AUSTRALIAN NEWS

Waikato Times, Volume 118, Issue 19765, 21 December 1935, Page 13

AUSTRALIAN NEWS

HUGE CHRISTMAS PUDDING FOUR DAYS TO OOOK. In oourse of preparation at the Central Station Railway Refreshment •Rooms (says a Sydney paper), is the largest .Christmas pudding ever made by the railways authorities and next Thursday 800 retired railway officers will first admire its girth and then proceed to ©at It. The pudding is a gift by the director of the Railways Institute for the Christmas dinner of the Retired Officers’ Association, and among those who will have their “bite” as guests will be the Railways Commissioner (Mr Hartigan). The oompleted pudding will be 3ft Sin In diameter, the recipe being 1001 b of flour, 251 b of suet, 151 b of currants, 151 b of sultanas, 201 b of sugar, 101 b of minced apples, 71b of lemon peel, 101 b of butter, 3 gallons of milkj 3 dozen eggs, one full bottle brandy I The giant pudding will be cooked for four days in a special cauldron, after -a bucketful of threepenny bits and silver trinkets, has been poured into it. “LOW ENOUGH.” SYDNEY TAXI FARRS. I “I don’t think the public of Sydney want taxi fares any lower than they are-at .present,” -said the Minister for Transport (Mr Bruxner), when opening De Luxe Cabs’ new headquarters in Palmer Street, says a Sydney paper. Old model taxis in Sydney were 1 rapidly ibelin/g replaced, added 'the Minister, and at the present rate every c-ab on the road would soon be a reoent model. At -the end of last month 812 taxis, out of a total of 1037, were working on the 6d a mile basis. •Registered vehicles in New South Wales now numbered 253,000 —a record. 138 MILES FOR 6d. . CHILDREN’S RAIL FARE. •Children under 14 will be able to travel up to 138 miles for 6d from December 16 to January 25 as a result of an unprecedented reduction announced by the Railways Department, says a Sydney paper. The concession will operate from 9 a.m. to midnight, the boundaries being Otford (Illawarra line), Gamp•belltown, Kenny Hill (South), Penrith, Richmond (West), and Cowan (North). The possible 138 -miles -trip will be from Otford to Riohmond and return. END WORK AT 2 P.M. ( FUTURE SUMMER PLAN? “It may be possible some day to •allow our workmen lo commence very early In the morning and finish their work at 2 p.m: in-the summer,” said Alderman Wall at Botany Council, Sydney. Counoil considered how it should arrange the working hours under "the new 40-hour week, and finally decided to conduct a plebiscite of the workmen. Alderman Thorsby said the men should appreciate starting earlier In the morning during the summer, so that they would not be working through the hottest part -of the day. BOYS’ SLIPSHOD SPEECH. GIRLS COULD IMPROVE IT. What girl will faoe this task—trying to teach the boys to speak better? A hard Job, maybe, but Mr A. W. Hioks thinks it can be done. He told Sydney High Sohool Girls at their speech day gathering that girls could do much, by their influence, towards improving boys’ slipshod manner of speaking.

ONE HUNDRED OPERATIONS. , YOUNG MAN NEARLY WELL. Harry Jewell (25) of Concord, New South Wales, has had nearly 100 operations In 13 years and has been 25 times in Sydney Hospital, but doctors are now confident that he will soon be well. Kicked above the right knee at football when he was 12, osteo-myelitls and a bone disease kept him to his room or In hospital bed during all those years. “Altogether I have been under general anaesthetic '55 times and the other operations were with local anaesthetics,” he said. "I have seen the affected bone of my leg drilled a few dozen times. “I have studied accountancy while on my back and kept up a system of exercises for the body and arms so that I am In excellent condition.” Jewell appears a picture of health. SYDNEY MAN’S IMPRESSIONS. POVERTY IN RUSSIA. Poverty and terrorism in Russia were described by Mr .1. A. Perkins, M.H.R., who returned In Sydney with his wife by the Strathaird from abroad. Ho saw Hirer young women perform the marriage of two University students, who looked like farm labourers, in eight minutes. A divorce could 1m granted in equally sliorl lime, the fee for oil her being equal In scvenpcncc. Seventeen encampments held an average of 150,000 prisoners. Hunger was stilt rife, and doctors had told him children were growing up most unfit, from under-nourishment, ho said. An apparent building boom never got anywhere, because I lie structures I never appeared to be finished. j

In Italy, Mr Perkins was temporarily under arrest and separated from his wife, owing to a baggage misunderstanding, but was treated courteously by his three captors, .soldiers with fixed bayonets.

FULL BALARIEB. DEMANDS BY TEACHERS. Principal motions to be debated at the annual conefrence of the N.S.W. Public School Teaohers’ Federation Include demands for full restoration of salaries, and proposals that all other service unions be aslced to co-operate 1 by June 1 next, In demand to the Government to this effect. Another Item asks that the conference agree that the Government order forbidding officers to communicate with the Press or to express at conferences views with regard to Government policy is an Infringement of the civic rights of public servants, and that the Federation exert all its strength to resist this order. Conference will also consider a motion that in the event of the enforcement of an earlier retirement plan, pensions be increased by at least half. The Women Assistants suggest that conference assist In setting up a PanPacific Educational Conference in connection with the scsqull-centennlal celebrations in 1938. In the field of educational reform it will be suggested that the lime Is opportune for the. Institution of a Commonwealth Board of Educational Control, so that a national outlook can bn inculcated in children, and in remove what should be a national service from political control.