General News

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 180, 31 July 1936, Page 6

General News

Only the Judge Nervous! V "The judge is the only person who has cause to be nervous," said Mis» Elizabeth Blake when advising players not to be nervous at the drama festival in Hamilton. Drama Festival Adjudicator. The adjudicator at the festival for ■ the Hawke’s Bay area of the British Drama League, to be held on August 10, will be Mr. Arnold Goodwin, of Auckland. Sign-Posting. Wairoa and the surrounding district are at present being surveyed by the Hawke's Bay Automobile Association's service officers for the purpose of finding points at which signposts are needed. At present the Waikaremoana road and the Wairoa-Tiniroto road are being examined. Inspection of Bands. Whether it was advisable to continue the old practice of inspecting bands prior to contests was discussed at the annual meeting of the South Auckland Bands Union. It was considered that such a procedure could ' be dispensed with. It was contended that the spectators came to see the contest and not to witness a military , parade. It was decided that the in- ’*7’ spection be carried out at the assembly point prior to the street, march. Since the YY’orld Began. Since the world began there has been no change in the fundamental problems of the fruit industry. This was commented on at the Dominion Fruitgrowers’ Federation by the Hon. W. Nash, Minister of Finance and Marketing, who remarked that the fruit industry was the first on record. The trouble then, as now, he said, lay between the distributor and the consumer. From the first trouble had sprung all the troubles of to-day. The Judge’s Gloves. It is still a custom in New Zealand courts for the presiding justice at a session of a Supreme Court in which the calendar contains no criminal trials to be presented with a pair of white kid gloves by the registrar. It is rarely that an occasion such as this occurs, but at Gisborne some time ago the judge was presented w : ih the gloves. He stated that he did not. see the necessity for the registrar to pay for a pair of gloves on such an occasion. New Pay Day. Tuesday, instead of Saturday, will in future be the pay day for employees f of grocers in Wellington. This de- ' cision was made at a meeting of the Wellington Master Grocers' Association on Monday The reason for the change, it was stated, was because with the 40-hour week many firms would eliminate Saturday morning trading, and if employees were paid on Fridays or Saturdays there would be little opportunity for them to do their week-end shopping. Perambulating Town Hall. In order to give a graphic illustration of the incredible motion of the heavenly bodies, Mr. A. C. Clifford, during the course of an astronomy lecture in Wellington remarked that probably few of his audience realised that, as they approached the Town Hal’ to come and listen to his lecture, that building was moving about in space at the rate of 181 miles a second, but they had reached it all the came as they were moving in space at the same rate and in the same direction. That, however, was not the only motion which the Town Hall had. Others which accelerated the building's perambulations were 700 miles an hour, 12 miles a second, and 250 miles a second. Obviously, then, the Town Hall was moving pretty rapidly in space. Unprotected Pussy. (| Since July 8 it has been legal to kill " domestic cats in New Zealand and to possess or offer for sale their skins. Probably not many people know that pussy was among the animals protected by Act of Parliament in 1886, when the rabbit menace had become so acute that the National Assembly had to take notice of it and devise methods to abate the- evil. It was claimed that domestic cats would be an aid to keeping down the rabbit population, and in addition to dogs, traps and poisoning, the Government has since allowed the importation of weasels, stoats and ferrets to assist in the war on bunny (who seems to have thrived on the business). The new Act, passed this month, removes legal protection from cats, weasels, stoats, ferrets and mongoose, the animals being mentioned in that order. Novel Kind of Deputation, Claiming that they formed a deputation of a novel kind in that they were ever, offering him something if he wished to take it, representatives of the Dunedin Association of Commercial Science waited on the Minister of Education recently. The president, Mr. G. J. Errington, outlined the objects of the association in conducting examinations, and stated that the association was prepared to hand over its examination system if the 1 Government desired to accept it. All the association asked was that if the Government did nqt want to accept responsibility for the examinations, it. should discourage the formation of • bodies which might have similar objects. The Minister, after expressing I a doubt whether nore examinations were desirable in the education system of the Dominion, undertook to study more closely the activities of the association. Black Tuesday? The Minister of Finance (the Hon. W. Nash) has lost his voice. Not entirely, but, as the Workers' Compensation Act might put it, he has lost it industrially. It was with a distant huskiness he apologised to the gathering at the commemoration banquet of the Y.M.C.A. on Wednesday for not being able to fill his programme time. He spoke for only ten minutes. As strongly as his voice, lost and temporarily found, would allow, he emphasised that acts, not words, were the matters that counted. In the House, Acts were always preceded by Bills, which indicated that something had to be paid. He could not say any more, as he had to preserve his voice, he said, for Tuesday night (Budget night). The president of the associa- • tion (Mr R. H. Nimmo) staid he hoped the Minister had not lost his voice reassuring people that they had noth- i ing to fear from the Budget. Th- ’