THE PAST WEEK.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXX, Issue 5488, 16 October 1929, Page 3

THE PAST WEEK.

The Turua wharf continues to provide material to exercise the mind of the Thames Harbour Board, which, perhaps, is only right and proper, considering the amount of revenue earned there without any great expenditure. Having provided a floating pontoon landing stage in the days of the launch traffic, the board now takes time to consider the alternatives of maintaining it for the benefit of the stray fishermen who may call at Turua to refill their tobacco-pouches, or incurring the expense of removing it to Thames foi' safe-keeping. Now that the swimming season is approaching, there are many who would be sorry to see the old punt go ; but amongst these cannot be counted the Turua wharfinger, who did not bargain on the job of raising it from the bed of the river at almost every tide.

“To flout superstition is to neutralise its effects,” is a common supposition, but whether this is so or not, the figure 13 was most conspicuous on the number-plate of a commercial traveller’s motor-car as it reposed in a roadside drain at Ngatea last Thursday morning.

A Napier fisherman accidentally discovered an interesting phenomenon the other day—the mortal fear which crayfish have of an octopus (says the Daily Telegraph). On a recent evening he was crayfishing along the northern fringe of the bay and had about a dozen of the crustaceans in the bottom of his launch.. He hauled up another pot and mechanically tipped the contents among the crayfish he had already caught, to discover to his surprise that he had pulled up a young octopus. He had hardly realised the fact when his attention was attracted by the commotion of the crayfish, which commenced to scuttle with all haste to the other end of the launch, emitting squeaky cries reminiscent of a wounded hare that knows the pursuing dogs must catch it. For the remainder of the night the crayfish stayed at one end of the boat and left the octopus at the other.

The local fresh water fishing season has just commenced, and we await with intense interest a Paeroa story to equal, or better, the above.

Comes the news of the arrival at Wellington of the latest addition to the whaling fleet in New Zealand waters : a newly constructed fleet consisting of a several thousand ton mother ship, seven chasers, and an aeroplane. If this does not prophesy the quintessence of organised slaughter nothing does. These vessels comprise only one unit of a host of predatory murder ships which will do their best this season to further reduce the number' of whales still in existence. There is not the slightest doubt that the number of whales in the world is rapidly decreasing, as is exemplified by the fact that the South Shetland waters have been practically fished out and are being abandoned for New Zealand waters—the whale’s last stronghold. The use of an aeroplane for spotting the huge deep-sea mammals proves the last straw. The British pride themselves on their sense of fair play. What chance of fair play has the whale now ? What sporting chance of getting away ? The majority of men engaged in the whaling industry are foreigners, it is true, Scandinavians for the most part; but the waters they fish in are British. The fishing grounds off Graham Land and the South Shetlands are in British territorial waters, as both these areas are dependencies of the Falkland Islands, which in their turn are a British colony. The Ross Sea, where the new vessel and her confederates in a heinous crime are to operate, is within New Zealand territorial waters as it is a New Zealand dependency. All waters from headland entrance to headland entrance come under the jurisdiction of the country possessing the surrounding land, a fact which was decided when the dispute between Newfoundland and the United States of America was settled.

Therefore New Zealand becomes a party to the crime, getting in return a paltry sum in royalty on each barrel of whale oil.

The proposed start of Woolworth’s in Auckland brings forward the name of a man who started in commercial life with 10 cents and finished by handling millions of dollars. Woolworth, an American, started peddling in New York City with the result of the investment of all his earthly capital—lo cents—on a wooden tray strung by straps round his neck. From that he worked up to a shop, and lived to see his stores established in practically every country on the globe, including China and Japan, and to see his daughter married amidst great pomp and ceremony to a scion of the nobility in St. Margaret’s, Westmi.nster.

Mention of the stranding on Monday of the Empress of Canada in the Straits of Juan de Fuca recalls the fact that a Greek was the first European to navigate those waters. For some reason known only to himself and the authorities in the land of his birth, he dropped his Greek name and adopted the Spanish appellation of Juan de Fuca. The reason he chose an Iberian name was no doubt that it carried more weight among navigators in those days. De Fuca was a combination—a De Rougemont and a Baron Munchausen —only he had not the picturesque language of the former or the humour of the latter to grace his highly imaginative narrativities. For de Fuca, like Amerigo Vespecei, was an inveterate liar and colossal imposter. He laid claim to the discovery of vast areas of land in the North Pacific and other places, coloured with lurid stories of hairbreadth adventures and escapes which never took place, as later navigators found that no such lands existed. An interesting point about the grounding of the Empress of Canada

was the mention of “her two captains and the pilot on the bridge.” It has been the policy of the Canadian Pacific Railways for some years past to carry two masters on its passenger vessels. The duties of one, the senior, are confined solely to the navigation of the ship, and he seldom or never appears among the passengers. He lives in state abaft the bridge in his own suite of rooms, where all his meals are served in his private saloon. The junior captain looks after the running of the ship and the interests of the passengers. At meals he occupies the principal seat in the passenger saloon, and on his right sits, as a rule, the most distinguished passenger of the voyage. This splitting up of duties came into force as it was found that on a large vessel the courtesies which a master was expected to extend towards his passengers took up too much of his time, and was likely to impair the safety of the ship.

The rules of the P. and 0. are stricter still, where on its Oriental runs no officers, senior or junior, are supposed to mix with the passengers. It is said that this regulation was created through the wrecking of one of the company’s vessels in the Straits of Bab el Mandib while the officers were having a hilarious time at a passengers’ ball. The resulting experiences on the bleak inhospitable Sonaliland coast, surrounded by alleged cannibals, were ones not easily to be forgotten.