In Town And Out

Southland Times, Issue 23406, 13 January 1938, Page 6

In Town And Out

Cocksfoot Harvest Time Children with an eye to profit are just now making a determined onslaught on the cocksfoot growing in and about Invercargill. Equipped with anything from the kitchen scissors to very rusty scythes, they are gathering impressive bundles of the grass which they hope will provide them with pocket money for the rest of the holidays. The usual devices are being used to extract the seed. A bag of cocksfoot is either hung from a clothes line and soundly beaten, or the cocksfoot is placed between two sacks and jumped on till it yields the last of its seed. The price the youngsters will receive for the seed depends on the quantity produced at Banks Peninsula, from where comes the big part of the Dominion supply, but whatever the sum it will be jingled with pride as something earned by personal labour.

Repairs to Bridges

An opinion that too much, local timber was used in bridge repair work in the Southland County was expressed by Cr J. McNeill at yesterday’s meeting of the council. Cr McNeill added that they should use harder woods for such work. The engineer (Mr G. RMilward) said that wherever a bridge warranted such timber harder woods were being used. The difficulty in some cases, however, was that when the bridge was repaired with harder wood the repair work had a much longer life than the main part of the bridge.

Holiday For Trades Picnic ... A close holiday will be observed on Monday, January 24, when the annual trades picnic will be held. All retailers, master grocers and butchers will close on this day which will also be a holiday for clerical workers. As the picnic days falls on a Monday many will appreciate the advantage of a longer week-end. Dunedin Bus Station

The Railway Department has accepted a tender of £45,000 for the erection of an omnibus station close to the Dunedin railway station.

Mr Speaker’s Bicycle Tour To undertake another cycling tour, this time in the South Island, the Hon. W. E. Barnard, Speaker of the House of Representatives, left Napier on Tuesday morning for Wellington, Christchurch and Timaru. From Timaru Mr Barnard will set out by bicycle on a tour which will , take him to Otago Central. Mr Barnard is accompanied by Mr S. J. Bennett, of Palmerston North, who was his companion on his North Island tour last year, and Mr A. M. Isdaile, of Hastings. He expects to return to Napier on January 24.

Signalling from Liner Use of the deaf and dumb sign language and semaphore signals gave a young traveller on the liner Mariposa an advantage over fellow-passengers as the ship moved from Prince’s Wharf, Auckland, into the stream on Monday. While the Mariposa was alongside the wharf he carried on an animated conversation from the ship with a visitor on the wharf, and as she moved away the semaphore signals continued the conversation when distance had prevented others from making last farewells.

Life in Germany In a four weeks’ visit to Germany last September Mr T. Dill Edwards, a leading Australian businessman and grazier, saw nothing to justify criticisms that are commonly levelled at the Hitler regime. Mr Edwards, who is making a short stay in Auckland on his way. back from Europe to Australia, gave some of his impressions. “During the month I toured a large part of Germany in a small, German-made car that I bought for the purpose,” he said. “It cost only the equivalent of about £l6O, and it gave us excellent service. A lot of our travelling was done on the new ‘autobahnen’ or arterial motor highways, which have often been described in the Press. They are very fine indeed, and we found that new ones were being constructed in various districts. I expected to find the country heavily policed and inhabited by a people sullen under oppression,” Mr Edwards continued, “but the reality was nothing at all like that. It was possible to go a long time without seeing a policeman, even in Berlin, and we were not bothered with restrictions at any time during our stay. The traffic officers were the most polite I have met anywhere.”