South Island Main Trunk.

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 118, 11 January 1932, Page 4

South Island Main Trunk.

It seems likely, remarks the Marlborough Express, that in the Iong rUn public opinion will insist on the South lsland Main Trunk being completed, in spite of the Railway Board, politics, and politicians. During the Christmas holidays thousands of people from all parts of NeW Zealand have traversed the East Coast road, and in almost all cases they seem to have been deeply impressed by the tremendous amount of work done and the futility of abandoning the project when so near completion.

Novel Sport at Ohope. Two young men, campers at Ohope, indulged in some novel sport last week. While cruising in an outboard motor boat they encountered a school of porpoises, and one of the occupants of the boat, Maynard Canning, harpooned a porpoise, which instantly made for the open sea at an alarming speed. Having only a short length of rope attached to the harpoon, and fearing that the fish might sound, Maynard Canning, after experiencing a few minutes of thrills, let go of the line and returned safely to shore. An 111 Wind. While negotiating a street in St. Clair, Dunedin, the other afternoon, a resident of that seaside suburb was given a temarkably literal illus-' tration of the old saying, "It's an ill wind that blows nobody good." His attention was attracted by a 'house curtain, which, by some trick of the wind, was flapping furiously outside the window of a certain dwelling. Suddenly the curtain rod was wrested from its moorings by a particularly vicious gust, and to the astonishment of the onlooker, the whole contrivance was blown across a fair stretch of intervening space and bundled through a window of the next-door house.

Farmers, Tlirift and Hats. "You people don't know the first principles of thrift," was what a well known farmer said when he left for home after a week in the city. "Five years ago most of us farmers were prosperous," he went on, "and nearly every one of us was able to buy a 55s hat. We've got those hats yet, and as I walked the Square during the holidays I could tell nearly every countryman by his curledj rimmed hat — right out of date, of course, because of the rim. When bad times came we stuck to our old hats and kept them in good order, and even now I think they look better than the new-fashion-ed hats I see in town." White Cabbage Butterfly. Two specimens of the white cabbage butterfly, a pest which eats cabbages,have been reported in Wellington, and the public are warned to kill every one seen. A Hawke's Bay resident forwarded a white butterfly to the Dominion, and Dr. W. R. B. Oliver, Director of the Dominion Museum, identified it as a specimen of the unwelcome type. A report by the museum's entomologist stated that their destruction was very necessary. The ispecies had been common in Hawke's Bay about this time last year. Known to science as Pieris brassiccae, the inset is a large white butterfly about Uin. across with outstretched wings, a black body, and a few black spots on its wings.