LOCAL AND GENERAL

Timaru Herald, Volume CLI, Issue 22184, 30 January 1942, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL

Jurymen Not Required As there is no business to engage their attention at the quarterly sitting of the Supreme Court in Timaru, Jurymen who were summoned to attend the Court next Tuesday will not be required to do so. Incorrect Parking Charged in the Timaru Magistrate's Court yesterday with parking a motor vehicle in a prohibited area in Station Street, Ivan John Williams, who did not appear, was fined 10/-, with costs 10/-. Remarkable Return A letter received by a Wellington man from a relative in the Shetland Islands states that in a war weapons week the amount aimed at was £60,000. When the returns were all in, the astonishing total of £280,000 was found. This is more than £l4 a head of the population. Soon Scared Not all National Military Reservists on sentry duty receive the prompt answer to their challenges which tne public must give. One small boy who incautiously approached a coastal defence post was promptly challenged by a National Reserve private who had advanced upon his quarry in true soldier fashion. “Halt! Who goes there?" he roared. “Garn. You can't scare me,” was the startling reply received to the age old military order. But the small boy's impetuousness soon gave way to genuine fear as he was gently but firmly ordered away from forbidden territory. Prisoner’s Notepaper Evidence that writing paper in Germany is becoming scarce, or that the authorities there are displaying considerable ingenuity in the use of captured material is suggested by a letter from a prisoner of war in Germany to his parents in Auckland. It is written on the back of a printed form issued and used by the British Army. A similar form has been utilised to improvise an envelope to carry the letter. The forms, which are numbered, were part of British materials captured, it is thought, either in Greece or Crete. Cost Him £lOOO This is the true story of a pair of binoculars and their sporting owner, says the “Dunedin Star.” The latter, a Dunedin citizen, responding to the appeal now being made, brought along a very fine pair of binoculars, offering them for sale. When asked what they had cost him, the man replied: “About £lOOO, I reckon.” The official, unable to accept this statement at its face, or focal, value, asked for further details. "Well, it's this way,” explained the man, “I’ve had these glasses for many years now, and, as nearly as I can calculate, I’ve lost at least a thousand quid on the rapes I have watched through them.” Preacher Imprisoned Vigorously denying that he had been malingering, Charles Cameron, described as an Evangelistic preacher, defended a charge of desertion from the Second New Zealand Expeditionary Force when he appeared before Mr J. L. Stout, S.M., in the Magistrate's Court, Wellington. A letter which Cameron had written to the Minister of Defence (Mr Jones), asking him to intercede on his behalf, was produced in evidence. Cameron, who pleaded, in his own words, “guilty to having missed embarkation, but not guilty of desertion,” was convicted and sentenced to three months’ Imprisonment with hard labour, . to be followed by defaulters’ detention. Message from Danish Sailor Thirty-five years ago a Danish sailor who visited Dunedin on board a Danish ship, enjoyed the hospitality provided at the Sailors’ Rest. Thereafter he corresponded regularly with a friend in the Rest until Hitler’s invasion of Denmark in 1940. As long ago as April of last year his friend sent him a 25-word message on an International Red Cross form provided for the purpose and last week a reply came back that the sailor and his family were well. The message reached him tn September after a long Journey through neutral countries to Geneva, from where it was taken by a German plane to Denmark. The reply was sent to the Red Cross at Geneva and found its way back to Dunedin after four months.