NEWS IN BRIEF

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24773, 25 November 1941, Page 2

NEWS IN BRIEF

Instituted many years ago by the Wellington Chamber of Commerce to provide a test of the attainments of young people seeking to enter or obtain promotion in business offices, examinations in general business subjects have this .year been extended to Auckland. See the new season's Mantles. uiocks, Coats, Hats, and Knitwear. All the new styles and colours and at unbeatable prices. Call early; many cannot be replaced. Your inspection invited. Mosgiel Dfapers. A. F Cheyne and Co. . , Eight hundred and eighteen jobs of. varied types—chopping wood, minding young children, mowing lawns, and others—Jiave bqten done for wives and mothers'of men on active service overseas by children of the Waimam School, Christchurch, in the last 16 months. This work has been done under a scheme introduced by the school in July last year. The work is free and is done after school hours, and the children performing the tasks are from Standards V and VI. They are all volunteers, and parents' approval for their effort under the scheme has been obtained in each case. The importers' section of the Canterbury Chamber of Commerce has received a favourable reply from the Railways Department to its representations regarding claims for damage to goods in trucks through the heavy rainfall in August. The department originally rejected such claims, and stated that the excessive rainfall was an "act of God." The importers and merchants affected set up a committee and prepared a case for submission to the department asking for reconsideration of the matter. Shout for your friends at Christmas from a hamper bought from Crossan's Waterloo Hotel, Caversham. Phone or write your order to-day... The peculiar fact that silver beech which grows especially well in the forest regions of Southland and Otago is not found at Stewart Island was. mentioned by Mr D. J. Wesney in a talk to the Invercargill Rotary Club. On the other hand, he said, all the five species of beech found in New Zealand grow in the Eglinton Valley. Silver beech, Mr Wesney explained, is the best-known and most common of the five species of beech occurring in New Zealand—silver beech, hard beech, red beech, black beech and mountain beech.

A swarm of bees that attached themselves on the inside of the tarpaulin of a loaded truck up the line formed unexpected freight by a train arriving in Gisborne from Motuhora. Unloading at first appeared to present a ticklish problem. Fortunately the swarm had attached itself to the tarpaulin, not to any portion of the freight or truck, and it was comparatively easy to remove the covering and place it on thtground, where the swarm remained awaiting the first apiarist who cared to box the bees and remove them. Do your bit towards preventing waste by having pots, pans, kettles, etc., repaired by experts at Dickinson Mytton's' factory, 204 Crawford street, nearly opposite Otago Farmers' Coop. . . Up till a few years ago the whole of the building which extends along Lambton quay, Wellington, from Molesworth street to Mulgrave street was known as the Hotel Cecil. When a lease of the southern section of the building ran ou£ the premises were divided, the section with the licence being maintained as the Hotel Cecil, while the southern section became the private Hotel Avon. This part of the property, which belongs to the Government, is now being resumed by the owners, and is to be occupied as offices. Contents of the hotel are to be sold by auction. Such a variety of towels is here for your choosing that you will experience no difficulty in finding your exact requirements at "The Big Store," Milton.. .

In the peaceful grounds of the Sprey • don Church in Lincoln road. Christchurch, is a cabbage tree.which had its origin in much less peaceful surroundings than a churchyard. Its history was related by the Rev. Dr J. J. North, speaking at the opening of the church's jubilee celebration recently. "He had planted the tree himself and was the person best qualified to speak of its origin, and he had taken the cutting from which it grew from a tree next to the whare from which the Maori warrior Te Rauparaha had been arrested by order of Sir George Grey. The tree had flourished, he said, and he knew of no evidence that it had infected any ministers of the church with any of the cannibalistic tendencies of its former owner."