LOCAL AND GENERAL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 April 1939, Page 6

LOCAL AND GENERAL

The Late King of Iraq. Flags on public buildings in Masterton were flown at half mast yesterday in connection with the death of the King of Iraq. Jewish Passover. The Jewish Passover, which commemorates the deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt, began at sunset on Monday, and will continue till sunset next Tuesday. Vital Statistics. Vital statistics registered in Masterton for March were as follows, the figures for the corresponding month of last year being shown in parentheses: Births 32 (18); deaths, 8 (10); marriages, 15 (9). School Holidays. Holidays to be observed by the State schools at Easter will be from tomorrow till Tuesday. The schools will reopen on Wednesday of next week. The term holidays this year will start on May 5, the schools to resume on May 22. Health Insurance. At the conclusion of a meeting of the full council of the New Zealand branch of the British Medical Association in Wellington yesterday it was stated that the health insurance scheme was further considered. It is understood that the scheme is still the subject of 'negotiation with the Government. It was explained that no official statement would bo made at present. Hole in One That Materialised. All golfers will agree that they have been told “to watch me do this in one,” but rarely does the act come off. One exception is the popular professional of the Palmerston North Club, Mr A. E. Ekstedt, who quite recently managed to make a prophecy come true at the short ninth. Standing on the tee he remarked to his partner that all that was necessary was to take a number six iron and play the ball in the approved manner. To the astonishment of both, the ball behaved in the tyest possible style and settled comfortably in the hole. Large Size in Pears. The attention of passers-by was arrested by the sight of four pears of exceptional size in a Dunedin fruiterer’s window. These were pears of the Doyenne due Comise variety and their combined weight was 41b 9ioz. They were grown in Mr A. J. Hinton’s orchard in Earnscleugh, Alexandra, on a young graft, only three years old, and it is suggested that the fruit secured the whole benefit of the root system of the mature tree. . The Doyenne du Comise commands a high value, as a table pear, on the Home market. Brilliant Meteor. Considerable alarm was felt in Taupo shortly after 9 o’clock on Monday night when a deafening dull report was heard. A number of residents rushed into the streets under the impression that Mt Ngauruhoe was in eruption. They were just in time to see a red glow in the sky near the western bay. One early observer said he distinctly saw a meteor with a long tail travelling from north-east to south-west. There was a blinding flash followed by a loud report and a slow rumbling noise. The meteor seen from Taupo was seen by observers in Auckland. A splendid view of the phenomenon, low in the south-eastern sky, was obtained from Auckland. Over-loud Radios. Lord Horder, the eminent medical specialist, has been going closely into the bad effects of noise on hearing. As president of the Noise Abatement League he recently announced that that body had already embarked on a campaign against the unduly loud radio set, especially in residential quarters. “We hope,” he said, “to get a Bill introduced which will make it an offence to use a loud-speaker so as to disturb one’s neighbours—an offence which will enable Magistrates on conviction to suspend or take away a licence altogether. We are also considering the possibility of limiting the output of sets with too big a volume of sound.” Production 30 per cent Lower. Dairy farmers are experiencing their worst season in recent times, states a Gisborne correspondent. Dry conditions have prevailed for six months and production throughout the district is 30 per cent lower than last season, which was not a good one. The decline in output, as compared with two years ago, is substantially more than 30 per cent. The worst, however, may be ahead. Farmers are faced with the prospect of an acute shortage of winter feed. If rain comes during the next wx?ek or so the position will be much relieved, but if the dry spell continues much beyond Easter and if the weather is cold, prospects for the winter will be uncertain. Useful Scavengers-. On learning that acclimitisation societies in New Zealand had put a price on hawks to encourage their destruction, a visiting English naturalist said that possibly sheepfarmers would live to regret the extermination of hawks. New Zealand appeared to be poor, he remarked, in scavengers, of which the bawl" wore the most important, cleaning up carcases which otherwise formed the breeding place of blow-flies. After doing their best to exterminate carrion crows, which sometimes attacked the eyes of new-born lambs, or of ewes at lambing time, he said, the shepherds on the English moors noticed a big increase in the number of sheep that wc-o fly-b'owu. the flies having bred in carcases which, in the absence of scavengers, were left to decay. AfFr that lesson in the intricacies of the balance of Nature, the shepherds now tolerated the carrion crows.