LOCAL AND GENERAL

Taranaki Daily News, 15 January 1931, Page 6

LOCAL AND GENERAL

No , trace has been found yet of a small car removed from King Street, New Plymouth, on Saturday night.

According to Mr. P. E. Stainton, chairman of the New Plymouth Unemployment Committee, there are upwards of 200 men on the unemployed register.

A sitting of the Native Land Court opened at New Plymouth on Tuesday and will probably last all next week. Judge J. W. Browne is presiding.

Recently several large eels have been caught in the Manaw.atu River by residents of Woodville. One eel weighed 231 b., and was sft. 3in. in length. The exchange rate between New Zealand and London was yesterday increased by £2 10s. .Thus money remitted from New Zealand to London will now be £8 12s Gd per £lOO, against £6 2s Gd formerly. A big tangi is being held at Parihaka, the death having occurred at the native hostel, New Plymouth, on Monday of Harata Hopere, the wife of Te Poi Wharepouri. She was a close relative of the present Maori King Rata. Numbers of natives from the Waikato are attending the tangi, and Te Tomb, member of Parliament for the Western Maori district, is also present.

Engine trouble developed in a number of ca°rs left in the heavy rain at New Plymouth yesterday, and in several cases the owners found, it necessary to obtain aid from garages before the wet engines would start. Though there are five licensed hotels in Woodville, and the town is a railway, junction, no arrests for drunkenness have been macle for over two years. This is in all probability a record for the Dominion.

Mr. C. L. Duigan, who has just returned. to "Wanganui from a trip to the Marlborough Sounds region, told a Chronicle reporter that the land there was rapidly going back into- second growth and fern. It was not producing anything like what was expected of it. Hearing that “things were good in Auckland,” a boy, aged 16, set out from Dunedin to find work in the far north, and arrived here on Sunday evening, says the Auckland Star. The lad, who is tall and well-built, cycled to Lyttelton, obtained a free passage on the ferry steamer to Wellington, and travelled on his bicycle to Auckland. The journey occupied about three weeks, the boy having slept out during the trip. In spite of the rough weather of the past few days, the number -of campers at the Belt Road site has in no wise diminished. There lire about 30 parties encamped there, and though the weather conditions are almost at their worst for them, they continue to hug the shelters and comfortably defy the elements. The position is about the same at Fitzroy, where the number of eight or nine camps of visitors has grown no smaller. “It seems that the society realises that its money is better invested in New Zealand,” #aid Mr. P. G. Guy at a meeting of the Manawatu-Oroua Power Board, when a communication was received from an insurance society offering the board the privilege of paying interest and sinking fund on loans in Wellington instead of in Sydney. The chairman said that acceptance of the offer would save the society about £<o for 13 or 14 years. The offer was accepted. As a result of a compliant made by telephone to the National Bank of New Zealand at Auckland on Tuesday morning by a man who stated he had three 10°shilling notes all bearing the same number, the banks in Auckland wgre notified to keep a watch for spurious National Bank 10-shilling notes. Up till closing time on Tuesday no forged notes were presented at the banks, while the police received no complaints. At the- fortnightly luncheon of the New Plymouth Round Table Club yesterday Mr. T. C. List, who has recently returned from a visit to America and ■England, was the speaker. Mr. List, 'who as a member of the New Zealand delegation to the Imperial Press Conference, was enabled to obtain a clear insight into the conditions of the countries he visited, dealt interestingly with liquor control in Canada and with the industrial position of England and the Continent.

Stout fencing wire saved two Marton women from serious consequences recently when descending Ben Nevis Hill in a car. The driver lost control, and the five-seater car crashed into the fence bordering the hill, breaking off three strong totara posts, and being saved from o' 200 ft. drop by the wires. Two Wanganui motorists and the occupants of a passing service car dragged the car from its perilous position,. and it was driven in to Wanganui by one of the rescuers.

The two breaches of traffic regulations punished in the New Plymouth Police Court yesterday were both committed by women. Dorothy Watkins, on whose behalf - a letter was received pleading guilty, was fined £l, with costs 125., for cutting the corner when turning from Devon Street into Currie Street. Margaret McHardy, who wrote pleading guilty to a charge of parking her car too close to the tram stop at Egmont Street, was convicted and ordered to pay costs, 10s.

