LOCAL AND GENERAL

Taranaki Daily News, 15 July 1933, Page 6

LOCAL AND GENERAL

Five new consumers were connected to the Opunake Power Board’s system during the quarter ending on June 30. The total number of consumers is 1579, and the connected load 2280 k.w.

A slight bending and scratching of the mudguard was the only damage that resulted when the brakes of a motorcar standing in the southern end of Gover Street, New Plymouth, failed yesterday. The car commenced to run down the hill but had gone only a yard or two before the wheels turned and the vehicle ran across the footpath and came to a stop against a bank.

A man approached a teller in a New Plymouth bank yesterday and, putting a half-crown on the counter, asked for, change for it in pennies. Had the coin been among many others it might have passed unnoticed, but alone as it was it was seen by the teller to be counterfeit. It was a good imitation and not particularly easy to detect.

Of the 200 pairs of boots supplied by the Unemployment Board only 48 pairs remained undistributed yesterday afternoon at the New Plymouth office of the Labour Department. There has been a steady inquiry for the boots all the week from registered unemployed, and it is anticipated that the remainder of this first consignment will have been distributed when the office closes this morning.

D. N. Allen, a pupil of the New Plymouth Boys’ High School, was successful in winning the first prize of £1 Is. in an essay competition conducted by a Wellington newspaper. The competitors were invited to select as the subject of their essay the event or topic of the month of June that interested them most. The subject of the winning entry was “The Restoration of the Hapsburgs.” Commenting on the essay, the newspapei’ said that it was a thoughtful choice and disclosed careful preparation. At the same time the writer had offered more than a mere recital of related historical facts. His comment was reasoned and his style clear and pleasing. D. N. Allan is a son of Dr. and Mrs. Sydney' Allen, New Plymouth.

A broken collarbone was sustained by Mr. J. Bilski as the result of a spill at the Taranaki Hunt Club's meet on Thursday. He was taken to Waitara, where he was attended by Dr. Barclay.

A proposal to go into voluntary liquidation will be considered at an extraordinary general meeting of shareholders in the Hikurangi Coal Company, Limited, on July 20. The company has been in operation for 40 years. At the date of the last annual balance, December 31, 1932, accumulated losses stood at £32,295. The Desoutter monoplane which was damaged in a night landing at the New Plymouth' aerodrome on . Wednesday night was completely repaired yesterday and the pilot, Mr. S. Blackmore, took off for Hamilton at. noon. There were no passengers, and in spite of a head wind of moderate force .Mr. Blackmore expected to reach Hamilton at 1.30 pan.

Applications for the Government subsidy on constructional work of a total value of £50,391 15s. 3d. have been received in Palmerston North. The applications total 108, of which number 64 have already been approved by the Unemployment Board. The estimated cost of the .labour on the applications is £13,794 6s. 4d., which will carry a subsidy of approximately £4444. No appreciable change has occurred in the condition of Mr. Robert Bums, who received severe injuries in a motor accident in Auckland last Friday afternoon, his condition being reported by the Auckland hospital authorities on Thursday evening to be still serious. Mr. Bums’ neck was pierced by a steel curtain rod, which grazed the jugular vein, following a collision between two cars, in one of which he was being given a lift.

Officials of the Railway Department at Masterton have been somewhat astonished by the politeness of an unknown burglar who broke into the residence of the stationmaster amd later into the local station about a month ago. By entering the residence of the stationmaster while the occupants were asleep the thief obtained a wallet which contained, among other things, the keys of the railway station. Subsequently the station was entered, but nothing of value was removed. Now the stationmaster has received the wallet by post, but there is nothing to indicate from whom it came.

A laugh was raised among the farmers at the stock demonstrations at the Canterbury Agricultural College, when Mr. J. A. Fleming, of Sefton, was discoursing on milking strains of cattle. He advised farmers that if they were selling milk they should go in for the good-yielding Friesians, and if they were supplying cream the Jerseys would be best. A voice: “And what about the buyers of the milk?” Mr. Fleming laughingly replied that the consumers had to look out for that. As long as they paid, it did not matter.

