NEWS ITEMS.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 13394, 30 May 1914, Page 11

NEWS ITEMS.

"We wanted to change anna because we were tired, and the lieutenant would not do as w e wanted him," said a senior cadet, charged at . the Masterton SIM. Court with having obstructed a parade. The court roared with laughter at the statement, and the magistrate remarked that the cadets in the • ranks must obey their commanding officer. "It is something new in the military line to lind the rank and tile telling the commanding officer what should be done," he said. A naive statement, which appears to throw some light on the working of the immigration laws, was contained in the deposition produced at the Magistrate's Court, Dunedin, of an immigrant who was brought out from England, by a friend. "Assisted immigrants must have £10 on them when they arrive in New Zealand," the deposition read. "She (the friend) lent me that £10 so that I should have/it when I landed. I gave her the £10 the moment I arrived in New Zealand." "No ship is absolutely safe,'' was the keynote of a speech delivered, in Glasgow recently by Colonel John. Denny, whose great Clydesside firm has built many of the fine vessels engaged in the New Zealand trade. Colonel Denny explained that in order to be perfectly safe a ship would have to be so heavy as to float unloaded at her winter freeboard. She would have so many bulkheads that she would have the minimum of comfort and produce the minimum of revenue, and she would have so many boats that there would be no Toom to move about her. decks. Be also declared that the "temptation" to "yield to popular clamor" was one which should be resisted by shipbuilders and surveyors of registration societiesThe rising generation is (remarks the New Zealand Times) receiving facilities for attractive education that were unknown in comparatively recent days. Lately the infant school at Kelburne was opened, and the novel addition of a "Nature study" room, in which, the furniture consists mostly of glass and wire cages, that are to hold birds, beasts, fishes, and plants. A more pleasant- way of learning elementary zoology and botany it Mould be hard to imagine. At a meeting of the Education Board it was stated that a grant had been made for the construction of ah open-air class-room at South Wellington, in which learning and fresh air sliould so hand in hand. An ex-Wellingtoiiian, writing f:j.n Sydney to the Post, states: "It may interest the people of Wellington t\ know something of rents in Sydioy, and it may make them thankful tlj.ot thoy are not so badly off' in that respect as people are here. I have tr.tii here about two years. lam paying for -a , five-roomed cottage, all small rooms, no wardrobes or cupboards of any kind, bare walls, no hot water service, and 2d section from centre. ."iss per, week, and my friends consi-lsr 1 have a cheap house. Houses of the size I occupy run from 35s to 40s per week; oix rooms, from 40s to 45s per wtj^-c ;4 ' seven rooms; from' 4ss to 65s per week;nine rooms, to '9os per week: All the above prices depend on \ position and distance from centre/' A correspondent, writing from Vancouver, said it would be very unwise for any persons "to leave New Zealand for that city at any time; this year -in the expieidtf^nce M obtaining employment there. According to authentic reports published in the Vancouver Sun, fully three-fourths of the building laborers'and 50 per cent, of the sheet metal workers in that city were out of work last month. From the same authArity we. quote the following: "The situation with the carpenters has not. been worse for years. There aa-e easily 500 men walking the streets, looking for employment. Reports from several departments among the street railwayman are lo Ihe effect that more men are idle fclvm ever." The reports from many ither industries arc almost equally unfavorable. A good but old story, which has appeared in Punch, among other places, was told last week in Sydney by the Rev. W. C. Pdole, a Methodist Episcopalian minister from San Francisco, during a talk at the Lyceum hall. His operator had thrown on the screen a slide showing an active volcano in one of the island groups. "Among the tourists who j were looking at this lake of fire on the occasion of my visit," said Mr Poole, "was a Yankee, whose language was not always polite, and an English lady, who resented his vernacular. The American looked over into the molten mass, -and-: :' although I don't like to be sacriligious, I wilt give you his own words : 'Gee ! but this is worse than hell !' he said. (Laughter.) Everybody smiled but the lady. She tossed her head. 'Dear me, how these Americans do travel !' was all she said." "When the farmers were selling their butter at 4£d per lb and taking it out in goods, had anyone, suggested that factories would lie able to pay Is and upwards for butter fat he would have been considered mad," said t'ho President of the Farmers' Union, in the course of his address. This has been going on for some time now, and ' farmers are apt to forget that a score of years ago Rnd less numbers of them were making their own butter — often a very indifferent article— and thinking themselves extremely lucky if tlhey (received 6d a lb. The refrigerator and, the co-opera-tive system ihave made a wonderful change in the comparatively shoot period, and it is not surprising to find Mi* Wilson predicting that New Zealand's exports for the current year will reach the £23,000,000 level. "If this is so," foe adds, "it is another triumph for the farmers of New Zealand and the whole population benefits thereby." People at the Port on Friday morning witnessed an unusual sight in the Bay —that of a. waterspout (says Friday's ! Nelson Colonist). In a short time the news spread, and soon many persons were on the rocks gazing out to sea at a column reaching from the \ sea to the clouds. The column, when first noticed, was travelling fairly fast in a north-westerly direction, and was midway between Separation Point and the mainland. , A second column was vi3ible, but it was not so clearly defined. The lighthouse-keeper states that it was the largest spout he lias ever /teen. Though unusually confined to the sea, waterspouts occasionally make their way to land. Several years ago one burst at the top of Toi Toi Valley, and. an immense volume of water swept "down St. 1 Vincent street and through private property. Another instance is recalled, of a waterspouit bursting over the Fifeshire Rocks. In addition to being one of the fashionable unnecessary remarks of the day, states the Auckland Star, the comment, "It's cold," was a totally inadequate description of the frigid atmosphere that pervaded the Auckland Magistrate's Court buildings on Friday morning, despite the fact that the pi*emises^ are provided with an admirable and up-to-date heating apparatus. Inquiry elicited the surprising fact that the furnace in the basement had not been fired up because nobody could find, included in his whedule of duties the work of firing, it. One nf thu presiding magistrates took the Bench ".vil.li his r.rdiuurv attire fortified by the addition of an overcoat, but a brother magistrate, who felt himself temporarily unsuited for polar experiences, toulc u wider • view of the situation. With the greatest good for the greatest number as uiis watchword, and tamembcring f that--. example' makes the host, precept, he shed his magisterial robes, rolled up his sleeves, seized a fireman's shovel, an armful of shavings and. a bag o_f coke, and got busy in the basement, with the result that half an hour later the inhabitants and visitors of tin; court buildings suddenly woke up to the fact that a tiiaw had set in, and they finished their business in a genial atmosphere. This was the official hut non-public opening of the heating service, but the department has. yet to decide who will carry on the work during the winter.

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