NEWS OF THE DAY

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 84, 5 October 1940, Page 10

NEWS OF THE DAY

Determined and Cheerful,

The National Patriotic Fund Board has received the following .cablegram from England from its overseas commissioner, Lieutenant-Colonel F. Waite: —"I find London determined and cheerful." Preventing Pillage. Means of preventing pillaging from wharves and neighbouring property at Lyttelton will probably be the subject of a conference among shipping and railway interests and the importers' section of the Canterbury Chamber of Commerce, states the "Press." "The question of pillages," stated a report fi'om the importers' section to the chamber's executive council, "has been the .subject of inquiry. Members of the chamber have supplied considerable information in this connection, and it is proposed to have a conference with the shipping interests and the Railway Department, with a view to discussing possible means of prevention." Troublesome Adolescents. "We're having so much trouble with these adolescents, I don't know where to begin or end with them," said Mr. E. C. Levvey, S.M., in dealing in the Christchurch Magistrate's Court on Thursday, with a youth who had stolen a bicycle dynamo, reports the "Press." "The problem is growing every day," he said. "I don't know how to instil into their .minds a sense of proportion." Grey Harbour Bar. As a result of the flood in the Grey River this week, the shoaling on the harbour bar, which has restricted shipping movements at the port since the second week in August, has largely disappeared, states a Greymouth correspondent. Soundings on Thursday disclosed an improvement of 4ft in the depth of water on the outer bar. The low-water depth is now 14ft, and there is an lift 6in tidal rise at present, giving a high-water depth of 25ft 6in. Price Control 3000 Years Ago. In the time of Confucius, about 1100 8.C., China had price control* in times of calamity, according to a statement in a recent lecture by Mr. H. L. Wise, a member of the Price Tribunal. For every twenty shops there was a Master of Merchants for the fixing of prices according to cost. By the raising or lowering of prices the Government controlled the supplies and made an adjustment of demand and supply. Mr. Wise also mentioned that in times of need for such procedure there • was price control in ancient Greece, Egypt, and the Roman Empire. Dairy Factory Mishap. An unusual accident occurred at the Pahiatua Dairy Company factory at Mangamutu, states the "Pahiatua Herald." A cream separator was working at 6500 revolutions a minute, equal to 400 miles an hour, when suddenly the holding-down clamp came apart, the result being that the discs flew in all directions and cut pieces of machinery and a long length of water piping. Large parts of the concrete wall were also damaged. Fortunately the factory employees were in other rooms when the accident happened. The noise was heard a quarter of a mile away and the scene afterwards was as if a bomb had exploded. The cause of the acci dent was the crystallisation of the steel holding-down band. Unusual Fish Discovered. A large, strange-looking fish, about 7£ft long and with such soft flesh that it was difficult to land, aroused coni siderable interest when it was found on the coast north of Whakatane recently, states the "New Zealand Herald." As neither the Maoris nor the local ranger could identify it, the head was preserved and sent to the Auckland War Memorial Museum. Mr. A. W. B. Powell stated that the head was that of a Silvery Oar, a deep-water fish, which cannot survive in surface waters. There have been several other cases where fish of this species have been washed up on the coast of New Zealand, and a cast of one is on exhibition at the museum. The fish has a long vermillion-coloured fin along its silver back and a crest on top of it? head. Removal of Gaol Urged. The view that the Auckland prison at Mt. Eden should be removed to a j position well away from the centre of the city was expressed on Thursday by the Mayor, Sir Ernest Davis, states the "New Zealand Herald." The gaol is approximately one and a half-miles from the chief post office and is now surrounded by a thickly-populated residential area. "I have thought for some time of bringing forward the suggestion that the gaol should be transferred permanently from Mount Eden," said the Mayor. "Modem practice is to have prisons away from the centres of population. Time was when the present site of Auckland's -gaol was on the outskirts of the city; now lit is on the inner approach to one of , our finest residential suburbs. I think it should be removed to an outer area away from the busy town life. The building is not a thing of beauty, and its appearance has a depressing effect on the immediate surroundings. If the gaol were situated in open country it could be better guarded, it could be made self-supporting, and it would impart an isolation influence to its inmates, which, in spite of lock and key. the gaol in its present position does not give.' 1

£5500 Costs Awarded. Costs amounting in the aggregate to about £5500 have been awarded by Mr. Justice Callan to the defendants in the Hall estate case, in a reserved judgment dealing with legal costs for the seven weeks', hearing, states a Gisborne correspondent. The plaintiffs in the case were beneficiaries in the estate of the late Frederick Hall. The defend* i ants ■ were the Guardian Trust and j Executors' Company of New Zealand,! iLimited, Frank Wrey Nolan, the Bank of New Zealand, the Union Bank of Australia, and Douglas Campbell Purdie. Mr. Justice Callan delivered his judgment on the legal issues on July 18, but reserved the question of costs and also the form which the judgment should take, having regard to the expressed desire of the plaintiffs to have the way left open to attempt to upset certain sales. These matters were argued on August 30, the discussion of costs concerning O/ily the defendants other than Purdie, with whom the matter of his costs had been arranged previously.