LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 4 October 1924, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

An old resident who died in Auckland last week' had been a member of the Grafton School Committee for 32 years (states an exchange). What is probably something in the , nature of a record in fecundity is re- ; ported in connection with the lambing on one farm in Canterbury this season (remarks an exchange). Six ewes have produced between them 19 lambs; one was the mother of four; each of the other five mothered triplets. Surely it is uncommon , for grass to be carried from a city to the country. It was done in Otago the other day (states the Star). A resident of the Central got up early on the morning of his departure, after spending a holiday with relatives in Dunedin, and cut a bag of grass to take home to fowls that had not seen greenstuff for weeks. “In the old days, no matter how far they had to travel to church and what conveyances were at < their disposal, people always went,” said* Archbishop' Julius at the jubilee commemorations, of St. Matthew’s Church at Fernside, Canterbury, recently (reports an exchange). “But nowadays,” he continued, “unless people have a RollsRoyce to take them over the first puddle they come across, they don’t go.” At a meeting of the committee of the Park Bowling Club last night, before the ordinary business was commenced, a resolution of condolence was J passed to the relatives of the late Mr W. C. Adamson. Amongst other busi- | ness transacted was the appointment of Messrs Stannard, Grant and Westaway to represent the club on the : , South Taranaki tournament executive. It was decided, should there be an entry of twenty or more players, to hold a progressive, tournament on Labour Day. “In the American papers—at least the majority of them—there is only an? odd little paragraph here and there that recognises there is a world outside of the United States,” remarked Dr. J. Macmillan Brown, on his return from a trip to America. “This is one of the most menacing features of the American nation. It is isolated; not merely in its politics, but in all its attitude towards the rest s of the world. It is this that will be its nearest approach to ruin. No nation, as no man, can isolate itself. We are born social animals.” - • Since the heavy rain recently the whitebait, which hitherto had been showing in* plentiful quantities, seem to have disappeared (says the Manawatu Daily Times). At least, this was the experience of several Palmerston North residents who visited the Rangitikei Heads at Tanghnoana the other day, and who stated on return that, although the fi§h were to be seen in isolated ehoals in the slow-flowing water, they were conspicuous' by their absence. One enthusiast netted a shoal of- what he thought were whitebait, and on turning them out found them to be that variety usually known as “cock-a-bullies.” Lambing percentages in the Ashburton County are not as high as was the case last year, though there .are instances here and there where exceptionally good returns are shown. The best appears to be that of 153 per cent secured from a flock of 350 ewes at Highbank (states an exchange). Generally speaking, the average in some districts which have completed lambing is not above 95 to 100 per cent. One farmer in a coast district secured 145 per cent last year from a fairly extensive .flock, but this year he obtained only 90 per cent. Farmers attribute the falling off to the recent prolonged dry weather. “In forty years the accent and the mutilation of English has greatly progressed,” said Dr. J. Macmillan Brown, Chancellor of the New Zealand University, who returned from America by the Tahiti this week. “The trilled r and 1 has become extremely prominent, and you might almost say universal, and it is the most difficult sound. The Americans turn the tip of the tongue up against the upper palate, and then make it trill. The result is they cannot pronounce the dental consonant after it or before it. For instance, they say ‘wah-er’ instead of ‘water,’ because the tip of the tongue is against the upper palate, and it cannot be brought back into contact with the teeth at the same time. Two other sounds they are-mutilating. They pronounce ‘o’ as ‘ah,’ ‘clack’ for ‘clock,’ ‘stap’ for ‘stop.’ And they are turning ‘a’ into ‘e.’ They, say ‘ken’ for ‘can,’ and so on. Altogelier, if the process goes on, within a generation or two the language will be unintelligible to other sections of the English-speak-ing races.” “On landing at San Francisco from Seattle,” said Dr. J. Macmillan Brown on his return to Wellington from America, “I was interviewed by three reporters and a photographer, and they laid before me some cuts from newspapers with great headings, ‘Garden of Eden in Nevada,’ ‘Mankind first created in Nevada,’ and asked me my opinion of the articles. I said that I thought the conclusions were wild. The editor of the Examiner, Mr Edward Clark, a very intelligent ; man, rang me up at the residence of Mr Robert Dollar (the shipowner, with whom I was staying), and asked if he j could interview me. I agreed; and he arranged a trip to the Golden Gate Museum, with Dr. Forbes, who had presented the museum with a large Mexican collection to the city. He drew my attention to certain printed statements about petrogryphs from Nevada, and asked my opinion upon them. I said, ‘I reserve my judgment wholly about your Nevada exploration and your conclusions.’ They offered to drive me out to the petrogrynhs on the rocks and pyramidals, but*l said ‘I have too little time, and you have not advanced far enough for a sound judgment to be come to. I shall be 'back in three or four years to see what vou have done; meantime, I reserve mv judgment,’ They got a young Chinaman from Nevada University to go and look at the -petrogryphs, and he translated them, and said they were the same as Chinese ideographs. Unfortunately, the editor had already got other exports to find them the same as the Babylonian, and others found them the same as the Egvotian, and still others the same as Maya, in Central America. As I remarked to him ‘they could not all be true.’ ” —Post. As Mr Greenwood will be conducting services at New Plymouth on Sunday, Mr w. Page will be the preacher at thj Church of Christ on Sunday evening

Messrs J. C. Williamson’s number one vaudeville company, headed by the world-famous Bransby Williams, is to give a performance at the Opera House on October 15. St. Mary’s Church was packed last evening when eighty-seven candidates were presented to the Bishop (Dr. Sprott) in the solemn rite of confirmation. At the U.A.O.D. euchre party and dance on Thursday evening the match guessing competition was won by Mr. C. Jackson, who guessed 759, the correct total being 760. The Eltliam Salvation Army Orphanage Boys’ Band will visit Hawera tomorrow afternoon. The party of some inn-fcy players and singers will visit the Old Men’s Home ■'early in the afternoon, and then motor on to the Pulffic Hospital, where, at 3 o’clock, their programing of music and song will be given in the hospital grounds. The band will be under the baton of Mr Ira Bridger, and Commandant Home, the manager of the orphanage, will accompany the party. The public are invited to*attend the performances. The Post Office at Wellington is crumbling away. The surface of the stone is now being treated with a preservative in the hope of arresting the process of decay. , A Times representative made an unofficial tour of inspection of the building on Saturday, and concluded with the impression that the measures being taken by the authorities are in no way previous and none too drastic. The Post Office, of which the foundation stone was laid in 1910, is built of Tonga Bay granite, a peculiar stone, apparently of a gravel' and shell formation, coarse in texture, and for that reason incapable of taking a smooth finish. The roughness of the surface invites the attacks of the erosive elements in the atmosphere, and hastens the process of destruction when once it is begun. Although the building has been erected only about 14 years, in exposed positions the stone, even on a flat surface, has weathered away as much as an inch, leaving' the cement, standing out in ridges between the blocks. Up on the top of the building, and on the twin towers which surmount it, such projections as mouldings and ornamental scroll work has weathered away to the extent of three inches. If the erosive action took the form merely of flaking the surface off the stone it would probably be a long time before there would be any occasion to fear for the safety of the building, but there is a tendency wherever a flaw is encountered for it to strike inward, cracking the stone and endangering-the building’s structural solidity.