Notes and Queries?

Otago Witness, Issue 3772, 29 June 1926, Page 48

Notes and Queries?

tMttions for reply 1b oomlng Issue to bo t»> Hived not later than SATURDAY night QesHone will. HOT be repKed Is throng He poet QeesHone rot be aeoompenled by the name sod addrtss of the writer, bat e nom de plow ■Mf be adopted lor puh"ottUa, “ White Heather,” Riversdale, wishes to know the best way to wash motor mechanic’s dark blue overalls and other clothes which would be worn at garage work. Soak in hot water in which are dissolved washing soda and soap. Lay on a flat surface, scrub with a brush, rinse, and hang up to dry. " Farmer,” Alma, wishes to know any method whereby he could liquify flowers of sulphur, so that he could mix it with milk or water. He wishes to drink it for medical purposes, and thinks he could get more benefit from It if it were brought to a liquid before he used it. There is no method by which flowers of sulphur could be emulsified in the direction desired. “ Reader,” Dipton, writes : “ Can you inform me what it means by a person being a 4 Mark Tapley ’ ? I saw an article in a paper last week in which Mr Coates was referred to as one. I read Dickens’s 4 Martin Chuzzlewit ’ years ago, but I forget.” Mark Tapley was an optimist, cheerful under all conditions, and never gloomy, no matter how discouraging the outlook. He is one of Dickens’s most famous characters. 44 Subscriber,” asks for a recipe for waffles, as made at the Exhibition. One pint milk, two eggs, two teaspoons baking powder, a small teaspoon salt, one and ahalf tablespoons butter, enough flour (about a heaped cup) to make a stiff batter. Sift baking powder into flour, add other ingredients, and make a stiff batter. Heat the waffle iron, rub with butter, and put in teaspoonsful of the mixture. Leave room for ris’-'g, close, and put over the hot coals for six or eight minutes. The cake should be well browned, and should leave the iron easily. Roll round a stick, remove, and fill with cream. If left flat waffles should be served hot with maple syrup. 44 Advice,” Tuatapere, wishes to know (1) the quickest route from Bluff to Brisbane (Queensland, Australia). (2) The distance of same. (3) The fare, both single and return, of same. (4) The cheapest route. (5) The distance of the cheapest route. (6) The duty on bicycles. (7) The freight on bicycles. (1) From Bluff to Melbourne direct, and then by sail to Brisbane. (2) From Bluff to Melbourne is 1212 miles, and on to Brisbane is, approximately, 'BOO miles. (3) No returns are issued. From Bluff to Melbourne, saloon, costs £lO ss; steerage, £6 ss. The costs from Melbourne to Brisbane by rail are—first class £7 10s, second class £5. (4) and (5) answered above. (6) Ten per cent, on British makes, and 25 per cent, on foreign bicycles. (7) The freight varies, but if the bicycle is packed dismantled it will probably come out under the minimum charge of £1 Is, plus wharfage or incidental charges. 44 Parrot,” Waikaka, writes: “ I have a parrot which has pulled half of his feathers out. I think he eats some of them. He is well fed with the usual parrot food, but he is very lifeless. I would be obliged if you could tell me what is the matter yith him, and advise me what to do.” ——lt is probable that the parrot’s diet is unsatisfactory, and that in addition to the ordinary parrot food he receives titbits, such as bread, biscuits, etc., and drink, other than clean water, all of which fare are apt to heat the blood. Anything, in fact, other than the parrot food, fruit and water, may be deemed unnatural food. There may be, too, an absence or scarcity of grit. Feed the bird on the lines indicated—viz., with good parrot food and good clean water. When the warm weather comes, say, in two months’ time, give in the water twice a week some salts (as much as will cover a threepenny piece), and also change the diet to plain canary seed and sunflower seed. Do not allow the bird outside, and supply him with green apples. 44 Musical,” Gore, writes: “A gem of Handel’s from Rinaldo is named 4 Lascia ch’io pianga.’ I presume It is Italian. I should like it translated into English, with pronunciation, if possible. How, for instance, does the letter * c ’ before 4 i ’ sound in the first word, also 4 c ’ before 4 h ’ in the second, and ‘ga ’ in the last? Will you also do the same for me with regard to ' Cujus animam,’ by Rossini?” In Italian “ c ” before “ a,” 44 o,” “ u,” or a consonant is pronounced like English 44 k.” So, also, 44 ch ” is pronounced 44 k”; but before 44 e ” or 44 1 ” 44 c ” is pronounced like 44 ch ”in church. For example, “ce ” has practically the same sound as 44 cha ” in the English word 44 chase,” and 44 ci ” is the same as 44 chee ” in 44 cheese.” 44 Sc,” however, in 44 see ” or 44 sci ” is pronounced like 44 sh ” in 44 shall.” 44 G ” before 44 e ” or “ i,” as in English 44 general,” before 44 a,” 44 o,” or 44 u,” as Jn God. 44 Lascia ch’io pianga " has been translated, 44 Leave me my anguish.” 44 Cujus animam ” are the first two Latin words of the aria, and mean 44 his heart ” (or soul), the reference being to the passion of Christ. Pronounce, approximately, 44 koo-yoos” and ‘‘animam” as the English 44 animal,” substituting final 44 m ” for 44 1.” 44 Bitumen,” Tapanui, writes : 44 Can you give me any information regarding the use of bitumen for paths and floors? I have used it for the floor of a garage with only moderate success. It was applied boiling, on top of lightly cemented gravel, and sprinkled with sand, but the latter did not mix welF with it (perhaps because the sand was damp), and the bitumen is inclined to lift. Can you give any opinion as to the practicability of making a satisfactory floor with it; or would it be possible to finish off with concrete without removing the bitumen? Tho floor is firm enough save for the tendency for bitumen to stick to things, and the loose sand is objectionable. Mr H. M. Davey, consulting engineer, replies: 44 It is supposed that when you nsk if it ia possible to concrete over the bitumen, you mean is it possible to coment over R, with cement and Band? From your description of the firmness of tho present surfaco it would seem to be quite easy to give it a coating of coment plaster, say, IS in thick. Damp sand would seem to be partly, if net wholly, the cause of your trouble, but the laying ou of bitumen, as it is done here, is a process that demands very careful knowledge, and the surface is ironed and carefully graded and flattened. Inquiries wUI be made during the week, and if there is fresh matter found it will be given you next issue. If, however, you really mean, Can or may you conorete? —of course you may.”

“Winetub,” Seffcon, asks for a recipe for home manufacture of first-class parsnip wine. Is compressed yeast as satisfactory as brewer’s yeast? Use firm, straight roots from which the dirt hae been removed by gentle scrubbing in water. They are not pared. Any decaying spots should be removed, and the leaves cut away. Then the roots are severed downwards and across into fours, and boiled till they are tender. Four pounds of parsnips to a gallon of water, Dr John Gerade recommended. The liquid is then strained into a tub; on no account must the roots be bruised, or a cloudy wine will result. For every gallon of water used 3lb of sugar are now put in the keeler, with £oz of ’‘crude” tartar. This is the substance found adhering to the aides of wine casks, and more generally known as argol. Until these are dissolved the contents of the tub must be steadily stirred. Fumy atcam-clouds fill the kitchen, and a pungent odour is wafted through the house while the wine grows cool. At 75deg put in a round of toast spread thick with brewer’s (not compressed) yeast, and leave the wine for four days where it is warm. A temperature of GOdeg. was advised by Dr John; we simply trust to the kitchen, skim the yeast off as it rises, and stir it again after the four days. When fermentation has subsided, and all sugar wholly disappeared, the wine may be casked, loosely bunged at first. If by the time the liquid is still, wasting has occurred, fill up with some left out for the purpose; then fasten tight. Not for 12 months may the “parsnip” wine be bottled. It will then be bland as Malmsey, to which it is akin. “Anxious,” Balfour, writes: “I have a valuable sheep dog which about every three or four months is taken with very loose diarrhoea, which lasts for days. I have given doses