Shannon News TUESDAY, OCTOBER 22, 1929.

Shannon News, 22 October 1929, Page 2

Shannon News TUESDAY, OCTOBER 22, 1929.

The friends of the M-iyor (Mr E. Butt) will be pleased to hear that his eye which was injured, is now much improve;! and there is every hope that his sight will not be impaired.

The street stall held on Saturday by the Shannon Fire Brigad.) proved quite a success despite the unsettled weather in the early part of the day. A fair quantity of donations came forward most of which were disposed of. During the day a number of competitions were held the winners being as follows:—Dinner, Mr J. Smith; cake, Mrs Jock Murray; doll, Mr R. Downes; bottle of wine, Mr G-. McEwen.

To-night the Shannon Women's Institute will hold a first-class entertainment in the Druids' Hall . Among the attractions is a playette entitled "No Servants," :n which sonic very clever talent will be seen and we are informed that patrons are in for a delightful 'surprise. There will also be items by one of Palmerstor.'s most popular instrumental trios. Apart from these attractions there will be dancing, competitions, a stall for Clwistmas gifts and novelties and a display of handicraft the work >f members o? the Institute. If ymi want to spend an enjoyable evening you should not miss :lii.s entertainment.

' A Dannevirke farmer who runs Sheep in a small way along with cows has had a remarkable lambing percentage —exactly 200. He has 35 sheep—33 of them having twins; nine had only one lamb, but another came to the rescue with triplets.

The British War Office's 20-reel film of the battle of the Somme is missing. The owner, Dr. Distin Maddich, has searched every corner of his house, but cannot find it. The loss is regarded as a matter of national importance, says the London Daily Mail.

Trapping rabbits is often held up as an example of getting rich quickly, but this method has to yield the palm to white-baiting (says the Southland Times). Two whitebaiters are reported to have caught sufficient whitebait in the Mataura river in six hours to bring them in a return of £6O.

The camp that.was in course of erection on the Woodville Domain, near the Gorge, for the accommodation of men who were to be employed in diverting the road between the two bridges, has been transferred to another locality. It is now considered extremely improbable that the road will be diverted. The diversion would have involved the destruction of much native bush, against which the Woodville Examiner strongly protested.

The tender of Messrs Christiani and Neilson, a Danish firm, has been accepted for the building of the railway bridge across the Otaki River, and men have already commenced on their work. A deal of the gear is to hand, while Mr. assistant engineer, is losing no time with the work entrusted to him. Another siding is to be put ,in at the north end, and by Tuesday gangs should be working at both ends.

The total cost of the bridge will be £27,000. It will take some months to complete.

As the result of an exhaustive inquiry into the affairs of the Hutt Valley Power Board, Mr. E. R. Hollands, late manager of the Timaru Municipal Electricity Department, has been appointed engineer-manager to that Board, at a salary of £IOOO a year. Mr. Hollands was born in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England, in 1886. Ho is a registered chartered electrical engineer of New Zealand, a member of the Institute of Electrical Engineers, South Africa, a member of the Institute of Electrical Engineers, England, and an associate member of the New Zealand Society of Civil Enginoers^.

Much alarm was causeu at Spreydon, Christchurch, on a recent morning when a number of steers got into the streets, as a result of which one man was injured, while a woman and baby narrowly escaped being hurt. The cattle had been brought in from the country on the previous evening and were pijaccd <n a before Ibejngtaken to the Addington saleyards. In the' early hours of the morning they escaped from the paddock and roamed about for several hours. Many people had narrow escapes, the steers charging everyone they saw. Some of the cattle entered the Addington school grounds, but forhmately the children were in school, and the beasts did little harm. Two of the steers became so wild they had to be shot. One woman was knocked from her bicycle, while another just succeeded in getting through a gateway when a steer charged. Later in the morning a woman with a baby was stepping from a tram when a steer charged her. However, she waved her arms and the animal became frightened and swerved aside. The drovers were out before dawn, but it was not until midday that all th« beasts were out of harm's war.

The Pctone Borough Council has been authorised to borrow £5550 for the renewal of sundry loans. The amount is repayable by instalments over a period of 24 years.

Tom Hccney is arranging to rail tor South Africa. His idea of a comfortable old age is a "pub" in the back veld, with a great aisonment of pugilistic pictures on Lho wall behind the bar.

