News in Brief.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20508, 9 January 1935, Page 6

News in Brief.

Gifts From the Depression. The depression, with which the United States is still very much at grips, has given San Franciscans two things they have wanted, but have not been able to afford for years. One is a 72,000.000-dollar bridge, eight miles long, from the city proper to Oakland, the suburban city across the bay, and the other is a bridge across the famous Golden Gate. According to Mr 11. Stuyvelaar, an American visitor to New Plymouth, only the Government’s determination to relieve unemployment with national, self-supporting and permanently reproductive work has made the big jobs possible for San Francisco. A Hairbreadth Escape. A party of Napier motorists had a very narrow escape from a serious accident when travelling from Napier to Taupo (states the Napier “Daily Telegraph”). They were descending the Taupo side of the Turangakumu hill, when, on rounding a sharp bend, they were horrified to see a large boulder hurtle from the cliff face on to the road inches in front of their car. The driver, although travelling slowly, had no hope whatever of stopping, and the car mounted the boulder, the engine sump being completely torn away and the whole engine badly damaged. Had the car been a second earlier, the passengers could scarcely have escaped serious injury. As it was, the driver was forced to coast down to the bottom of the steep hill without the aid of his engine, and there obtain assistance to tow the vehicle to Tarawera.