of castor oil, which did not seem to do any good. What are the symptoms of worms in dogs? I would be very much obliged if you could give me a cure or any information on the complaint. The dog gets a dull look about the eyes, becomes weak and thin, and will not eat.” “Terror” replies as follows: “For diarrhoea in dogs an astringent mixture is recommended by Dalziel. He says: Take prepared chalk 3dr, aromatic confection (powder) 2dr, powdered gum acacia ldr, laudanum (tincture of opium) loz, oil of cassia 6 or 8 drops, tincture of catechu 3dr, spirit of sal volatile 2dr, water sufficient to make Boz. The powders must be rubbed very fine in a mortar, the oil of cassia with them; the water must be gradually added, rubbing well to form a smooth mixture; the tinctures added in the bottle. Of this mixture the dose will be from a half to two teaspoonfuls for puppies and one tablespoonful for 201 b dogs, given every three or four hours, as long as the purging continues. The bottle must be well shaken before measuring the dose. A chemist should be given the prescription to make up. As to the symptoms indicating worms, diarrhoea is one of them. They cause great disturbance to the system, producing diseases of the stomach, liver, kidneys, and weakness and poverty of blood, what kennelmen call unthriftiness in pups, and an irritated state of the skin often mistaken for mange. Before giving any other medicine to your dog try for worms. Try areca nut. It may be given mixed with fat or honey or treacle, and placed well back on the tongue. The dose is 2gr to every pound weight of the full-grown dog; but no dog will require more than 2dr. All dogs, whether they show symptoms of worms or not, should get a dose such as described periodically.” LAW QUERIES. [Answered by a solicitor of the Supreme Court of New Zealand. Letters and Telegrams must be addressed to “JEX,” c/o Editor, Otago Witness, Dunedin.] - “ Inquirer,’’ Taleri.—You will require to take action against A for delivery of the tank. “Sheep Farmer” asks: “What would it cost to transfer a farm costing £7200 from the present owner to a buyer?’’ The solicitor’s fee would be £34 2s 6d, and disbursements about £75. 44 Clithers.” —Under the circumstances stated in your letter you have no legal remedy against the boy or his mother. If you can prove that the father misrepresented the age of the son to you, you have a claim against him for damages. 44 Fence.” —If your neighbour will not agree to the erection of the fence on the proper boundary line, you can apply to the magistrate, who has jurisdiction to determine the question. By serving the necessary notice under the Fencing Act, you can compel your neighbour to assist in repairing the fence.

“TTie timber industry in Southland is going from bad to worse,” stated a well-known business man in Invercargill last week. He forecasted that the mills this year would produce only 15,000,000 ft of timber out of a total cutting capacity of 50,000,000 ft. This meant that less than a third of the mills could be fully occupied. A still further evidence of & slackening off, he added, was given by the fact that a mill had just stopped working at Tipeka, while another mill, usually employing a good number of men, had at present only five hands working in the bush and mill. The position was very serious, and there wias not the slightest sign of any improvement. He had never before known the industry to be in such a state of depression. Although the Otago Early Settlers’ Museum contains many pictures of Dunedin in the early days there are few that equal in interest a water-colour painting of Dunedin from Black Jack’s Point in 1887, presented recently by Mr C. Speight. The picture was shown in thj Exhibition Art Gallery. It gives an excellent illustration of the growth of Dunedin in the past 40 years, and also enables one to obtain an idea of the vast amount of reclamation which has been carried out on the foreshore. The New Zealand Refrigerating Company’s works at Burnside will be closed down for the season to-morrow. A large number of men will, as a result, be temporarily out of employment, though some will be retained for several days. Killing at southern freezing works, it is stated, has