NEWS AND NOTES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 3727, 8 December 1927, Page 1

NEWS AND NOTES.

Auckland-grown hothouse grapes were sold at the City Market for the first time this season.

A message received in Wellington the other day reported the safe arrival at Tauranga of the launch Naomi, which left Wellington on November 25, for that port. Rough weather and heavy seas were experienced the first few days of the trip. The Naomi was a locallyowned launch at one time.

What might, if unobserved, have developed into a serious blaze, occurred at Napier Courthouse last Monday morning when flames were observed to be coming through the cracks in the flooring of the verandah. Jhe outbreak was quelled by the caretaker with the aid of a few buckets of water before it had a chance of growing, and a charred board was the only sign of any trouble. The cause is attributed to a cigarette butt, dropped in a crack in the boards. Arctic Eskimos will for the first.time be taken to the Antarctic with the projected -Byrd expedition, according to an announcement made by Commander E. Byrd, the American airman, who flew to the North Pole and back, who says that six Greenlanders, including two women, have agreed to start an Eskimo colony there. The remainder of the expedition consists of whites. Commander Byrd has received thousands of applications'front adventurous spirits to accompany him. Scores of these are from Australia and New Zealand. The expedition is already financed, including a number of large subscriptions. The Napier mosquito fleet is at present busily engaged in the garnering of the wool harvest, and points on Hawke’s Bay’s broad littoral that are hardly thought of m the winter months are now included on the visiting list. At the majority of these coastal the bales are removed from a jetty in surf boats, but at some of the stations the jetty is now in a state of collapse. This state of affairs exists at Akitio, where the wool from eight large stations is shipped. Luckily the beach at this spot has only a gentle shelf, however, and the difficulty has been surmounted for several seasons by the employment of a high dray and a team of 12 bullocks. The big beasts, now quite used to the work, pull the out through the surf, until their backs are covered. When beyond the worst of the surf the boat crew loads from the dray with perfect ease.