A Senseless Hoax

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23222, 21 June 1937, Page 8

A Senseless Hoax

An urgent but false telephone message to police headquarters last night, saying that a young woman had been stabbed and lay seriously wounded in a building in Customs street, East Auckland, gave a squad of detectives a great deal of trouble. A general inquiry had to be made at the hospitals in case the information was correct (says a Press Association telegram), but the message was proved to be a hoax. The voice of what was thought to be that of a middle-aged man gave the alarm, and the police officers were immediately driven to the building. No agitated informant was there to greet them, and they made a systematic search of each of the four floors in the building. Within two or three minutes small knots of bystanders had gathered at the various points of vantage, and by the time the police returned to their car about 100 people were looking on. No one in the building or any of the bystanders had heard of the supposed stabbing, and the oolice returned to their headquarters, where a further thorough round of inquiries was made before the hunt was abandoned.

The Endeavour's Chart One of the most conspicuous features of the chart room of the Admiralty survey ship Endeavour, which arrived at Auckland last week to begin a survey of the New Zealand coastline, is the replica of a chart of the Gallipoli Peninsula. The original chart was drawn by Captain H. P. Douglas, now Viceadmiral Sir Percy Douglas, so often called " the last of the hydrographers.". a day before the famous landing by the New Zealand and Australian forces. The Endeavour saw considerable service in the western Mediterranean during the Great War, and did much survey work during the Gallipoli campaign.

Queen Victoria'* Accession One hundred years ago yesterday Queen Victoria ascended the Throne of England, a girl of 18. When she died on January 22, 1901, she had completed the longest reign in the history of England, a reign which brought unparalleled material progress and which raised the prestige of the monarchy to a peak from which it has never since declined. Her reign outlasted 20 Ministries, from Lord Melbourne's to Lord Salisbury's, and covered the period during "which the essential political features of the modern British Commonwealth of Nations took shape. During this period there was a great territorial expansion of the Empire, especially in Africa and the Pacific, and she was the first British Sovereign to wear the Imperial Crown of India, the title being conferred in 1876. The reign, which was one of comparative peace, saw the completion of the transformation of England into a highly industrialised country, but it was also notable as an era of great activity in arts and letters and in social reform and the spread of education among the people.