This season’s honey flow still continues in many parts of Hawke's Bay and promises to create a record. One apiarist states that he has never seen such a yield in Hawke’s Bay before, and he was pleased to note that it was still coming in. Other beekeepers have asserted that the bees have never been better rewarded than during this season. Larger beekeepers are exceptionally busy, and splendid results are anticipated. This is due chiefly to the large amount of clover prevailing and the lengthened season of the flowering. There is more than one way of moving to a friendly garage a motor-car that has lost its own power of propulsion. A damaged car was being pushed along Powderham Street, New Plymouth, yesterday by another car, the front bumper of the one resting against the spare rim on the back of the other. It needed skilful steering and braking by the driver of the front car to prevent being propelled in a series of jerks. A length of rope hanging to each car indicated that an attempt at towing had been unsuccessful.

With the additional grant of £l2OO under scheme No. 2 for the relief of unemployment, New Plymouth has so far received £1520 as £1 for £1 subsidy for work approved by the Public Works Department. Under the No. 1 scheme for immediate temporary relief £7B has been received and used. These amounts are apart from those expended during the winter months under the scheme put forward by the New Plymouth Borough Council whereby voluntary contributions were subsidised to form a fund for relief work purposes.

A generous act was performed by an unemployed man recently when the Auckland Returned Soldiers’ Association made a call for workers. Although only 29 positions were available there were considerably over 100 applicants, and it was decided to allocate the positions in the ratio of 19 to married men and 10 to single men, lots to be drawn. One single man who secured a position asked to be allowed to give it up in favour of a married man who had not been so lucky. This was done and the single man was again placed on the waiting list. A Tuna correspondent has drawn attention to a violent explosion that occurred during the height of the storm about 7.30 on Monday morning. Milking was in progress on his farm at the time, and the explosion was accompanied by what sounded like a shower of small stones on the roof of the shed. As there appeared to be no electrical disturbance at the time, the correspondent stated, he was completely mystified as to the cause. There was no deposit on the roof, but as there was a high wind and driving rain what had fallen on the roof might have been washed away. . When dealing with a case at the New Plymouth Police Court yesterday in which a young woman motorist was charged with cutting a corner, the magistrate, Mr. R. W. Tate, remarked that it was unfortunate that she was a resident of another district. There must be. scores of local residents who offended in that respect, he remarked to the constable who had laid the information, and if some of those were brought before him on a similar offence he would begin to deal with them in a way that they would remember. He did not want to commence with the young woman -in question, he added in imposing a nominal fine. The constable stated that at the time the information was laid he did not know the motorist was from another district. All he knew was that she cut the corner.

I The wet weather yesterday retarded loading and discharging operations at the port of New Plymouth. Work on the overseas vessels Northumberland and Pakeha was abandoned after midday.

The opinion that interest in the collection of prize coupons has waned considerably since the end of last year, when the Government stated its intention of abolishing the systems, was expressed by a New Plymouth grocer yesterday. A number of people, he said, would not be bothered with them.

i Fishing in a lagoon adjacent to the Makarewa river recently Mr. Patterson (Wallacctown) is reported to have caught two Maori or native trout, says the Southland Times. The specimens weighed IMb. and lib. respectively, and are unique as being the largest caught for a considerable number of years.

Deer are very plentiful in the Galatea and Te Whaiti districts. A visitor who spent a holiday in that locality, says the Rotorua Chronicle, states that he saw a number of herds of five and over. They have opened up wide beaten tracks into the hills and are exceedingly tame. He was within 50 yards of them on many occasions. The deer are of both Red and Satnbur varieties.

Fruit crops at Waimate, South Canterbury, have suffered through the gales which swept the district a week ago. The wind at times reached an exceptionally high velocity, and here and there around the town a window was stove in by the force of the storm. Raspberries particularly were battered, and although the half-grown state of the fruit helped its resistance, many growers lost a great deal of fruit. Dust storms occasionally accompanied the high wind. It has been proved beyond doubt that Atlantic salmon are now in Lake Coleridge, and that the fry liberated there three years ago have reached maturity. The discovery will be of particular interest to anglers, since the Atlantic salmon is the best of sporting fish. Three years ago the North Canterbury Acclimatisation Society obtained the fry from the Southland Society, and liberated it in the lake. Fry liberated at the same time in the Wanganui River do not seem to have survived.

