LOCAL AND GENERAL

Taranaki Daily News, 3 January 1930, Page 8

LOCAL AND GENERAL

Yesterday was the first real summer day experienced during the holiday season, and it was greatly appreciated. There ha« been a greater attendance at the Pukekura Park fernery this week than at any similar period since its establishment, reports the park superintendent. A double yellow begonia, eight inches across, is to be seen in the Pukekura Park fernery. The park superintendent (Mr. T. Horton) says it is the finest he has ever grown.

Charged with stealing £2l from Harry Alexander, Whenuakura, a girl aged 19 was arrested in New Plymouth on Wednesday afternoon by ~ Detective Walsh, of Wanganui. She was brought before Mr. J. T. Griffin, J.P., yesterday and remanded to appear at Wanganui to-morrow.

A tall foreign plant, the fourcroya gigantea, has flowered this summer in New Plymouth, chiefly at Western Park. It is a native of Central America and flowers in periods of seven and 14 years. This year is the flowering year of a number of the plants which were evidently planted in the district at the same time. An order to come up for sentence if called upon within the next 12 months was made against Ernest Thomas Holloway,, a stranger to New Plymouth, by Messrs. J. S. Connett and W. C. Weston, J.’s.P., at the New Plymouth Police Court yesterday. Holloway was arrested for being an idle and disorderly person by Constable Mills atZFitzroy early on Wednesday morning.

The motor camp site at Belt Road, New Plymouth, continues to be popular with touring motorists, most of whom arrive in the evening and stay a day. Others depart next morning. Visitors have expressed keen appreciation of the facilities provided by the Borough Council. The ground is exceptionally well sheltered, they say. About 70 parties were encamped in the reserve last night.

A traveller who has just returned from a rapid trip embracing the whole of the Dominion reports that he had never seen the country looking so well. In the Waikato the grass was unusually plentiful; it appeared thinner in Taranaki, whilst in Hawke’s Bay farmers were inconvenienced by the prolific feed. In the south good crops of cereals were assured. Altogether the Dominion was in for a record season from the point of view of extent of output of all her primary 'products.

Dozens of motorists with camping equipment on their care were on the roads yesterday, returning homeward. They have reason to remember the 1929-30 camping holiday.

Yesterday afternoon a party of motorists left their car on the side of the main road near Warea to converse with some friends in another car that had come from the opposite direction. Before they could do anything to stop it, the car began to move and went over the roadside. The driver had forgotten to brake the machine. A rope was attached and the car soon pulled on to the road again by the other car.

Although two members of the St. John Ambulance Association were present at the Fitzroy seaside gala yesterday there were no serious accidents to require their services. The worst was a mishap to a girl about 12 years of age, who scalded her foot, skinning it rather badly with boiling water from a kettle. She was attended to satisfactorily by the ambulance men, who were busy throughout the day with minor injuries.

As much as five shillings a peck was paid for green peas in ■Christchurch last week. This is the highest Christmas price for years past and many oi the retailers say they were forced to hand them on to the consumer practically at a loss. All vegetables in demand at Christmas time w:re in short supply because the boisterous weather prevented them from being placed on the market on Christmas Eve, On Saturday, December 21, the price of peas was only 2s 8d a peck and this was considered high. New potatoes sold at from 2d to 3d a lb. Cherries brought Is 6d to 2s 6d per lb, and strawberries as much as 4s 3d a punnet—an exceptional price. Tomatoes and locally-grown apples were more reasonable. News has been received in Dunedin from Stewart Island that the absence of Mr. Adam Adamson, known as the "ambergris king,” is causing concern to his friends.- Mr. Adamson, who has a camp at Doughboy Bay, is a returned soldier and lives practically a hermit’s existence. His main occupation is prospecting and searching for ambergris, an occupation he has followed for many years with very successful results. He is believed to have left Doughboy Bay for Mason’s Bay in a dinghy on December 22 and nothing has been heard of him since that date. A search party has been organised to work the rugged coast of the island between Doughboy Bay and Mason’s Bay. Mr. Adamson is known to be an expect bushman as well as an experienced boatman.

Building records have been broken in Napier this year, well over £200,090 worth of- work being done, compared, with £150,000 odd in tho town’s previous best year —1926. In all, permits were issued for £148,915 worth of work, but to this has to be added the new post office now in the course of erection, this bringing the total to £201,175. Last year the value represented in the permits issued was £104,958 and in the previous year £1’25,130. A conspicuous feature of the building activity during the year has been the great number of new motor sheds erected, tho work done in this direction exemplifying again that this is the age of the motor. Houses to hold motors were, in fact, built in greater numbers than homes to house people. The full story of the amazing hustling American and Canadian tours of the British Primo Minister to hand by the last mails contains some interesting details. Reuter’s representative introduces his record of one morning’s diary with these, picturesque touches: "The Premier’s dash at 45 miles an hour through the streets of New York yesterday, with an escort of police cyclists, formed a fitting prelude to a day of record hustle. He received a stream of delegations, and later was guest at lunch with 5090 members of the societies of St. Andrew, St. George and St. David, and the Eng-lish-speaking Union in the United States. Here there was a dramatic incident. The light in the gilded hall suddenly dimmed, and as the organ played ‘God Save the King/ a spotlight revealed a, Union Jack blowing in the breeze of an electric fan. The great company rose to their feet and sang the National Anthem in the most moving fashion.”

Is the record, of Kalgoorlie, Western Australia, in having repaid the whole of its municipal debt, unique as far as Australia and New Zealand are concerned? Kalgoorlie is considered by some as nearing the end of all goldrush cities—stagnation and deeay—but an Australian writer says that the only signs of shrinkage are in the outer suburbs, where hotels have been de-licensed and gutted, and houses abandoned save by a few old-time prospectors. "At this moment, the Goldfielders have an example to offer to our capital cities in municipal economies; for one of the photographs on the Mayor’s walls illustrates the handing over of the cheque that repaid the last instalment of the municipal loan. The council owns property, all clear of debt.” The population of Kalgoorlie is about 5000, and it ranks fourth on the list of Western Australian municipalities. Water as a means of inland navigation has been brought to American notice by President Hoover himself in a Kentucky speech. There is something for the imagination to absorb in a hint of 6000 miles of waterways to be made i in ten years at an annual cost, in addition to the £17,000,000 a year now being spent, of something like £4,000,000. And the figures are handsomer still when the estimates are set out in dollars. But the deepest impression comes from Mr. Hoover’s statement that the annual increase would be equal to half the cost of one battleship. If, he said, the United States coud be so fortunate as to save this annual outlay on naval construction as a result of the forthcoming Naval Conference in London, nothing could be a finer or more vivid conversion of swords into ploughshares. In the opinion of the President, inland navigation, after passing through "its dark ages,” during which it was unable to compete with the railways, has now reached its “day of renaissance.” Turangakuma Hill, where a ear has plunged over the steep hillside, is not the scene of many accidents, simply because most motorists, knowing its reputation, take elaborate precautions when traversing it. This hill, the highest on the Napier-Taupo Road, and the highest main highway in the North Island, is probably the only place where service cars on the regular routes drop into low gear, not second, for a long portion of tlie descent. The road on this section drops 1400 feet in a very short I distance by the process of looping iself down the hill. All this time there js a drop of several hundred feet within a few inches of the outer wheels of the car. It is little wonder that cautions motorists perfer low gear and a lot of tooting as they go up and down the hill, yet Turangakuma to-day is mild to what it was a few years ago, before the highways engineers took it in hand and • provided a little more breathing space on those sinuous loops and corners.