filled every scat. He asked the reason for this sudden interest among members, and was told that the House was about to consider altering the date of-the pheasant shooting season. Expeditious Delivery

An instance of the expeditious transport of mails by means of the new air service was afforded yesterday by the arrival in the Daily Times ofilce early in the afternoon of the morning’s issue of the Dominion (Wellington) and the New Zealand Herald (Auckland). These newspapers actually reached this office several hours before the Christchurch Press and the Timaru Herald, which came by train. It will be apparent, of course, that letter mails from the North Island arc subject to a similar acceleration in transit to Dunedin and vice versa. In respect to letters it is also to be noted that a letter posted in Dunedin at 10 a.m. is delivered in Christchurch the same day. Similarly, a letter posted in Christchurch at 10 o’clock in the morning is delivered in Dunedin early in the afternoon.

“ Nuisance to the Counties ” Dissatisfaction with the system of ridings within counties was expressed by the Minister of Public Works (Mr R. Semple) when addressing the Southland County Council in Invercargill last night. “I think ridings within counties are obsolete,” he said, “ and I think they ought to go. I don’t think they are .of any value to the nation, and they are only a nuisance to the counties. They lead to complications and difficulty, and the revolutionary changes that have taken place in our transport system have rendered them out of date.” v

Bequests to Otago University In the course of his report on the proceedings of the Otago University for the year ended December 31, 1935, the chancellor (Mr W; J. Morrell) states' that the council received a generous bequest from Dr Daniel Colquhoun, emeritus professor of medicine, who died early in the year. The bequest of £BOOO was to be invested and the income applied partly for general purposes, partly for the Medical Library and partly for the Museum. Other benefactions included a gift of £SOO from Mrs Mickle, of Christchurch, for the endowment of a scholarship in medicine, a gift of £157 10s from the New Zealand branch of the British Medical Association to the Sir Lindo Ferguson Fund, for assistance to the Medical School, and a gift of £lO6 from former students of Dr Colquhoun for the establishment of a memorial to their former teacher. Mr Coates’* Promise* While discussing the rate of the sinking fund for the board’s London loan at the conference of the Southland Electric Power Board and the Minister of Finance (Mr Walter Nash) on Monday, it was explained to Mr Nash (says the Southland Times) that Mr Coates, the former Minister of Finance, had made a definite promise to lower the rate. “ I know nothing of that promise,” said Mr Nash. “I can find no record of it. And I may add that I’ve been trying for months to live up to Mr Coates's promises. In my opinion neither Mr Coates nor any other Minister of Finance Can give promises to New Zealand bodies affecting money loaned by overseas investors unless he is willing at the same time to place on the Estimates items to ensure that the promises made to those investors are kept.”

The Japanese People Among the impressions brought back by members of the New Zealand University Rugby football team from the four weeks’ tour of Japan was that the people of that country were strongly opposed to war. It was only in the army and navy that there was any trace of the Japanese militaristic spirit of which so much is heard in New Zealand. The Otago members of the team, who returned to Dunedin yesterday, were greatly impressed with the high regard in which Great Britain and the dominions are held by the Japanese people as a whole. Wherever they went through the country they were treated with such lavish hospitality and friendship that they would never forget the tour, .which had been a very happy one from every point of view. The Japanese had been very pressing in their invitation to the team to return to their country on another football tour, and it was felt by all that the 1936 tour would be the forerunner of many. Source of Innocent Merriment

Questions which he had put to an audience on one occasion were recalled by .Mr Ivan Menzies, comedian with the Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Company, when addressing a gathering in the Auckland Town Hall on Sunday on the work of the Oxford Group. Mr Menzies said he had asked those at the meeting who were Christian to put up their hands. Many hands were raised. Then he asked all those who had read the twenty-sixth chapter of Luke in the previous year to put up their hands. A number of hands were raised again. “Now I know lam talking to the right people,” he said. “There is no twenty-sixth chapter of Luke.”

Mr Savage’s Photograph “In London, on November 27, the day of Labour's sweeping victory in the New Zealand election, I was offered £7 10s by the press for an ordinary photograph of Mr Savage and £lO for a good one,” said Mr W. E. Priestley, the well-known student and instructor of dancing, of Wellington, who has just returned from a six months’ visit to Britain. “ London was raked for photographs of the Labour loaders. Apparently there were none at the High Commissioner’s Office, and New Zealanders were' searching their effects for possible magazine reproductions. A man who had some snapshots of the Labour Executive could have made a fortune. It was the only occasion on which the Prime Minister of a British dominion has been elected without his photograph appearing in the British press.” Activity in Shipping

Claims have been made recently that prosperity, after a long period of hibernation, has returned. By some these have been treated as ephemeral, but most seem to agree that prosperity’s return, if still delayed, is close at hand. Captain W. G. Summers, master of the Shaw, Savill royal mail steamer Akaroa, said at New Plymouth that conditions in English shipping have improved immensely in the last year. “One has only to look around the docks at British ports,” he said, “ to see what difference there is. To-day the number of idle ships is becoming fewer and the employment of men is becoming greater. There is a busy air to the. docks; more cargo is being imported and exported. Trade with New Zealand is improving. Where for several years ships regularly came out in ballast they are now loaded in greater or less proportion with cargo. It has been worthwhile, of course, to come out to New Zealand to pick up the cargoes for Britain, but it appears to me now that there is a greater amount of buying of British products being done in New Zealand.”

Exhibition of Lithographs To-morrow will afford art lovers an 4 students the last opportunity of viewing the exhibition of lithographs which has been attracting so much attention at the Art Gallery, Logan Park,, during the past few weeks. Comprising 72 prints and covering a wide range of work in both colour and black and white, the collection includes work by such well-known artists as Frank Brangwyn, Augustus John, E. Blampied,. and J. Kerr-Laweon. The lithographs have been secured on loan- from the Senefelder Club, London, and the exhibition will open for inspection daily between the hours of 10 a.m. and 5 p.m.

Claims to City Status The Mayor 'of Napier (Mr C. O. Morse) is to interview’ members of the Cabinet during a forthcoming visit to Wellington, with the object of securing city status for Napier. Mr Morse’s arguments in favour of this request will not be based on the figures of Napier's population as shown in this month’s census, but he will urge the granting of this privilege as a recognition of the way in which the people of the town have worked to recoup the earthquake losses, and the way in which they have faced the numerous problems arising out of the disaster.

The Railways Department advertises in this issue particulars of an excursion from Dunedin to Invercargill on Sunday The corporation picnic will now be held on Saturday next to Evansdale. The train will leave at 9.40 a.m. The Post and Telegraph Department announces in this issue that new or amended entries for the next issue of the Telephone Directory, to be published m May. 1936. should reach the chief postmaster, Dunedin, C.l, not later than March 26. „ », Now, isn’t that fine? .My ring came from Williamson’s, the ring where the good rings ara made. Princes street, opposite the Savoy.—Advt E. W. Walden, Architect, 34 Dowling street. —Advt. , , Eye Strain—For Eye Comfort, for better vision, consult Sturmer and Watson, Ltd., Opticians. 2 Octagon, Dunedin. —Advt. , _ _ , A. E. J. Blakeley and W. E. Bagley, dentists. Bank of Australasia, corner of Bond and- Rattray streets>£(tiext 4 Telegraph Office). Telephone 12-359. —Advt. Those who a!re requiring an Engagement Ring will do. well to inspect our stock. Peter Dick, Jewellers and Opticians 488 Moray place. Dunedin.—Advt.