Local and General

Chronicle (Levin), 11 February 1949, Page 4

Local and General

■ ■■ ~ £27,899 a Year The Waikato Hospital Board has accepLed tne offer of a firm of cleaners to do additional work at the Waikato Hospital for £3172 a year. This makes the total contract price for cleaning the buiM-r mgs at' the board's institution in Hamilton £27,899 a year. Unipn Secretaries' Wages Proposals for a minimum wage for trade union secretaries will be myestigated" by a committee set up yesterday by the Trade Union Secretaries' Association. ,The committee will examipe minimum wage provisions applyfzig to unipn. secretaries in other parts * of the" British Commonwealth and in America.

Puzzling Case . The Devonport pollce are investigating the puzzling case of Morley Cavell, 'aged 33, single, a laundryman, whb, walked into his home at 9.30 on'Wednesday night suffering concussion ' and also with a lump on his'head and a slight cut under the jaw. His motor car in which he travelled from the city to Devonport at 5 o'clock, cannot be found. He is unable to rememj ber anything after that.

Polio And Car Accidents Some surprise at the concern of New Zealanders about the nupiber of poliomyelitis cases this summer was expressed by Professor G. Pickering, of the medical school of j the University of Lon'don, when he visited Timaru. "How many cases have you had' in this district?" he asksd. On being told there had been three during the presept summer, he reinarked: "And how many persons have been injured in motor car accidents 'during the same time"? Smoking And The Heart Smoking might produce an irregularity in the heart-beat, bu.t he was doubtful whether any evidence could be given of its producing any disease, according .to Professor G. W. Pickering. There wasi as much heart disease among per^j sons who did not smoke as there1 was among persons who did. Pro^l f essor Pickering is the second j holder of the Sims Travelling Pro-i fessorship, and the head of the ' department of me'dicine at St. j Mary's Medical School, University i of London.'His main research worl? is on the heart and blood vessels. Land For Railway Extension The latest issue of the New Zealand Gazette notifles of ' the taking . of about ten acres of land at Marton, part of it in the Marton borough and part of it in the Rangitikei county, for the purposes of the Foxton-New Plymoutli railway (which is the official name for | this section of the Railway Depart•ment's line) ; and for "streetwi'dening piirposes in connection therewith." -Inquiries show that the land is being taken as part of a long-term policy for the eventual extension of the Marton Junction railway yards.

House Bar at Chateau Aceommodation is being prepared at Chateau Tongariro for ' a house j bar which will be available in the ' meuntime to guestp in the Chateau, I b'ut it will be of wider value should I the • King Country sppport tlie mtroduction of liquor ' by the re^ quired majority at next mo.nth's poll. The bar is heing built under a trafflc ramp in the basement below the present entrance to tlie building, and will occupy ap. area which in pre-war days was used for overflow accommodatioh. MbPll excavation work is necessary to proyide adequate rqom for people using the bar. ""