LOCAL AND GENERAL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 28 October 1940, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL

Band Concert. The fine weather yesterday resulted in a large attendance of the public to hear an excellent band concert, given in Masterton Park by the visiting Napier Salvation Army Band. Much favourable comment was heard on all sides on the splendid variety and quality of the programme presented. More Goods for Civilians. A decrease in defence demands upon the woollen and clothing industries next year is considered by the Minister for Industries and Commerce, Mr Sullivan, to be a possibility. The Minister said at Christchurch that it was probable that more goods would be made available for civilian consumption as the reorganisation and rationalisation of the industries had placed them in a very favourable position. Incendiarist at Work. A fire in its early stages was discovered in the railway goods sheds at Mataura at 7 o’clock this morning. The police state that the outbreak, which was the fifth in recent months, was the work of an incendiarist. It was found that one of the doors had been forced and a pile of sacking placed at one end of the building. Buckets of water were sufficient to put out the flames among the sacking. In the goods shed was stored about £lOOO of wood pulp and a quantity of explosives. As far as is known nothing was stolen. Weight Lifting Contests. Two British Empire Games records were beaten by H. Cleghoup (Auckland) in the New Zealand weight-lift-ing championships on Saturday, at Wanganui. In the snatch he lifted 2731 b. and in the press 2708 b. Cleghorn won the heavyweight title, for which he was the only competitor. H. Boak (Wellington) gave an impressive performance to win the light-heavyweight title. L. Hogan (King Country) won the middleweight championship, A. Sykes (Auckland) the lightweight, C. McDonald (Auckland) the featherweight, and K. Banks (Auckland), the bantamweight. Swimming Lessons for Soldiers. Delegates at the annual conference of the New Zealand Amateur Swimming Association, in Wellington on Saturday, expressed concern at the proportion of soldiers who were unable to swim. An Otago remit proposed that the Government be approached with a view to offering facilities for obtaining the services as honorary instructors of members of swimming clubs to conduct classes among non-swimmers called up for military service. Mr C. Kirkland (Southland) said that the council and the association should urge authorities to make every endeavour to provide swimming facilities in military camps and that the Government should appoint instructors and pay them as part of the men’s physical training. He did not think 'it fair to push on to individual centres the obligation of teaching the troops to swim. Swimming should be recognised as an essential part of military training. A sub-com-mittee was set up to consider the question. Never Saw a Race. More than 200 persons who were on the Trentham racecourse on Saturday never saw a race. Neither did they bet, for legislation forbids them to. They were the totalisator employees, who do not even leave their totalisator houses for the period of a day's racing. They do not know the result of a race till this information is given them for paying-out purposes, and then it is only by numbers. These are the people who are the servants of the mechanical wonder —the electric totalisator—help to make possible by the nimble manipulation of the selling machines the issue of tens of thousands of tickets within half an hour. The normal selling time for a race is 25 minutes, and each selling window puts through approximately 25 tickets a minute. There were 72 selling on Saturday, making an issue of 1800 tickets a minute possible. The sellers are women. The paying-out is done by men, and here a ready brain is also necessary for the accurate paying-out of thousands of pounds in notes and silver to queues of fortunate investors at the end of a race.