NEWS AND NOTES

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 2681, 10 January 1924, Page 4

NEWS AND NOTES

“There is more real liberty to the square yard under the Union Jack than there is in the square mile under the Stars and Stripes,” exclaimed an American traveller who had formerly lived in Dunedin. He was impressed with the up-to-date methods and enterprise of the United States, and said that from them much could advantageously be learned, but in many other things England was ahead of America, particularly in her standards of justice and of domestic felicity. The secret of the light used by the ancient Egyptians was one shared apparently by the archaic, civilisations of portions of the Americas. In 1922 the expedition sent out by the Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, uncovered ruins in Columbia, whose vviudowless buildings suggested, by the complete absence of smoke marks the possible knowledge of electricity, or some mysterious illuminating agency. In the still intact balls, amid the vast buried remains elsewhere ia South America, of which few oven suspect the existence, there is also no trace of smoke, while the very narrow entrances and absence of windows inevitably suggest a light which neither smoked nor vitiated the atmosphere. “An unusual occurrence was witnessed at the races at Hastings on New Year’s Day, says the H.B. Herald. This was a miniature whirlwind which struck the sand of the track across from the saddling paddock to the training track, and sent it in a whirling eddy up in the air. The occurrence was chietly remarkable from the fact that on no other part of the course did there appear to be any wind blowing at all.” Strange to say there was an exactly similar experience at Tauhereniliau on the same day. A whirlwind came across a section of the crowd, lifting hats oft' and sending them in all directions. It went over the rails on to the racing track, arid

the dust whirled furiously along for about 50 yards, ami then the wind stopped as suddenly as it j, started. There was hardly a trace, of a breeze anywhere else. Some t. old Maoi’is declared that the Ileketoro (fairies) had come out of the bush near by and had a little rae- | ing flutter of their own. A good story is told concerning ] the erection of poles on a hydro electric transmission line not 100 miles from Eketaliuna. A party I was erecting poles for the Government on contract, and half holidays and Sundays did not appear in the I programme. One Sunday the gang commenced woi'k on a certain property the owner of which was strong on Sabbath observance. He appeared on the scene and registered I a mild protest, which was entirely ineffective. The work was continued. Seeing this the farmer had recourse to a more pointed argument. He rounded up a rogue Hereford bull and turned it into the paddock where the men were engaged. There was no more work that day, the persuasive powei* of the animal being quite sufficient.