Local & General

Chronicle (Levin), 7 June 1949, Page 4

Local & General

6 Worm Prices Cut. Payment to small boys for worms to feed a platypus has been cut by half by the Melbourne Zoo. For 4s a 2 lb. jar,. boys have been collecting worms faster than the platypus can eat them, and earning up to £2 each a day. The rate of payment today is 1s a pound, Australian Transport. "In Austra ia it is not uncommon to see transport vehicles on the road carrying a 25-ton pay load, with 18 tyres on the ground and the cab so built that it contains a hevL in which one driver sleeps

while the other is- oper.ating the vehicle. In this way it is kept j conscantly traveliing," said Mr. G. } , c Warren, speaking on his tour of s ! Australia to the Noidh Canterbury ] I provincial agricultural section of 1 i Federated Farmers of New Zealand. ; • Last Residents Of No Town. Mr. John Symes, head of the last I family in No Town, a "boom town'' in the days of alluvial gold mining i [ on the West Coastr has died at the | age of 75. The only inhabitants I now are the Symes family. Mr. i Symes was a dredge hand in the X town when there were thousands of | tents and shacks in the valley. He I worked on early-day dredges and I on alluvial workings. No Town is | a few miles from the main highway I between Reefton and Greymouth. J Surprise Bargain. I It was a bold man who bid at an I Auck and auction ,sale recently for | a home ''permanent-wave outfit. I Perhaps he might noo have been so I daring if there had been keen com1 petition for the article among the 1 many women present. But, strange1 ly enough, no woman responded to 2 the auctioneer's invitation lO bid. So a "mere man,". somewhat selfi consciously, took deiivery of the j set after his nominal bid of 5s had I won it for him. There were smiles I ail round when the auctioneer, with i a scandalised look, said "Give him | it." i Optimist! ! | A nephew of the Prime Minister j (Mr. Fraser) by marriage arrived | at Auckland by the liner Rimutaka j from London on Sunday.- He i' | Mr. T. Suttie, who sold his home 1 and building business in Kent to j settle in New Zealand. He said one S reason for the move was that he ( had had enough of building re- ! slrictions ifi Britain. The outlook I for the building trade there was I hopeless as restrictions made it 1 almast impossible to build, Mr. J Suttie said after he had found £ | house, his wife, two chPdren, and I mother-in-law, Mr. Fraser's sisterI In-law, would come to New Zealand j Do You Know Winston Churchill? I "One of the most amusing things i that ever happene'd to me was in 1 Norway last October. A man on a j bus asked me if I was British anc | if I knew Winston Churchill. _ .1 2 answered 'Yes' to both questions J and before I could qualify the i answers I was dragged off to .a I par^y, made a hero of, and was [ toasted until my head ree'ed. It I was such a grand party .that I felt ■ it would t?e tactless Jto explain that 1 I wasn't a personal friend of Mr. | ChurcRiH's!" — Mr. Gordon Cooper, j president of the. Globetrotiers' Club i talking in a B.B.C. programme. j Pride In a Dustbin. I Perhaps City Fathers are right ! when they claim that the people of 1 Christchurch do not take sufficient 2 pride in their city (states an ex- ! change). But apparently a staff I reporter on a Sydney newspaper i thinks differently: "Rubbish blns } needs not spoil a city's appearance j In Christchurch, New Zealand— i the cleanest and most de'ightfui J little city I've ever visited— j there are dust-bins . everywhere I Not only do the authorities cleverI ly camouflage them, but they ! make them pay as well. For on f each bin commercial enterprise | boots its wares in attractive adver'I tiseraents. But the people of f Christchurch know what's,concealI ed behind the advertisements. and | that is what counts."