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Taranaki Daily News, 12 November 1934, Page 4

Should there be an age limit for debutantes? This question was raised at. a recent meeting of the Brisbane committee held to arrange a cl.arities ball, which will be held in December, when the Duke of Gloucester will be present. One Epeaker said she had been told by the secretary of an organisation that applications had been received from “girls” of 35 who wished to make their debut. Amid laughter, the treasurer pointed out that the of a “girl of 30” was as good as that of a girl of 18. She said she thought the matter of age could safely be left to the good sense of applicants. Further evidence of the progressive dismantling and removal of the construction camp gear at the railheads of the South Island Main Trunk railway was provided recently, states the Marlborough Express, when a motor-lorry laden with sections of portable hutments passed through town. The huts are in demand as seaside bachs and farm whares. One resident, noting the contents of the lorry, remarked that it did not suggest much hope for the continuation of the line. “Oh, I don’t know,”' observed his companion, optimistically. “They sold the last of the old hutments at Wharanui only three months before they recommenced work the last time.” The value of the use of material objects to illustrate addresses to children in church is believed in by the Rev. L. McMaster, of the Onehunga Presbyterian Church, who brings into his pulpit each Sunday morning things generally familiar, but sometimes unusual, with which to teach a lesson. Among these have been lately toys of various kinds, the forerunner of the Braille system for the blind, a football and a model aeroplane. At one Sunday morning’s service the young people’s curiosity as to what would be the means of fixing in their minds the minister’s “talk” to them was satisfied when an Australian kookaburra in celluloid form appeared, and was hung on a branch of the day’s floral decorations, and their delight was added to when the “laughing jackass” rendered his “song’ per medium of a gramophone record. “We view the present crisis as the consequences of the violation of the laws of God, inevitably working out on a world which, in its economic motives and practices, shows abundant evidence of the worship of Mammon and its concomitant, selfishness,” states the report of the economic sub-committee to be presented to the meeting of the Presbyterian General Assembly at Dunedin. “The economic practices and policies of the nations condemn themselves by their tendency to frustration and futility,” continues the report, “by their denial of opportunity to the younger generation, by the misery and suffering that they inflict on tl unemployed, the weak and the unfortunate, by the social anarchy' and resentment they foster, and by their denial of the gracious goodness of God. The selfishness that cripples co-operation manifests itself in the rivalries of money-lenders versus property owners, manufacturers versus importers and producers versus consumers within the nation and without, in all the rivalry of one nation with others. Real summer weather such as we have just been experiencing has had a powerful influence on trade at Scanlan’s Melbourne Comer, where all departments have been working at high pressure during the past few days. The urge for something new and the necessity for fighter .apparel have created an insistent demand which, drapers in general Will welcome.*