HERE AND THERE IN NEW ZEALAND

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 314, 21 December 1936, Page 3

HERE AND THERE IN NEW ZEALAND

GLEANINGS OF DOMINION NEWS.

Monster Pig. Two Wanganui sportsmen, Messrs Cuthbertson and Davis, killed an enormous wild pig near Waitotara recently. The animal was so heavy that the two of them could not lift the carcass. After a great deal of trouble they succeeded in skinning it, and the weight of the skin alone took some managing. Three bullets were required to kill the animal, which was an old boar, fully six feet six inches long. Two .303 slugs penetrated the thick hide and one .44. Long, rounded tusks were obtained from the jaw, these proclaiming the fact that the, boar was certainly old.

Brisk Business. The general anticipations of phenomenally brisk Christmas trade this year are shared by the trading banks in Auckland. Normally the banks carry considerable reserves in notes and coin, but at present they] are being built up to a marked extent, to cope with the expected heavy demand for withdrawals which will represent the purchase money for Christmas shopping. Many thousands of pounds in notes, silver and copper have been transferred to Auckland from the Reserve Bank in Wellington during the last few days and there is a general belief that an abnormally large sum of money is likely to be in circulation during the holiday’ season.

Completion Of Education. ‘‘lf any industrial legislation com-p-els' employers to take boys from School at an. early age, then something must be doiie to meet that difficulty/’ said the Minister of Education (Mr P. Fraser) when speaking at the prize-giving ceremony of St. Patrick's College, Wellington. “I rule out,” he said, “the plea for early specialisation, whether in school or out of it, for tfto reasons: first, thS demand for harrow practicality is self-defeating; secondly', it is dead agdinSt the standard of our natlohajl cultuire.f My fear, thf/i, is that mhny lads will become inefficient in their employer’s eyes when they become 21. We ihust have patience. Rome was not built in a day, and 1 I recognise that many of the difficulties are difficulties peculiar to a transitional stage. When the new legislation is in full force, and appeals against dismissal become an accepted thing, then I sincerely hope that, there will be little patience with the plea of an inefficiency of the 'type that comes from lack of a sound general education. A lad does not have to reach his twenties for that defect to show up.”

Mentally Unfit. The Waitaki Hospital Board has decided' to send the following remit to the Hospital Boards’ Conference;—“That, the Government be recommended to establish institutions' for the care of mentally unstable members of the community who are not actually certifiable, and .that magistrates have power to compel such people to enter these institutions.”

Purchase Of Timber Lands.

The purchase of about 4000 acres of the Tongariro timber lands at Tokoonu by a King Country firm of sawmillers has been completed. The native owners will receive about £170,000. The area sold is estimated to contain nearly 80,000,000 feet log measurement of timber. It is part of a block of 40,000 acres of the finest totara, matai, and rimu forest in New Zealand, owned ex-< clusively by members of the Tu'wharetoa tribe. The total hrea is estimated to contain more than 1,000,000,000 feet, and the stumpage value has been assessed at £3,750,000.

Practical Joke. A resident near Invercargill who had experienced much trouble with deer breaking into his vegetable garden recently built a fence high enough to keep out a giraffe let alone a deer and was quite satisfied he had successfully checked the nuisance. He was therefore considerably astonished to later discover his newlysown garden liberally marked with deer footmarks. His chagrin turned to amusement, however, when he found; that some wag had taken the dismembered foot of a slain deer and liberally prodded the garden to give the appearance of another invasion of the. pest.

Market For Swordfish. The fact that there is a substantial market for swordfish in the United States, where it is regarded as one of the greatest delicacies of all kinds of fish, has been brought to the notice of a New Zealand firm by Mr S. Hornstein, president of the Coast Fishing Company, Wilmington, California, who has been investigating fishing in New Zealand. Japan was now shipping substantial quantities of swordfish to America, he said, and his company was prepared to take any frozen swordfish the New Zealand firm, could forward. It would be necessary’ to send the fish to the freezing store as sotrn as it was brought in from the deep-sea fishing grounds, and it would then not be a difficult matter to ship it. The fish would not be canned, but would be sold fresh.