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Otago Witness, Issue 3475, 19 October 1920, Page 36

' Mr ' Archibald Miller, president of the Master Grocers' Association, received advice late on Saturday from the Board of Trade, Wellington, to the effect that . the retail price of butter had been fixed at 2s 3d per booked or delivered. Mr Bowman, manager of the Waitaki D'airy Company, has been advised that the wholesale price of butter has been fixed at 2s Id. per p'ound as from to-day. . . ' ■ ■

■ An Auckland Press Association message states that J. D. Hayes; an elderly man, crossing the railway lines at the Mount Eden Station from the platform was .hit by an engine and killed almost instantly. .' The Otago Hospital Board has convened & conference of representatives of the local bodies in .the Bruce and Clutha Counties, and also of the South Otago Hospital Committee, for Wednesday afternoon to consider the question of a compromise as. suggested by the Government in respect to separation.

.. "It is probably the worst road in the Southern. Hemisphere," a witness stated at an inquest on Sunday, when describing the state of the Lower Harbour road, which runs along the foreshore from Port Chalmers towards the Heads.

Our Cromwell correspondent reports that the weather during last week was very mild. Rain threatened repeatedly, but the •only result was a few mild showers in the outlying districts. A storm on Friday night left a light coating of snow on the mountains, but this quickly disappeared. The crops and pastures are in good heart, and the fruit crops, which promised well, have hot suffered any special damage from late frosts. '

One of our local fishermen tells of an sxciting and unusual experience the other day with a big shark at the entrance of the harbour. The wind was freshening ihshoJe and. setting up a rather nasty jobble, but the fisherman delayed the lifting of his moki net at the mole end, because fish were scares and the tide that day was favourable for moki. At length he went along and started to haul in the net. It proved rather difficult, for he was single-handed, and cm had to hold the boat in position with the oars while lifting the net. But ha managed fairly well until half the net was in. Then a big shark, almost as long as the boat, rose close to the surface and started nibbling the fish from the mesh of the net. This was the more disconcerting because the shark kept working nearer and .nearer to the boat. With his knife in readiness the fisherman kept alert lest the shark got entangled in the net and in his struggles upset the boat, which was rolling and pitching uncomfortably as it was. The shark was very determined.

Presently the boat rolled suddenly and jerked the unhauled' portion of the net . towards the surface. . This entangled the shark in the net. A desperate struggle ensued, but it merely lasted for the moment it took the sharp knife to sever the net. The shark disappeared hurriedly. Having other nets to haul, some little time elapsed before the fisherman rounded the tide gauge, at the Spit, homeward bound. There he met some fishermen who had just come down the harbour. They called to him to keep a good look-out as he was passing Pulling Point, because a big shark was tearing round there in a very unusual way. It seemed to think it ought to be a flying fish or an aeroplane. And every time it leapt out of the water you could see something fastened to its tail, like a trail of eeaweed. " Seaweed be blowed," "replied the single-handed fisherman, "I'll lay a reef groper to a cockabully, the blighter is playing the giddy goat with the half of my new moki net I had to out adrift at the Mole half an hour ago."