Shannon News TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 1923.

Shannon News, 20 February 1923, Page 2

Shannon News TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 1923.

The Shannon Dairy Co. will pay out 1/7 per lb lor butterfat supplied '.luring the .month of January. The usual fortnightly meeting of Borough Council will be held in the Council Chambers this evening.

On Wednesday week, February 28, the children of the Methodist Sunday School will hold, their animal picnic ou Mr Byers' property.

The~ supply of cream at the local dairy factory is keeping up remarkably well for this time of the year, 70 to 80 boxes of butter : being manufactured daily.

On Friday a man was arrested at Arapeti on a charge of failing to comply with the terms of a maintenance order at Auckland., He appeared, at the local epurl; on Saturday morning and, was remanded to Auckland.

With a view, to raising money for the purpose of putting down four courts on their newly acquired property in Vance Street, the Shannon Tennis Club intend holding an art union, permission 'for which has been granted by the Minister of Internal Affairs.

An accident occurred, at the top camp cm Saturday, when a man'named C. Dundas had the 'misfortune to have the top of one of his fingers badly crushed. He was in the act of putting a chock under the wheel of a truck-load of wood, when the wheel went over his finger. .

The Rev. Father Doolaghty, who has been parish priest at. Opunake for the past six years and lias been transferred to this parish, held his first service at St. Joseph's Church on Sunday. During his term in' Opunake (states the Times) Father Doolaghty has prominently associated himself with not only the affairs of the parish, but with those of the community, his help for the benefit of any charitable work being always available. There are many who will wish him health and happiness in his new

Ail arrangements have been made lor. the annual school picnic to be held at Plimmerton on Saturday next. The train will leave Shannon at 7.45 a.m.., reaching Plimmerton at 10.18 a.m. The return train will leave Plimmerton at 5 p.m., reaching Shannon at 7.15 p.m.

Thinking to remedy a had corner on i.ii ap-country, road, the r Wanganui County Council approached the owner tor a s.nall area ot the land. The farmer agreed to sell ten feet..,,of the corner, but he woulcTnot agree to 30 feet as the Council wished. -As the price he fixed works out at the rate of £10,500 per acre, the proposition did not appeal to the Council. ' Anew torpedo plane, which can rise into the air almostT vertically and carry a torpedo weighing more than a ton, has passed its tests, and will be used by the British Navy. London Chamber of Commerce has added Esperanto to its list of examination subjects. .■■" Never marry a girl with bobbed liuir," was the advice of the Rev. W. Nicholson, the evangelist, to an audience of Belfast boys. "The glory of woman is in her hair, and the devil likes her to get it cut off,," he added

"1 can't hear two women speaking at once. To hear one is bad enough," said Judge Parlltt to a woman interrupter at Clerkenwell County Court.

"Germany has no unemployed at present," said Frau Schreiber Krieger, a member of the Reichstag, at a Women's Freedom League Conference in London, ,

"The gentleman who took my saf»ty razor and brush should use the razor carefully, as I have expressed the hope that it will cut his throat," was notice exhibited by a passenger in a Cunard liner bound from New York to Liverpool.

The Tararua Power Board is borrowing £50,000 from the A.'M.P. at h\ per cent for 33 years.

In reply to a request for permission to again run sweeps at the Hawera Motor Cycle Sports, the secretary,has been advised by the Under-Secretary of Internal Affairs that the necessary authority cannot be grantedi On fur- 7 ther consulting the local police the secretary was informed that the club would be prosecuted if sweeps were" run this year, .and also any private persons doing likewise would be ceeded against.

Amid the hustle and bustle of a large crowd of Christmas shoppers in the main post office, Cleveland, U.S.A., cftiue the cries of a mother lor her lost infant. VVhile the mother was addressing Christmas packages at a table in the lobby she placed the child under the table. Her packages ready to be mailed, she looked' for the baby. It had disappeared. The basket, with its contents, had been packed up by «'. post office employee and thrown into ft mail sack. Cries from the child as the sack was about to be placed on ;i mail truck led to its discovery,

London s biggest suspended dancing, floor, that of the -ballroom of the Savoy Hotel, has been undergoing its once-in-ten-years' tuning up. The 3820 square feet of the floor are carried on joists to girders, which in turn are borne upon 240 spiral steel springs (each assisted by -pneumatic cushions with rubber buffers), connected in turn by thousands of wires to tlie sides. Delicate recording instruments at the., sides show the pressure on the springs and connecting wires controlling the pressure of suspension. The Savoy ballroom dancing floor is tuned up like a concert grand piano to a certain "pitch." Variations which are desired from time to time for delicate adjustment purposes are affected by 48 instruments, coinparable, to the tuning pegs of a piano. The exact "pitch"' and "swing" of a dancing floor is found at the beginning, and then it only requires a thorough tuning about every ten years. The Savoy Hotel ballroom was the first great ballroom in the world to have a suspended floor;'' a floor responding, that is ,to ,every movement upon it, with the maximum, of resiliency and swing desired for dancing perfection; Since its last tuning more than 1,500,000 "guests, including nearly every member of every single Royal family in Europe, with one exception, have danced on the floor of the Savoy ballroom for 32,00(Jf (ffincing hours, with an average total weight at one time of 52 tons, the floor being constructed to bear 250 tons.

