DOMINION ITEMS.

Hokitika Guardian, 24 January 1931, Page 2

DOMINION ITEMS.

ILLICIT SELLING. . ; (By Telegraph—Per Press Association.) ASHBURTON," January 23. Leo Laffey was fined £2O for selling liquor without license. He was agent for an outside hotel and police evidence was to' the effect that he supplied liquor that had’not previously been ordered by the.purchaser. About 250 bottles of liquor were seized during the raid and were confiscated. INQUEST VERDICT. NAPIER, January 23. At an inquest on Wilfred Selwyn Osborne and Bernard Augustus Osborne, brothers who were- killed in ;a motor accident at Devil’s Elbow, on the main north road on January 2nd, a verdict of accidental death with n° blame to the other motorist was returned. The Coroner said the evidence established the faot that deceased was on the wrong side of the road and went over a bank, in seeking to regain the correct side. ACCIDENT .AT DOCK. AUCKLAND, January 23. When leaving Cnlliope Pock, H.M.S, Dunedin, flagship of the New Zealand Division of the Royal Navy; fouled the side of the entrance gates, breaking one of her propellor blades, The damage is not serious, hut it is possible that another blade will have to be fitted, in order to prepare the warship for her coming cruise to England. OTAKI BEACH TRAGEDIES. ! WELLINGTON, January 23. At the inquest held at Otaki into the deaths of S, A. Longuet and Theresa Burton, who lost their jives by drowning at Otaki Beach yesterday, Coroner Harper ,after hearing the evidence of a number of witnesses, returned a verdict of accidental death by drowning. He said it was regretable that there was no life line on the beach. A COMING VISITOR. WELLINGTON, January 24. Sir Archibald Weigall (Governor-Gen-eral of South Australia in 1920-22) and Lady Weigall, leave London during January on a trip to Australia aud New Zealand. While in the Dominion they will visit the Governor-Gen-eral. Sir Weigall is a keen agriculturist. PHOTO OF PLANET. WELLINGTON, January 24. What are believed to he the first two photographs taken in New Zealand of the minor planet Eros, were obtained not long after midnight on Sunday by two astronomical observers, R. C. Hayes and I, L. Thomson, using a nine inch telescope at Kelburn Observatory. The planet is invisible to the naked eye. The first plate was exposed with a telescope and camera aimed at a tiny patch of sky where Eros was expected to be. The telescope was kept by mechanism pointing to exactly the same small region of the heavens, and at the end of an hour another plate was exposed. The two plates when developed gave a striking comparison of the “fixed” stars on the patch of sky, which had been photographed. They were in the identical positions, and furnished a frame of reference on both plates, but one body which was photographed clearly on both plates, hud moved during the interval and the calculations established that the moving body was Eros. Kelburn Observatory is taking part in a world campaign with the object of tracing the course of the planet, telescopically and photographically.