NEAR AND FAR

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 91, 8 December 1931, Page 4

NEAR AND FAR

Lucky Escape. Among the strange ohqects picked up by motor .tyres, the liye rifle cartridge which pierced; a rqotor-car tyre in a Wellington .street oin Wednesday must,. be alone in its, jiovelty. The motor-car had be,en used extensively during the^lay for the conveyance of electors to polling hooths. The bullet of the c^rtridge apparently pierced the side'wall' of the tyre without puncturing thp, inner tube. The projecting base of the cartridge was worn down by friction against the road, and the percussiqn cap !was unprotected when the discovery was made. The driver of the car considers that he was lucky, as the cartridge might have detpnated at any time, shattering the tyre, and perhaps causing loss of control o,f the car. Hydrogen Peroxide Explosion. The danger of keeping hydrogen peroxide tightly corked was exemplified last week when a bottle of the fluid, which was bought by a Whakatane resident last Christmas and plae-

ed on a shelf' in a bathroom, expl'oded and also hroke several other bottles on the shelf (says the Whakatane Press). Fortunately there was nobody in the room at the tiqae of the explosion, which caused the shattered glass to be strewn all over the room. Problem in Maori. The position of ,a scrutineer ,in Maori electipris is no sinecure. Although knowledge of pplitips among Maoris has denfinitely' advanced in recent years, and most of the voters show true discriminqtiqn, there are pitfalls for the ofliqial who has had but small experience in dealing with Maqris. There are even difficulties in understanding the lists of voters, if the name of one native who registered at Otaki as an elector in the Western Maori district can be taken as ap. indication. The name was Whakahokimatemaiori-ai - Rangitane" x' ortunately, abbreviation always offers an escape in pronouncing Maori and the elector could he referred to safely as "Whakahoki," or even "Whaka." Sparrows' Nest Causes Tragedy.

A nest by sparrows is stated to have caused the death of a 12-year-old boy, Harold Hayes, of Parksideway, Pinner, Middlesex. He was found by his mother lying dead in six inches of- water in the bath at his home. The outlet pipe for the fumes from the geyser was blocked by the nest, in which were found four dead sparrows. At the inquest a gas company official told the eoroner that the gauze of the ventilation pipe had slipped, allowing the birds to build their nest in the pipe. Death, it was stated, was due to carbon-monoxide poisoning. The Wrong List! Rather an amusing thing happened at one of the polling-booths on Wednesday not a hundred miles from Thames. A lady, whom it might he as weil to refer to as Mrs. Ellen, came to the booth asking for her numher. The man with the hook told i her she was not on the roll. She asserverated that she must be. He told her to look for h'erself, and handed her the. roll to search. It was only when she noticed that he was Teaching in the column beginmng with "H" that shef reansed the benefits of secondary education. : r I Christmas Air Mail Service That Palmerston North had been chosen as the headquarters for a company inaugurating a Christmqs qir mail was disclosed by Mr. H. Oram, president of the Manawatu Aero Club, ■syhen ad^essing mpmbpys qf the Pqlr Eerston North Rotary Club at the ncheon at the Milson Aerodrome. Mr. Oram said that tentative arrangements had been made to inaugurate a Christmas air ihail to.be delivered throughou|; the Dorqinion on December 23. South Island mail wquld be collected from the Auckland express at Palmerston North, and i taken by aeroplane, while all North Island mail woqld also .be distributed from Palmerston North. Woman Harbourmastpr. in all Britain there is only one woman doing the ]ivork of a" harbourmaster in spite of the saying that Britannia rules the waves. One has to go to Wales to find her. She is Mrs. Ja'ne .Ellen Jones, of Tycoqh Inh, Porthdinilevn, and she is" as ha'le ol^ lady of ninety-five. Mrs'. dones has been harhourmaster for sixty years. She could never have held the post all that time unless she had" shown much common sense, trustiness and firmness. Wives as Bootblacks. /Wives must clean their husbands'

shoes, a Berlin couft has r.uled iq gi'anting a divorce to a Berlin bank clerk. The latter proved that he was qverwhelmed with work tpying toi make ends meet, and could not afford to keep a servant. The Court decidek that, in view of his social position, he was entitled to expect that his wife should polish his shoes and send him out neat to his business. Ariki — and Fqiry. , "The kauri, 'is ' the rangatira, the ariki of the tree wqrld. . The.re' is a forest fairy, and that is ,the nikaq palm. In the, warm fqresij-fenp.eid' va.lleys of .thq Hokiapga and Waipoup and Marigakahia Hills (writes Mr.Ja^mes Cowan in the "Ne.w Zpqland Railways Magazine")* you may see the nikau in its unspoiTed trop'ic-like glpry. To see a. perfeet qlum'p qf nikau you must go into the, forest, past its sheltering selvedge of taraire trees, where the basking cicada clacks and shrills peaselessly in the sunshine, and where the pigeon and tlie tui feast on the fruit, into the untouched kauri groves, deeper still into the hollow dells where little streams murmur over their pippsy stpnes, there is the home of the pikqji,, -vyhere the wipd.s never penetrate its pfotective wildwood screen." lvlackerel Ampng' Bathers. . j ..There was* ' much excitement at ! Npvin, Carnarvonshire, a few weeks ago, when shoals of maekerpl appeared among the bathers, who ^were able to, catch hundreds by hand and throw them into boats. Thq Iqqal fislie.rmen rushed to the scene with tjieif ne.ts, and ih a shqrt peripd a Iiaul qf 2000' jnackerel was made.