NEWS AND NOTES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 3721, 24 November 1927, Page 1

NEWS AND NOTES.

Te Aroha sets something of a record for bazaars, says the Te Aroha News: “For the last night of the Catholic Bazaar the actual amount in cash handed over to the treasurer for that night alone was over £7OO. The total takings for the Bazaar amounted £1450. A lad of 14 years, William Wilson, residing at Kamo, Whangarei, was investigating a detonator with a darning needle on Saturday when the detonator exploded, blowing off the tops of the fingers of the left hand with which he was holding the cap. His left hand and abdomen were also, hurt. An outstanding novelty at the London Dairy Show is a machine for plucking fowls. It makes 604 revolutions a minutes and plucks a bird in 45 seconds by suction, the feathers being drawn into the machine by a fan then gripped and pulled out and are caught in a collecting bag without the possibility of tearing the flesh.

A motorist who was travelling along the West Plains road during a recent gate had a miraculous escape from death (relates the Southland Times). When he was passing a plantation growing by the roadside a particularly severe gust blew a tree right over. It fell across the road and, to the driver’s horror, he saw that it must descend on his car. Fortunately it struck the bonnet just near the Windscreen, which was shattered, but the driver escaped with nothing more than an injured hand. Needless to say the car was in dock for some time.

“These Chinese are champions at procrastination,” was a phrase used by the Collector of Customs (Mr. Penn), who prosecuted three Chinese in the Auckland Magistrate’s Court on Saturday on charges of remaining in the Dominion beyond the time allowed by temporary permits. Counsel for one of the accused suggested that probably a warning would meet the case, but the Magistrate said that previous warnings had not proved effective. Probably the best warning woukTbe to continue fining and deporting the offenders. The trio were each fined £lO, or one month’s imprisonment, and ordered to be deported.

Wlhile speaking to a butcher in connection with the vitality of eels, he related an experience he had some years ago (remarks the North Auckland Times). It is the practice of butchers to renew their brine tubs every two or three weeks, and-one morning while emptying a tub he was surprised to see an eel of about six inches in length wriggle away over the ’ concrete floor. In his opinion the eel must have come through the water tap when the tub was filled on the previous occasion and got acclimatised to the mixture in the tub as it would have been impossible for it to have lived had it made its home in the tub after the brine had been in use for several days.

Many of our words owe their present form simply to the ignorance and errora of our forefathers. A butler, for instance, is really a bottler; a walrus a whale horse; and a belfry, which originally had nothing to *do with a bell, correctly, a belfry on a watch-tower A butcher was a bocher or killer of rroate. An intrusive “d” turned the asphodel into the daffodil, while a dropped “I” gave us our word azure, which should be lazure. In times of scarcity a man who hoarded corn was a corn mudgin and later the word was corrupted to curmudgeon, and was applied to an ill-natured, miserly person; while the word cheat is a corruption of .escheat, a legal term meaning o confiscate.

A Norwegian whaling man at Port Chalmers inquired why New Zealand did not go in for whaling in the Ross Sea. He remarked that men could easily learn the work connected with catching whales. Norway was so far away that practically" two months’ wages had to be paid to the large whaling crews to reach New Zealand, and a similar amount to return. That was a considerable item of expenditure from, which a New Zealand whaling company would be exempt. ie Norwegian whaling ships delivered their oil at New York on the way home to their own country and that was ii consideration but m different circumstances it would probably be found that American oil slaps trading to New Zealand would take whale oil as return cargo.

“I wonder if there is anyone here to-night who would like to marry a girl without seeing her till after the ceremony7”was the question asked by Mrs. Adjutant Gibson, when explaining the customs of the Chinese race at a lecture in the Timaru Salvation Army Citadel last Thursday evening (reports the Herald). It m a strange custom, hut a tiue one,

said Mrs. Gibson. She said that after one ceremony a beautiful Chinese maiden found herself married to a deaf and dumb man. The young bride was very much dismayed, and later fell in love with another. The second enticed the husband to a lonely place one night, where a grave had, been prepared, and pushing him) into it, buried him alive.” The bride,” said the speaker, “arrives at the ceremony heavily veiled, and the husband lifts the veil, after the ceremony had been performed, and looks upon his wife for the first time. Sometimes the husband gets a shock, but sometimes it is the wife,” the lecturer added, amidst laughter. In connection with the confusion caused by the change from standard time to summer time, a local resident tells a good stoi*y. He states that away in the backblocks of the North a visitor was greatly perplexed to know the right time, seeing that the good people of the house kept their clock three-quar-ters of an hour fast. Matters were more complicated from the fact that the striking gear had got out of action, and was an hour ahead of time. expostulated with the good wife, and asked why she did not keep the correct time, without having to calculate it, and met with the response: “Oh, it is quite easy. When the clock shows three o’clock it strikes four, and you know that it is a quarter-past two!”

A curious hitch occurred in Invercargill the other day in connection with the wedding of a young couple. The correct forms and ceremonies had been completed, both the happy parties had declared themselves willing to undertake tlie mixed blessings and tribulations of matrimony and they had been declared man and wife. The least important part came next. As they were signing the register, it was notic ed that the marriage had been entered to take place in a church whereas it had been solemnised in a private home and was consequently invalid. The only thing to do was for the two “victims,” the two witnesses, and the minister to be hastily bundled into a car, and rushed to the church. This time the ordeal was safely passed, and no more “slip” knot tied.