GENERAL NEWS ITEMS

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 2251, 15 March 1921, Page 1

GENERAL NEWS ITEMS

Dr. E. Whitaker, who is proceeding to England to undertake business there, resigned on Thursday from the Palmerston Hospital Board, Dr. Whitaker has been nine cyears on the staff of the hospital, four years a member of the Board and its treasurer. In tendering his resignation he thanked the Boaid, his colleagues, the doctors, the matron, the deputy matron and the secretary for their never-failing kindness during his stay there, and wished the hospital every success in the future. The chairman, Sir James Wilson, expressed the Board’s appreciation of the doctor's services, 'and said that lie had helped to raise the standard of work at the hospital. Mr J. K. Hornblow said that Dr. Vhitakeis services had been of infinite \aluc in inspiring a building programme, and his technical and expert advice had guided the Board to its ven great advantage. He moved that Dr. Whitaker be presented by the 'Board with a suitably engrossed illuminated address, and that it be signed by the Board, the hospital staff, and the doctor’s colleagues. Dr. Whitaker, in reply, said that he had been privileged to work with people who really .absorbed a new point of view, and this had considerably accelerated the building programme. This edifice was a monument to the work of the Hospital Board, and its benefits would be all the more keenly appreciated in four years’ time.

The Minister of Justice (the Hon. E. P. Lee) is issuing in pamphlet form to officers of the Justice and Police Departments an official report of the trial of Dennis Gunn, mainly as a text-hook on tingeiprint evidence. Gunn was tried'for the murder, of Augustus Braitliwaite, the.postmaster at Ponsonby, found guilty, and executed. The pamphlet contains-a valuable appendix in the form of illustrations of finger-prints found on the revolver, and the cash boxes, and of Gunn’s own finger and palm prints. These furnish remarkable evidence.

Preparations are in hand for the reception of Katana, the Maori “miracle” man from Wanganui, writes the Auckland Herald’s Morrinsville correspondent. He is coming to Morrinsville on March 23rd, and will stay a week or more. Over 3,000 natives are expected to foregather to meet him. They will come from all parts of the Auckland Province. Five large marquees, 10 bullocks, 50 loads of firewood, two tons of sugar, and an enormous quantity of food and other requiiements for such a large gathexing have been ordered. An Auckland firm is supplying -the bulk of the goods. Already £1,500 has been collected to meet the expenditure that is involved. A committee has been set up under the Maori Couucils Act, and the rules and regulations for governing the gathering are of a very strict nature. Spe-. cial police are being provided for i the meeting, which will take place

at the Maori Parliament House and enclosure, on the outskirts of Morrinsville.

How the worker is taught the habits and customs of the gentler born is told by Mr 11. G. Wells in “Russia in the Shadows,” in which be describes his recent sojourn among the Bolsheviks: —“I can give but a word or so,” he writes, “to the Home of Rest for Workmen in the Kamenni Ostrof. I thought that at once rather tine and not a little absurd. To this place workers are ‘sent to live a life of relined ease for two or three weeks. It is a very beautiful country house with big gardens, an orangery, and subordinate buildings. The meals are served on white cloths with flowers upon the table, and so forth. And the worker has to live up to these elegant surroundings. It is a part of his education. If in a forgetful moment lie clears Ills throat in the good old resonant manner and spits upon the door, an attendant, I was told, chalks a circle about his defilement, and obliges him to clean the offended parquetry.’