NEWS AND NOTES.

Hokitika Guardian, 21 September 1929, Page 3

NEWS AND NOTES.

There are drawbacks to having a name that is neither feminine nor mas r inline, said the Rev. Wilna Constable the other day in Auckland, when addressing the members of the Lyceum Club. When she first went down to Warwickshire, she said, a woman minister was a strange thing. All the arrangements had been made by correspondence, and when she got out at the station there was no one to meet her. When everyone had left the platform, a chauffeur came up dubiously and asked if she was for a certain woman’s institute. On arriving, she was met by a firm lady who tried to usher her into a seat just inside the door. She gently intimated that she ought to go further up, and when she was again urged to be seated half up the building, she said that she thought she ought to go on the platform, as'she was to speak. The lady said: “Oh, no. We are expecting a clergyman, the Rev. Wilna Constable.”

“Marlborou'di the Golden” cannot be termed a misnomer (observes ' the Christchurch Press). The hillsides surrounding Picton are, at the present time, a blaze of colour, the flowering gorse being in full blocm. From a spectacular point of view, the scene is a pleasing one to the eye and 1 visitors from foreign climes are enraptured with its entrancing beauty. Property owners however, do not display the same amount of pleasure at the sight, for the rapid spread of the noxious weed is one of the curses inflicted upon poor mortals of the present ’day-. “Absentee section” -are the main source for trouble in and around Picton, and it is only by continual and systematic working that the gorse shrubs can be eradicated. The distribution of the seeds from affected areas is a monance to adjacent properties, and, we understand, steps are now being taken by the authorities te enforce the provisions of the Noxious Weeds Act,, and compel delinquents to clear their lands within a given time.

The Bankruptcy Act was, of course, framed to provide protection, but (says the Dominion) debtors who seek its protection find that it is not an easy matter to,.become free once again. Two' of the principal creditors at a meeting in Wellington on Friday offered to pay the interest due on a third mortgage in order to allow the bankrupt a chance to sell his property, or make an offer to his creditors.. “Can you give me any idea asked the bankrupt “how much is required to clear the estate? It might cost 2-2 sin the £. A solicitor, after some work with pen and paper, produced a balance sheet. “You have not included my costs,” pointed out the official assignee, “my.commission will amount to about £10.” “Perhaps the official assignee may accept a little less for cash?” hazarded a debtor “No” said the solicitor, “the official assigned administrates the estate placed in his hands, and makes those which can produce a dividend pay for those which can’t.” “I see,” softly remarked the creditor; “he is like the lawyers.”

The advisability of importing chukor and quail into New Zealand was discussed at a meeting of the Auckland Acclimatisation Society on Thursday evening. It was stated that although a recent shipment of birds from India had included 30 chukor and 350 quail, 28 cliukor and about 150 quail had arrived, the rest having either escaped or died en route. The mortality among quail must have been particularly high The chukor, which had been removed to Taumarunui, where they had been liberated, were expected to thrive well in the district. It was suggested that if the bird showed adaptability and nest ed well this summer it should be imported in large numbers. It was proposed that a motion, suggesting that the further importation of quail should cease, be submitted at the conference of New Zealand acclimatisation' societies in Wellington, as the question was not one of the habits of the birds but of any diseases they might bring from India.