LOCAL AND GENERAL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 August 1938, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL

Billiards and Snooker. Billiards and snooker games in the Y.M.C.A. cup competition will be continued next week, when the following games will be played:—Tuesday, Post Office v. Y.M.C.A. A; Thursday, Daniells v. Y.M.C.A. B. Wahine to Resume Running. The Union Company’s inter-island express service steamer Wahine, which is undergoing overhaul and survey at Wellington, came off the floating dock yesterday and berthed at the Ferry Wharf. The Wahine will re-enter the service next Saturday, when she will leave for Lyttelton in place of the Maori. The Maori, which has been relieving in the service while the Rangatira and Wahine were overhauled, will pay off and lay up at Wellington. Land-locked Trout. Fisherman know that trout do not necessarily spend all their life in rivers. They have been seen in Wellington harbour, for instance, and it is recorded that they have been caught off the coast. There is one instance in New Zealand, however, of trout being land-locked, namely, in the upper reaches of the Wangaehu river which, in the lower portion of its course, is charged with sulphur in which the fish cannot live. 1 Credit Unlimited.

“The only place in the world in which I found unlimited credit was Darwin, in. the Northern Territory of Australia,” said a visitor to Napier (Mr Buddy Langman). “The only way to Darwin is by sea, and as a result everyone knows just when you are leaving. Consequently merchants are not averse to giving practically unlimited credit, as they know that they can intercept any effort to break away from the port by any intending defaulting debtors.”

Nursing Aids. Arising from an acute shortage of trained nurses and designed to provide means of skilled attention, more particularly for the chronically sick, a national system for the training of nursing aids is under consideration by the Department of Health and hospital authorities throughout the Dominion. A comprehensive scheme providing for the registration of this class of nurse after a two years’ course of training has been prepared by the New Zealand Hospital Boards’ Association in consultation with the Nurses and Midwives’ Registration Board..

Sending Cherries by Post. That an amusing situation has arisen between the Railways Department and the Post Office was pointed out to a meeting of the Tomato and Stone-fruit Growers’ Association by Mr B. T. Turner. Mr Turner said that while the Railways Department had refused to handle stone-fruit over Christmas, on account of the holidays, an Otago farmer had found that he could send his cherries by post. Although the railways still carried the packages, he received not only cheaper but speedier transport. because they were always consigned by express instead of goods trains.

Speed! Liverpool to New York and back in four minutes! 1 Members of. the Christchurch Rotary Club were astonished to learn from Mr J. Ramsay, the speaker at their weekly luncheon, that cotton market questions sent from Liverpool or London to New York were replied to inside four minutes. Mr Ramsay, who is connected with the cotton exchange, explained its workings. Direct lines stretched from the Liverpool and London cotton exchanges to those in New York and New Orleans. Market quotations were flashed across from one to the other. A reply to a question from Liverpool was back in Liverpool from New York in four minutes. Question and Answer.

How old is a baby tiger when it first opens its eyes? That was a question put by a school pupil to Mr Gordon Anderson, education officer, Dunedin, who spoke to those attending the teachers’ refresher course at Invercargill on the importance of a museum in school work. He gave this as an example of how difficult it is sometimes to answer a child’s perfectly logical question. “I had to confess that I did not know the answer,”, said Mx- Anderson, “but I promised to find out. It took me seven weeks. Books of reference gave me an abundance of information about tigers, but not what I wanted. University professors, too, were able to tell me all about tigers except what I wanted to know. Finally, the information came from a keeper at the Wellington Zoo. It is roughly 10 days from its birth before a baby tiger’s eyes are opened.

Value of Dairying. The tremendous value of the dairying industry to the Manawatu district, excluding the Woodville area, can be realised from the balance-sheet figures of co-operative dairy companies. With the returns of two small cheese factories only omitted because they are unobtainable at present, it is calculated that the gross production for the past season before manufacturing costs are deducted was £1,556,153; advances to suppliers, including final payments, have yielded £1,392,535. Fifteen factories have contributed toward the release of these funds in the areas which make Palmerston North their principal commercial centre, but by far the greatest distributions" on butterfat basis were made by nine butter companies which paid out £1,282,792, their total receipts by sales, including stocks assessed at current market values, being £1,426,061. Six cheese companies paid out £109,743, the gross value of their production being £130,092. Prison Farms.

The future development of prison farms as areas for settlement was a subject of discussion during consideration of the Estimates of the Department of Justice and Prisons in the House of Representatives yesterday. “I do not know whether there are any special plans for the future,” said the Minister of Justice, the Hon H. G. R. Mason, in replying to a question. “Land is being brought in, of course, and the ultimate objective is that it should be available for settlement. However, owing to the diminution in ’he number of prisoners, the progress of development is very slow. The number of prisoners in the camps is hardly more than sufficient for routine farming operations." The Minister added that the number of prisoners in the Dominion was as low as it had been for a quarter of a century. The reduction in the prison population was also affecting the activities of the department in quarrying and marketgardening.