LOCAL AND GENERAL

Taranaki Daily News, 17 March 1931, Page 6

LOCAL AND GENERAL

While Mrs. Keenlygide was leading a horse in a paddock at Toatoa, near Opotjki, with her arm round its neck, she was thrown heavily and received a fractured arm, dislocation of the shoulder, and a bruised ankle.

An instructive sign of the times was afforded at the Ngarqawahia Regatta on Saturday by the crew of the winning war canoe, who celebrated their victory, not, as one would imagine, by the chanting of some Maori war song, but by singing the popular “theme song” of a recent motion picture.

The approximate fire loss caused by the activities of the Christchurch fireraisers, Robert and Janies Gray, who were sentenced to lengthy terms of imprisonment last year, on charges including 22 cases of arson, was £48,500. These figures are given in the report of the superintendent of the Christchurch Fire Brigade. “If I thought that the police were making any discrimination against any section' of the community I should have no hesitation whatever in letting them know it,” said Mr. W. H. Woodward, S.M., in the Wellington Police Court in accepting the evidence of one constable as against the .depositions of five other witnesses in a case of conflicting evidence.

The cable steamer Iris is being, recommissioned and is to leave .Auckland tomorrow for Bass Strait to mend a fault in the Tasnioiiian-Australian cable. After the work is completed the vessel will proceed to Cook Strait, where two telegraph cables will be repaired. Captain W. Oliver is now in command of the vessel, having replaced Captain Hughes, who recently retired.

At the Workers’ Social Hall to-morrow afternoon L. A. Nolan and Co. will sell on account of Mrs. B. H. Chaney, the whole of her superior household furniture and effects. Inspection invited Wednesday morning.

“If a man incurs debts and continues to incur them without reasonable expectation of payment, he injures other men as effectively as if he deprive! them of their resources by a false, pretence,' said His Honour, Mr. Justice Kennedy, in the Supreme Court, Christchurch, in sentencing Harold Heney, grain agent, to three months’ imprisonment on seven breaches of the Bankruptcy Act.

To celebrate his 79th birthday Mr. H. R. Wilpon, New Plymouth, undertook an aeroplane flight over New Plymouth and the surrounding district yesterday. Mr. Wilson, who lives at the Old People's Home and is employed in the grounds of the New Plymouth puplic hospital, has for a long time cherished an Ambition to go aloft in iin aeroplane, and was immensely pleased with the experience.

“I see no fun in hurling food across the supper room, and I see no fun in cocktail parties,” said Dr. Marion Whyte at Dunedin a day or two ago when referring to dancing as a feature in the lives of young people. “Nobody can listen to the ' insistent urge of jazz—barbaric mqsic gathered from African tribes in rites we blush to see—without doing something, and there is no doubt that from this springs the impulse to hurl food across the supper room.'*

Fishermen at Corsair Bay and Rapaki. Lyttelton Harbour, are at present catching many of the curious little fish known commonly as “puffers.” These interesting sea specimens swell to an abnormal size when attacked or in any danger and adopt a ferocious expression; In just what manner the swelling is accomplished makes an engrossing subject for research and the habit is regarded as one of the most interesting of sea phenomena.

i There is a man living in Wairoa at present who appears to be earthquake proof, says the Tribune. He was in San Francisco when the big shake occurred there. Later he was in the one that struck Tokio, the capital of Japan, and on February 3 he was in Wairoa. The last-mentioned earthquake he considered the worst of the three in intensity. The difference lay in the fact that the other places had huge buildings in one case and many flimsy structures in the other, while in both the population was dense.

