SOUTH ISLAND.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLIV, Issue 22, 1 June 1910, Page 6

SOUTH ISLAND.

Seddon Memorial. Tire Premier and party arrived from the North in Hokitika on Wednesday. The weather was very unfavourable for the ceremony of unveiling of Westland’s very unfavourable for this afternoon’s ceremony of the unveiling of Westland’s Seddon Memorial, a statue of the late Mr Seddon in white Carrara marble, standing about Bft high, on a pedestal of polished grey granite, suitably inscribed. The figure is a good likeness.

system is not enclosed in an envelope, but is dispatched to the addressee folded in such a manner as to exhibit the address as received from the dispatching officer. At the same time it is folded so as to secure absolute secrecy of the contents. Under the present system the message is given to a clerk to put into an envelope, and to seal up. Mistakes in copying the address on the message to the envelope, could, and sometimes did, occur. The new form is sealed up with a blue adhesive label. If the experiment is a success in Dunedin, the new forms will be adopted throughout the country. A Profitable Year. The Hon. Thos. Mackenzie stated to a reporter last week that the Tourist Department had had a most successful year, and a good number of country resources had been turned into profit. Up to the end of last year the Department would show a net profit of between £BOOO and £7OOO. At present he was anxious to do more work in connection with Mt. Cook, and also to link up the road system to the east and west coasts by a track over the mountains from Mt. Cook Hermitage to Copland Valley. When that was done he believed it would form the grandest tourist road in the world, and the link required would not be a long one, though built on Ixith sides, and with but a modest expenditure he expected very good results. Electrocuted. Shortly before three o’clock on Wednesday James Henderson, a lineman, who was shifting a low-tension wire outside Messrs. Burt’s foundry, in Cumberlandstreet, Dunedin, got his hand upon one of the wires, and was immediately electrocuted. Mr. Highley, foreman to Brinsley and Co., saw him hanging across the wire, and went up to his rescue, but, finding all the wires live, he returned to the ground to get the power shut off. Before this was done, James Kinch, a companion of Henderson, mounted the ladder, and attempted to take him from his position, but he himself was caught by one of the wires, and received a terrible shock, which left him helpless. Highley assisted to get Kinch down, and upon his removal to the hospital, Kinch quickly recovered. Henderson was got to the ground with some difficulty, and it was then seen that his hands were burnt to the bone. He was taken to the hospital, but examination showed he was dead. Kinch is a married man, but Henderson was single. Mr. R. Brinsley, whose works are right opposite Burt’s, says he heard an explosion just like a gun going off. He looked out, and observed a man lying over the arm of the post, where he had been working. The man who had been assisting him slipped down the ladder and ran into Burt’s-to get the power cut off. The head of the injured man had drooped by this time, and he was lying right across the arm. Kinch then ran up the ladder, and put his hands on the live wires, and the next instant he lay over the arm like the other man. Then Mr. Highley, Mr. Brinsley’s foreman, at great personal risk, went up the ladder. He took a rope with him, and fastened the first man s legs to the ladder. He pushed the man’s hands off the wire, and then the power was cut off. Secret Commissions. It is reported that “secret commissions”. between doctors and chemists are still quite in vogue in Christchurch, although not anything like to the extent ■before the “Lyttelton Times” dealt with the subject six or seven years ago. At that time som.e chemists so strongly opposed the evil that they induced Mr Seddon to take steps to put it down. He promised to introduce a measure into Parliament, but did not press it through, saying that the publicity given to the practice would probably abolish it, and that the passing of legislation might bo regarded in the nature of a slur on all New Zealand chemists. It would be like posting a notice on the house, “People addicted to drink not admitted as visitors here.” Sir J. G. Ward also took the subject in hand, but his measure last year had to be abandoned with many others at the end of the session. Most of the chemists here now consistently refuse to recognise the practice, but it is stak'd that there are a few who carry it on, and that there are doctors who make a “good thing” out of it at the expense of the unfortunate section of the community, who are naturally least able to stand an impost of this character.

Christchurch is the only -town in New Zealand where “secret commissions” afß given by chemists to doctors. Recreation Grounds. The question of payment of rates on recreation grounds was raised at a meeting of one of the Christchurch city bowling clubs last week. The matter has frequently- been discussed here, but no definite action hast been taken in the matter. Now tBHJ question will be referred to the bowling centre, and the probability is that all sports bodies will be invited to approach the Government with a view to the promotion of legislation to relieve grounds used purely for recreation from the payment of rates.