The eggs of 140,000 cinnabar moths, which are claimed, by the Cawthron Institute, Nelson, to be the natural enemies of ragwort, were distributed to various parts of the Dominion last week by the Fields Division of the Department of Agriculture. The Director of the division, Mr. J. W. Deem, stated at Palmerston North on Tuesday, that it is proposed to release the moths in rough and more inaccessible country, where it is unlikely that the spraying of sodium chlorate will take place for some years.

A sheep which swam to sea near Aneroa, Waiheke Island, on Friday, provided the watching children of Sister Pat’s camp there with some exciting incidents, says the New Zealand Herald. A young woman swam out after the sheep to head' it in shore, but failed to do so, and a man and a boy from the mission camp launched a canoe to rescue the woman. They found her nearly exhausted and had not little difficulty in getting her into the canoe.Eventually all three returned safely to land, towing the sheep behind them.

An exciting incident that occurred a few days ago on midget golf links that open on to a main thoroughfare, is mentioned by the Auckland Star. A woman, apparently forgetting, that the game was “miniature,” drove vigorously from an elevated tee. The ball whizzed through the links and the entrance, which was thronged with spectators, and emerged bn to the street. It was a lucky shot only in the sense that, at the moment, no oi\? happened to be in the line of, the ball’s flight.

In all parts of North Otago farmers would welcome more rain, says the Oamaru Mail. As in Canterbury, oats are showing a tendency to ripen prematurely, and rain is needed to delay ripening. Root crops, generally, are suffering from lack of moisture, and in several cases farmers have had to make second sowings of seed, for the germination of which rain is badly needed. In the Hakataramea Valley, under the hills, wheat crops are doing, very well, but in the more exposed places they are lighter than usual. Farmers between Kurow and Duntroon have suffered most from the lack of moisture. The winds of last week caused havoc in many places with both oat and wheat crops.

A number of overseas visitors, principally Americans, are visiting the southern parts of the -South Island at present. According to some Christchurch people who have returned from those parts, the foreigners are beseiged with questions from New Zealanders they meet en route. “Our party agreed not to ply the visitors with questions,” said one man, “and I think they appreciated our comparative silence.’” One elderly traveller, with whom several Christchurch men were talking outside the Grand Hotel in Dunedin, smiled reminiscently as he regarded the hotel. “When I was a boy,” he said, “I used to sell papers outside here. I went to America many years ago, struck it lucky, and now I could buy the Grand and not miss the money!”

The danger of dropping lighted matches into standing grass at the present season of the year, when the grass is fairly dry, was exemplified at Pukekohe on Monday, says the New Zealand Herald. While repairing a fence near a haystack a farmer in the borough, after lighting his pipe, threw the match away. A little later he noticed that the haystack was on fire, the match having evidently ignited the grass, and the flames having reached the stack. Attempts to beat out the fire with hayforks proved futile. The fire brigade was summoned and was engaged for about an hour with a good pressure of water in extinguishing the blaze. About twothirds of the stack was saved.

Owing to the withdrawal of the Government subsidy of £75 a year, military bands are finding it difficult to carry on, and it is feared that before long Wellington may find itself without band music for State occasions, such as the opening of Parliament, Anzac Day, and funerals. It is reported that the First Battalion Band has already disbanded, and that the Artillery Band is finding difficulty in carrying on owing to shortage of finance. Some of the bandsmen, who give their services gratuitously, are losing their employment, and difficulty is being experienced in holding the 'bands together.

In addition to the eumer coats now being sacrificed at the Melbourne Ltd., the management have decided to place on sale the whole stock of ladies’ smart ensembles at greatly reduced prices. These stylish goods should command a ready sale, as the coat and dress combination is as practical as it is smart.*

Those ladies who have not purchased their summer hats yet, should take advantage of the special sale of models at Madame Betty’s this week. . She is displaying a nice window of Crinoline picture hats in all colours at 21s 6d each. There are also linen hats at 5/11 and useful styles for all occasions from 10/11., This offer is for one week only. So don’t delay.*

IL was stated in our report of the case, police versus Harold William James, on charges of embezzlement of moneys from Newton King, Ltd., Hawera branch, that the embezzlements occurred between July 1, 1927, and August 30, 1929. Latter should have read 1928. This was shown in the subsequent evidence.