LOCAL AND GENERAL

Taranaki Daily News, 10 June 1931, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL

“Educated Chinese have a great aptitude for speaking English,” said Mr. L. Shearman, who returned, last week from a tour of the East, to a reporter. “They soon learn to use it most fluently. Even the best educated, among the Japanese fall far behind them as linguists.” With 16 first, 17 second and 16 third prizes and two high commendations, the Rangiatea Home again scored heavily in the vegetable section at _ the New Plymouth winter show, this time easily annexing the points prize. This splendid performance was evidence of the industry and agricultural skill of the old people. On the motion of the Rev. J. H. Mackenzie at the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church at Wellington, it was agreed that when a minister had been engaged in another calling for one year, his name should be removed from the ministerial roll. Provision w’as made for retaining the names in certain cases. "It has been said that I liberated 12 pheasants in a certain area just before the season started and then cleaned them all up; as a matter of fact I did not shoot one bird and. saw only one and that was out of range,” said the president, Mr. T. Richards, at the. annuall meeting of the Stratford Acclimatisation Society last night. The water supply not being sufficient to cope with the fire, milk and whey were used to extinguish the flames when a fire broke out recently in the boiler-room at the Pahiatua Co-opera-tive Dairy Company’s factory at Mangamutu, near Pahiatua. The roof of the boiler-room, was partially destroyed, about £2OO damage being done.

Tha first aeroplane to land at Inglewood, a Rotorua Airways machine, arrived at 12.30 p.m. yesterday from Hamilton. The pilot explained that he had left Hamilton at 11 o’clock in the morning with a passenger who had to be in Inglewood at 1 p.m. The landing w r as made on Mr. R. Ritchie’s property on the Hursthouse Road, and before the pilot left for Bell Block aerodrome lie made passenger flights over Inglewood.

“These offences seem to ho increasing,” said Mr. Justice Smith, when the first of four sexual cases came before him in the Supreme Court at Auckland on Monday. “I have endeavoured to avoid sending young men to gaol or have sent them for only a short time, but apparently I cannot continue that policy,” said His Honour. “I must increase the sentences. These girls under 16 must be protected, even, if necessary, against themselves.” “A boy kept at home goes to the devil, as a rule, more quickly than one who is sent out to school,” said Archbishop Julius in the course of the Cathedral Grammar School jubilee service at Christchurch on Sunday. “The reason is that they have never learned immunity by coming in constant contact with some of the factors of life. They are bound to meet them later, for, do what you will, you cannot escape their influence.”

“In New Zealand we have hardly learned to distinguish between speaking and oratory,” said Mr. L. F. de Berry during an address at Christchurch on Satuday night. “The New Zealand Parliament is about the drabbest and dreariest place to which one can go to spend an evening. .Talleyrand it was who said that words are not used to express thoughts, but to conceal them; and I believe our politicians still do the same.”

The need of improving the standard of the pictures exhibited in the Auckland Art Gallery was urged by Dr. E. B. Gunson, president of the Auckland Society of Arts, in an address given before the Auckland Rotary Club on Monday. His suggestions included . the purchase of works by New Zealand artists of the first rank, a radical wecd-ing-out of mediocre pictures and the appointment of a committee of artists to establish the authenticity or otherwise of a number of reputed old masters at present in. the gallery.

Considerable trouble is being .experienced by surveyors in Taranaki, it is stated, owing to the displacement or removal of survey pegs. At a meeting of the Taranaki branch of the Institute of Surveyors in New Plymouth this week a member reported, that a farmer on whose property one of the only two trig stations in his district was situated, had encountered the trig during ploughing operations and had apparently made every effort to remove it from the concrete base in which it was embedded. The tremendous trouble and inconvenience that can be caused by even one trig being slightly out of position can be realised only by men in the surveying profession. The meeting decided to draw the attention of the parent body to the position, and to the fact that ‘the people interfering with survey pegs or trig stations are liable to a fine up to £5O. The Historical Records Committee of the Presbyterian Church reported to the assembly that 45 per cent, of presbyteries and 57 per cent, of the congregations which had replied to a questionnaire had no adequate protection for their records from loss by fire or otherwise. The committee recommended that a carefully-compiled register of all records should bo kept in Wellington, and to enable that to be done presbyteries and congregations be asked to furnish detailed information. It .was stated that the circular of the committee had caused the Dunedin presbytery to have a strongroom constructed ’or ths safekeeping of records. The Rev. J. A. Asher caused some laughter by stating that the records of the Hawke’s Bay Pyesbytcry wcro stored in. a strongroom, "liosd records, with the exception of one or two which were in private houses, were all destroyed.

4n exceptionally nice little lot of very smart tweed frockfl is the latest reduction at the Melbourne’s Dissolution of Partnership Sale now booming. The frocks are all London-made, and are in pretty shades and extremely stylish. They were marked to sell at from 35/- to six guineas, and have now been reduced to sell at from 19/6 to 59/6. Every frock is a wonderful bargain."