An audacious theft was carried out at the residence of Dr. Cyril King, Fitzherbert Avenue, Palmerston North, early one morning. Later the intruder telephoned Dr. King and impertinently gave a few words of advice about leaving windows open. Access was gained to the residence through a side window which had inadvertently been left open. The intruder went upstairs, where all the members of the household were asleep, and entered Dr. King’s room. There he rifled the pockets of a suit and secured a sum of money. He discarded a wallet downstairs and left by the front door. In the evening the intruder telephoned Dr. King, telling him it would be wise not to leave any windows open in the future.

Another instance of a foreign substance being removed from a person’s body after a lapse of years is provided by a Gisborne resident, Mr. S. G. Wells, who has just had removed from his foot a piece of jarrah wood that must have been there for 20 years.- Mr. Wells calculates the period from the time, when a boy, he ran barefooted over some jarrah timber in the King Country, and states that he has never been near that type of timber in bare feet since then. He did not experience any trouble until a soreness developed three weeks ago. The spot was lanced, and a large jarrah splinter, three-quarters of an inch long, was removed.

Whilst repairing a high-pressure motor van tyre on Saturday morning, a service station proprietor was the victim of a painful and somewhat unusual accident. He had finished vulcanising a patch, and having affixed the lock ring, was pumping the tyre up, when without warning the tube blew out, the explosion being sufficient to drive the ring with considerable force against his head. Fortunately he was wearing a cap, the peak of which afforded some protection, but even then, the flying ring inflicted a gash in his forehead which necessitated the insertion of 14 stitches.

For places to be within a mile or two of each other, and one to have an annual rainfall of about 120 ins. and the other to be a place where it practically never rains at all, is, to say the least of it, unusual. Such conditions, however, are to be found on the top of Kilavea, said Dr. H. T. Stearns when lecturing on that remarkable Hawaiian volcano. The trade winds impinge upon the mountain, and on the side that gets the rain brought by these winds luxuriant jungle growth occurs right up to the edge of the crater. No rain, however, falls on the other side, where there is practically an arid desert

The success of the Poppy Day appeals centred at New Plymouth has attracted the interest of Returned Soldiers’ Associations in various parts of the DominWhen Mr. E. J. Carr, secretary of the New Plymouth association, attended the recent conference at Wellington .several delegates informed him that their districts had tried to conduct the appeal on lines similar to those adopted at New Plymouth, but they could not achieve the same results. It was generally admitted, indeed, that the results at New Plymouth easily eclipsed those anywhere else in New Zealand. Speaking to a News reporter last night, Mr. D. L. McKay, president of the New Plymouth association, said the comments heard by Mr. Carr at the conference were gratifying in that they were tributes both to those responsible for the organisation of the appeal in North Taranaki and to the public for its wonderful support.

A large moa bone —of the lower leg—was recently ploughed up on Ben McLeod station in the upper Rangitata, Canterbury. The bone, which is well preserved, is one of many that have been found on the station from time to time. When the first runholders went there in the ’sixties, a portion of the run near the homestead was liberally scattered with bones, but most of these were taken away by collectors. Many Maori ovens, with their lining of stones still complete, and some with moa bones scattered nearby, were also found there, and even now new ones are sometimes discovered. A legend still exists that in former times moas 1 used to migrate to the West Coast by way of the Rangitata Valley, making a beaten track past the point where Ben McLeod homestead now stands, and that there the Maoris used to lie in wait when hunting the birds. The existence of the many ovens, and of the moa bones, is the only evidence remaining to support the legend.

Mails that left Wellington on June 13 (per Makura), via San. Francisco, arrived ip London on July 13.

A profit of £lO4 was made on the charity ball held at New Plymouth recently. That sum has been handed to the St. Vincent de Paul Society for relief purposes.