Untitled

Southland Times, Issue 19435, 26 December 1924, Page 4

The new Corporation road-roller made its first appearance on the roads on Wednesday and attracted a great deal of attention because of its squat appearance.

A Press Association telegram states that the building permits issued in Napier during the year just closing numbered 312, and the value of the work was £133,471, against 278 and £128,997 in 1923 and 236 in 1922. New dwellings this year numbered 89, compared with 91 in 1923 and 42 in 1922, motor registrations in Napier during 1924 totalled 1107 against 954 last year and 476 in 1922.

According to an Auckland telegram, a box factory in Beaumont street, belonging to W. Cosey, was destroyed by fire on Wednesday night. The building, which was of corrugated iron, contained a good deal of machinery which, together with the stock, was destroyed. The insurance was £5390 on the building and contents in the Ocean Office.

It is reported that Messrs R. Sinclair and another, rod-fishing recently at Lake Mavora, during darkness landed 15 fish on the artificial minnow. They were in excellent condition, and the heaviest trout scaled 15ilbs (cleaned weight). Other fish taken weighed 141bs, 131bs, and several about 121bs each. Messrs R. Bissett, J. Lambert and F. Wilkes have also been securing some good heavy trout from the Aparima river with the “natural” bait. The latter angler took from the Waikiwi stream on Tuesday evening a fine trout weighing 72m.

A consignment of nearly 300 goats arrived in Hawke’s Bay recently from Taranaki. They are to be used on various properties to keep down blackberries, having been found very efficient at this work in the past.

The disease known as “take all” is affecting the wheat crops in several parts of the Oamaru district. A well-known farmer told a North Otago Tinies representative that the disease has appeared on high-class country as well as upon poorer soil.

The greatest spot cash land sale in the Ashburton County for many years has been negotiated. Properties aggregating 2000 acres were sold for £16,700. The sale was made under instructions of the Supreme Court on behalf of the mortgagees. The buyers are Messrs Pyne, Gould, Guinness, Ltd.

A visitor to the Western District during the past few days states that he saw some splendid oat and grass crops in the Aparima and Waikouro districts. A paddock of oats on Mr J. Smith’s farm he considers to be the best crop he has so far seen, while Mr J. Muir also had a fine crop of rape.

Taking advantage of the fine weather, a large number of people yesterday visited the scene of the wreck of the steamer Konini, and though there was very little to be seen beyond the hull of the vessel, which has yet not been seriously affected by heavy seas, the visitors expressed themselves as being well satisfied with the somewhat rough walk across the Bluff Hill.

Advice to farmers to reduce their mortgages when their finances improved was given by Mr A. T. Kenrick, manager of the Bank of New Zealand at Inglewood, when speaking at the recent opening of the Inglewood County Council’s new offices. Referring to the high prices ruling for wool, he expressed the hope that farmers would use any surplus money at the end of the season in reducing their mortgages and so putting themselves in a more satisfactory position. This, he considered preferable to purchasing an expensive motor-car which would cost money to run.

A painful accident occurred at Waipango yesterday, which resulted in a little boy, named Selwyn Pulley, sustaining a fracture of the leg just below the knee. Mr and Mrs W. Pulley, of Otautau, were visiting friends at Waipango and were accompanied by their little son, aged four years. It appears that the child climbed on to the seat of a motor cycle, which was standing in a shed, and the machine overbalanced, pinning his leg underneath. Mr Pulley lost no time in having the boy conveyed to the Riverton Hospital, where he was attended to by Dr. Kingston, and is progressing favourably.

An Association message from Wellington states that a Wellington resident, Mr W. A. Reid, formerly an officer in the Union Steam Ship Company, and always an enthusiastic amateur photographer, has invented a process which many experts who have seen the finished product (not the process) believe has solved the problem of natural colours in films. Further, the process will not entail a cost of more than a farthing per foot on top of the ordinary cost; and, equally important, the process can be applied to ordinary positive film. The process by which Mr Reid is able to do colour work he confesses to have lighted upon by accident.

A motor lorry laden with wool, came to grief when proceeding towards Invercargill on the North Road last evening, opposite Mr R. Russell’s property, but, beyond running into a ditch, no damage was done. The driver and two men, who were accompanying him, fortunately escaped serious injury, but received a very severe shaking and some slight cuts on the face. The accident was probably due to the bales of wool becoming dislodged through the breaking of the rope holding them in position, thus causing the lorry to turn sideways into a ditch on the side of the road. It was not anticipated that any difficulty would arise in replacing the lorry again in commission.

An example of the manner in which money circulates was seen outside the Municipal Theatre during the progress of the wool sale (says the Hawke’s Bay Herald). Motor agents with various brands of cars mingled with the farmers and endeavoured to attract their attention towards some vehicle as the fortunate vendors of the golden fleece came out of the building. Needless to say, those interested in motor-cars at once consented to view them, and many were persuaded into buying a new one or giving their old model in part exchange. The car agents reported quite good business. After the motor-car agents, the insurance companies were well represented, agents doing their best to obtain insurances on the new cars or the old ones which were uninsured.

