LOCAL & GENERAL

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 73, 13 April 1937, Page 4

LOCAL & GENERAL

Widening of Main Highway. Good progress is being made witl the widening of the asphalt sux-face oi tlie main highway between. Napier ani Hastings and tar-sealing the new sur face. The work provides an extra thre( i'eet of roadway, and will be a grea' boon to motorists, the previous widtl eausing a certain amount of traffic con gestion at times. It is expected thai the work, which has been in progress for the past two months, will be com, yJeted in about a fortnight. Shortage of Nurses. "Owing to shortage of staff-nurses. it was found necessary to engage twc private nurses for 10 days and ninc days respectively, to relieve the trained staff for 'days off', " said the matron of the Ha^ke's Bay Hospital Board. Miss L. M. Croft, in her monthly report, when referring to the Hastings Memorial Hospital. For some time nO\v the Hospital Board has been troubled with the problem of nursing-staff shortage. Building Changes Colour. The colour of the one-storey reinforced concrete .building owned by Messrs MoOulloch, Butler and Spence, public iccountants, of Napier, is being changad from red, to cream. This wqrk does not comprise the mere painting of one coloured plaster over another. The task is a tedious one. Four men are engagfed in chiselling the red plaster, brushmg it with hard bristles and hosing down the powdered red dust. This recolouring is being undertaken because the red plaster would not consolidate. Loss to Competitions Society. Heference to the great loss sustained by the Napier Competitions Society in the recent death of the president, Mr R. O. Wright, was made by the vice-president, Mr William Harvey, at a special meeting of the executive last night. Mr Wright, he said, had been associated with the society ever since its inception and had been one of its mpst aetive and enthusiastic members. Actiug in purely an honorary capacity, he had done a gjreat deal for the organisation in a secretarial way Koau Returns, After an absence of a (ortnight on a trip that was expected to take three days, the .Napier rnotor vessel Koau returned, to port at 8-45 this morning. The Koau, which had taken a cargo of railwav sleepers and steel and a quantity of unslaked lime to Gisborne, was held up during the courge of a dispute with waterside workers there, jwho refused for some time to work with the crew pf the vessel, but. finally accepted the position, and returned to work after a hold-up which lasted 10 days, . H.B. Power Board Buildings. A start has now been made with the erection of the Hawke's Ba.y Electrio fower Board's 6tore in Eastbourne stpeet, Hastings. This building is expected to take about three months to build, and as soon as the foundations are completed the contraotor intends to malte a start with the main office building, in Heretaunga street. This is to cost just under £13,000 and will be completed early in Oc'fcober when the office staff will sliii't from Napier to Hastings. Ironbark Poles. "The operations of the board have been hajnpered considerably through the non-arrival of ironbark poles from Australia," reported the sepretary-man-ager, of the Hawke's Bay Eleetric Power Board, Mr H. H. Wylie, at this afternoon's meeting. "An order was placed for poles on October 1, J.936, and a very small shipment, the first of this order, was received during the month. We have now arranged for a special fixture with the Union Co., and'It is hoped to get the halance of tbe order early next month." Cyplist Regulations, Next week, cyclists who have not their machines properly equipped according to the traffic regulations will be brought to Court by police and traffio officers. Despite repeated warnings, there is a great majority of the cycles operated in Hastings and Napier that are without bells and other warning devices, and many of the red rear reflectors are not of the type required by the regulations. A large number of pedal cycles are also unequipped with thq requisite twelv© inches of whitepainted spaqe on the rear mudguard, and action will be taken against these oft'enders, many of whom have recently been warned. Placemept Sorvice. Ihe Hon. E. J. Mackrell, Minister oi Labour in the Country Party of the Victorian Gqverumeht, who is at present in this country making a study of the State Placement Servioe with a riew to introducing it into the Viotorlan System, paid a brief visit to Hastings ye^terday in the company of Mr A. J. Ridler, direotor of the service in New Zealand. In conversation with the officers in charge of the Hastings Placement Office, Mr Mackrell expressed his adndration of the valuable work being) achieyed by the Placement Service, and remai'ked that the Hastings office was the best in every way of the various offices he had visited so far.

