LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Thames Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 17662, 13 August 1929, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

A cheque for £lO was granted to the Hauraki Ladies’ Benevolent Society by the Thames Hospital Board yesterday.

The earthquake has its humorous side and some of the applications for relief have also some seivrn of humour. In answer to the question, “What is mortgagee’s name and address,” a soldier settler solemnly wrote, “King George, England.” “It is indeed pleasing to know,” satirically remarked a member of the Thames Hospital Board yesterday “that members of that great Cooperative Dairy Co. actually suffered a less in silence.” “You never heard a dairy farmer complain of anything,” rejoined another amid the laughter of the Board. When the box office for “Rio Rita” was opened at Collier and Co.’s music warehouse at New Plymouth there was a perfect deluge of inquiries over the telephone as to when day sales would commence. As there was no repy resentative of the lessees of the Opera House in town, and no instructions had been left, the desired information could not bp given. This apparently so annoyed one “lady” that she could not restrain, her anger, for she politely told the person replying to her to “Go to Hell” and immediately disconnected.

Speculation is rife as to,the fate of daylight saving this year. The generally accepted lielief is that the halfhour conceded last session will he enforced again, but in addition to that many people are confident that the full hour will he the order. At the recent Dominion conference of. the Farmers’ Union in Wellington, evidencing the wide difference of opinion among men on the land on the subject, a remit against the daylight saving measure was carried on the casting vote of the chairman.

Enraptured, the rather shahhilvdressed. little girl gazed into the window of a city toy-shop. Her eyes were glued to one of those model metal tractovs, gaily painted, and with the tiny figure of a man in' the driving seat. “Auntie, Daddy drives one of those things,” she lisped. “Auntie” was not very interested. “So he does, pet,” she conceded, her eyes on a handsome handbag displayed from an adjacent shelf. “Yes,” went on-tlfe. child wistfully, “hut Daddy hasn’t, got a silver, head!” From the envy in her voice it was obvious that the parental shares had slumped badly.

When the council of the North Canterbury Acclimatisation Society was discussing the question of taking swans’ eggs recently, Mr. L: A. Sliand said that he had been shooting on Lake Ellesmere for 30 years, and fuvans were as plentiful as when he had begun. There was no shadow of doubt that they did a good deal of harm. A few years ago there wap an abundance of ducks*on the Chatham Islands, hut to-dav ducks were a thing of the past. The swans had eaten them out of house and home. A motion by Mr. Shawl to collect eggp, with certain restrictions, up to November was defeated, and it was decided not to take any eggs this season.

A new plague for auctioneers i,> reported from Paris—the humorous ventriloquist. The wonder is that persons endowed with this remarkable gift have not caused much more trouble than they have. The temptation seems irresistible. The tense moment—“ Going, going . . .”—the despairing salesman, the jubilant liargainer; what a lark to arrest the curtain as it falls, to keep the figures posed unnaturally on the stage, writhing iii, prolonged climax !..The ParUan ventriloquist seems to have used his talent as a joke, making the final hid and then leaving the auctioneer to look vainly for the bidder. But he would have been even more effective if working with the auctioneer and annonymcusly forcing up the bids.