NEWS BY MAIL.

Hokitika Guardian, 15 April 1925, Page 3

NEWS BY MAIL.

13th CENTURY CONVENT RESTORED. LONDON, Jan. 13.

liter being used for secular purposes for close upon 400 years, a 13th century convent building at Burnham. Buckinghamshire, is once again in tlie occupation of a community of nuns. Thev are to-day leading a most exactly the same life as that adopted by the' inmates of 1206 A.n.. while their dress, their services, and their prayers and meditations are similar to those ot

700 vears ago. ' While they are ail Anglican ordei the Community of the Precious Blood thev are founded on the rule of St. Augustine, and it was an Angus..man order — “The Canonesses Regular of te Lateral!”— which occupied the build-in-'s in the 13th. century When a reporter visited this ancient convent —Burnham Abbey— -m * he wintry dusk he found himself slipping book into tbe Middle 'l„ the old dwelling house standing ' beside the convent building the Reterend Mother told how the church of the bid abbey had gone, hut how in the building beside the oricinnl sacristv, chapter house, am part of the dorter (dormitory) remained. The chapter house to-day is . j Is the -chapel, but the sacristy still fulfills its original purpose. The original community, founded 1266 by Richard do Cornwall, Km : T TS" : °< ' Henrv A r III, and since then the abbey s has had many owners. In recent years • the ancient sacristy and chapter-house

were used as a stable and cowhouse, while the old dweHing-house—believed to be of Tudor date—now occupied by tbe Reverend Mother, was used as a barn.

The building was bought in 1914 by Air J. L. Bissley, of Maidenhead, who restored it, and was anxious that it should reurn to its former use. The Community of the Precious Blood, which was founded at Birmingham, moved to the old convent in 1916.

'Flic sisters never leave the precincts except on matters of urgent business. Their time is devoted to prayer and meditation.

NEW POTATO PERIL. LONDON, Jan. 13. In South Lincolnshire a new menace to potato culture has appeared, known a.s the cel worn (heteroilera schashtia). A few years ago eel worm disease of a different- variety attacked the bulbgrowing industry ill South Lincolnshire, but was successfully combated by sterilisation of the bulb and resting the infected land for two or three years. Oil some of the best potato farms in South Lincolnshire, the eel worm has made devastating attacks, and so far all preventive measures hard- failed. Oil land where a normal yield would lie six tons to the acre this new disease has brought down the cron in some instances to two tons to the acre. On some farms potato cultivation has been abandoned in certain fields for the present. The cel worm will live and spread in soil for seven years.

Sri far the attack seems to have been confined to “first” and “second carlies.” and what is known as the “main crop” has scarcely been affected. The disease seems to spread more rapidly (hiring a wet season, and the more intensive the cultivation of the land, the greater the liability to attack.

A Ministry of Agriculture expert has been scut to the district and has taken more than 1.000 samples of eel worm infect ion from farms. CHINA DUMPING. LONDON, February 9. Manufacturers in the Potteries are so alarmed by German competition that they have applied to the Board of Trade for the safeguarding of the pottery industry.

A prominent official of the English China, Manufacturers’ Association told a reporter yesterday that the dumping of cheap German cliina in this country was a grave menace to the town of Longton (Staffordshire), which is the home of the English china manufacture. “ft is the worst time the china trade has had for many years,” he said, “and the big ports like London and Glasgow are being flooded with cheap productions from Germany and fV:eeho-Sla vokia. “As an example of the kind of competition we have to face, 1 have seen china tea-cups and saucers of good quality produced by cheat) labour in Czecho-Slovakia retailed at 4s 9d, a dozen, whereas our lowest price for a similar article is 8s a dozen in the ware house.”

Messrs Uirks, Rawlings and Co, of the Vine Pottery, Stoke-on-Trent, who employ 1,209 workpeople, have not reopened their works since Christmas. Mr liirks stated yesterday that this was purely because they could not sell their products on account of foreign competition.