NEW ZEALAND NEWS

Stratford Evening Post, Issue 87, 22 November 1928, Page 4

NEW ZEALAND NEWS

NOTES FROM ALL PARTS, THE DOMINION DAY BY DAY. HERE, THERE, AND EVERYWHERE SCHOOL COT FOR HOSPITAL. The sum of £5 10s having besf forwarded to the Ashburton Hospital Board to purchase a cot to he ; kpown as the Borough School Cot, the hoard has ordered a cot, and it will have a brass plate attached giving th e details of the gift. At the meeting of the beard recently, a vote of thanks was passed to the pupils of the school for their generous gift. MOTOR VEHICLE LICENSES. Declaring that the license fee» levied on, certain classes of heavy traffic were excessive and crippling to industry, Cr. C. J. Bryant mentioned the other afternoon at the meeting of the Blenheim County Council that his firm paid £6OO a year in taxation on three timber lorries (reports the Marlborough Express). He con-, sidered that a fee pt £75 or £BO a year per vehicle was too much to pay for the right to use the roads, especially when 1 there was petrol and tyre taxation to pay as well. His lorries travelled at between 10 and 12 miles an hour, had solid tyres of 14 inch tread ,and paid the maximum fee, while pneumatictyred vehicles, travelling at a far greater speed, escaped with a 15 per cent, reduction. He maintained that it was the speedier class of heavy vehicles which damaged the roads.

A YOU) WASTE, “The railways are not (run bjy magic,” a notice in the current month’s issue of the New Zealand Railways Magazine sets out. “The , financial factor comes in always.” The notice is an appeal to officers and men of the Railway Department to avoid waste. “The instinct! cf self-preservation warns, all railway employees to-day that if their positions are to remain saf e they must exert themselves to th e utmost to decrease expenditure to increase revenue. Self-interest alone should prompt everybody to be economical in respect of all materials. If the keenest attention to the'principles and practice of economy made an average saving of only a penny a day for each railway employee the total gain in the year would exceed £50,000.” BATHING- FOR NURSES. A suggestion that a car should he obtained to convey nurses from th e Napier (Hospital to the baths or beach was made in a report by Dr. J. Allen Berry, medical superintend dent to the Hawke’s Bay Hospital Board. Dr. Berry pointed out that the health of the nursing staff should be maintained at as high a standard as possible, but at present the nurses, who wished, in their scanty hours of leisure, to have a bathe had to walk to the port, and then have a strenuous walk back up the hill to the hospital. Mr EL T, Rees (secretary) obtained information as to the cost of such a car and members naturally realised it was prohibitive when told it would cost 25s a day. The board, however, decided to solicit assistance from sympathisers in obtaining the free use of a car for the nurses. A further decision was to obtain a report on a proposal to have a bath, at the hospital, pumping the salt water to it.

NON-VOTERS. “Voters and officials only” is the inflexible rule in every polling booth, f but a kindhearted Legislature has not yet found it necessary tb exclude babies in arms, and at Auckland on Wednesday, quite a number of these “unauthorised persons” were carried into the booths by their mothers. It so happened that three lusty infants were in on e polling place at the same time. Baby Joan appeared to object to Jhe- decorous atmosphere of and raised her voice hffjaroentation, her howls being second Baby Georgie and enthusiastically supported by Baby Betty. The trio did its best, or worst, for some minutes, and serious-minded 'citizens intent on recording their votes might well hav e been forgiven for filling in an informal paper. The best 1 of good humour prevailed, however, kindly persons “holding the baby” while mamma recorded her vote. Even the deputy returning officer smiled indulgence on the tiny hecklers, and their breach of the law was readily forgiven.