That the natives of the Solomon Islands fully appreciate the work that is being done by medical missiouai ies was stressed by Dr. E. G. S- ers in au address at Auckland on Sunday evening. He said that one old man, who suffered from severe asthma, Was so pleased with the result of medical aid that a few days later he sent a canoe load of ast-h--niatic people to the mission station. These natives travelled 150 miles, so keen ..were they to take advantage of treatment,

A peculiar discovery made at Napier oii Thursday afternoon was the existence of shoals of tyrge schnq,pper on the mud-flats which have appeared in the inner harbour lagoon, sayfi the Telegraph. The fish were full of life and were flapping in the mud and sand blinks in a desperate effort to reach water again. How long they had been there cannot be said, but it is probable tliipt they were left high and dry, when the tide receded on Thursday, on bciiks which were barely covered at high water. They proved sufficiently fresh and enticing, however, for several motorists to collect half a dozen or more—many of the fish were two or three feet long — to take home and distribute among friends.

In view of the fact that the county ratepayers are feeling the pinch of the financial position the chairman of the Whangamomona County Council (Mr. N. R. Cleland) yesterday declined to accept the usual honorarium of £5O, less a 10 per cent, cut, which councillors were unanimously in favoui; of voting him. Eulogistic reference was made to his Work as chairman in the interests of the council, and the opinion was expressed that if the chairman accepted a 10 per cent, reduction the same u's the rest of the council and staff it would be equitable treatment. The chairman, however, declined to accept the honorarium. The council insisted that Mr. Cleland should receive some reimbursement for the travelling expenses he had incurred, and he finally agreed to accept an honorarium of £2o. At the New Plymouth Rotary Club yesterday, Major Loder, of England, in the course of an interesting speech, remarked on’the beauty of the New Zealand bush, emphasised the desirability of preserving wliat remained for the benefit of posterity. In the Hot Lakes district he noticed a tendency to straighten the roads, thus making them Stiff arid, formal. . It would be far better to let them wind in and around the bush. The ptjblic garden at Rotorua were Well laid but and beautiful, but lie noticed an' absence of native flora, lyhicli was ever so much more interesting than exotics. Again in Wellington the Botanical Gardens were full of flowers and shrubs from Chili, China, etc., but had very few New Zealand flowers and shrubs. Later, however, he was to be treated to a walk for half a mile through Wilton’s Bush, a sanctuary of native flora. He commented upon the beautiful bush .that flanked the northern road and the local gardens he had been privileged to visit under the guidance of Mr. V. C. Davies. It was the crowning of a most delightful sojourn in a most beautiful country.

Selecting the quiet and peaceful hour of 10 o’clock on Sunday morning, a pugnacious Jersey bull, very sure of his independence, chose to search for fresh fields and pastures new. Contemptuously spurning the prosaic surroundings of Vivian Street, he tossed his head in the air, broke away from the herd with which he was travelling, and began to explore the unknown in Robe Street. His opinion of law and authority was translated into a spirited pas sent in front of the police station and a fearless examination of the courthouse. In fact, it was while he was stamping up and down the verandah in high dudgeon that his owner passed a rope around his nose and led him away.

The loan of the services of New Plymouth’s sanitary inspector has been requested by the Mayor of Napier. The Borough Council decided to inform him last night that owing to the pressure of work caused by the installation of the comprehensive drainage scheme in New Plymouth the council found it almost impossible to release either of its two sanitary inspectors, but if Napier found it was unable to secure the services of suitable men the council would exert every effort to comply with Napier’s request. The action of the Mayor (Mr. H. V. S. Griffiths) in arranging for the borough engineer and chief inspector to pay a brief visit to Napier recently was confirmed.

“TIM storage has proved of great value to, the system during the recent dry spell,” said Mr. C. Clarke (engineer) when reporting on the Mangamahoe dam to the New Plymouth Borough Council last night. The electrical engineer (Mr. W. H. Huggett), reporting for February, said that with the storage now available, with the Diesel engine and bther auxiliary plant in commission and by conserving the water in the system and reducing the draw-off from the Tariki system to a minimum, it was found that at the end of a dry period extending over 28 days the water level in the lake was down 12 inches, and had not been bglow 20 inches during that period. In the Tariki lake the drop was only three feet.