GENERAL NEWS

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 19683, 28 December 1933, Page 6

GENERAL NEWS

It is understood that a number of North Taranaki Dairy Companies have received offers of B*d for the remainder of the season’s output of butter. In all instances these have been declined.

Yesterday Mr Alfred George Foster, of 37 Harper Street, was nominated for the vacancy on the Timaru Borough Council caused by the resignation of Mr A. M. Paterson. Mr Foster’s nomination paper is signed by Messrs John William Holdgate and Percy Cornelius Vinnell.

A motor-car when it arrived at the Aramoho camping ground was loaded like a modern battleship. When it came to rest, father began to hand out bundle after bundle. “What’s in this?” he asked mother. “That’s the washing for little Jimmie, Mabel, Tom, and Betty,” remarked mother proudly. ”1 did not have time to do it before I left, so I brought it with me. I don’t know how I will get on without an iron.”

The Union Company has decided to name the new steamer which is at present being built by Alexander Stephen and Son, Ltd., Linthouse, the Waitaki. The new ship has been designed for the service from Melbourne to Bluff, Dunedin, Lyttelton, and Wellington, and will replace the company’s Wainui, now running in the trade. The Waitaki will be of about 2260 gross tonnage, and will be similar in design to the Wainui, but faster. The Waitaki will be registered at Dunedin, and is expected to arrive in New Zealand about next June.

According to advice received by Mr T. J. Gardiner, who is acting as the local agent for Admiral R. E. Byrd's second Antarctic expedition, the supply ship and ice-breaker Bear of Oakland is not now expected to reach Wellington before next Saturday. The little ship is on her way from Boston to join the flagship Jacob Ruppert, and has already been delayed for some weeks in arriving in New Zealand. It was originally intended that she should meet the Jacob Ruppert in the Ross Sea about the first week in January, the two ships then going on to the Ice Barrier.

A Maori boy, R. Tomoana, son of Mr P. Tomoana, of Hastings, tied with a form-mate for first place in English in his form at the Hastings High School this year, and was loudly applauded when he went up to receive his certificate at the school’s prize-giv-ing. He is not the only remarkable boy at the school, however, for the principal, Mr W. A. G. Penlington, told the story of another boy pupil who, as the result of an accident, lost an eye and a hand, and yet such was his pluck and his determination that he qualified for membership of the school’s first Rugby fifteen.

Tropical sunsets were described by Mr J. H. Helliwell at the jubilee reunion of the surviving passengers of the steamer British King at Wellington. He said that when he saw Turner’s paintings of sunsets in the National Gallery in London he had thought that such things did not exist in Nature, but he soon altered his ideas when he saw the beauty of the tropical sunsets on the voyage of the British King. “They say that waves are never more than forty feet high, but to my recollection they were 140 feet high,” he remarked amidst laughter.

A substantial increase in the number of weddings solemnised in churches, as compared with those conducted by the registrar, has been recorded this month in Wellington. The registrar states that he has never known any month in which there have been so few registry office marriages. Only 11 marriages have been conducted by the registrar this month, whereas the average minimum number is 30. It is expected that the total number of marriages for 1933 will be about the same as 1932. Although this month’s total will probably be lower than that of the corresponding period last year, December remains the most popular month for marriages.

A cable message was received by the Red Cross Society, Wellington, from the Japan Red Cross Society stating that the Russian child Galina Bogatiroff, who was lost some twelve years ago when her parents were endeavouring to leave Russia, left Nagasaki. Japan, on December 18, by the steamer Atfuta Maru for Sydney, where she is due on January 11. As the Wanganella leaves Sydney for Wellington on January 13, it is expected that the girl will be a passenger by that boat. It will be remembered that through the efforts of the Red Cross Society the whereabouts of the child were traced to a village in Siberia. Subscriptions raised in the Wellington district will enable the child to be restored to her parents, who have been living in the neighbourhood of Foxton.

From persons who are not in business one sometimes hears surprise expressed at so much objection being made to the sales tax seeing that it is only 5 per cent. They would not be surprised if they analysed the workings of the tax, remarks the Dunedin “Star.” During a chat with a reporter on the subject the manager of one of the principal drapery houses in Dunedin produced a statement which he had prepared as to how the tax affected a recent shipment of fashion goods. The invoiced value was £B5l, but the unavoidable additions—Customs, exchange, duty. etc.—brought the total to £1787. on which the 5 per cent, is applied. Thus the tax mounted to £B9/7/-, or a fraction of over 10 per cent, on the invoiced cost. Through the ramifications the consumer has to find an extra 15 per cent., and to call it 5 per cent, is most misleading.

Christmas greetings have been received by the editor of “The Timaru Herald” from the Rev. P. Gladstone Hughes, formerly minister of Chalmers Presbyterian Church, who is now residing at Monkseaton, Northumberland. England. Mr Hughes, in remembering old friends and associates, says:—“As Christmastide draws near we return on the wings of thought to the host of friends in Timaru and South Canterbury from whom cceans and seas have separated us and to whom it is impossible to send individual greetings. To all of them we would send our kind remembrances and express the wish that the coming year may bring joy and plenty. We hope that the citizens of Timaru will continue to nourish the virtues of civic honour and devotion to the common good which alone can secure for their beautiful town a great and glorious future.” Half the fun of camping at meal times is the thrill of eating without any of the “good manners” of the home. Cooking “make shift” meals way out back has an appeal that's irresistible. But, nevertheless, certain cookLng utensils must be carried. There is the pan and billy; knife, fork, spoon and plate for each jierson. Oh, yes! and the "Kampkook" stove in case the i weather plays up; folding chairs and j stretchers for the "not so young” etc. j New chums may say “We're not going | away for good,” or “let’s rough it.' i But the old timer's advice i£ best; and that is: Go to England, Mcßae's lor your camp gear, and have no regrets...