NEWS AND NOTES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVII, Issue 1380, 30 March 1915, Page 4

NEWS AND NOTES.

“ How far can a statioumasler go away from his station when he is off duty for a week-end ?” This was the text of a short argument at the Railway Appeal Board recently. The case before the Board was the appeal of a stationmaster who had been punished for leaving bis station from Saturday to the Monday without leave of absence, although he was off duty. The chairman of the Board, Mr Haselden, S. M., asked the representative of the Department, Mr McDonald, the question : “ Take the case of, say, the stationmaster at Wellington. If he was off duty from mid day on Saturday to midday on Monday, would he not. be free to go away from the city ou any expedition he might choose without getting leave of absence from beadquartets ?” Mr McDonald replied that a station master would have to get leave of absence before he could leave bis post. “ Does that mean be would have to slay in his own bouse ?” asked appellant’s representative, Mr Denuehy. Mr McDonald made no reply to that question, but repeated bis previous statement. Further questions were asked by the chairman, but no more light was thrown upon the matter.

According to a Wellington paper a happy little colony of vagrants has been ruthlessly invaded and dispersed. The police were recently informed that if they paid a surp/i.■: visit to a locality indicated early some morning the search would not be resnltless. They eventually happened upon a vagrants’- boarding establishment right in the centre of a field overgrown to a height of seven or eight feet with fennel, and to which access could be gained by a wellworn track. Here they discovered four disreputably-clad men sleep ing soundly. They were not huddled together, but each slept in a small compartment lined comfortably with rags, and sheltered as far as possible from the vulgar gaze of the public. A corridor as in an hotel, led past each “room,” while a larger apartment gave evidence of it being a living room. The “boarders” were rudely awakened by the visitors, and marched along to the police station, A subsequent search by the police showed that the happly little home had been in existence for some time past, and that there were indications that the quartette who were living the simple life had helped themselves to apparel from neighbours’ clothes lines, while the fact that milk jugs and their contents and loaves of bread bad disappeared from yard safes was very suspicious. At the police station the quartette, who had been joined by another vagrant, who had been arrested from a section near by, made a strange collection. Their net capital did not total one shilling.