People and Their Doings.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 370, 11 March 1932, Page 6

People and Their Doings.

The Beauties of Out Cities at Night : High Prices for Gold Coin : Withdrawal of Well-known Inter-colonial Steamer : Death of Member of Pioneer Family.

JJAVIi YOU ANY SOVEREIGNS? Those people who have retained in their possession a few specimens of the one-time gold currency know that the coins are now worth more than their former value, but how much? An indication was given early last month when the Commonwealth Bank of Australia announced that it was prepared to buy full-weight sovereigns and half sovereigns at 33s Gd and 16s 9d respectively. These prices are in Australian currency... In England there have been many cases lately where gold hoarders have revealed their accumulations, tempted by the enhanced price of gold. Most cases are instances of misguided frugality. In one case a Newcastle man sold 10,000 sovereigns. He received £13,750. It had apparently never occurred to him that in all the years during which he had kept the gold hidden he was losing the income that his £IO,OOO would have produced had he invested it. A Lancashire man visited a bullion dealer five times, bringing sovereigns, and saying on each occasion that he had “ just dug up another flagstone in the kitchen floor.” © & having spent twenty-four years ploughing back and forth across the Tasman Sea, the Huddart Parker steamer Ulimaroa is to be withdrawn from service. She is to make two more trips and will then have completed her 403rd run in the intercolonial passenger and cargo service. The Ulimaroa was built at Dundee in 1908, and was specially designed for the AustraliaNew Zealand trade. She has carried many thousands of passengers across the Tasman Sea The Ulimaroa was the first vessel trading to New Zealand to be fitted with wireless. In 1916 she was withdrawn from the service and converted into a troopship. After the war she was refitted, and in 1920 she resumed her usual running. Except during intervals when he was on holiday leave, Captain W. J. Wyllie, the present master, has been in command of the Ulimaroa since she was built. ® ® W apparently, is growing tired of unrestricted street noises, and in an effort to mitigate the nuisance has been paying attention to the motor-c\'cles that have been making the streets hideous with their exhausts. No fewer than fifty-two prosecutions were brought in the Police Court early this week. Mr George R. Hogan, the chief traffic inspector, said that the way in which some of the motor-cycles were ridden about the town was fast becoming a public nuisance. The traffic department was determined to remedy the matter, and many other prosecutions were to follow this month. The department was now prosecuting in eyery case where an offence was disclosed-

iy£R A. B. GIBSON, a visitor from England, has been pleasing Wellington folk, lie told them that when he went to the top of Mount Victoria he was astonished at the beauty of the scene, with the thousands of city lights, the reflected harbour lights, and the masses of land and water below. “ I may be wrong,” he said, “ but 1 really think that such a view as you have from the top of that hill is as fine as anything anywhere in the world.” The peculiar thing is that most visitors to Wellington make a point of viewing the city from the hills at night, while most Wellingtonians remain ignorant of the charm the sight affords. Aucklanders and Christchurch people are, to some extent, guilty of the same fault. An Aucklander admitted the other day that he had never seen the city at night from the top of Mt Eden, while there are plenty of Christchurch people who have yet to see the fairyland scene presented by this city when viewed from Cashmere Hills on a clear evening. W W w lIERE has just died in Auckland Mr George Edmund Smith, for many years a well-known marine engineer, and a member of a pioneer Canterbury family. Mr Smith came to New Zealand as a child with his parents in 1859 by the ship Cresswell. T. hey landed at Lyttelton, and for many years the family lived at Papanui. Mr Smith served part of his time with the old Auckland engineering firm of Fraser and Tinne, and later he was in several of the Union Steam Ship Company’s vessels. lie war. in the island trade in the steamers Upolu and Ovalau. Later he was chief engineer on the mission vessel Southern Cross. When the Manukau waterworks scheme was launched Mr Smith was engaged ashore, and for years he held the position of engineer at the waterworks. lie was an ex-president of the Auckland branch of the Marine Engineers’ Institute. WWW r JMIE SUGGESTIONS made in the United States since the Lindbergh kidnapping case that kidnapping should be made a capital offence are not new. A little while ago the authorities became aware of a plot to hold General Dawes to ransom. rhe story that bandits had planned to seize the Ambassador to London was made public by Senator Patterson, of Missouri, who immediately sponsored the Kidnapping Bill, and it was stated that the attempt had been frustrated by the activity of an anti-kidnapping organisation in Chicago. General Dawes, who is now in Washington organising the £400,000,000 Credit Corporate. would make no comment, but he chuckled drily and blew out clouds of smoke from the underslung pipe that he always smokes.

a happy coincidence, a hitherto unpublished letter from “ Lewis Carroll ” (Rev C. L. Dodgson) came to light in England during the celebration of the centenary of the birth of the creator of “ Alice in Wonderland.” Travelling from Victoria to Eastbourne he amused a schoolgirl (now Mr* D. J. Mason, wife of Colonel Mason, a West Cumberland coroner) with puzzles, and afterwards sent her the following further problems: Make sense of this sentence; ‘‘lt was and I said not all.” Make the letters of this sentence into one word: “Nor do we.” The answer to the first one is possibly “It was 4 And,’ I said, not 4 All.’ ” The answer to the second puzzle is “ One Word.” WWW by the way, is still alive. She lives in Westerham, Kent. It is seventy years ago next July since Alice first went down that rabbit hole and found the Cheshire Cat, and the King and Queen, and all the others, and became the most beloved little girl in the world. Alice had two little sisters, and, at that time, they lived with their father, Dr Liddell, Dean of Christ Church College, Oxford. One day their father's friend, the Rev Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, a tutor at Christ Church, took the three little sisters on the river. It was so hot that they landed and sat under a haystack. The little sisters asked for a story, and Mr Carroll called up the Fairies and they took Alice away with them on her Wonderland adventures. Alice, of course, is now much older, but she is very happy and has lots of visitors to see her. Some of them come from far-off countries. WWW SIXT V YEARS AGO (From the ‘‘Star” of March 11, 1872) The Road Steamer.—On Saturday last Mr Charles Clark, acting under instructions from the Provincial Government, offered the Thomson road steamer and four waggons for sale by auction, at Mr Anderson's yards, in Cashel Street. There was a large attendance, but the bidding was commenced at the very small sum of £SO, and the plant was ultimately bought in at £SOO. Ir is said, however, that Mr Clark is now in treaty for a private sale. Malvern Hills. Mr Edmund Ford returned to town on Friday evening from a prospecting tour at the Malvern llills in search of coal. He has brought with him specimens of fine bituminous coal, which he obtained by driving in to the side of a hill very easy of access, the railway, now being surveyed from Rolleston to the Malvern Hills running through the section of land on which the coal was discovered.