LOCAL AND GENERAL

Taranaki Daily News, 24 January 1933, Page 6

LOCAL AND GENERAL

A Hamilton butchery business was sold, by auction at Hamilton on Friday for £9O. Plant, stock, fittings and goodwill were included in the purchase. When established in 1917 the business cost £3OOO to equip.

Two magistrates will be sitting at New Plymouth to-morrow. The ordinary weekly sitting of the Police Court will be presided over by Mr. W. H. Woodward, S.M., who is to succeed Mr. R. W. Tate, S.M., in the magisterial district with headquarters at New Plymouth. Mr. Tate, who will be conducting his last sitting, will be occupied in dealing with adjourned business, mostly maintenance applications that have accumulated since the beginning of the year.

Given as being an effect of the rise in the rate of exchange, lambs showed a sharp rise in price at Friday’s stock sale at Waverley. Lambs formed a large section of the total entry.

Good, progress is being made with the metalling of Carrington and Otaraoa Roads in the Taranaki and Clifton counties respectively, states Mr. P. Keller, district engineer of the Public Works Department. On Mohakatino Road, about three miles south of Mokau, crushers are being set up in preparation for metalling.

With three overseas vessels arriving at New Plymouth to-day and to-morrow and no work on Wednesday on account of the watersiders’ picnic, Thursday is expected to see the Hauturu (296 tons), the Holmglen (432 tons), the Port Wellington (7750 tons), the Surrey (8559 tons) and the Tamaroa (12,354 tons)- all in port together, a total of 29,391 tons.

Some unexpected increases in weight were shown by the children who spent a holiday at the Waikato Camp League s camp at Port Waikato. Of the party of 200 an increase in weight was shown by 143, ranging from lib to 101 b by the girls, and up to 71b among the boys. Fifteen of the children lost weight during the holiday, nine of them being girls and six boys.

Anniversary Day at Wellington yesterday prevented any of the four vessels from Patea with dairy produce being discharged there, two vessels arriving Saturday evening and two on Sunday morning. If they are discharged to 7 day and return to Patea to-morrow no work will be undertaken on account of the Patea watersiders annual picnic. Work on the waterfront will be resumed on Thursday.

In all his experience of the Police Force he had never been able to point to one officer as a bad. policeman, said Mr. R. W. Tate, S.M., at the farewell gathering of the court staff and police officers in his honour at New Plymouth yesterday. New Zealand was fortunate in having such a fine’ body of men to protect its civic interests. The members of the rorce were men whom none could bribe, and never did they place self-interest before duty.

Amongst the striking features of the Napier Carnival on Saturday 1 night, were the illuminations on xMarine Parade. A long string of coloured lights extended -on the outside of the "grass plots and auditorium from the Municipal Baths to the Masonic Hotel, in front of which building two large Norfolk Island pines were also brilliantly lit with coloured lights, arranged in pyramid form, the whole giving a very beautiful and brilliant effect.

The Western Federated (N. 1. Flying Club’s plane AAX was flown from New Plymouth to Wanganui yesterday morning by Mr. C. Parker to take part in the welcome ‘’to Sir Charles Kingsford Smith. Mr. S. E. Nielson, secretary of the federation and®the New Plymouth Aero Club, was a passenger. The return flight was completed at 7 o’clock last night, when a landing was made at the New Plymouth aerodrome. Mr. Nielson said last night that Sir Charles was given a great welcome by the Wanganui people. Advice has been received at Wanganui that a firm of Wanganui manufacturers had received the order for the cabinet work for the new Masonic Hotel at Napier. The designs were submitted in December and the prices calculated on the then ruling price of oak, mirrors and furniture covers. Delay ensued in finalising matters, and, as a result of the increase in the exchange rate advancing to 25 per cent., the cost of doing this work will be increased by approximately £3OO. By a few seconds a resident of Georgetown, Southland, escaped a' possibly fatal injury. He had been sitting on a sofa near a window reading a paper when he was called to tea. No sooner had he risen and moved away from the window a few feet than there was an explosion and a crash of glass. A youth, playing with a rifle in the street, had discharged a bullet through the window and it had entered at the spot where a few seconds earlier it woud probably have struck the head of the man on the sofa.

Looking as if it had been gnawed, the state of the pitch after the second test match at Melbourne, on which Australia had triumphed, for a time puzzled the authorities, according to Mr. A. T. Donnelly, who saw the match.. They were not long, however, in obtaining an explanation. As the crowd was still pouring out of the ground men were selling pieces of the wicket as souvenirs. They had dug these out immediately after the game had ended, getting the opportunity by joining the section of spectators who then rushed to inspect the wicket., Britain is turning from her role as the world’s bridge-builder to the world’s bridge-player. For, according to an unscientific survey, every other person you meet has a pack of cards of his own. Bridge clubs are as common now as coffee stalls used to be. As an indication of how cards are circulating one manufacturer of playing cards reported he had sold 6,720,000 packs in England during last year. “There has never in history been such a vast quantity of playing cards sold,” he said. “Just last week we sent out from this factory ’242,000 packs for bridge hands.”

