LOCAL AND GENERAL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 January 1939, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL

Rainfall at “Marangai.” Mr 11. G. Groves. -Marangai." reports rainfall as follows: —Rainfall for year, 53.99 inches: wettest month. April, 12.04 inches; driest month, October, 0.94 inches; rainfall in December. 3.83 inches. The previous wettest year recorded was 1935, with a rainfall of 45.86 inches The driest year recorded was 1915. with 20.61 inches. The average rainfall for the previous 23 years is 36.64 inches. Nearly 100 Inches of Rain.

A rainfall of 99.96 in. was recorded for 1938 by Mr H. Guthrie Smith at Tutira homestead, Hawke’s Bay. The heaviest rainfall recorded in any year previously was 85.02 in. in 1917. Mi Guthrie Smith’s recordings show that the wettest month of the year was April, when 30.75 in. fell. July, with 16.04. and January. 12.47, were next. Falls for the past four years were: 1935. 67.83; 1936, 55.38; 1937, 42.21; 1938, 99.96. State Fire Extensions.

The Arcadia Private Hotel in Stout Street, Wellington, which, with the shop premises next to it, is to be demolished to make way for an extension to the State Fire and Accident Insurance building, was closed last night as a guest-house, and is to be vacated on Saturday. The clearing of the site, which will probably take three or four weeks, will begin on Monday. Inter-House Carnival.

January 21 is the date fixed by the North Island interhouse carnival committee for the holding of the North Island business girls’ interhouse championships at McLean Park, Napier. Invitations have been sent to the winners of the carnivals at Lower Hutt, Masterton. Dannevirke, Hastings, Gisborne, Hawera and Palmerston North. Entries close on January 7. The Prime Minister, Mr Savage, has been invited, and it is hoped that he may attend during the course of a. tour he is expected to make this month.

Wairarapa Stud Sheep Sale. The 21st annual sale of Romney and Southdown rams will be held on the Show Grounds, Masterton, at 11 a.m. on January 17, 1939. Good entries have been received, and as breeders agree to sell the pick of their studs at this sale, buyers can attend with every confidence. This is recognised as the best sale in the Dominion, attracting buyers from all parts. The entries come from well known breeders in the Wairarapa, Rangitikei, Feilding, Hawke’s Bay and Marlborough districts. South Island buyers arriving by steamer on the day of the sale can be landed in Masterton by service car in time. Chess Championship.

With the completion of the eleventh round last night of the New Zealand chess championship a most interesting position was revealed, three players tying for first place. They are F. K. Kelling (Wellington), J. B. Dunlop (Dunedin) and H. McNabb (Nelson). Each of the trio has played all his games. J. A. Erskine (Invercargill) is next with 61 points, R. O. Scott (Wanganui) has six with one unfinished game, D. I. Jones (Auckland) SJ, with one unfinished game, E. Rutherford (Stratford) and E. H. Severne (Wellington) each five and each with one game unfinished. The twelfth round will be played tonight and the final round tomorrow. Deserter Remanded.

A seaman who deserted from the steamer Naumberg in Wellington on November 13 last, James Brown, aged 18, a native of the United States of America, appeared before Mr J. H. Luxford, S.M., in the Magistrates’ Court, Wellington, yesterday, and was remanded till next week. Sub-Inspec-tor J. A. Dempsey said Brown was arrested in the Palmerston North district shortly before Christmas. The shipping company had a vessel leaving Lyttelton about February 5, and it was proposed that he should be returned to America in this ship. “I don’t want to send this young man to prison,” said the magistrate. “It would be better to leave him on remand from week to week, and have him placed on board the vessel when she leaves Lyttelton.”

Nazi Hymn Sung. New Plymouth residents had an unusual experience on Sunday night when for the first time in New Zealand the German national anthem and the hymn of the Nazi movement were sung in public at a concert given by cadets from the German barque Kommodore Johnsen, which is in port at New Plymouth. With the right arm raised in the Nazi salute, 40 cadets from the barque stood to attention and sang "Deutschland Über Alles,” followed by the hymn of the National Socialist regime, the "Horst Wessel” song. The large audience, who had just sung the British National Anthem, also stood to attention. Though most of the audience recognised the more familiar air of the German national anthem, few had ever heard the hymn of the third Reich before. Windows Broken. "It would be quite wrong of me to impose a term of imprisonment in this case. No doubt defendant did this in a state of depression arising from his illness.” said Mr J. H. Luxford, S.M., in ! the Magistrate’s Court, Wellington, yesterday, when William Ewbank, hotel worker, aged 45, was charged with committing mischief bj r wilfully damaging two plate-glass windows valued at £5O, the property of Lysons, Ltd. Ewbank, who pleaded guilty, was admitted to probation for two years. Police evidence showed that Ewbank called at the Taranaki Street police station early one morning and asked to be locked up. He was advised to go home, and later returned and said he had broken two windows so that he would be imprisoned. Peace Ministry. A motion requesting the Government to form a Peace Ministry to study the causes of war and to attempt their removal was passed yesterday by delegates to the annual convention of the New Zealand Methodist Young Men’s Bible Class movement, which has been meeting in Wellington. The convention. comprising some 40 delegates from all parts of the Dominion, studied the problems of peace and war, penal reform and the existing social order. It was agreed that the doctrine of the inevitability of war was unacceptable, and that there existed a need for the application of true Christian principles to everyday life. The convention was of the opinion that the present Government was showing interest and concern in the penal system, but it was felt that more far-reaching steps were needed along redemptive rather than along retaliatory and retributive lines as at present. 1