depreciated recently owing to the transportation of sheep and lambs to Canterbury. At a meeting of the Otago Labour Representation Committee last week, an application from tho Woollen Mills Union to have the name of Mr G. S. Thomson put on the approved list of candidates was refused. Mr Thomson intimated his intention of withdrawing from the party. The tar spraying of roads by up-to-date methods is being carried out by the City Corporation Tramways Department. The plant was used last week on the Musselburgh Rise section of the Anderson’s Bay line. The tar is heated in a 300-gallon container and is transferred to a sprayer capable of holding 200 gallons. Before the tar is laid on the potholes are filled with screenings, after which blinding is applied. The type of plant at present in use is capable of treating two miles of road a day, and has been employed with success in several parts of Australia and New Zealand. The new method will probably be used extensively in Dunedin. It may be that in the near future the patients in our public hospitals will be treated to the delight of daily wireless concerts. At the Hospital Board’s meeting last week a letter was received from the Hon. Mark Cohen suggesting that listeningin sets might be installed primarily in the children’s wards and later in the wards occupied by adults. Mr Cohen pointed out that in the former case arrangements might be made with the broadcasting station whereby a special children’s programme could be provided every evening, on the same lines as in the large public hospitals in England. The letter was received and it was decided that the matter be left in the hands of the Finance Committee for report. The cases of influenza now being dealt with by the Department of Public Health are those of an ordinary kind common to this time of the year (says the Wellington Evering Post). Cases of a mild type have been occurring for the past ix weeks in all parts of the Dominion. Bacteriologists in the four centres have reported that the examination of specimens shows that so far the germ involved is of the ordinary type, and that the number of pneumonic and fatal cases occurring up to the present is no greater than in any of the ordinary influenza visitations prior to the great outburst of 1918; but the department has taken the precaution of warning local authorities and hospital boards to be in readiness in case they should have increased work thrown upon them in connection with an influenza outbreak. Fortunately up to the present there has been no need to make special provision. Otherwise the epidemic situation is normal. There is the usual type of diphtheria which always occurs in the late autumn and the early winter throughout the country, but nothing more than usual. There is also some scarlet fever, but nothing of a very serious nature. The trustees of the Commercial Travellers and Warehousemen’s Blind Soldiers and Sailors’ Fund, Wellington, have received a cheque for £134 13s 5d from the Canterbury Commercial Travellers’ Association, being proceeds of concert given by that association’s choir at a recent date His Honor Mr Justice Sim, sitting in Chambers in the Supreme Court on Friday, granted probate in connection with the following deceased estates:—Robert Findlay, Mpsgiel (Mr W. Allen); Frances Brotherhood, Ngapara (Mr John Wilkinson); and George Hayes Cromwell (Mr A. M. Brodrick). The fruit industry was the only agricultural industry which had not benefited by the war, said Mr R. P. Hudson (Motueka), when speaking in the House of Representatives on Friday. On the contrary, he said, that industry had suffered severely. Mr E. J. Howard (Labour member for Christchurch South) paid a compliment to the people of Dunedin in his speech in the House on Friday, during which he made passing reference to the success of the Exhibition. He added that if there were one thing more than another that had made a lasting impression on visitors it was the hospitable welcome they had received. He was not going to repeat any of tho old stories about the Scots, but if it were true that men grew rich in Chocolate Alley through taking the people of Dunedin down, then most of the old stories t about the Scots had lost their point.

