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Hokitika Guardian, 9 October 1928, Page 4

The continued inclement weather prevents any possibility of the opening of the bowling season at present. A meeting of the Westland branch of the Canterbury Automobile Association will be held at the County Chambers this (Tuesday) evening at 7.30 o’clock. One of the members of the Empire Forestry Delegation, due here on Thursday, is Mr Gay, Commissioner of Forests in Victoria. It is interesting to record that he is a son of Mr Andrew Gay, who traded in Hokitika under the style of Gay and Green, until the early eighties. Owing to a break-down in the machinery, the large sawmill of Butler Bros Ltd., at Ruatapu, has been compelled to close down for some weeks to await repairs. As a consequence a number of men have had to< be' paid off for the time being accentuating unemployment in the district.

gome general improvements are to be carried out on the main highway shortly, involving a special expenditure of about £I,OOO in improving dangerous turns on the ’Waimea, Stafford road, and widening and other improvements on lanthe hill and Mt Hereulus on the main south road. These general works will be appreciated very greatly as traffic on the roads in question is increasing year by year, and for general safety, several necessary improvements will bo greatly appreciated.

“The sooner we get a little of the ecclesiastical starch out of our collars and cuffs the better it will be for us and the Kingdom of God,” said the Rev. R. J. Patterson, delivering a temperance lecture at Hamilton the other night (says the Waikato Times). He gave a humorous description of church dignitaries denouncing the vulgarity of the iphrase “catch-my-pnl movement,” which he had coined. He added oiiat men who would shrink from welcoming the most disreputable were a curse to their Church congregations. There were women, too, who, rather than welcome a fallen, ill-kempt sister, would whisk away their'skirts for fear of contamination. “At least, that is what the women used to do,” he added. They can’t do it now because they have got no skirts to whisk.” —- (Laughter). ! New Linoleum Designs, reduced prices—fis fid 8s fid, 8s lid per yard; 12ft. wide 19s fid and 21s yard at McKay’s.—Advt.

A meeting of the trustees of the Hokitika Savings Bank will be held at 2.30 p.m. on Friday next, Oct. 12th. Among the votes on the Supplementary Estimates appears one of £1530 on account for the commencement of the great south road, to connect Westland with Otago. A Christchurch wire states that the Board of Directors of the Royal Humane Society have made the following awards: Leonard Gordon Hatch, aged 13, Wanganui, for rescuing a man Ifrom drowning on September Ist, bronze medal. Frederick Manning Larigdon, aged 22, Auckland, for rescuing a child from drowning at Onelninga on January 30th, bronze medal. When builders who were renovating premises in Collingwood street, Hamil urn, once owned by the Waikato Farmers’ Supply Stores, pulled down a partition at the rear of the shop, they found that a space between the walls, Bin wide and 10ft long, was packed Ifi high with nuts. It was stated that rats. had stored the nuts when the Supply Stores occupied the building.

The flood last week interferred w : the .protection works in hand at the Waitaki river, South Westland. A largo groyne is in course of construction to divert the river from flooding the adjoining land and damaging Richardson road. While in an incomplete state the flood worked, behind the groyne and overflowed tlie adjacent country, surrounding the settlers’ homes.

Messrs W. Weddel and Co. Ltd. advise dated London, oth iiist. as follows :—Danish butter 195 s to 196 s (last wetk 195 sto 1965); New Zealand, unsalted, 187 s to 196 s (187 s to 1965); salted, 178 sto 184 s (180 sto 184s)cheese, white, 112 sto 113 s (114$); cheese, coloured, 110 s to Ills (Ills to 112 s); market quiet. Canadian cheese, white 110 s to 114 s (112 s to 114 s); coloured, 110 s to 112 s (Ills to 114 s). Butter market slow, except for unsalted butter. “Think what he’s been; think what he’s seen ; think of his pension and —.” .Many old soldiers might substitute for the last word in Mr Kipling’s quotation an appeal for a job. Among the unemployed who have visited an office in Auckland recently is a veteran of tlie Imperial Army whose family record is remarkable (says a northern exchange). His great-grandfather fought at Waterloo. His father fought in Abyssinia and the Zulu War, and is now, at the a.ge of 86, hale and hearty "enough to sing “The Old Brigade” at a concert in the Scottish town where he lives. Six of this veteran’s sons were soldiers, and two died in South Africa and one in China in 1910. The one who is now looking for light work in , Auckland—a bout of malaria lias left him rather weak—served in South Africa, India, and the Great War.

The Port Craig sawmill, according to a Christchurch business man interested in the venture, has closed owing to the desperate state otf the timber trade throughout the Dominion. When the outlook improves, the mill will, doubtless, be re-opened. The mill employed about a hundred hands, who, with their wives and families, made ur almost entirely the little settlement of Port Craig. The settlement, almost at the southern extremity of the South 'lsland, is cut off from communication with the rest of the mainland except by sea. The timber is loaded on to boats by means of an aerial wire from the land, and provides red pine for Southland and parts of the North Island. “ Price-cutting has helped to place the timber industry in its present desperate state,* 1 added the informant. “It is like flogging a dead horse. There must be fifteen or twenty mills closed down on the West Coast now, besides many in the North Island.”