NEWS AND NOTES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 2780, 4 September 1924, Page 1

NEWS AND NOTES.

Aii aversion lo (lie number 13 is fairly general among a proportion of Auckland householders, according to* a member of (lie Mount Albert Borough Council. fn milling attention the other evening to the baillv numbered condition of' several streets in the district, he stated that Xo. 13 was a common number to be entirely omitted in a street.

Sleeping sickness continues to spread in Japan, the Health Department reporting eleven hundred eases now on the island of Shikoku, with several hundred more on the main island. Physicians report that seventy per cent, of those who died are between sixty and seventy years of nge and only ten per cent under twenty.

When Mabel McCregor, aged 39, a cook, was charged at the Police Court at Christchurch with the theft of clothing, it was stated that accused was undoubtedly a drug addict and evidently stole the goods in order to buy ehloroyne. Sentence was postponed. A rather amusing incident occurred to the Vice-Regal party on Sunday last while proceeding to Napier

from Gisborne. Near Pukerino their car was stopped by a swagger who asked for something to eat. To his surprise he was treated most sumptuously, and afterwards said that it was the best feed he had ever had. The kindness—shown by His Excellency, said the wayfarer, was a striking contrast to that shown by manv motorists. —H.B. “Tribune.”

Discussing the question of reducing the size of classes, the report of the Minister of Education says that, it is considered that no matter is of so immediate and pressing importance as the reduction of these large classes, the existence of which is prejudicial to good methods of teaching, and is a strain on botii pupils and • teachers. As a result of the. steps’ taken there should, before the eiiG of the present year, be no class in New Zealand with more than 6U pupils. As so many difficulties and defects have been attributed to the existence of large classes, it may ae confidently expected that with the general clearing of the position there will he a marked advance in the work of the schools in many directions.

“This is the story of my life for the last 12 years, your Worship,” said a woman concerned in a maintenance case in the Police Court at Christchurch, handing up a bulky looking roll of papers to Mr WXvern Wilson, S.M. “I don't want to read that,” said, the Magistrate, I think I can see pretty clearly without that.”

A Sail Francisco visitor to New Zealand wrote a pithy comment in the visitors’ book of the Tourist Department: “A wonderful country, lm( why don’t you advertise it? An Irish gentleman, Mr John 0 Ilaia, who visited the Dominion about a couple of years ago, inscribed a characteristic signature and added “Nearly as good as Ireland f°i scenery.” A London lady’s peculiar comment is: “A beautiful country but for the hills!”