GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 3686, 3 September 1927, Page 4

GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

There are 10,000 girls employed in the Luton hat trade.

Inmates of the prison at Durham have now their own choral society.

Six hundred million tons of rain fell in South-Eastern England the other day.

Women students at Oxford University are now restricted to one for every four men.

Under Hendon’s town-planning scheme nearly 600 acres will' be reserved for open spaces. A mammoth geranium grown in a Cheshire garden, 15ft. high, bore over 500 blooms.

There is one motor vehicle to every ten persons in the Hawke’s Bay district. A new issue of Treasury notes for the first time bears the words “United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland,” instead of “United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.”

Strawberry growers of suburban Auckland are reported to be looking forward to a good crop during the coming season.

Under the criminal registration branch of the Police Department the finger-prints of 3846 persons were taken last year and 255 were identified as previous offenders. A loss of £2071, including £IS3S provided for depreciation, is shown by the report for the year ended July 31, of the Otaihape Farmers’ Meat Company, (says the Wairarapa Standard).

Some weeks ago a gang of workmen on the Point Halswell road, Wellington, discovered the upper half of a human ' skeleton when clearing out, an old quarry. Beside it was a pickhead stamped with a broad arrow. A few days ago the missing leg and foot bones were found at >a point nearly a mile away from the first discovery. The distance between the two sets of bones provides a fresh mystery.

. proposal to establish a cereal laboratory in Canterbury is still being pushed by grain interests in the Southern province. The scheme involves an expenditure of/£IO,OOO. The Government is being asked for a subsidy. “Mercy bullets” that stun instead of kill, will be used by Captain Barne'tt W. Harris, of Chiea, to capture wild animals, an anaesthetic with the bullets renders the animals temporarily unconscious. Commenting in his annual report on the subject of maternal mortality, the Director-General of Health (Dr. T. H. A. Valintine) says that the rate of 4.25 per 1000 live births represent a steady decline in this rate. It is satisfactory ta note that since-1922 the rate has fallen by 0.89. The initiation of intensive activities on jbehalf of 'the expectant mothers, and subsequent establishment of ante-clinics and closer supervision or maternity hospitals, has no doubt been of value in this respect. Except for the voice of a lady competitor not a sound could be heard. Not even a programme or a bag of sweets rustled. The lady was singing in the contralto test at the Competitions last evening, and the name of the song was “Sleepy Song.” During a pause in the song, a man in the 'audience snored —a loud, lingering guttural snore. The silence was shattered immediately by a roar of laughter from the auditorium. A man had fallen asleep during “Sleepy Song.” What a novel tribute to the lady’s artistry. — Wanganui Herald. Quite a regular business is done by the Christchurch City Council in the destruction of dogs and cats, at the requests of owners, the average being about six per week. Some of the owners'who take pets for destruction do so with wet eyes, and there are quite emotional scenes at times. 'The dr'owning method is usually followed, the fee for that being 1/-. For 3d a person may have an animal destroyed by prussic acid, that being the method favoured by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Most of the very few people who have dogs or cats killed by poison stand by while the operation is carried out. An animal poisoned succumbs within a few seconds.

Otago Harbour Board, which decided to send abroad its superintending engineer, Mr. Tome, in connection with the new harbour dredge, tenders for which are to be called in Great Britain, the Continent, Australia and New Zealand, has also decided to purchase the i Union Company’s old intercolonial and San Francisco passenger steamer Moana for £BSO. The hull is to be sunk at the mole, at the entrance to the heads. Purchase of the dredge is part of a £350,000 scheme propounded two years ago ■for the purpose of improving the harbour.

A fatal accident occurred at Te Aroha on Thursday, when Mr. A. A. Wagstaff, a prominent local resident, ’lost his life. Deceased, accompanied by his daughter Connie, was driving to the Te Aroha station when the car skidded on a bridge. He was thrown out into a creek and drowned, the body, being afterwards recovered some distance downstream. His daughter was picked up unconscious on the road. Mr. Wagstaff was prominently associated with 'all public affairs. He was a member of the Waikato Hospital Board, and president of the Thames Valley Agricultural and Pastoral Association besides being a member both of the local drainage board and the )Yaitoa Drainage Board.