LOCAL AND GENERAL

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 65, Issue 5493, 3 July 1942, Page 2

LOCAL AND GENERAL

Only four cases of notifiable disease were reported in the Hamilton health district for the week ended Monday, June 29. There was one case of scarlet fever and three cases of pulmonary tuberculosis.

At a meeting of the Te Awamutu E.P.S. Central Committee on Tuesday, following a proposal by Mr J. Sterritt, it was decided to make an endeavour to ascertain how the E.P.S. functioned at Masterton during the recent earthquake disaster.

In Te Awamutu yesterday .43 inches of rain were recorded and this morning .15 inches, making a total for the 24 hours of .58 inches. Considerable benefit to farms and gardens will accrue from the combination of light but soaking rain and warm temperatures. Most farmers agree that the recent dry spell will have but little, it* any, effect o nthis season’s production. . vzii’iMT' “This war is a total war,” said the United States Minister to New Zealand (Brigadier-General P. J. Hurley) at a civic reception in Christchurch on Saturday. “Every leader of industry, every farmer, every stockman, every man and woman who works is fighting, and if they shirk they are breaking faith with the soldier who dies in battle. To win this war we must unite, work, and fight.”

The incidence of hospital taxation was discussed by members of the emergency committee of the Municipal Association in Wellington yesterday. A deputation will later wait on the Prime Minister, Mr Fraser, to discuss a proposed increase in the social security contribution, an increase in the subsidy to hospital boards, or both. Hospital charges for returned soldiers and nurses will also be considered.

“There is no difference between New Zealanders and Americans, except a slight difference in accent and in the methods of making coffee,” said Briga-dier-General Hurley, United States Minister to New Zealand, when speaking at a reception held in his honour in Wellington. “Even so,” he added, “there is a certain similarity. We both make coffee from coffee beans, and we both serve it in cups, but there the similarity ends.”

A surprising amount of digestive ability was recently displayed by a girl of three years, states the Christchurch Star-Sun. When playing in a shed she swallowed a large ball bearing a nail over an inch long and a large tack. Her anxious parents, fearing the worst, hurried her to hospital, but no serious complications resulted. She is now at home again, apparently none the worse for her enterprising swallowing feat.

Soldiers on a week’s leave are given a ration sheet entitling them to two ounces of tea among other things. One has complained to The Dominion that a Wellington grocer refused to redeem his tea coupon, stating that he could not supply less than eight ounces. The complaint was referred to an official of the Rationing Office, who stated that it was the first of the kind he had heard of. He issued a warning that if a retailer refused to supply soldiers with tea ration his license to deal in tea would be taken away.

“I find that there is a very general impression about—a wrong one I admit—that if anything is written in a letter, the censor will strike it out if it should not be there,” said Mr V. Langley in the Magistrate’s Court at Napier when defending a client charged with a breach of the Censorship Act. Mr J. Miller, S.M., replied that if any persons went into the Court with the excuse that they thought the censor w’ould delete anything which should not be there, then such persons should be more heavily fined, as to include statements on that assumption would be worse than carelessly writing anything.

The interest felt by Americans in New Zealand produce was demonstrated by a letter which was recently forwarded to the South Canterbury Chamber of Commerce by a retail firm operating at Timaru. The letter was from the Resolute Commerce Company, of New York, and stated: “We are interested in buying a wide range of items, including those which can be used directly or indirectly in the food, chemical, and pharmaceutical industries, such as vegetable, essential and aromatic oils, edible fruit skins in brine, honey, waxes, gelatins, seeds, herbs, and barks for pharmaceutical uses.* It is understood that the letter has been forwarded to the Associated Chambers of Commerce.

For a quarter of an hour last Wednesday night a close friend had to sit on the head of the largest female living in Wellington and continually pat and soothe this bulky 24-year-old, who was very distressed by the earthquake, into quietness and rest (states the Dominion). Her name was Nellie. Nellie is the elephant at the Newtown Zoo, and has shown herself to be frightened of earthquakes. She is also greatly upset by thunder and lightning. When the earthquake occurred last week, the curator of the zoo, Mr C. J. Cutler, hastened to the nervous Nellie’s enclosure, where she was moving about and showing evident signs of distress. She wound her- trunk around him, as is her custom, for comfort, and he induced her to lie down till she was pacified, and he acted the role of nursemaid.