News in Brief

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 189, 11 August 1931, Page 8

News in Brief

“ Should be Framed.” “.We ought to get it framed,” stated Mr D. S\'kes at the meeting of the Tramway Board yesterday afternoon, when a letter was received from the North Beach and Waimairi Progress Leagues congratulating the board on the installation of the trackless tram system. An Unexpected Visitor. Whilst Mr Carter, of 18, Sarah Street, Timaru, was attending to his garden on Saturday, a live fish was dropped into it apparently from the air. Although the house is some fifty chains from the sea, as the crow flies, it is surmised that the fish was carried that distance by a gull or other fisheating bird. Mr Carter placed the fish in a tub of water, but it lived only a day. The creature, which is of grotesque appearance, belongs to the species known as bellows fish. Its length is four inches, depth two and a half to three inches and dead weight no more than six ounces. A Free Telephone. The public telephone box at the Sockburn railway crossing has been interfered with. A resident, on going into the box to use the telephone yesterday, found the front panel lying on the ground, and naturally, all the toll money was missing. It was an easy matter to replace the panel, but how long it had been movable it is hard to say. At any rate, a person knowing the circumstances would use the telephone by putting his threepence in and when the conversation was finished, lift off the front and collect his money. Street Collection. The Sumner Lifeboat Institution and the Rdyal Life Saving Society have been granted permission by the City Council to take up a street collection on Friday, November 27, the proceeds from the collection to be divided, 50 per cent to the Lifeboat Institution and 50 per cent to the Royal Life Saving Society, to be distributed among the life-saving clubs affiliated with the centre. No Town Planners. “ In a report of this nature there is no room for, rhapsodies on the matter of beauty,” stated Mr Frank Thompson, general manager of the Christchurch tramways, in a letter from London to the board. “ Suffice it to say,” he added, “ that I am glad there were no town planners when this old city of London was built. They could not possibly have produced its stateliness, its variety of architecture, its age, look nor its many quaintnesses.” New School at Hastings. The new Hastings West School, a fine wooden building erected to replace the brick building destroyed by the earthquake, was opened by the Minister of Education, the Hon H. Atmore, on Saturday afternoon. There was a large gathering of the public and the district’s educational authorities were fully represented. The new building, on which the Minister was very much complimented, is all wood throughout and is so built as to give an assurance of absolute safety against earthquake and fire. More than one of the speakers on Saturday described it as one of the finest school buildings in New Zealand. Soup Declared “ Black.” When some 150 men last week gathered outside the soup kitchen in South Brisbane, conducted by Mr A. Vaughan, their path to the kitchen was blocked by some forty of their number, who informed the others that they could not enter the kichen as the soup had been declared “ black.” The reason given was that the soup contained too many potatoes, and not enough meat. Hungry members of the group, however, were not to be persuaded, and burst through the door into the kitchen. Mr Vaughan, who distributes soup free, fearing an attack on the premises, communicated with the police, and some twenty constables quickly arrived, and the malcontents were dispersed.