NEWS OF THE DAY

Taranaki Daily News, 21 December 1933, Page 4

NEWS OF THE DAY

Primary schools throughout Taranaki closed for the Christmas vacation yesterday. Primary school work will resume on February 5.

The New Plymouth Boys’ High School cricket team, accompanied by the coach, Mr. C. G. Bottrill, returned to New Plymouth last night from Nelson, where the annual match against Nelson College was played. Sixteen persons offered their services as voluntary donors of blood for transfusions when a test as to their suitability was made by the New Plymouth Public Hospital bacteriologist, Mr. V. G. Hawke. Of the 16 people who volunteered eight belonged to an organisation the members of which had already offered their assistance.

Donald McMillan, charged at the Magistrate’s Court at New Plymouth yesterday with forging the name of E. R. L. Batten to a cheque on the Union Bank of Australia for £B, and purporting to be payable to E. Bain, was remanded to appear at Stratford to-day. It was alleged the offence occurred at Stratford on June 29, 1933. The reason for the introduction of Fascism into Italy was the subject of an interesting address delivered by Mr. H. St. Leger Reeves, a member of the New Plymouth Round Table Club, to the club at the fortnightly luncheon yesterday. Mr. Reeves carefully outlined the condition in which Italy was in socially and politically in the past seven centuries, without a knowledge of which, he said, Fascism could not be fully understood, and explained the reaction of the people from the Bolshevism and Socialism of the post-war years. A sedan car driven by Mr. Thomas F. Slade, Queen Street, New Plymouth, and a car driven by a Stratford owner collided at the intersection of Bell Street and Avenue Road last night. Mr. Slade was turning out of Bell Street into Avenue Road when the collision occurred. The left-hand running board of Mr. Slade’s car was cut through, the lefthand guard smashed, the chassis at the point of impact bent and the spare wheel and bracket wrenched off. The other car had the right-hand front mudguard damaged and the bumper bar tom off. No-one was injured. Postal and telegraphic business so far this Christmas is ahead all round of that in 1932. The outward train mail despatched yesterday was 80 bags—receptacles, bags and hampers—compared with 69 for the equivalent day of last year. Tuesday’s figure was 103 compared with 88 in 1932. The outward telegraph traffic for Monday, Tuesday and yesterday was 25 to 30 per cent, above that for the equivalent days of 1932. The position usually is that the mailroom experiences a lull on the two days preceding Christmas Day while, the telegraph side increases. The inward business approximates on the increase side to the outward.

Extra out-size ladies’ bathing costumes have been very scarce this season but Scanlans Ltd. notify that they have just opened out fresh supplies of the famous Canterbury make in the latest sunback styles in all sizes including extra large. Good colours in stock including plenty of black. Prices 13s 6d to 19s 6d.

“It’s an awful night outside but it will do Taranaki a lot of good,” remarked the chairman of a country school committee last night in apologising for the inclemency of the weather.

It was only right that members of the Education Board should make themselves acquainted with what the school committees were doing, remarked Mr. W. B. Glasgow, a member of the Taranaki Education Board, at the Urenui school concert last night. Then, he said, they would not make the mistake, as he with several other members had done recently, of congratulating the Urenui school eommitte upon putting up a new fence when actually they were pulling an old one down.

The first prosecution at New Plymouth against a cyclist for not having a whitepainted rear mudguard was brought against Stanley John Barnes at the Magistrate’s Court yesterday. Barnes was convicted and discharged on this count and was ordered to pay costs 10s for cycling at night without a light. Inspector R. Day said a new by-law regarding white painting of twelve inches of mudguard had been brought in some months ago. Although cyclists had been warned some had complied with the by-law and some had not. It was the first prosecution and was brought as a warning.

Greatly-enlarged photographs of a screw-driver point and of the marks on damaged telephone slot machines were an important link in the evidence upon which a man was convicted in the Wellington Magistrate’s Court of breaking open three street telephones and stealing the contents. The accused was George Henry Trillo, 26, a seaman, and he was sentenced to three months’ imprisonment on two charges of theft of pennies, the sentences to be cumulative, and convicted on a third charge of theft. The magistrate, Mr. E. Page, remarked that the photographs showed unmistakably that the screw-driver found on the accused had been used to break open the boxes.

