LOCAL AND GENERAL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 13 March 1941, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL

National Patriotic Fund. 1 The National Patriotic Fund has now reached £167,147. Partial Eclipse of Moon.) / There will be a partial eclipse of the moon tonight. The moon will enter the penumbra at 9.30 o’clock and the eclipse proper will be observed at 10.55 o’clock'. Fire Brigades' Conference. It was decided at Blenheim yesterday that the next Fire Brigades’ Conference be held in Westport. The question of whether demonstrations should be held during the war period was left to the executive. Missing Trampers Found. Calls from one of a party of three young women trampers from Auckland, lost in the Waitakere Ranges since Friday, were heard by a settler in Huia Gorge on Tuesday night and early yesterday morning searchers went up the gorge and found the other two who had remained in a rough bush camp which the three made when they realised they were lost. The one who came clown the gorge to seek help was Mrs A. W. Fiveash, who looked little the worse for her experience. She said the party camped on Friday night on an overgrown track near Little Huia, and it was not till Satur'day 'chat they felt doubtful about their 'position. They had plenty of tinned food, and water from a stream.

Bathing Tragedy. While bathing at St Clair on Tuesday evening, James Coulter Hubbard, a married man, aged 32, residing in Caversham, was seen to be in difficulties. Members of a life-saving team brought him to the shore, but he did not respond to artificial respiration. Drought Conditions in Otago. Three Otago cheese factories, those at Goodwood, Merton and Waikouaiti, will be forced to close down operations prematurely this season unless rain falls in these districts in sufficient quantities to ensure relief to pastures and good supply of milk from dairy herds. Lorry Wrecked by Train. A goods train approaching Feilding from the south last evening crashed into a large lorry carrying lambs and sheep to the Aorangi freezing works. The heavily-laden lorry was wrecked almost completely, and the driver and part-owner, Mr Charles Ernest Robinson, was seriously injured and taken to Palmerston North Hospital. A “Yellow Peril.” That there existed in Hawke's Bay a “yellow peril” in the form of prevalence of ragwort, was a statement made at a meeting of the Hawke's Bay County Council, when considerable alarm was expressed al the growth of noxious weeds. Unless definite steps are taken to combat the spread, the council considers that it might have to administer the Act itself.