People and Their Doings.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19239, 28 November 1930, Page 6

People and Their Doings.

Two Elections That Ended In A Tie :MrE. T. Fisk And Radio-Telephony :Mr John Wood Has Served The City Many Years.

MR E. T. FISK, whose name is very familiar in connection with Amalgamated Wireless Ltd., is seen in this photo-

graph speaking into a wireless telephone to London. It is Mr Fisk’s company that has made telephone connection with Australia and England possible. In a recent statement, Mr Fisk said that Amalgamated Wireless was now ready to undertake the Australian side of a radio telephony service direct with New York,

Berlin, Paris, the Dutch East Indies, or Fiji, as soon as a license was received from the Commonwealth Government permitting this to be done. W . M* JOHN WOOD, J.P., who has been defeated in the Tramway Board election, was one of the earliest coach proprietors in Christchurch, running services between the city and the Riccarton Racecourse in the early days. He sold out to the Christchurch Tramway in 1890, occupying a position with the company until 1905. When the Tramway Board assumed control Mr Wood became the first Traffic Superintendent and saw the Board through the initial stages of traffic problems. He took up farming for a time, but, returning to the city, was elected a member of the board in 1918, becoming chairman in 1927. After the death of Mr S. Staples he represented the Riccarton-Fendalton district continuously. Mr Wood is a member of the Riccarton Borough Council and for many years ■was a member of the Riccarton Licensing Committee. In addition he has been a member and steward of the Judicial Committee of the New Zealand Metropolitan Trotting Club. r |f , HE MEDICAL profession has experienced many startling revelations of scientific achievement within recent years. Probably none of them, however, has proved quite as astounding for such basically sound reasons as the isolation of the bacillus of leprosy by Dr Hermann Dostal, a Viennese bacteriologist. Everything about leprosy has baffled investigators for centuries. Its causes have been but vaguely identified. No treatment has been more than partially successful. Now Dr Dostal has not only identified the cause but has devised a serum

JT IS CURIOUS how the names of M’Combs and Lyons have figured on ballot papers in opposite interests. Mrs M’Combs’s defeat of Mr M. E. Lyons in the Tramway Board election by a very substantial majority was quite different from the neck-and-neck race that Messrs M’Combs and Lyons took part in at the general election on November 4, 1925. The rough count on the night of the poll placed M’Combs five votes ahead (4614 to 4609), but a day or two later his prospects became less bright with the discovery that a great many seamen’s rights, which had been issued, had become ineffective because they had not been exercised by their holders, who were at sea. ' On November 13, after the official count, M’Combs was leading by one vote, with six absent votes to come. It was not until November 18 that the count was completed, and a tie declared, the returning officer giving his casting vote to Lyons. Mr Lyons was declared elected and drew salary as a member until he was unseated by an electoral Court, owing to the fact that many persons had voted for him wrongly, being outside the district. It was a striking fact that at the same election a tie occurred for the Westland seat, the returning-officer in that case voting for Seddon, who was unseated in favour of O’Brien. W 9 8P 'J’HE FIRST ENGLISH woman, novelist was. the lady commonly known as Mrs Aphra Behn. She was baptised at Wye in 1640. Her real name was Ayfara Johnson. She resided for some time at Surinam. Returning home, she was employed as a spy in Antwerp by Charles 11. She gave warning of an impending attack on the Thames by the Dutch fleet, but her warning was ridiculed, and she returned home to devote herself to literature by the name of “ Astraea,” Her first novel, “ The Adventures of the Black Woman," was published in 1684. Mrs Behn was anticipated in France by at least two female novelists—the Countess de Lafayette, who produced novels about 1660, and Mile de Scuderi, whose “ Artamene ” was issued in 1650. It is generally believed that the author of the “ Heptameron” novels after the Italian style was Margaret, Queen of Navarre who died in 1549.

QSCAR GARDEN, the aviator who will be seen in Christchurch on Saturday,

is very youthful in appearance, according to a letter written by a Wellington observer. He has an attractive and bright way with him, and at the many functions that have been held in his honour in Wellington he has won the goodwill of all present by his modest and manly behaviour. One can imagine that he has

been really embarrassed by the warmth and number of the receptions given him, but he has borne his blushing honours with a faint air of deprecation, pleading that he has not done anything so very remarkable as to deserve them. The Christchurch people who meet him will like him very well. QNE of Dr Otto Sverdrup’s chief feats in Arctic exploration was when, with the late Fritdjof Nansen and five other companions, he succeeded in landing on the east coast of Greenland in August, 1888. The party overcame great difficulties in penetrating the ice floes and reached 64 degrees north, gaining a height of 8920 feet on the inland ice, which was crossed on ski in two weeks to the west coast. On September 16 they reached the head of the Ameralik fiord, having travelled 260 miles on the glacier. An important principle acted upon for the first time in Arctic travel on this journey was that of starting from the less accessible side and pushing straight through with no possibility of turning back and thus with no necessity for forming a base or traversing the same route twice over. @ ® gVERDRUP was also the captain of the famous Fram when she left Christiania in the summer of 1893 and was frozen into the ice for her great north-westward drift to the highest latitude ever reached by any ship. The Fram was run into the ice at 77 degrees north and reached 85 degrees north. The ice was finally broken by blasting, and the ship reached Spitzbergen in August, 1896. After a second winter on the Fram, at a time when the ship’s northward movement seemed checked, Nansen made his overland journey, exploring the surroundings. Sverdrup brought back the ship safely with skilful guidance and the expedition yielded a great harvest of scientific results.