LOCAL AND GENERAL

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 19830, 3 May 1927, Page 6

LOCAL AND GENERAL

The following cases of infectious disease in the Wanganui district were notified during the past month: Scarlet fever 10, diphtheria 4 meningitis 1.

Investigation into his case at the Wanganui Magistrate’s Court yesterday, resulted in Edward Watson being required to furnish the sum of £1 and 10s costs as a penalty for failing to attend drill.

Net revenue returns for April for the port of Wanganui, totalled £10,254 10s compared with £10,422 17s 8d for the corresponding period of last year. The net beer duty for the month was £436 13s 4d as compared with £495 17s 7d for April, 1926.

A grocery store in Karangahape Road was broken into during the weekend and over £6O worth of stock was stolen, says an Auckland telegram. The burglar left his pipe on the counter and a heavy calibre revolver bullet found on the floor indicates that he was armed.

Permits for the erection of buildings to the value of £10,249 were issued by the Wanganui City Council during the month of March. The buildings and their ‘total values were:—Nine dwellings (£7,215), 15 motor-sheds (£416), four sheds (£80), 10 alterations and additions £548 10s; one new shop £1,989 10s.

For theft of a fire-extinguisher valued at £3, the property of Adams, Ltd., Francis C. Gomez, who pleaded guilty, was admitted to probation for a term of three years, by Mr J. S. Barton, S.M., at the Wanganui Magistrate’s Court yesterday. Accused, who was a married man, had three previous convictions for theft.

A valuable collection of books has been presented to the Turnbull Library by Mrs Mantell, widow of the late Walter G. Mantell, dentist, Wellington. The gift which includes rare works on New Zealand and many editions of noted English authors, has been acknowledged by the Hon. R. F. Bollard, and will be known as the Mantell Collection.

Yesterday was a busy day at the Government Labour Bureau, about 20 applications being received from unemployed men. Last week the total enrolled was 30, as compared with 62 the previous week. Labourers constitute tho bulk of the applicants but unfortunately there is practically nothing offering in the way of work.

On Sunday evening a motor car collided violently with a descending Stuart Street cable car, says a Dunedin telegram. Minor injuries were received by the occupants of the motor car. Gustav Johnstone and Mrs Gladys Lindsay, while on the tram a passenger named Mrs Watson was also slightly hurt. The motor was badly damaged, und the car slightly.

At 3.30 o’clock on the morning of April 29, Mrs Holmes, housekeeper for George Watkins, a farmer, of Kaiwaka, heard a muffled report, says a Whangarei telegram. As Watkins made no response to her knock on his bedroom door, she investigated and found Watkins had shot himself with a doublebarrelled gun. At an inquest on the following day a verdict of death from gunshot wound self-inflicted while mentally depressed, was returned.

An interesting point was raised by Mr J. S. Barton, S.M., at the Wanganui Magistrate’s Court yesterday in respect of a case of Sunday trading where defendant had served children with sweets. The Magistrate said that the Act bearing on the matter allowed certain premises to remain open for Sunday trading providing the refreshments were eaten on the premises. This provision was quite all right in the case of a plate of sandwiches, but a child could hardly be expected to remain in the shop while it ate six-pennyworth of sugar barley.

“New Zealand is rich in rare art treasures,” said Mr H. Ncwrich, custodian of the Wanganui Art Gallery, when he showed a “Chronicle” reporter two early seventeenth-century Italian cabinets recently bequeathed by the late Mrs Birch, of Marton. The cabinets are inlaid with ivory figures, and panels of walnut wood showing a beautiful grain. Evidently they were at one time the property of nobility as a family crest, also inlaid in ivory, is prominently displayed.

A young man who was out of a job and in arrears with a maintenance order, admitted at the Wanganui Magistrate’s Court yesterday that he had not registered his name with the Government Employment Bureau and during his spare time he did a little fishing at the wharfs. His father gave him cigarettes and his brother, who was employed on a vessel trading with Wanganui, gave him tobacco whenever he was in port. “You must take the necessary steps to find work,” said Mr J. S. Barton, S.M., “otherwise I shall see if I can find you a job.’’

The Taumarunui correspondent of the “Chronicle” reports that speaking there on Saturday evening, Mr H. E. Holland said that so far as timber was concerned the Labour Party advocated a revenue-producing tariff and would not permit other imported timber to drive New Zealand-grown off the market. Out of some 10,000 timber workers in the Dominion, 2000 were only partially employed. Foreign timber was being brought to the Dominion from Sweden at a cost less than the railage from Ohakune to Wellington.