“Modern educational methods, demand that teachers discard the aristocratic methods practised by their predecessors of aquarter of a century ago, and that they endeavour so to conduct their schools that pupils and teachers alike apply themselves to their tasks in a manner such as to reach a higher standard of conscientious effort and moral excellence,” said Mr D. P. Evans, headmaster of the New Plymouth Central School, in the course of his annual report at the breaking-up ceremony (reports the News). “This can be done only by an appeal to the finer instincts of the child, who immediately responds when he realises that he has an important part to play in a community—the school. Only in rare cases,” Mr Evans said, “do we now deal with the child who carries out his duties in a careless or perfunctory manner, for each recognises that he meets in the schoolroom for the common good of all—a position unattainable where harmony and cooperation are non-existent.”

More in sorrow than in anger, a Scotsman of small stature, who resides at Otahuhu (Auckland), addressed the local body at its last meeting with a plaint concerning the amazing height attained by the grass and weeds which had invaded the lower end of Nikau road: “The grass grows alike on road and footpaths,” he wrote, “and as I, like Zaccheus, am short in stature, and the Scotsman’s national holiday is approaching, I am looking forward with dread to the task of finding my way home late in the evening, after spending a pleasant time with some of you gentlemen. My wife will probably have to appeal to the police to organise a search party to look for the ‘wee painter’ if you do not send a man along to clear the approach to our homes and take away the reproach to the progressive borough of Otahuhu.” The letter concluded with hearty Christmas greetings. Presumably on general peace and goodwill principles (remarks the New Zealand Herald), the Town Board decided to accede to the request, and formally extended to complainant the compliments of the season.

A South Island professional man, writing to friends in New Plymouth, says Canterbury is experiencing an extraordinarily good season. Money was plentiful enough here before the prospects became rosy, so what it will be like after the New’ Year one can only guess. Each fellow is telling the other not to forget the lessons of the slump, and the reasons which caused the slump, and then one turns round and pays £2 10/and more for a line of 401 b lambs, returning afterwards to discuss what should be done to stop another boom eventuating. By the time March or April comes it will be rather dangerous to talk lambs to a lot of people. Wool is partly responsible for the position too, but the good season is chiefly responsible for the present prices in the stock market. Since October 1 we have had 9 inches of rain at regular intervals, exactly as much as had fallen from January 1 to September 30, making 18 inches for the year to date. The spring and summer rains have transformed the country from a desert into a garden, and there has been a luxuriant growth of grass and all classes ■)i crops everywhere. I have never seen such crops or growth of grass in Canterbury e

It was a comparatively easy matter after Thursday’s wool sale in Timaru to sell motor-cars (remarks the Herald), and more than one wool-grower who secured a big cheque took a new car home with him, or arranged for its early delivery.

“This book is a long-sustained shriek of usual Bolshevik pitch,” said Mr Poynton, S.M., in sentencing two Auckland Communists on charges of selling propaganda. “It might have been written by a homicidal maniac, so many are its incitements to violence and threats of massacre.”

One of the finest crops of wheat in the Oamaru district, a 28-acre paddock of Dreadnought grown by Mr W. R. Walker, of Airedale, has been completely ruined by what is supposed to be the Hessian fly. The paddock has only been cropped in two successive years.

A headmaster of a school in South Canterbury, finding himself at the end of the year without a sixth standard, amused himself with the fifth standard. He put them up for the sixth standard proficiency examination, and five out of the seven passed. He expects to be expelled from the Teachers’ Union. Mr Parr will claim the record is another reason for his establishment, of junior high schools.

A collision between a tram and a motorcar was averted by the narrowest of margins on Wednesday evening. As the tram was crossing the intersection of Yarrow and McMaster streets, a motor-car swung round the corner of McMaster street at a fast pace and to those in the tramcar a collision seemed certain. The driver of the motor, however, managed to turn the corner and bring his car parallel with the tram in time to avert an impact.

“Has the life of blue-gum trees been thoroughly gone into by the engineers?” queried Mr McManaway, at Friday’s meeting of the Wanganui-Rangitikei Electric Power Board, when the purchase of a number of blue-gum poles was under consideration. The consulting engineer (Mr Templin) replied in the affirmative and pointed out that the life of the gum-trees should be up to 12£ years. His experience of the undertaking that he was connected with was that poles used four years ago, and treated with preservative, were just as good now as when they were put in. A man who has had 40 to 50 years’ experience with blue-gum poles had also assured him that they were quite satisfactory. An anomaly in the laws of New Zealand as they affect the rights of women was referred to in humorous fashion by the Mayor (Mr F. E. Wilson) at the breaking-up ceremony of the New’ Plymouth Girls’ High School on Friday night. “Women,” said Mr Wilson, “can become barristers and solicitors of our Supreme Court and there seems to be nothing to prevent them becoming Judges of the Court, but our very wise legislature has decreed that they cannot become Justices of the Peace.” It was laid down that to become a Justice of the Peace one must be of good repute, but laughter drowned the rest of Mr Wilson’s remarks, as those present grasped the obvious inference. Mr Wilson also mentioned that in civic life a woman could be something a man could never be. She could be a Mayor and Mayoress at one and the same time.

