GENERAL NEWS.

Otaki Mail, 27 August 1930, Page 4

GENERAL NEWS.

It certainly did riot look elegant, but apparently the several girls whoseankles were encased in brown paper held iii place by string did not care.a jot who noticed them, as tiieycarefully picked their way back to work the other afternoon along the slushy streets (says the Christehureh Sun). Appearances for once were absolutely ignored in an effort to preserve the spotlessness of silk hosiery. The number of persons under care and treatment in the menja l ., hospitals of the Dominion at the end of 1929 totalled 6348. of whom G 093 had been committed under a magistrate's order, and 255 had been received upon their own application as voluntary boarders. The report on the mental hospitals of the Dominion, which was presented to Parliament yesterday, stated that the committals during 1929 numbered 950, or the same as the previous year, but the applications for voluntary admission were 258, or 32 less. To the astonishment of his dentist and to his own sorrow, an Auckland business man is "cutting" his teeth for the third time. Twenty years ago he shed his second lot of teeth, and had a false set installed. Ho was quite satisfied with the artificial set until just recently, when irritation under' the plate was discovered to be caused by the appearance of another tooth. It. is not uncommon for people to growthree >ets of teeth during a lifetime, but it is rarely that molars present themselves after such a. lengthy lapse of time as a score of years. At a recent meeting of the Wa'ngnnui Agricultural Association the secretary said that, following a promise, Sir Charles Fergusscn had sent a handsome shield for competition amongst tribes fur arts and crafts. Somehow thc tribes had not been able to pul! together, and the shield was held :;t Putiki. It had been offered ty two tribes up the river, but they would have nothing to do with it. Paliii'eru- ■ ton North had been "chasing it" for two months, and the Wellington Winter Show had also been seeking it, but the Wan'ganui body had been offered the first option. It was decided that the shield should be secured for WanI ganui.

That there are plenty of people in Christehureh who are willing to adopt children is the experience of a local magistrate. lie stated to the Times that hardly a week passes without having to go several times through the necessary formalities in connection with such a proceeding. "The people who offer themselves," he said, "are for the most part people well settled in married life, but without children of their,own. Thus the children, who are mostly illegitimate or those of very poor parents, are much better off as the result of the change." It was better that illegitimate children should be given the benefit of adoption into good families than that the parents should be forced to enter into a marriage for which in many cases they were unprepared.

An elderly Oroua Downs motorist had a narrow escape from serious injury on Saturday afternoon when a car he was driving 'capsized on the Palmerstou N.Foxton highway. It appears that the driver, when in the vicinity of Mr Pearce's house at Bainesse, was temporarily blinded by the rays of the Sun and the car left the road, and, striking a sand bank, tipped over on its side. The windscreen was shattered and the hood damaged, the driver being pinned in his seat until a local motorist happened along a few minutes later, lie was then assisted from his precarious position when it was discovered that miraculously enough he had escaped without a scratch. Several other cars had pulled up by this time and the car was righted and was later able to proceed on its way to Oroua Downs under its own power. —Herald. At a cement, quarry near Auckland last week, the largest blast that has ever been exploded in New Zealand, if not in the Southern Hemisphere, was tired. During the past eight months, preparations had been mad: 1 , and the whole quarry face was lined with veins containing gelignite. The whole quarry face trembled as if struck by a violent electric shock, there was a* spout of dust thing high, with just the suggestion of a flash, a dull boom followed by whiplikc explosions, and a tremendous rumbling crash as an avalanche of between 250,000 and 300,000 tons of rock slithered down. It was very noticeable that the air was loaded with gelignite fumes.