Big Sohnapper Caught, Two outsize schnappers, the larges being 251b. and the other 181b., weri hooked by a Raglan lad, Willian Middlemiss, while fishing in the Raglai I Harbour last week. Tliis must be a re II cord, for a few weeks ago a Cambridgi I uoy landed a 20)lb. at Raglan and ii " was then considered to be the largesi 3 ever caught in the harbour, b 1 Taupo* Wairakei Road. Ij The main highway between Taupc 3 and Waikarei is beiug reformed anc . widened to do away with difficult grades and sharp bendB, including the dangerous curve above the Huka Falls. Af this point a deviation is being constructed 20 feet above the old road, which. | it is sugigested, may still be used as a 1 parking area for motoriste who wish tc j ° view the river scenery. New Matemity Hospital. i The erection of a maternity hospital i for Sister Gardiner in St. Aubyn street is the latest building) venture in Hastings. A permit for tlie work was issued by the borough building department tliis morning, the estimated value of the institution being £2700. Provision is made in the plans for four single and two double bedrooms, a nursery, and nurses' and private quartars. Oemand for Houses-. The strong demand for houees, particularly homes of the more modern type, is well illustrated by the largie number of replies that are received m practically every instanc© where residences are advertised in the Herald-Tri-bune "to let" column- The bungalow type of home is apparentjy more sought, witb most interest being taken in fiveroomea homes. The older honses are not so keenly wanted, but even with these there is a substantial number of replies received from prospective tenants. Lower-Grado Rugby. Junior grade RugDy m Hastings is to commence next Saturday, but the thirds and fourths will not start their oo .npetitions until the following week, At the meeting of the Hastings Rugby Sub-Unioj! it was mentioned by the various delegates that some difficulty was being met in filjing the lower grade teams, owing to the restrjctions enforcregarding the epidemic of infantile paralysis, and it was for this reason that, it was agreed to make a belated start with the competitions in those grades. "Mafeking Not Relieved '' The wretched state of houses in various parts of New Zealqnd was opmmented upon by Mr J- A. Lee, Parliamentary Under-Secretary in Charge of Housing, when speaking on the Government's housing scheme in tbe Auckland Town Hall on Wednesday. Mr Lee said when in Dunedin last year he found in Mafeking Terrace houses which had no hot water, were below the level pf the road, and in which the tin baths were ' used for etoring lumber. "I was forced to exclaim, 'Good it is 1936, and Mafeking is not relieved yet.' " Mr Lee added that he considered the bathroom in any hous© sbould be the most attractive part. Experienoed Thiet. Something new in the way of sheepstealing was revealed in the theft of one pf the sheep grazing at Windsor Par|:, Hastings, during the week-end. Some timo during Saturday night the intrnder secured a ffue two-tooth wether? skinned and cleaned it, and after throwing the skin, together with the head and the offii mto the stream, made off ivith the clressed carcase. The job was obviously done by an expert, and also by one who was well aware that the skin and head were the two portions of the sheep that. qarry identification roarks. This is not thq first time that sheep have been removed from the park, but it is the first occasien that the job of "stripping" it haa been carried out on the spot, More Moa BonesA discovhry of what are believed to be fragments of moa bones has been made at «'The Caves," Havelock North, wliere Lime Hydrators Ltd., are carrying out operations. It will be recalled that some months ago a workman disoovered a moa's egg while engaged in labouriug at the ueposits, this egg being reassembled by Dr. K. E. Qrompton, of Havelock North, for tfin liawke's Bay Museuni. The present discovery was made when a workman' s pick struck the bones, which were enibedded in the lime silica. Two fragments, both about a fopt long werp found and are exeellently preserved, They are apparently part of the iower portion of the leg, but until an expert opinion is obtained, this. will not be dolinitely known.