NEWS OF THE DAY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24790, 15 December 1941, Page 4

NEWS OF THE DAY

TTIS Majesty King George VI celebrated his forty-sixth birthday yesterday. He spent the day in the country with the Queen and the Princesses. Messages of congratulation were received from all over the Empire and from Britain’s allies in the war, and there was also a personal message from President Roosevelt. The King’s birthday is celebrated in New Zealand on the first Monday in June each year, as the actual date of his birth, December 14, is too close to Christmas to be conveniently observed as a public holiday.

Lawn of Lettuces Thousands of lettuce plants have appeared where a Mount Roskill (Auckland) resident believed he had sown -grass for lawns. His house is at the corner of Hardley avenue and Beatty avenue, and, wishing to plant lawns on the street plots on either frontage, he recently purchased some seed. Grass seed and lettuce seed are not easily distinguished, and nearby residents are profiting from the shopkeeper’s mistake, many of them having already transplanted the strong lettuce plants in their gardens.

Engineering in Warfare “As an engineer I am ashamed of warfare as it is waged to-day,” said Professor T. D. J. Lynch, dean of the engineering faculty at Auckland University College, at the prize-giving ceremony of the Seddon Memorial Technical College last week. “This war is the greatest. engineering feat the world has ever known. Every officer in the German Army above the rank of major is a trained engineer, and I think we would have done well to realise the value of engineering in this respect as early as our enemies did.” True Fish Stories

How much is a salmon worth? During “War Weapons” week in Great Britain, the price realised for a salmon at an auction sale at Golspie in the Highland shire of Sutherland was £BOO. By the same token, a trout went for £2OO, while a pipe and tobacco pouch brought £IOO, as also did *a packet of one hundred cigarettes. The figures are quoted in the “John O’Groat Journal,” which circulates in the conservative homes of Caithness, Sutherland, Ross, Cromarty, Orkney and Zetland. Five Million Shells

A Canadian shell plant turned out 'its 5,000,000 th shell recently, according to an announcement by the Canadian Minister of Munitions and Supply. The plant is engaged in the manufacture of artillery and anti-aircraft shells. Many of the shells being made in Canada are now being filled in Canadian shell-filling plants, and are shipped abroad as complete rounds of ammunition. The present rate of shell production in Canada runs to many millions of rounds a year, and the output of ammunition component, including cartridge cases, fuses and primers is on a similar scale.

Leaving School Too Soon “This is a major problem, one that has already made itself felt in England, and it would be a brave, but wise, Government which would raise the school leaving age,” said Miss E. M. North, principal of Wellington Girls’ College, at the breaking-up ceremony last week, when deploring the fact that more and more children were leaving school at an early age in order to go into employment. Parents apparently were failing to realise the importance of secondary education and of having their children properly qualified before seeking employment. After the war, when there was no longer the lure of high wages, these unqualified young people would become a very difficult problem. Travelling Orthopaedic Clinics

The New Zealand Crippled Children Society hopes to see established travelling orthopaedic clinics which will enable crippled children in country districts to obtain the advice of specialists. The society has allocated £IOOO towards this purptjse, and is working ih. close co-operation withv'the Department of Health and with hospital boards towards the objective aimed at. The proposals are that the society will search out and notify the cases‘ to the department, and that specialists appointed by the department will visit and examine the children at the clinics to be established at the main public hospitals in the districts concerned and after consultation with the medical superintendent as to treatment necessary. Soldier*’ Identity “ It will be obvious that in the near future, if not now, many mea returned from the war will still be in possession of uniforms, though discharged from the army, and it would not be right to accept the wearing of uniforms, plus a statement from the man himself that he is in the defence forces, as sufficient proof of the latter fact,” said Mr A. M. Goulding, S.M., in a judgment delivered in the Wellington Magistrate’s Court last week. The case was one in which a publican was charged with supplying liquor to a soldier in uniform for consumption off the premises, but the magistrate dismissed the case, agreeing with counsel (Mr J. A. Scott) that the police had not established by satisfactory evidence that the man concerned was a member of the forces. Father’s Influence

“ If you would leave him alone and stop preaching this pacifist doctrine of Christadelphianism he will be all right,” said the chairman of the No. 1A Armed Forces Appeal Board at Whangarei, Mr G. P. Finlay, last week, when addressing James Arthur Baker, father of a reservist, James Alec Baker, of Whangarei, who appealed on the grounds of conscientious objection. The reservist said he belonged to no church, although on occasions he had attended Christadelphian meetings. Replying to a question by the Crown representative, Mr S. I. Goodall, he said he had not read , the Bible for two months, and during the past year he had not spent more than two hours reading it. His Sundays usually were spent in boating and fishing. The chairman commented that this seemed most inconsistent with Baker’s alleged religious beliefs. The father, giving evidence, said he was a Christadelphian, and. in reply to the chairman, did not deny that membership of this church had increased largely -since ’the outbreak of war. The appeal was dismissed.

Norwegian Charged . After hearing evidence from the captain of his ship that a Norwegian member of the crew, Tarbjarn Saga, aged 22, had not been known to speak against the British Empire, and that there was no reason to believe that he was a spy, Mr J. L. Stout, S.M., in the Magistrate’s Court in Wellington said that he did not think there was anything sinister in Saga’s action in trespassing on defence property. Evidence was given by a gunner, stationed in a defence area near Wellington. that Saga had been noticed standing on a knoll, and had been taken in charge and subsequently handed over to the police. A police sergeant said that Saga admitted that he had not obtained permission to go into the area, but said that it was only the second time he had been off the ship and had gone for a walk to see the town. He saw the notice forbidding entry, but continued on, and found himself on a knoll overlooking the fortifications. The captain of Saga’s ship, when questioned by Sub-inspector G. H. Lambert, said that he had no reason to believe that the accused had gone to the area for any other purpose than that which he had told the police. The magistrate, after remarking that Saga had been very foolish, convicted him and ordered him to come up for sentence if called upon within three months.