Waihi telegraph With which is incorporated THE WAIHI MINER WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 1942 LOCAL & GENERAL

Waihi Daily Telegraph, Volume XXXI, Issue 8840, 4 November 1942, Page 2

Waihi telegraph With which is incorporated THE WAIHI MINER WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 1942 LOCAL & GENERAL

Appeal for Orphanages Street collections and stalls conducted by representatives of the various churches will be held next Friday, November 6, in connection with the annual United Orphanages Appeal. Donations of cash and goods will be gratefully received, and in an advertisement in this issue the Mayor, Mr W- M. Wallnutt, asks citizens to give the most liberal help they can.

Reading For Hospitals Books, magazines and donations of money in order that the work of supplying reading matter to the inmates of hospitals in various parts of the North Island may be continued required by the Auckland Provincial Comforts Committee, which draws attention to the need by an advertisement in this issue. The organisation is run by voluntary workers, and the address is 124, Pacific Buildings, Wellesley Street, Auckland, C. 1., while the postal address is Box 1402, Auckland. All donations will be acknowledged. Wreck of the Wairarapa i One of the most disastrous wrecks in the shipping history of the Dominion, the loss of the Wairarapa, occurred 48 years ago on Friday, October 30. A passenger steamer of 1786 tons, the Wairarapa was bound from Sydney to Auckland with 230 passengers and shortly after midnight on October 29, 1894, crashed into the base of a cliff on the north-west side of Great Barrier Island. Only two of the ship’s boats could be launched and in them about 60 persons reached the shore. Some clung to the rigging of the practically submerged vessel throughout the night and were able to get ashore at daylight on a hand-line, but many were swept from the rigging by the heavy seas. The number drowned or who died of exposure was 137.

Strange Coins When emptying his weighing machine recently a New retailer found among the pennies a strange collection of old coins and tokens. All were about the size of a penny, and a copper colour, though they differed slightly in thickness. The most interesting was a ißr-azil-ian coin, dated 1730, which looked as though it had been stamped in the middle. The date on one token, for an iron works, though indistinctly marked, looked like 1791, and the others bore the dates 1791, 1844 and 1858. A token which looked less used than the others advertised a New Zealand draper.

Europe’s Water Supply “The Romans had a wonderful bulk water supply system even in the year 312 8.C.,” said Mr R. P. Fish, borough engineer, to the Hastings Rotary Club. It was not until the year 1700, he said, that the question of a bulk water supply for the towns and cities was seriously considered. Pestilence, especially typhoid, had swept Europe through the lack of an adequate water supply. In Great Britain, due to industrial development and the drawing' of the people closer together, the question of a good water supply became urgent. Water companies were formed and each company looked after certain localities. These companies were controlled by Parliamentary legislation, and some of the legislation passed then was still in operation today. Actually, he .said, the bulk water supply was first developed in Europe and America, and after its development the death rate was greatly reduced. ,