People and Their Doings.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20232, 16 February 1934, Page 6

People and Their Doings.

Railway Workshops in New Zealand which were Recommended by

Sir Vincent Raven : A Gift for Lord Bledisloe :

How Quickly Money Circulates.

'J'HE NEW railway workshops at Addington, Hillside, Hutt and Otahuhu will stand for many a year as a memorial to Sir Vincent Raven, who died in London yesterday. These huge buildings were erected as the result of recommendations made by Sir Vincent and Sir Sam Fay, who inspected the railways of New Zealand a few years ago at the request of the New Zealand Government. One other recommendation of this commission was that the South Island Main Trunk should be completed. The members envisaged a train ferry running between the northern terminus and Wellington, and expressed the opinion that land and sea links should be completed before the railways could benefit. The late Sir Joseph Ward put the completion of the railway in hand in 1929, but the work was stopped three years ago on the recommendation of the Railways Board. $$ 9 FAMOUS municipal block apart- -*■ ments which have been a scene of fighting in Vienna are a unique experiment in workmen’s dwellings. Whereas before the war one-fourth of a working man’s wages went in rent, in the new apartments provided he pays only about 21 shillings a month. In the pergola-edged courtyard of this huge building tenants’ children splash in a concrete wading pool. “ When one visits the delightful block kindergartens,” wrote a visitor to Vienna, “ or the block laundries where workmen’s wives * do ’ their household linen, or the courtyard grounds, where workmen’s children scamper, it seems as if some lamp-rubbing genie had obliterated yesterday’s dreary tenement and planted to-morrow's community home in its place. Surrounded by a block apartment’s thousand or more souls, living among conditions of health and cheer, one experiences a singularly futuristic impression, as if beholding the advent of a new era for industrialism’s centres.” The enormous flat-house is citv-built and city administered. Tennis courts may be found on the top of the building. 9 9 9 PREFERRING to the fact that Victoria has an Australian-born Peer a? its new Governor, London “ Truth ” points out that Lady Huntingfield is an American. The Vannecks, who originated a couple of centuries ago with a Paymaster of the Dutch land forces, have long been settled in Suffolk, wh.ere their estate gave them

their peerage title. Both the second and the third Lords Huntingfield married ladies of the Arcedcckne family of Glevering, also in Suffolk, and it is a curious circumstance that there is sometimes also a Lord Huntingtower, that being the second title of the Earls of Dysart. 9 9 9 TTONOURS have been awarded to several X distinguished missionaries in the New Year list (says the “ Manchester Guardian"). Bishop Willis, of Uganda, who ihs retiring after thirty years’ service with the Church Missionary Society in Uganda, receives a C.B.E. He went out to Ankole in 1900. Another Church Missionary Society missionary to receive an honour is Mr G. T. Basden, Archdeacon of the Niger and unofficial member of the Legislative Council of Nigeria, who has also seen thirty years’ service in Africa. His work has lain among the Ibos of Southern Nigeria, where in the Awka and Enugwa districts in twenty years he saw some 13dchurches and schools established —all self-supporting. Mr A. G. Partridge, of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, who returned to England a year ago after two spells of lonely service as missionary priest to the islanders of Tristan da Cunha, is awarded an M.B.E. Among the recipients of the Kaisar-i-Hind Gold Medal is Mr F. Colyer Sackett, of the Methodist Missionary Society in Hyderabad, where there has been a remarkable movement towards Christianity among outcasts and among caste people. A N , UNUSUAL and generous gift to the Governor-General, Lord Bledisloe, as chairman of the Waitangi National Trust, was made by the Whanganui tribe. It consisted of a number of finest flax mats, woven by the most skilled women of the tribe, and ornamented in various traditional styles. The gift perpetuated an old custom general among Polynesian peoples, and the Maoris have presented fine mats to every member of the Royal Family who has so far visited New Zealand. What was remarkable was that when the pile was unfolded some time later, a cheque for £7O was found pinned to one of the mats. The donors, with rare modesty, had said nothing about it. The money, as it happens, is most welcome, because the Trust Board is much in need of funds, not only for carrying out improvements on the estate, but also for ordinary maintenance expenses.

A REMARKABLE EXAMPLE of the Speed with which a coin may circulate was supplied recently at Liverpool, New South Wales. On a Saturday morning a newsboy sold a paper to a returned soldier, who paid for it with a shilling which a friend had given him on enlistment in 1917. It was engraved: “My last shilling for Australia’s last man.” Within ten minutes the ex-ser-viceman discovered his mistake, and he proceeded to search for the newsboy to recover his keepsake. After twenty minutes he found the boy, but in the meantime a newsagent had collected the boy’s sales money. The digger went to the newsagent’s shop. A search of the till was fruitless, but the newsagent recollected having given a chemist change of a £1 note in silver. Calling on the chemist, the soldier found that the coin was still missing, but the chemist recalled having paid for several bags of wood with a florin and a shilling. The woodman was then visited. He did not have the coin, but he said that he had spent a shilling at a hotel on his way home. The soldier questioned the publican and others who had received change on the premises, but the souvenir shilling had not been noticed. The publican’s wife, however, said that she had just cashed a 10s note at the till and had purchased vegetables. With hope revived, the digger, the publican, and a group of people went to the greengrocer, who found the lost shilling in his cash bag. 3$ 9 © CIXTY YEARS AGO (from the "Star” of February 16, 1874) : Theatre Royal.—There was a good attendance at the theatre on Saturday evening last, to witness “ Lucretia Borgia,” which was very satisfactorily represented. Miss Aitken’s Lucretia was a piece of capital acting, and the applause was of the most flattering kind. Telegraphic Offices of the Colony.—The total number of telegraph offices in New Zealand is now 98, distributed among the various provinces as follows:—Otago 24, Auckland 20, Canterbury 14, Wellington 12, Nelson 11, Marlborough 6, Taranaki 4, Hawke’s Bav 4, Westland 3. The New Zealand and Australian telegraph cable.—The Governor of Queensland, on the opening of the Colonial Parliament, announced that the qonstruction of a telegraph cable from a port of New South Wales to a port of New Zealand had been ratified bv the Government of the latter colony. Queensland now only awaits the action to be taken by the New South Wales Government,