The holiday traffic between Wellington and Lyttelton will be very heavy at Christmas and all the accommodation on the Union Company’s ferry steamers Rangatira and Wahine will be occupied by passengers. Advice received by the Auckland office of the company yesterday stated that bookings for the Rangatira leaving Wellington for Lyttelton next Friday evening have closed. All the cabin accommodation has been booked and men were being given berths in the dining saloon. The advice also stated that berths for men only were available by the Wahine, leaving Wellington for Lyttelton next Thursday and Saturday, the remaining berths being shakedowns.

The clause in the Finance Bill, now before Parliament, which provides for the limitation of the liability of employers for accidents to their employees due to earthquakes was commented on by managers of Auckland insurance offices. It was stated that the clause was not retrospective and would have no bearing on the claims against employers arising out of the Hawke’s Bay earthquake of 1931. In these cases the Privy Council had ruled that employers were liable. However, under the clause, similar cases of liability would not arise in the future. “The purpose of the clause,” one insurance manager said, “is to remedy the law so that in future the utterly unexpected ruling of the Privy Council will not apply.”

Heavy motor traffic is on the roads of Taranaki, the baggage on the cars in many cases indicating that campers are on trek. In less than an hour yesterday 40 motor vehicles of various descriptions passed over Mt. Messenger, many of them obviously with holiday parties. About equal numbers appeared to be coming into Taranaki and going north. It was interesting to note the different ways in which the mountain grade was negotiated, especially on the down grade, the experienced motorist going into second gear and allowing his engine to act as a brake, whilst others, evidently more used to city roads, made the trip on top gear with the .brakes hard on to check the speed of the car, a course of action that would considerably reduce the life of the brakes.

The notice ‘.‘Passable to Motor Traffic in Fine Weather,” is displayed on the signpost at the Okau Road junction, having displaced the notice “Impassable to Motor Traffic” which adorned the signpost until yesterday morning. Advice having been received by the Taranaki Automobile Association from the Ohura County engineer to the effect that the slip in the grade, which had been blocking traffic, would be opened on Wednesday at the latest the association’s service officer at once visited the locality and made the necessary alteration. The heavy rain of the afternoon, however, would prevent motorists using that direct route to Ohura for some days at least. The service officer yesterday also placed “One Car Road Only” signs at a narrow section of the roadway on .Mt. Messenger in preparation for holiday traffic.

It is a common thing during the annual winter trek which takes place among sharemilkers to see lorries of all descriptions on the road loaded with furniture, goods and chattels, including among the latter oftimes the family. Such a sight, however, is unusual in the summer, when one expects to see motor campers with trailers conveying all sorts of baggage on the road. Consequently a motor-lorry going north yesterday attracted considerable attention. It was laden with household furniture and domestic goods of every description. - In the cab alongside the driver was materfamilias and a small member of the family, whilst huddled on the floor in a space to fit them were paterfamilias and three boys. They certainly did not appear to be travelling in comfort, and conditions would not be improved when they ran into the rain.

“When travelling over the Rockies recently,” said Mr. W. Nash, M.P., at the breaking-up ceremony of the Petone Technical College, “I was surprised to find what I have since discovered to be a relationship between the Rockies and Petone. When the train reached a point 5332 feet high it was stopped, and the passengers got out to view a palisade marked the ‘Great Divide,’ the boundary between Alberta and British Columbia. What interested me most was an obelisk erected to the memory of Sir James Hector, who discovered Kicking Horse Pass. I have since ascertained that Sir James, father of Dr. Hector, afterwards so well known in New Zealand, was a resident of Petone more than 75 years ago. Sir James Hector traversed this then undiscovered and unexplored region, and one can imagine the glow of satisfaction he experienced when he realised he had won through the Rockies.”

A European resident of Fordell has very enthusiastically commended the Maori method of cooking in a hangi—an oven in the ground. He says that food cooked by this method, on red hot stones, is very tasty, and, apart from that, the discomfort of a hot kitchen in the summer time can be dispensed with. Several Wanganui people have enjoyed meals cooked by the Maoris in hangis. The last notable occasion of this sort was when the opening of the Ruapirau bridge took place on the Wanganui River Road this month. When the British Rugby football team visited New Zealand in 1930 their first introduction to the Maori race was on the Wanganui River, at Parikino, and the friendships made then were sealed at the festive board, which was laid with lamb, pork and poultry cooked in steaming ovens in the ground by a method known to the Maoris 'long ago.