Apparently there is not much brotherly love between the two Wanganui newspapers. In reporting a picnic held by the staff of a contemporary journal which has Prohibition leanings, the Herald' remarks sarcastically: "The Chronicle staff turned out in full force for their annual picnic to-day. A conspicuous, object on one of the lorries as it passed along the Avenue was a demijohn. This, no doubt, contained the milk for the afternoon tea."

The soldier settlement scheme has. not received much prominence during the Address-in-Reply debate., hut Mr S. G. Smith (Taranaki) gave a forceful reminder of the .conditions in some parts of New Zealand. In the Taranaki district there were 57 soldiers' farms vacant—larms from which the soldiers had either walked off or been pushed off because .there were not able to make a success of their.holdings. Those 57 farms .were going back day by day; they were growing nothing but noxious weeds, arid were £ menace to the other lands of the province. Other soldiers were just hanging on in the hope that they would receive some reliei; as a resul; of the investigation that Ikts recently been made by the special board i.ppoiuted for the purpose..

The mutilated bodies ol rabbits on the Foxton-Sandon road in the vicinity of Oroua Downs', indicates the increase of bunny in Hi-t district. Numbers of rabbits are killed nightly by motor cars, thi' headlights of which dazzle the rabbits arid they are run over. \

There are now 72 W.E.A. classes' throughout the Dominion, 14 of which specialise in economic subjects, the remaining 58 devoting then selves to the study of English lite;aUife, psychology,, history and general subjects.

The stormy weather ai, the beginning of last week brought-a young albatross ashore between Marotiri and Foxton. This is the second bird oi this species that has beeir cast up in this vicinity during the past few months, showing that very stormy conditions must be prevailing to bring this rare visitor so far from its natural haunts. ,

Northern growers'of onions urgently require an demand to relieve- growers of the large quantities on hand, but it is unlikely that any substantial orders booked, as Australia is quoting at low rates. It would take an order for 10,000 cases to make much, impression on local stocks, and it will not be long before the Southern are ready. /«

It was mentioned at the last meeting of the Cambridge Electric Power Board that the estimated revenue of the board had been greatly exceeded. The engineer's estimate of power to be, used in the borough of Cambridge hail been actually doubled, while the lighting current sold Was now 46 per cent above what had been reckoned on. The board had now 580 consum-

At the River Trust meeting at Wa- / nganui .Mr Gregor McGregor told his. experience with' blackberry. He cut 300 acres of scrub and blackberry at Hohiki. It was 30 feet high. For a couple of years all went well, but then the blackbee.ry sent out' shoots which grew 25 to 30ft in a season. Mr McGregor said he had done the worst he could have done. He had merely pruned the blackberry. The land was as bad now as it ever was. Blackberry, he said, was ineradicable. The best that could be done with it was to keep it cut down, every, year. The blackberry pest had cosit New Zealand millions of pounds, and would cost many millions more.

Shades of the old malefactors who suffered at Tyburn! They are going to build a mammoth picture-house and tea rooms on the site of Tyburn's gallows, says the Glasgow Herald. Thus history repeats itself. Dr. Johnson mentions v .lhe fact that at the execution of malefactors?* "stalls were set up hard by and much tea and strong ales consumed, with noise and jollity in ill accord with the solemn, business of hanging." We may also note that the houses in Seymour Place which commanded a. good view of Tyburn fetched a double rent, for here would come the quality from Mayfair, lolling in the windows and gazing at the last agonies of the sufferers through their quizzing glasses. The good old-days were eertainly bad, old, ferocious days. Exactly a hundred years ago they hanged a boy of 13 there for robbing another boy of a •shilling, and soon after, a girl of 14 for stealing sixpennyworth of ribbons. Every day of the week, except Sunday, Tyburn tree bore its pitiful fruit.

The Akaroa Mail reports that the cocksfoot crop for 1923—Bank's Peninsula is the home of the cocksfoot industry in' New Zealand—will be one of the smallest of recent years. The area closed for seed was smaller than usual, while 'th«» continuous wet weather made hai vesting, operations very difficult. It is sale to say that this year's crop will , not be much more than half that of last year.

The New, Zealand Meat Producers' Board has received a cable from its London office advising the sale of North Island lamb, "on hooks*-. Smithfield, at 13d per lb, and Down lambs at 14d per lb.

the Akaroa Butter Company 'have sold their February-March output for l/7j. f.o.b. Lyttelton, This is considered a very satisfactory price, being equal to a London price of 210/ per cwt, which is above the present day value.

Travellers over the road on the Foxton side of the Wirokino bridge on Saturday found it still in a very bumpy condition, and is a sure agent for finding out the weak spots in motor cars. those who frequently use the road say its, condition is much improved on. what it was a' month ago. A Wanganui Chronicle representative who visited Raetihi during last •week contrasted the picturesque countryside with an abundance of green feed with the of blackened desolation the morning after the great fire that swept the district 'just on five years ago. .One WaJin.arino settler said that on the occasion of that awful visitation he. spent the night on the road with his wife and children huddled beneath a blanket, as there was no creek in the vicinity to make for. "When daylight came I reckoned that everything had gone except the mortgage," he added, "and if we could have got away from the district we would gladly have gone." This settler, however, like many others here, again started and got a home together and to-day the great,fire of 1918 is but a memory of the past.