NEWS AND NOTES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 2819, 4 December 1924, Page 4

NEWS AND NOTES.

An “electric hen” at Petaluma, California, hatches 500,000 eggs in one sitting.

Motor bus traffic in Auckland and its environs, is rapidly growing, the trade being already in the suburbs only waiting development by quick and cheap transport. The latest enterprise is the Marine Suburbs Bus Company with a capital of £20,000. A glorious sight was witnessed by those who travelled by the s.s. Theresa Ward to Stewart Island the other day. A large school of whales was encountered in close proximity to the vessel. One large fellow, fully 40ft. long, showed his agility by leaping out of the water like a trout. Though not brought up on a desert island, a certain Thomas Gillies, of North Queensland, lived till he was 33 years of age without seeing a motor car, a railway train, or a woman. His father, resolving to shield him from the deceitfulness of the sex, brought him up in a hut somewhere in the Batavia River district; from there the boy could see aborigines and prospectors only at a distance, the parent, a cultured man, educating him himself. Owing to the death of the latter, the son has been let loose in civilised life, and probably some “island stuff’’ will be written round him. A sensational occurrence at Logan Park, Dunedin, set men thinking of what might have happened but for a lucky accident (says the Star). It was on the .jigway—the compensating tram that brings clay from the hilltop. The brake would not work, consequently the full “down” and the empty “up” raced ont of control, but. by good fortune they collided near the loop, with disastrous results to the trucks, bat a very firkppy ending to what for the moment was an affrighting situation. Had each gone with unchecked velocity to its terminus there would have been considerable damage and great risk to the men on duly. The most serious aspect of the occurrence was discovered at once- - namely, that somebody had greased the brake-drum. The matter lias been placed in the hands of the police.

Although several bores have been sunk in the Taranaki district, oil in payable quantities has not yet been furthcoming. Pockets have been struck which indicate that, if the bores can be sunk deep enough, or sunk in the main oil territory, an industry of great promise can be developed. As oil will always rise to the highest level by the pressure of water, it is always found comparatively near the surface. Prospectors working in the interests of a Taranaki company believe that lastweek they were fortunate enough to tinil land in the Puiiiwliiikau district i,t such a geological structure as to make the commercial production of oil a payable proposition. During the present, week a well-known professor of geology will visit the district to report on the matter. The „ite of the proposed workings is within easy distance ot. the Wanganui River. “Congratulations on a routine Hush,” was the telegram which the Hon. .1. G. Coates confessed at Waimauku to having received from Dargaville, after his fifth daughter was born a. few months ago. Amid uproarious laughter Mr Coates added pin -iI there was a postscript, reading “We would have preferred a ‘busted’ Hush.”

Tt was slated at a meeting at. Ismail Bay, Wellington last week that; there had recently been a very marked increase in the number of goafs upon tlie island in the bay, so much, so that the animals were faced with starvation. It was resolved that the attention of he City Council —the island being vested in the council as a reserve —should be drawn to the overcrowded state of things upon the island, which comprises on area of only eight acres. “.lust imagine landing three or four hundred people in Auckland or Wellington at midnight. All the hotels and boarding bouses shut, the trams have stopped running, and everybody else, with the exception of the street-cleaners have gone to bed.” Such was the comment of an Auckland business mini on the new speeding services for Alain Trunk trains. It nmy not. be generally known that'rabbits were lirst introduced to New Zealand by Mr Charles Curler, a gentleman whose name is perpetuated in a Wnirnrnpa township, slates an exchange. For the lirst few years it was regarded as a very serious offence to destroy a rabbit on Mr Carter’s property. Inten years, however, the whole district was infested with rabbits, and it cost settlors of flic Wnirnrnpn. an enormous sum to rid themselves of the pest.