GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

Patea Mail, Volume XLV, 24 April 1922, Page 3

GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

A singular incident, which might have ended in a serious outbreak of fire occurred in a house in Thorndon Quay, Wellington, whon the tenant of the house discovered her dressing table alight. The fire was caused through the sun's rays striking a water decanter, and playing on to a celluloid soap box, which, being highly inflammable, quickly became ignited when the rays were concentrated at one point. No material damage was done.

As a result of his investigations in America and other countries Mr Frederick Golding, the chief electrical engineer of the Commonwealth Postal Department, has returned to Melbourne, more than ever convinced that Austral, ian telephone systems should be automatic. He put that view before the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works recently and went into details regarding American systems, which, he said, lead the world. They are in the hands of private enterprise and he confessed himself astonished at two things— the high standard of the service given subscribers, and the splendid treatment of employees, who in every large centre were catered for in the matter of comforts and spare time amusements in a manner that would, if even suggested in Australia, at least cause astonishment. Ho strongly advocated- the conversion of manual systems, as likely to be more economical and more satisfactory to all concerned.'

The other day ; writes a correspondent of the Morning Post, I was driving with my wife along a road near London in the gathering dusk of evening when we passed a hooded motor van on the top of which was perched a little fox terrier. It was bitterly cold and the little dog had no protection from the. wind. Mr Wife's sympathy for animals was at once aroused. Indignant that a dog should be treated so callously, she insisted on my stopping at the police station in the next village aad giving information. Telephone orders were issued to stop the van when it arrived, but they were too late; and so were passed on to the next station on the route, this time successfully. The van with the poor little dog still perched on top soon appeared. I was held up and the driver sternly interrogated. Then came the surprise. The little dog was an effigy carried as an advertisement for a well known gramaphone company!

The hero of .the Coogee shark fatality, Mr Jack Chalmers, who valiantly dragged ypung Goughian from the grip of the man eater, is a native o# Wellington. is maternal grand parents are Mr and Mrs George Seagar ? of No. 6 Roxburgh Street. His paternal grandfather was Mr William Chalmers, pro. prietor for many years of a cooperage in Waterloo Quay. Young Chalmers' mother, formerly Miss Louisa Seagar, was only recently on a visit to Wellington. His father, Mr Jack Chalmers was a well known first class racing track cyclist, whose forte was handicap riding, and in this he was at his prime in Australia about 20 years, ago when he raced under the cash-amateur-ism of the League of Wheelmen.— A cablegram from Sydney recently stated ’hat the Shipwreck Relief Society has awarded a gold medal to Chalmers.

In concluding his address at a recent R.S.A. smoke concert in Wanganui, Sir Andrew Russell remarked that there was in existence .at the present time, no doubt owing to post war conditions, a certain distaste for work. This was no good. AH have got ■to work and they have got to like their work. The man who is always looking at the clock and thinking of what he is getting out of the job is of no use to this country. It was not what one got out, but what one put into it which counted. They should work hard and keep down the growls and grievances. j.u did good to have a growl occasionally, but it should not go to an extreme. Growling and worry never did any good. He went on to say that there were persons ■who were going yp and down the country preaching qlass hatred and class distinction. The returned men had had enough of war, but he thought he could say that they were prepared to light to end w r ar. He would like to see re. turned men take on public life; but in whatever sphere their activities were directed, or whatever party they belonged to, he hoped they would realise the lessons they had learnt at the front and w r ork with those who had similar aims and objects, for the country looked to its returned soldiers to help it after the war just as much as during the war.

An amusing incident of the new style of chintz dresses worn by women and girls is given in his parish magazine by the Rev. A. Gumming, vicar of Addlestone, Surrey (England). The vicar says ho spent a part of his holiday on the top of trams, a position w'hich, he says, makes “ a grand obser. vatory." He was interested in the fact that so many wamcn wore chair covers instead of dresses. Some designs, he adds, were strikingly bold. “I saw one cover which bore representations of a traction engine, a meat safe ,a steam launch, a bunch of bananas and a packet of safety matches. Another was piore in the ecclesiastical line. Pressing hard against the back of the tram seat was a church spire, while festoons of wheat (presumably harvest decorations) trailed gracefully down from the shoulders." Of all the chair covers he saw from his post of obser. vation on the top of a tram car, the one which fascinated the vicar most was one which seemed to be a representation of a walking zoo, which he said, was carried about on two legs encased in variegated stockings.