"This business has increased tremendouslv and wc anticipate putting through " between 30,000 and 40,000 calves this year," remarked Hon. J. Or. Cobbe at the annual meeting of the Feilding Farmers' Freezing Coy., Ltd., at Feiiding'. The value of the buildings authorised by the Hamilton Borough authorities in the past six months was live times as high as for the corresponding period of last year. The figures are:— April-September, 1929, £113,863; AprilSeptember, 1928, £22,518. For the past quarter the total was £78,479, compared with £14,145 for the corresponding quarter of last year.

Speaking at the executive meeting of the Manawatu provincial branch of the New Zealand Farmers' Union, Mr. O. P. Lynch considered that the proposed graduated land tax would reduce the value of certain lands. He thought that, . if the proposal were put into effect; the Lands Department would have to rduce the valuations on those properties for there to be any fairness. *

The name of a certain Maori district was mentioned in the course of the discussion ''on missionary assessments at the Diocesan Synod as not having made any contribution to the great cause (states a Hawke's Bay paper). The Native minister of the district, one of the most respected members of the synod, concluding a speech which evoked considerable amusement at times, brought down the house by saying: "Talk about scenery! We have the best scenery in New Zealand, but silver and gold ive have none."

At the last Horowhenua County Council meeting a resolution was passed that, in accordance with Section 55 of the Public Works Act, 1928, the Council appoint Mr. N. H. Mackic, valuer, Palmerston North, to be an assessor on its behalf in the matter of a claim for compensation by Mrs. C. T. Tatum, of Manakau, for land taken, near the Waikawa Bridge, for the purposes of a road to give access to property formerly owned by Mr. Robert Bevan. We understand that the claim (£240) will be heard on the 31st hist. at Levin.

• There was an unusual incident in the Magistrate Court at Palmerston North, when, owing to a misunderstanding, the wrong man stepped into the dock and was charged with an offence of which he knew nothing. The situation was created through a similarlarity in names. The real accused, who had remained in the background, then entered the dock and pleaded guilty before he was charged with the offence of drunkenness. As it wag his first conviction within the statutory period, he was fined ss, in default 24 hours'. im'prisonment.

Motorists on the Taradale road between the Redcliffe Bridge ai>d Taradale, shortly after sunset on Thursday, were surprised to find the road alive with small frogs (states the Napie? "Telegraph"). There must have been thousands of the small reptiles hopping all over the roadway, the warm weather having apparently drawn them from their usual haunts. It was absolutely impossible for motorists to avoid them and as a result the road was littered with frog corpses on the following morning. A Taradale resident stated to a pressman that he had never before seen so many small frogs about at this time of the year. All ditches and drains on orchard properties in the district" was teeming with them.

An earthquake in New iSouth Wales gives New Zealand a great chance to get some of its own back. We should indulge in large headlines: —"Australia Rocked by Quake —Populace Panic- ' stricken." We might also refer, says an exchange, to Australia as the shaky continent, and sympathise with people going there. It will be remembered that the Australian press made the most of the recent South Island shake. One of the best earthquake stories is told of a Los Angeles paper. Los Angeles will not allow Ban Francisco to live down its groat earthquake. Not so long ago an earthquake shook Santa Barbara, a near neighbour of Los Angeles, and the Los Angeles sheet rushed out a page headline:—"Earthquake Hits Santa Barbara, 450 miles from San Francisco."

After having undergone repairs the second of the two guns flanking the Ballance Statue at Wanganui,' has been put back into position. An interesting history is wrapped up in this old gun. It was landed from H.MjS. Hazard at the Bay of Islands in the 'forties and was used at the Ruapekapeka siege, as well as on the previous attack on the Ohacawai pa. Reference to the latter fact is made by Judge Manning, author of "Old New .Zealand." The gun remained in the Bay of Islands district until the end of the war in that locality. It was then sent to Wanganui and was part of the defence of the stockade. It was deemed so important that a sentry was always guarding it night and day. Later it was used in almost every engagement in the Waitara district. Throughout its career the gun did not do much harm. 'lt ts recorded that on one occasion a Maori woman, carrying a baby, was killed by it, but the infant escaped.