Town Talk

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 84, Issue 16, 19 January 1940, Page 4

Town Talk

4. and P. Sports Meeting. A proposal that the Wanganui Agri- • cultural and Pastoral Association should organise a sports meeting simi- ’ lar to the events held annually at Parikino and Makirikirj will be discussed at a meeting of the General Committee next Wednesday The suggestion was made at the last committee meeting. Big Rifle Meeting. Riflemen from Wanganui and all parts of the Wellington and Taranaki provinces will meet at Bulls on Anni- : versary Day, next Monday, lor the ’ annual meeting of the- Rangitikei and 1 Cheltenham Rifle Clubs. The pro- - gramme includes a service match open to members of the New Zealand Forces other than members of rille clubs, over a range of 300 yards. Weed Eradication. Both the Wanganui and Waitotara County Councils aie engaged in the eradication, of ragwort on native and abandoned lands, -as well as lands ou- ! cupied by indigent owners. The coun- I ties engage men and pay their wages, I and the Department of Agriculture ’ refunds 40 per cent, of the wages in ■ , addition to paying the cost of ciic.-.i- i cals and the transport of the men to the work. Baling Wire Short. An appeal to farmers who may have more than sufficient hay-baling wire for this season’s requirements to assist their less fortunate neighbours was made yesterday by the Minister of Agriculture (Hon. W. Lee Martin). He said that considerable difficulty was being experienced by farmers in obtaining supplies. The position had been made more critical by the extra demand this season on account of the heavy hay crops in many districts. Sanders Cup Racing. The hope that Wanganui would be ' represented in the 1941 Sanders Cup yatching races at Auckland was expressed by the secretary of the committee, Mr. W. H. Bealand, at a meeting after the last race at Wanganui planned to send the yacht, Alouetta to compete in this year's contest but was unable to secure permission to compete. When the matter was raised at a conference on Sunday, opposition to Wanganui competing was expressed by Auckland and the Alouetta did not compete. Air Service Schedule. The daily air service between Auckland and Dunedin, which was intcociuccd late in December to cater for the holiday traffic, reverted this week to the reduced service in operation earlier. The last south-bound machine on the daily seneduie left Auckland on Wednesday- and the last north-bound Lockheed Electra left Dunedin yesterday morning. In future the machines will fly to Dunedin on Modays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and fly northward on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. There will be no Sunday service. Founding of New Zealand. Under the feature heading “A Hundred Years Ago,” the London Observer recently printed the following , paragraph:—Yesterday the new settlers destined to found the British colony in New Zealand, signed articles for the constitution of the Government of the colony on board the Oriental, the Adelaide and the Aurora, now lying at Gravesend. They seem- 1 ed in admirable spirits, and certainly c no pains have been spared by the l company to ensure proper comfort I and accommodation on the voyage. 1 The number of emigrants is 850, of i whom 150 are capitalists and the rest • operatives. I c National Art Gallery. . The Mayor of Wanganui, Mr. W, J. Rogers, with several councillors, t made a special trip to Wellington this t week to visit the National Art , levy for the purupse of selecting pic- , tures for the Sarjeant Gallery, Wan- ( ganui. It was decided to buy the oil ( painting by Lucy Kemp-Welch, R. 0.1., < “The Crest of the Downs,” which shows a team of horses and drivers on j the top of a hill under a fresh and . breezy sky. The visitors were much J impressed by the Coronation picture. ( which was seen to advantage in Gal- j. lery B. The view of Wellington, under perfect weather conditions, was J much admired from the Art Gallery - steps. ’ Live Tuatara Lizard. A tuatara lizard, which for the past ’ five years has lived in a spacious en- 1 closure in the courtyard at the back of the Dominion Museum Wellington, _ was put on public view at the’ museum for the first time on Wednesday. The problem of how to display the six-year-old reptile so that visitors might see it and yet ensure that it had a continual supply of fresh air was temporarily solved by the authorities in an unusual way. A long glass case was placed on a ledge outside a window, and in this the tuatara was placed, with a large pan half full of water. 1 Through the window the lizard could 1 be seen in the glass enclousure, lying f half immersed in the water, presum- ] ably to keep cool. Its air supply , comes from a special arrangement in ( the lid. Niemoller As Symbol. “All Christian people in this country must have been glad to learn that news had been received from a reliable source in Berlin that Pastor ■ Niemoller, though still a prisoner at : Sachsenhausen, is well both in body ' and soul," states the Outlook. “For Pastor Niemoller by his heroic stand . has not only captured the imagination and won the esteem of thousands in , other lands than his own. he has be- : come the symbol of one aspect of the ; present struggle. The Bishop of Nor- ■ way, in a message to members of the Church of Norway, is reported to have said: ‘lt is not necessary to name more than a single man—Martin Niemoller—to know that we here are not neutral in any sloppy sense of the word, but crystal clear about the side I we take.’ ” By way of contrast, there is a report in a Swedish paper that . according to a refugee German ; evangelical minister who has just cbme from the concentration camp at Sachsenhausen, Dr. Niemoller has : lately been subjected to "the severest disciplinary punishment’’ and has even been “most fearfully maltreated.” His fellow prisoners declared that it was a miracle that he survived.