NEWS OF THE DAY

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 85, 7 October 1940, Page 6

NEWS OF THE DAY

" British Children. 3 Before north-bound and south-bound . children in the party from Britain which arrived here on Friday separated, they were taken for a bus tour j of the city and its environs on Saturday morning. In the afternoon the children for the South Island were the 3 guests of the manager of the Tivoli i Theatre and at night they left for the south by the steamer express. Tongan Doctors. The ability of Tongan doctors who had been trained at the Central Medical School, Suva, was commented upon favourably by Dr. H. G. BroWn, chief medical officer at Tonga, who is visiting Auckland on his way to Melbourne on leave. Some were excellent surgeons, while others were keen students of medicine, he said. The general health of the Tongan • people was excellent. No Longer Neglected. Till very recently the seamen were the most neglected service in the British Empire, said Archbishop O'Shea at the annual meeting of the Catholic Seamen's Institute. They had to put up with frightful quarters in many cases. It was impossible to have Masses said for those travelling and to get Masses said aboard a ship even for the passengers. What a change had taken place. Not only was every facility given on board for the passengers and the seamen, but the various institutes in the different ports which the seamen frequented were able to help them. It would be seen' that a tremendous change was coming about for the better, materially and spiritually. "Vulgar Croonings." The broadcasting of the worst type of jazz and vulgar croonings because people demanded it and paid so much a year for a licence, was condemned by Dr. Edgar Ford, visiting examiner for the Trinity College of Music, when addressing members of the Music Teachers' Association on Saturday night The same people, he said, paid for education departments, for. art galleries, and public parks, but we did not refer to the man who could neither write nor speak decent English, to decide on a course of literature, or to the man who was lacking in the most elementary technique of drawing, as to what pictures were to be hung. Nor did we go to the farm labourer for the design of a public park, or take a plebiscite on these matters. If good light music were consistently presented over the wireless for a period, the taste for. the banal stuff we sometimes listen to would, to a very great extent, disappear. Missing Persons. "Few, if any, are the cases of persons who disappear suddenly from the ken of their relatives and friends in which it can be said that there does not exist some possibility, however remote, of the missing person being alive somewhere, either in his own country or overseas; and that is equally so whether a person disappeared four years ago, as here, or forty," states the Chief Justice (Sir Michael Myers) in a Court of Appeal judgment. "Rarely, if ever, can it be said with absolute certainty that the missing person is dead, even though a period of more than seven years has elapsed and a presumption of death has arisen. Granting leave to swear the death of a missing person does not, therefore, connote that his death is an absolute certainty: it implies that the circumstances are such as to satisfy the Court that death is a practical, or what is sometimes called moral, certainty, in that no other reasonable probability is open. It may happen, and there are cases where it has happened, that a mistake has been made, but this possibility is inherent in all matters which the human mind is called upon to decide." Strawberries Already. Following a very mild winter and refreshing rain in the past few weeks, strawberries have made an early appearance on the Auckland market this year, several city shops having this popular fruit on Friday. Although this was the first occasion when the fruit was offered at the City Markets in any quantity, a few chips came forward on Monday, and another .small quantity | realised 4s a' chip on Tuesday. Prices are still high, the market rates on Friday ranging from 2s to 3s 7d, and retail prices approaching 4s. The first supplies of the strawberries, which are of the Captain Cook variety, came from Takapuna, Northcote, and Birkdale, but Friday's offering represented most areas around the city. As well as being well forward as a result of absence of winter root dampness and the favourable spring conditions, the strawberries have a very satisfactory appearance for so early in the year, and, given suitable weather in the near future, a good season should result. Crops are earlier this year than for some time past, the initial offering last year being on October 20, as compared with the last day of September this season. It is expected that in two or three weeks' time the fruit should come forward in what are regarded as marketable quantities, but until then strawberries will probably remain an expensive luxury. Cats on the Table. The cat population of Parliament House, like the cat population of the world in general, is subject to increase every now and again, and though this feline fecundity may not keep taxes down, it probably has some influence on reducing the number of rodents about the Legislature, though not those of a political sp6cies, because they all died off a long while ago—at least, every party sincerely hopes so. Bellamys is a favourite haunt of the cats, not for the allure it holds for scribes and politicians, but because of succulent tit-bits to be obtained there. The roof of Parliament House is also popular with cats, but so are all roofs, and anyway it is not only political cats who aspire to those dizzy heights— some politicians are believed to be up in the clouds, too. From all this it is clear that there are cats in Parliament House, though, of course, not in Parliament. And as the result of a recent interesting event in the Chamber of the House of Representatives there are still more cats in Parliament House. The venue selected by the matronly pussy for this Order of the Day was the table of the House itself, and it was an astonished messenger who one morning discovered that, besides official documents, he had also several kittens to take in his charge. Though in accordance with a strict interpretation of the rules of the House, the cat was out of order in producing the kittens on the table without an appropriate authorisation from the Commit-, tee of Ways and Moans, there was no time in which to refer the matter to a Select Committee, so cat and kittens were promptly struck off the Order Paper and removed to another place, their fate to be a matter for consideration next sitting day.