LOCAL AND GENERAL

Chronicle (Levin), 29 May 1946, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL

■ Briglit Meteor At 7 o'clock last evening a brilliant meteor was seen to fall vertically in the north-west sky. It had the appearance of a huge white ,Verey light slowly descending. Small Boy Killed Head injuries from which he died in the Hawera Hospital, were received by Murray James Raven, the six-year-old son of Mr. and Mrs. W. J. Raven, Riverlea, when he fell from a pony while riding home from sehool on Monday after - noon. It is not known what caused the accident. Opossum Season A supplementary gazette issued last night declares the 1946 season for the taking or killing of opossums to begin at noon on June 1 and continue until noon on October 31. The opossum regulations, 1946, are also published which revoke regulations gazetted in 1934 and subsequent amendments. Launehing of Hinemoa The Union Steamship Company's vessel Hinemoa, which will eventually replace the Wahine on the Wellington-Lyttelton service, will be launched at Barrow-on-Furness on Thursday by Mrs. N. S. Falla, wife of the late Brigadier N. S. Falla, formerly chairman of directors of the company. Of 6,900 tons, the Hinemoa is a twin-screw turboelectrie passenger-cargo liner and has been constructed by the Vick-ers-Armstrong Co.Danger Money Refused A claim for 47£- hours pay for 40 j hours work by Auckland Electric : Power Board employees, has been i refused by Mr. J. A. Gilmour, S.M., j who said it would be wrong for him j to do anything which tended to i undermine the Arbitration Court or i would embarrass it in the performance of its onerous duty of regulating the wages and conditions for workers throughout the Dominion. | Nor was he satisfied that any special j payment should be made in connecj tion with danger money. i Sunspot Activity | A good "average sized group" of I sunspots is visible at present, but ! it is not exceptionally active and | does not look like the type to proj duce magnetic disturbances accordi ing to Mr. I. Thomsen, of the Car- ' ter Observatory. The sun yesterday was not as active as it has been at times during the past two months, said Mr. Thomsen, but there was a large group apparently in the area of the sunspots which appeared in February and March this year with resultant aurorae and magnetic storms. Trampers' Programme The activities of the Levin- Waiopehu Tramping Club for June were decided at its monthly meeting last evening. A three-day trip will be held over the coming week-end to Otaki Forks and Mount Crawford with the Manawatu Tramping Olub. Working parties will leave the post office at 8.30 and 9 a.m. respectively on June 2 and 3 to proceed further with the" cutting of the Waiopehu track, which is now progressing satisfactorily. On June 16 the club will visit the power- house at Mangaore. Moimtain Fatality Recalled The death -of two men on Mount Cook last Christmas was recalled at the monthly meeting of the Levin- Waiopehu Tramping Club last evening by the president (Mr. N. M. Thomson), who referred to the fine work of the accident subcommittee of the Federated Mountain Clubs in investigating fatal mountain accidents, not with a vie wto fixing the blame for them but in order that the moral might be extracted therefrom for the benefit of others. The speaker mentioned that an ice axe and.a boot, with a broken cramp-on attached was the only trace found of the two men. A remarkable feature of the fatality was that the boot found was fully laced up and had apparently been torn from the victim's foot by centrifugal force in a fall of some hund'reds of feet through space down the mountain side. The Wellington, City Milk Department has its plans well ahead for the cQmmencement of a tanker system of milk transpQrtation from country depots in Wellington, and hopes there^y to obt&in material eqonomies in time and cost.