NEWS AND NOTES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 2 July 1938, Page 8

NEWS AND NOTES

VARIOUS ITEMS OF INTEREST. New Potatoes in June. An Okato farmer, Mr W. F. Goodin, and his family have been enjoying the luxury of new potatoes for the past three weeks. The potatoes were planted toward the end of March and were grown out of doors in a sheltered position. The fact that potatoes were ready for the table early in June indicates the mildness of the season. Unusual Educational Event. During the May holidays of next year New Plymouth will probably be the venue of an unusual educational event when it is proposed to give special instruction to about 400 children normally taught by correspondence from Wellington. The New Plymouth High Schools Board has decided to give the correspondence school any assistance possible, and the board is favourable to permitting the use of the boarding hostels. Trousseau Destroyed. A bride’s trousseau, valued at over £lOO, including many articles that cannot be replaced, was lost when a home on the upper Hatsings Road, Taranaki, was destroyed by fire. The unlucky prospective bride was Miss Marjorie Jones, and the home was that of her father. Nothing was saved, and the family, who were absent at the time, will be heavy losers. When neighbours noticed the smoke and rushed to the house they were met by a wall of flames. Many articles in the trousseau were bought abroad, and were sent to Miss Jones by her’fiance, Mr Sydney Horsbrugh, who recently returned from a trip to Europe via the East. Mr Horsbrugh also lost personal effects and goods stored in the house. Not Enough Boys.

Scarcity of well-developed and inteligent boys and girls of fifteen and sixteen years for employment has been commented upon by Mr N. C. Gribble, secretary of the Auckland Youth centre. He said that there are now insufficient boys and girls leaving school in the ordinary course for the needs of primary and secondary industries, and the scarcity of boys was affecting the primary industries more than the secondary industries. The Centre did not have any boys available to send to farms, and there was a steady demand by farmers for boys. Mr Gribble considered that the position in Auckland was similar to that in Dunedin, where there were no boys of about sixteen years available for business houses.

Some Close Contests. Mr J. H. McCarroll, brother of Mr J. N. McCarroll, Whangarei, who has given many years of service in local body affairs, has had some very close contest’s. On three occasions he had tied, two in the riding elections for Aratapu Riding, in Hobson County and again recently. In the riding contest in 1923, with 73 ' votes, he tied with Mr J. J. Powell, and won on the draw; in 1926 he received 63 votes, Mr J. J. Powell receiving 61; in 1929, with 75 votes, he tied with Mr W. Cbrkill, and Mr Corkil won on the draw, and in the last contest for the position of chairman of the Kaipara Hospital Board, Mr McCarroll lost on the draw. Unusual Memorial.

High on the dome of the roof of a new 2,000,000-gallon petrol tank built for an oil company in Freeman’s Bay, Auckland, is a penny, an unusual memorial to a young man who lost his life while the tank was under construction. The coin, welded into the central steel plate, is barely recognisable owing to the heat to which it was subjected in the welding. It is regarded by the workmen who built the tank as a fitting tribute to the victim of the only accident that occurred during the work. When the tank was nearing completion, one of the men engaged, Mr J. S. Dykes, fell from the top and landed inside on tKe steel flooring. He was dead on arrival at a private hospital. The penny dropped from Mr Dykes’s pocket in the fall. It was later picked up by some of his workmates and firmly welded into the topmost point of the roof.

Bittern Comes to Grief. A bittern found at Glentui with its throat caught on a barbed wire fence has been presented to the Canterbury Museum. The manner of its death and that of other bitterns suggests that it is a short-sighted bird, or that it lacks control in flying. The last one brought to the museum had struck a power wire at Hakataramea. The Curator of the Museum (Mr R. A. Falla) said that the bittern was still fairly widely distributed, although the reduction of swamp country was depriving it of its natural habitat. The introduction of the Australian frog had, however, afforded it a new food supply. This was one of the few instances where an introduced species had benefited native birds. Hawks had benefited by the introduction of rabbits, and tuis and bellbirds by the eucalyptus tree; but on the whole there were very few instances of this kind.