Town Talk

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 73, Issue 148, 25 June 1930, Page 8

Town Talk

Te Aute Visitors The visiting Te Auto College Rugby team will be the guests of the Wanganui Union at morning tea at 11 o’clock to-day. Amateur Gardeners In order to assist amateur gardeners the Wanganui East Horticultural Society, has arranged a series of popular talks on the treatment of various plants. The first will take jilace in St. Alban’s Hall on Thursday evening next when Messrs W. Benefield and McCheyne Miller will demonstrate the methods of rose pruning and culture. Sunday Night Recital The Queen Alexandra Band is to give a recital in the Majestic Theatre (kindly lent for the occasion by the manager, Mr N- Hayward) on Sunday night in aid of the Mayor’s appeal fund. The programme will be in keeping with those arranged by the band previously and will be announced later in the week. Burglar Active Ou Monday evening a burglar entered the premises of the New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Agency Company Limited. Drawers were ransacked and papers left lying about, but nothing of value was disturbed. The premises of the Now Zealand Machinery Company were entered also but nothing of value was removed from there cither. Visit of Chief Scout Baron Baden Powell, the Chief Scout, who is expected to arrive in New Zealand next year, intended to make stops at the four centres - only. Representations have been made to the New Zealand Boy Scouts .readquarters, particularly by the authorities iu the Wanganui district, to include an additional stopping place for the benefit of this coast. There is to be a meeting in Wanganui to-night-and the probability is that Palmerston North, for the reason that it is most central will be suggested as “The Reason Why’’ At a meeting of tho Development League last night Mr J. Siddells commended an address recently delivered to the Wanganui Rotary Club by Mr C. L. Duigan, wherein the speaker had stressed what Denmark had done in the way of bringing waste land into cultivation. “Why arc wo lagging behind in New Zealand?” Mr Siddells wanted to know. “I’ll to'/ you why,” Mr T. W. Howie answered. “It is because the average farmer is not making a living off first class land. What the devil he is going to do without finance I don’t know.”

Unemployed Relief Wcrk In accordance with instructions laid down by the City Council with regard to the choice of men for unemployment relief works a ballot was conducted yesterday to select twelve unemployed to commence duties this morning. Those successful will be employed, in the main, on road widening work in the vicinity of Braeburn. There were 68 names on the list before the special balloting committee of the Council and this was arranged so as to give preference to married men, with dependents and according to the applicants’ suitability for the class of work to be undertaken. Under tho city unemployment scheme the maximum number of men to be taken on will probably not exceed 25.

Apathetic The secretary of the Wanganui and District Development League (Mr Tancred Cooper) referring to the recent public meeting called tq hear an address on taxation by Mr W. J. Polson, M.P., told a meeting of the League last night that there wore only five members of that body present. “The League called tho meeting,” ho said, “and there wore five League members there. Three wore farmers from as far away as Maxwell and Upokongaro.” Mr Allen (to the chairman): It was an insult to yourself and to Mr Polson. I’ll guarantee that all the members of the League were at the football match, but they weren’t, at that meeting. “That was more important,” said Mr ’J. Siddells. “But it was quite a representative mooting and a good address, although I did not agree with some of the speaker’s views.”

Hungry Travellers. Wanganui residents who have had occasion to use the New Zealand railways in their journeyings to different parts of the Dominion were at one time accustomed to long delays at the restaurants at the stations. Nowadays, however, their requirements in this direction are generally well catered for. and this in spite of the fact that tho population in New Zealand would scarcely justify extensive catering arrangements. In this connection, it is worthy of note that about 13,000,000 meals a year are served to travellers by the Canadian Pacific Railway, which is the equivalent of saying that it provides 37,000 every day and 259,000 every week of the year. This gigantic total is made up of about 4,200,000 in dining-cars and station restaurants, 4.450,000 on the Atlantic and Pacific steamships, 1,350,000 on inland coastal steamers, and 3,500,000 in the company’s hotels and bungalow camps.