The position of the wheat-growing and oat-growing industries in New Zealand must be considered as most unsatisfactory, and, following on this unsatisfactory position, the country is being called on to face an even more serious state of affairs. Oats are now being imported from Canada, and a shipment of 1500 tons of Chilian oats was also landed into the North Island a few weeks ago. These importations mean that a large amount of money is being sent out of the Dominion. Then, as regards wheat, importations are coming from Australia, and even Canada. There is not a great deal of New Zealand wheat left in growers’ hands to be secured by millers, as they purchased most of the output some time back. Southern millers claim, however, that at the prices they had to pay for this wheat they cannot mill flour at a price to compete in the North Island with the Austrian article, notwithstanding the fact that there is a duty of £3 a ton on imported flour. Southern millers have lost a lot of their business consequent on A hese importations, and it is stated that in order to combat this competition they have begun themselves to import Australian flour. Certain millers in the South Island are reported to have formed themselves into a syndicate and to have landed several hundred tons of Australian flour to sell to their own customers in the North Island, and thus retain their trade connection. By this means they do not require to work their mills full time, nor do they require to rj wheat at a price which makes its milling unremunerative. The position would be quite Gilbertian if it were not fraught with such serious effects to the flour trade of the Dominion. ■» Sir Maui Pomare, Minister in Charge of the Cook and other Islands, is evidently possessed of a tact which is not always found in Cabinet Ministers. During his visit to Samoa last month, Sir Maui, in responding to the welcome given him by the faipules (wise men) of Samoa, recounted to them his genealogical tree, goir.g back into the remote past wherein one of his ancestors left Savai’i, and having met another voyager from Tahiti in mid-ocean, persuaded him to forego a design for a mutual combat, and substitute for it an offensive alliance against Rarotonga. This island are subjugated, and from there the ancestors of Sir Maui voyaged to New Zealand, and there established themselves, so that, said >ir Maui, the faipules would see that they and he were relatives. Sir Maui then jocularly expressed his regret that Toelupe, the chief faipule, was an old man; had he been a young one, the speaker said he would have given his daughter to him, go that the long-divided strains of Samoan blood might be reunited. This sally met with the hearty approval of the listeners, and when the ceremonial kava was handed round, the mutual expressions of goodwill were of the most cordial nature. On Thursday morning the Invercargill- ! Dunedin express ran into and lulled three horses near Edendale station. A fourth horse escaped uninjured. The horses, presumably, came from a nearby paddock, as there cattle stop a short distance clown the line. The accident caused a delay of five minutes, but no damage was done to the engine. The passengers did not feel a bump of any sort. Sitting in Chambers in the Supreme Court, his Honor Mr Justice Sim was asked to determine in what shares the £ISOO paid as damages under the Compensation Act in respect to the death of Frederick Amos Joseph Benfell, a railway shunter, who was killed while in the execution of his duties at Burnside on June 12, 1925, shall be divided by the Public Trustee amongst the widow and children of the deceased. The matter came before his Honor by way of an originating summons. An order was made in terms of the draft submitted, providing that Jv' money, after payment of a second mortgage on the residence, shall be divided in the proportion of one-third to the widow and two-thirds to the children, the Public Trustee to hold the children’s share during infancy. Mr F. B. Adams appeared for the Public Trustee and the infants, and Mr H. E. Barrowclough for the widow. Recent regulations under “Tho Health Act, 1920,’’ have added the licensing of hairdressers’ saloons to the growing list of trade or shop licenses placed under the control of local authorities. Th - work of inspection and issue of licenses has been arranged for by the City Council’s General Committee, and it is recommended that the fee for the license be fixed at 10s per annum. The wearing of the khaki while not in the performance cf a»OK-.ry duties is an offence according to me »V. r ” regulations. A case of this kind was 1 before the City Police Court on Frida “• morning, when William Wedderspoon, who did not appear, was charged with wearing a military uniform—namely, a military over, coat—while not in the performance of military duties. Police evidence showed that the defendant was standing outside Carisbrook Ground attired in this coat, and could give no excuse for wearing it. He produced the regulation gazetted in 1914, which prohibited the wearing of overcoats or any part of a military iniforra unless the wearer were performing military duties. The military authorities had asked that this case be proceeded with as a warning to otliors. The wearing of military great coats was becoming much too common. The Magistrate said that as this was the first prosecution for some considerable time he would deal lightly with the defendant, but he wished it to be understood that similar eases in future would be more severely dealt with. He would be convicted and ordered to pay court costs (7s).