GENERAL NEWS

Stratford Evening Post, Volume I, Issue 76, 9 March 1931, Page 8

GENERAL NEWS

Afghans Interested. A ’letter from Afghanistan was received by the town clerk at Christchurch recently addressed to “The President, Christchurch Cily Council.” It was from a professor at the Habibia College, Kabul, and inquired whether Afghans of good position could buy land and setlle in New Zealand. “The Grand Anthem.”

Work in Hawke's Bay. Definite arrangements for the placing of employment in the earthquakestricken area of Hawke's Bay upon a business-like basis have been made as the result of a special visit, to the district this week of the Minister of Lahour, Hon. S. G. Smith. Grants totalling £IO,OOO have been made available to the authorities in Hastings and Napier for employment purposes with the result that the whole question of work will bo placed on a revised footing.

Free and Easy Life. Mr Stanley Rose, an Australian who left Auckland in his canoe Wanderer on September 13 last, on a tour of the North Island, arrived at Te Arolia on Wednesday. He left for Thames the next morning, and from there will go to bis starting place. He will then have covered 2000 miles by land and water. Although the canoe has been overturned on various occasions, it is still in splendid order. The whole tour has been a most enjoyable one, wilh six months of free and easy life, says Mr Rose.

Central Heating. Central heating, which used to mean the heating of individual buildings by steam or hot water, means a good deal more than that nowadays. It means the provision of steam to groups of houses and even to whole towns. Winnipeg within a few years will scarcely have a chimney in use. The municipal heating plant already supplies steam to 200 buildings, and now it plans to carry steam into the residential areas. The plant burns lignite, but may ultimately develop its steam by electric heating, for the Slave Falls scheme, costing seven million dollars, will shortly be in operation. Central heating is cheaper than individual heating by about 20 per cent., and it saves the householder work and worry.

Rum-Running. The Canadian export of alcohol liquor to the United States in December, 1929, was 103,945 gallons. In December, 1930, the trade has disappeared. This does not mean that the people in the United States had grown more temperate or that prohibition was more effective. It only means that Canada had prohibited the direct export of liquor to her neighbour. That the United States were still importing Canadian liquor can be inferred from the fact that the export of liquor from Canada to the French islands of St. Pierre and Miguelon was greater in December, 1930, than in the same, month of 1929 by 112,485 gallons. It looks, therefore, as if the American importations from this source had increased by over 10 per cent.

Riviera Nature Colony. Big strides recently made in France by the Naturism cult promises success for a great international nature colony about to be established on the Riviera. Heliopolis, as the centre will be called, is planned to extend over a thousand acres in the sub-tro-pital highlands above the blue Mediterranean, where the climate is kindly for the greater part of the year. The prime movers in the scheme are brothers, Doctors Gaston and Andre Darville, the founders of Physiopolis, the nature city on the Seine, avlio have joined forces with M. Bastier du Vignaud another pioneer of Naturism. Physiopolis is now a prosperous concern, where adherents live in tents or light structures. They publish a weekly nefspaper, and a growing trade in the meagre requirements of the Naturists bring (lie paper advertisement se to keep it. going. Even in winter months it is rarely that Physiopolis does not gather about 100 adherents within its precincts at weekends. The reduction of clothing to a manimum or to nothing is their creed, but they also aim at propagating new ideas on dieting. Alcohol is banned, and special menus are offered, based on the findings of the nature specialists.