NEWS AND NOTES.

Hokitika Guardian, 17 September 1929, Page 8

NEWS AND NOTES.

MORE MARRIAGES

The official figures for the first six months of 1929 show a total of 5G93 marriage in the Dominion, which is Z 33 more than for the corresponding period of last year, and 86 more than the first six months,of 1926. If marriages may be regarded as an indication of national prosperity, these are certainly encouraging.

RACING CLUBS’ GENEROSITY,

The Auckland Racing Club has made a donation of £IOO towards the cost of the Cenotaph and Court of Honour .vhich are to be constructed at the Auckland AVar Memorial Museum. They have also voted £25 to the AA r estport Jockey Club, whose course and stands ,verc damaged as the result of the ’arthquake. The Takapuna Jockey Club has also voted £ls to the Westport Jockey Club. The Dunedin Jockey Club has voted £2l.

WHITE LINES OR DOMES? I

“I am not at all sure that there would not be some legal liability' on the council in the event of an accident caused by a collision with one of these domes,” said Mr J. Guiniven at last night’s meeting of the Takapuna Borough Council, when a letter was received from the Auckland Automobile Association advising, that it had been lecided white lines were preferable to domes for the purpose of traffic direction. The. council approved Mr Guini/en’s recommendation that lines should be substituted wherever possible.

RAILAVAY “TOURING” TICKET

The “ tourist” tickets, issued by the Railway Department, can be obtained to cover unrestricted travel over all the Department’s lines in both Islands, or )ver North and South Island, lines as desirea. In the former case they have an availability of seven weeks and in die latter four weeks, but for a small ulditional charge they may be extended for periods up to four weeks. In the p»st. “tourist” tickets have been available for first-class travel only. L’hey have, however, proved so popular hat the Department has now decided to extend the concession to, cover second-class travel.

TREATMENT OF ABORIGINES

“ The treatment of the aborigines in North Queensland is most unjust,” declared a New Zealander who is visiting. Auckland after .spending several years in the Northern Territory of Australia. ‘The blacks, who are of low mentality, are under the supervision of sub-in-spectors of police, who receive their money and dedpet the cost of cigarettes, tobacco, clothing and other necessities of life from their accounts. The natives do not have the handling of their money, and when they die they not infrequently leave big credit balances.”

AN ANCIENT PROFESSION

“ The profession of secretary is by no mean newj” said Mr Cyril Mackley, president of the Institute of Incorporated Secretaries, at the annual meeting if the New Zealand division. “An instance showing the age off secretarial work was the message that Antony had carved out on the obelisk in which he praised Cleopatra, and which now stands on the London embankment. 1 would quote that most painstaking man, • Samuel Pepys, who recorded affairs so minutely that in his diary he reports such events as: ‘ During the night, in turning over in bed, I accidentally struck my wife on tbe nose with my elbow, and so woke her up. I kissed her, and so to sleep again.’ As a matter of fact, Samuel Pepys, as secretary to Lord Sandwich (the Lord of the Admiralty), was acknowledged as having laid the sound financial and administrative foundations of the British Navy, which anybody would concede after reading his minute descriptions of his transactions.”

MAORI LOGIC,

Speaking at the Methodist Maori Mission entertainment in Wellington recently, the Rev. Tahupotiki Haddon, a senior superintendent, told the audience that in the very early days his ancestors were so anxious to have a missionary in Taranaki that' the tribe sent a delegation to Auckland to beg the church authorities to let them have an expounder of the “ Paipera Tapu ” (Holy Bible). As there were no horses in those days, the journey was made on foot. When the request was granted, the natives, knowing that the pakehn could not face the journey on loot, made a stretcher for him, and in that way he was brought to Taranaki. Later on this mode of travel became more or less a habit, but one hot day one of the bearers said that he had I'een reading the Bible, and light through he had never once found a reference to Jesus Christ having been carried on a stretcher. “ Thereupon,” said the speaker, “the missionary was dumped, and had to walk—and lie has been walking ever since.”