NEAR AND FAR

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 173, 15 March 1932, Page 4

NEAR AND FAR

Cheap Livipg. As showing wbat can be done with careful management, the fact may be quoted that in an unemployment camp in the Raglan County the men are well fed with plenty of wholesome food at a weekly cost of 9s 9d per head, including the wages of the cook. A Ngaruawahia resid^nt who had a meal at one of these camps says he was fully satisfied with it. An amusing letter from a woman settler in the Lawrence district, received by the Otago Motor Club, reads as follows: — "Would you kindly consider this I'equest for the sake of a I pbor, harassed country woman, if not for the sake of the travelling public? , I do hereby beg and" entreat that you S ereet a good, loud signpost at the j junction of the Lawrence-Adams's J Flat Road, just past the Mount Stuart railway station. I live in the first house on the Adam's Flat Road, and was obliged to desert my washing, speedily discard my apron, and comb up my back hair and answei' inquiries for the Lawrence Road no fewer than three times one afternoon. Inquiries are so frequent that I have often thought of opening an alehouse for the men who take the wrong turning. However, the times are hardly propitious for such enterprise; hence this note of appeal, which, I trust, will bear early fruit."

| f Old Ideas of Justice. | "Of course, it may be that in some ; of the most refined methods of tor1 ture practised in olden times, the au- | thorities were actuated by a concern for the soul of the offender, on the monastie theory of purification of suffering," said Mr. B. L. Dallard, Controller of Prisons in an address on the penal system to New Zealand justices at Wanganui. "There is no j doubt, also, that the old Mosaic idea i of 'an eye for an e-ye' was deeply ingrained, and in many cases there was 1 the attitude described by Gilbert and { Sullivan in the 'Mikado' — {His object j all sublime, to let the punishment fit the crime, Something humorous, but i lingering, with either boiling oil or ! melted lead'." ■ j Cows — Seen by a Contemporary. ( The cow is regarded as one of the least intelligent of animals, but even j they, when one of the herd is up j against it, are not lacking in charity and resource (says a Southern ;ex- : change). The weed tutu is known to | he a deadly poison to cattle. A heifer S in a herd which had been turned into | the bush at Taieri Gorge had strayed | and eaten tutu early on a recent morn- | ing. Before it could succumb to the j poison the other cows exercised their I resources upon it. ' Litsrally they ! horned it and chased it and flew at I its tail, bellorving meanwhile so that ■ a continuous uproar was caused, A ; member of the unemployed had pitched j his hunk in an unused house, and jblissfully slept whilst "the band" came inearer. He heard a prolonged noise 1 through the slender partition, as he was awakening. There seemed to him | also to he an active army coming i through the walls. He resigned his j dreams, therefore, and sprang to the

j door. The stricken heifer stood in a stream of sweat. The other cows stood about in a ring of content. Their good deed was done; the heifer would not die because the poison had come out with the sweat. The unemployed jnan, disgruntled, drove them from his door and prepared to light his fire for a very early morning tea.

. Fish Out of Water. Fish out of water are the latest attraction at the London Zoo, where they arrived from Java. Walking fish, or mudskipipers, as the nerwcomers are called, are very active on land, and may he observed in the aquarium shuffling about on tree trunks and rocks. In their native land they disport themselves on the mud flat rivers, and actually climb the low branches of trees in search of insects. For walking or shuffling about they employ their particularly muscular breast fins as legs, these organs being bent at an angle like an elbow joint. When, however, the fish is pursued, by curling its tail for ward and then suddenly straightening it out again it will contrive to leap forward a distance of four or five times its own length. In walking the head is raised on the breast fin in an attiture resemhling that of a frog. Its eyes, situated on the top of the head, are remarkable for their large size and the fact that, chameleon-like, they are capable of individual and extensive motion.