As a result of the ante-natal clinics, New Zealand was breaking all records in looking after her children, declared Sir Maui Pomare, Minister of Health, in opening the children’s ward at the Wairau Hospital. The death rate at birth had been reduced to practically nothing, and this was a record for the world. The Government had devoted a sum of money for training nurses for the ante natal work, and this again would help the children immensely. When the child arrived at school age it again came under the care of the Government, and only this year 107,000 children came under the medical inspectors of schools. Thus, the general physical welfare of the children received attention, while their teeth were also attended to, and 370,000 operations on children’s, teeth had been performed during the time that the dental clinics had been in existence. This showed that the Government was doing a great deal for the children.

A well-known resident of Port Chalmers, who assisted in the unpacking of the first shipment of salmon and trout ova that arrived in New Zealand, has recalled the fact that the ova was obtained from the property of Sir James Fergusson, the father of the Governor-General-designate of the Dominion. The shipment was brought to Otago by the barque Celestial Queen, which arrived at Port Chalmers on May 3, 1868. The result of the experiment of transporting ova 12,000 miles was awaited with a great deal of interest. Mr A. J. Burns, a member of the Provincial Executive, went out in the tug to meet the Celestial Queen, and after the arrival of the vessel the superintendent and Mr Vogel and Mr Duncan, members of the Executive, were among others who visited her. Along with the ova a number of live fish, comprising gudgeon, carp and tench, were shipped on the Celestial Queen, but all died or were otherwise lost on the voyage. Two oysters survived the voyage, and were confided on arrival to Mr Smeaton, of Portobello.

Parents should make this Xmas season a memorable one to the children by sending them along to the Albion Matinee to-mor-row (Saturday) when, in addition to the Great Circus Attraction, starring Jackie Coogan, entitled “Circus Day’s,” the first 300 children to be admitted will receive a free gift of a Master Picture balloon, or a Lucky Prize Gift. (advt.)

For Holiday and Picnic Frocks you require something that will wash well and stand knocking about. Thomson and Beattie’s Dress Department is offering some special lines this week that just meet the case. Zura Zephyrs in checks and stripes, at 1/6, 38-inch also a superior line of Crepes, 30-inch, 1/9, for 1/6 yard, in all colours. Dainty striped Cotten Crepe de Chine and Rayfast Cotton Fugi, 38-inch, for 4/6. These are in woven stripes and are guaranteed washing. (Advt.)

To-day is a good opportunity to buy your Christmas Cheer. You will get what you want at Baxter’s. Good quality, excellent variety and at a low tariff at Baxter’s.— (Advt.).

A good Fountain Pen always proves acceptable as a gift, and with it as a companion an Eversharp pencil. CRAIGS are showing a wide and varied range of Fountain Pens, all sizes and prices, suitable as gifts for ladies and gentlemen. Eversharp Pencils in nickel silver, silver and gold—prices from 5/6. See the window display. CRAIG PRINTING CO., Ltd, The Noted House for Better Stationery, Tay street (opp. H. & J. Smith’s).— (Advt.) When buying a watch it is always advisable to buy from a man who has had considerable experience in the watchmaking business. Our complete stock of watches are imported direct from the worlds best known factories. Every watch that is sold from our establishment carries with it our guarantee to be what we represent it to be. Ladies’ gold, silver and nickel wristlet watches. Gents’ wristlet and pocket watches are all tested before leaving our premises. We carry a full stock of spare parts for all makes of watches sold by us. A reliable watch is the best present you can give this Christmas. T. M. Rankin, Watchmaker, Jeweller and Optician, Tay Street. “SUMMER BREATHES UPON US.” —Anon. Summer chills often turn to chronic complaints. Be prepared—take Baxter's Lung Preserver. “Baxter’s” has won wide fame as a certain antidote for all colds, coughs and other bronchial and throat complaints. Penetrating and dependable, this splendid remedy gets to the root of the most stubborn ailment and banishes it completely. “Baxter’s” is also invaluable as a build-ing-up tonic. You can obtain a generoussized bottle for 2/6 at all chemists and stores; family size 4/6. Get one to-day. —(Advt.). An egg, which is not due to be laid till next April, was sold by auction recently for £2 Ils. The bird whose eggs are so popular is a homing pigeon.