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Dominion, Volume 20, Issue 41, 12 November 1926, Page 7

A step towards forming a branch of the Royal Colonial Institute in Auckland was made at a meeting of Fellows yesterday, when a committee was formed to work in the interests of the institute. There are not enough members to form a branch at present, and one of the duties of the committee will be to canvass for / members.—Special correspondent. Mrs. Isabella Hutchison, of Norman’s Hill, Onehunga, has the distinction of being the first White child born at Onehunga. This event took place on November 11, 18-14. Mrs. Hutchison celebrated the 82nd anniversary of her birthday yesterday.—Special Correspondent. The seamen on the steamers running from Dunedin to Dyttelton sometimes see a whale or two wallowing in the water, and they are quite satisfied to keep them at a distance. On the last trip north of the Holmdale, however, the men on watch had a rather unpleasant experience (reports the “Otago Daily Times”). The weather was hazy, and all of a sudden a huge mass rose 30ft. or 40ft. in front of the bow of the vessel, and a volume of. water spouted in the air. It was a whale estimated to be over 60ft. in length, and the ship had no chance of getting out of the way. Fortunately the whale, which became just as startled as the men on the ship, managed to get out of the way, but it must have missed the Holmdale by inches only as it disappeared in a swirl of water.' Thus was another peril of the sea averted. A remarkable point about the incident was that the whale appeared to be accompanied by shoals of porpoises—at any rate, they were there in hundreds as the vessel passed by the whale. 'Radio Station KGO. Oakland, California, broadcasts the time, day and date, because of requests from listeners in mountain and desert regions who lose track of time. Marriageable young women are becoming so scarce in the Peru district of Mas sachusetts that one young bachelor has offered ,to give the mayor a cow if he will find him a* wife. A letter, posted in 1911 to a resident of Uffculme, Devon, while serving as a private in the R.M.L.t*. at Plymouth, was delivered recently to him, after having been 15 years in transit. The vicar of All Saints’, Kettering, England, has been touring the streets with a barrel organ, to assist in the collection of a tqn of pennies toward a now: ctercb,