LOCAL AND GENERAL

Chronicle (Levin), 7 June 1946, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL

! The Interim Army I About 200 appiications for enlistIment in the interim Army, about half of which are from personnel at present serving, have been' re- ! eeived by Central Military District i Headquarters. Enlistments from j Wellington, Wanganui and New ! Plymouth have been fairly high m- ! proportion' to the total but the reI sponse from the East Coast has | been somewhat disappointing. j Fifteeri Road Fatalities With fifteen killed on the road j during May, the number of fatali1 Mes caused by motor-vehicles since i the beginnig of 1946 has reached a total of seventy-nine. Of the fifteen deaths recorded, six.were pedestrians, three motor-eyclists, five occupants of motor-vehicles ! and one cyclist. Five of the pedes- ! tiian accidents occurred in Auckland or environs and one in Wellington. No less tha-n ten of the ; fifteen deaths resulted from accidents which occurred in the dark. New Cargo Ship: i Another new refrigerated cargo ship for the Australian and New Zealand trade is being launched on : June 13, when the Norfolk, the first | of six similar ships at present bemg 1 constructed in British'shipyards for • the New Zealand Shipping Com- . pany, wdl leave John Brown's f Clydebank yards, Mrs. Nash will | perform the official launching. The : Norfolk, the keel'of which was iaid last autumn, is of 11,000 tons' and , closely resembles the Essex, Sussex and Suffolk, which are already : well-known on the New Zealand coasts.

Oooks for Schools , War-time difficulties in obtain- ' ing school books have abated, the Education Department intends to • : discontinue indenting books, in view of discounts now offered py , agreement between the New Zea- : land Booksellers' Association and, j the Department on 'books indented I by schools themselves. The Educa- ! tion Gazette states that the Depart- | ment believes that head teachers, j school committees and education j boards will find it more convenient | and little more expensive to pur- | chase books through local book- ; sellers. j Find of Ambergris i An accidentai find of ambergris was made lact week-end by a party j i of three deer-stalkers on the west coast. On the King's Birthday they : i were walking along the Muriwai Beach when they made their find. ; The piece was large, so they broke ; i off a small portion, buried the rest ; under the sarid, and asked the Gov- : lernment analyst in Auckland to- | rest the substance. . As a resuit oi j experiment he found it to be ! ambergris, and the deer-stalkers i hurried back to the spot where they iJtiad buried the larger piece. They , | returned to Auckland with 161b. of , j ambergris. ! ; | New Exhibits for Zoo A pair of guanacos, a pair of ! lions'"and one male jaguar have ' arrived in Auckland on board thc ; Kurow from the Zoological Gar- j | dens, Melbourne. This shipment is 1 ! part of a group of exhibits being | sent from Melbourne in exchangx ' ■ for the male hippopotumus sent by j the Auckland zoo a f ew months i I ago. The animals, which were ; Lstored on the" after-deck, stood up ; | to the voyage fairly well although \ ! all were sick during a patch of j | rough weather coming. across the ; 'Tasman. 'The male lion was thej jmost upset by the voyage and yes- I iterday he lay very quietly in thej ,j bottom of his cage and did not take j ! much notice of the bustle around : i him. t i jBi-g War Reserve of Petrol i j The Army in New Zealand had ; i nearly 7,000,000 gallons of petrol in | ' reserve during the war, and from j i September, 1939, until December 31, 1 1945, it used nearly 10,000,000 gal- j i lons.- This was revealed by Mr, P. j j Salmon, until recently a senior offi- ; !cer in the Supplies and Transport' branch at Army Headquarters. HeJ isaid that early in the war a reserve of over 3,000,000 gallons was placed! ;in various dumps throughout the': Dominion, and 2700 bowsers taken : ! over, involving nearly 1,500,000 gal- , :-j lons. Three large tanks at Ngarua- j 1 wahia, Waiouru and Burnham conItained more than 2,500,000 gallons, I and the oil companies held a reserve of nearly 500,000 gallons for I the Army.