Napier on Saturday was a cross-sec-tion of human emotion—its celebrants merging just pride with a carefree abandon, says the Hawke’s Bay Herald. Its dozens of ingeniously contrived floats aptly described what had occurred two years ago, while etching into the minds of those who -witnessed the pageant the certainty, as Mr. J. s S. Barton so aptly framed it, that Napier was indeed afloat again. In the course of his opening speech at McLean Park, the GovernorGeneral succinctly expressed What Napier citizens themselves believe, that Napier seems likely to point the way to the whole of the Southern Hemisphere.

Fishing from the launch Ozone on Saturday, Mr. H. White-Wickham, London, landed a striped marlin weighing 2111 b. This is the first swordfish this season caught by this well-known angler. While fishing from the Reliance Mr. Hobson, Auckland, fought a striped marlin for an hour and ten minutes, the fish leaping over a dozen times before it was landed. On being weighed at Otehei Bay it turned the scales at 2241 b. Mr. Hay, of Mercer, who was also in the launch, hooked a mako shark, which ga*ve him good sport for three-quarters of an hour before landing it. This fish weighed 1491 b. Mr. Adamson, of the Reliance, hooked another fish which, however, straightened out the hook and got away. Later, however, he landed a fine kingfish weighing 851 b. "It seems to me to be a slur upon the Governor-General,” observed Mr. R. P. Furness at a meeting of the Marlborough Automobile Association, in directing attention to the fact that whereas, as a result of representations by His Excellency, various oil companies had agreed to demolish advertising hoardings, the Railways Department, in Marlborough at any rate, was increasing the number of tioardings along its property facing the rural highways. “I can’t see the consistency of this,” proceeded Mr. Furness. “The Governor-General has done good work with the oil companies, but the Government, for the sake of a few pounds in revenue, is nullifying it all.” The meeting decided to draw the attention of the South Island Motor Union to the subject, emphasising that the association has no objection to advertising on railway stations, but does object to the display of hoardings along rural roads, as is the case with railways advertising in Marlborough. y' ’

A new political organisation, known as the Seddon Liberal Party of New Zealand, has been formed at Auckland and it is stated the movement has also been initiated in several southern centres.

There are now 56 boys in training at Flock House, near Bulls. They constitute the first drafts of New Zealanders, and with their period of training completed numbers are beginning to go out of the institution to make way for other sons of ex-soldiers. (

Confirmation of the report that negotiations were proceeding for the disposal to private interests of the NapierWairoa railway was given by the Rt. Hon. J. G. Coates in answer to an inquiry. Mr. Coates said he could not forecast what the outcome of the negotiations would be.

As the result of diving in shallow water, John Smith, son of Mrs. E. C. Dallison, Waverley, is now in the Patea hospital with' both arms fractured and one elbow dislocated. He is 15 years of age and was admitted on Thursday night. He was bathing with other boys at the Waverley beach and tried to dive through a wave off a rock, striking the bottom. His condition is reported to be satisfactory.

Another example of the need to exercise great care while handling explosives was demonstrated at Marakopa on Tuesday, when Mr. Henry King, a Maori, received severe injuries to his right hand while using gelignite. Mr. King was removed to the Te Kuiti Hospital, where it was found that his hand was fyadly shattered. Two of the fingers were blown off, while the thumb and third finger were badly injured, only the little finger being left intact.

There is on view at present at Te Awamutu a large piece of sandstone bearing ; the distinct impression of the teeth and jawbone of some ancient fish. As the sandstone was quarried at Te Rau-a-moa, well over 1300 feet above sea level, the find is interesting to geologists. In the same block of stone there was also found a tooth nearly two inches long and in a perfect state of preservation. The tooth was dislodged from the stone by one of the finders, and is being retained as a curio.

A brighter lamp-posts movement is afoot in London. It is a municipal move to counteract the gloom of winter with a splash of colour in foggy streets. The lamp-posts in Gray’s Inn Road have been transformed into harbingers of spring. They have been painted a . bright green. Westminster City Council favours silver, a tribute to the gay tinsel tints of Christmas. Many lamp-posts in the West End have been finished in the brightest of aluminium paint. The L.C.C. Fire Brigade, not to be outdone, has made its contribution to the brighter lamp-posts movement with a new type of brilliantly illuminated fire -alarm, which has been installed in the Elephant and Castle district. But the most brilliant ’ success is in Piccadilly Circus, with the handsome bronze columns, each holding a cluster of three huge lamps.