Prisoners of War Parcels Fund.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 September 1941, Page 4

Prisoners of War Parcels Fund.

A number of people took the opportunity of seeing Mrs A. Wallis’s garden at Lansdowne yesterday, when a collection was taken up in aid of the prisoners of war parcels fund, the amount received being £5 ss.

Special Film Screening. Talkie films depicting war activities in Britain will be shown at a special screening to adults in the Masterton Opera House tomorrow night. The screening is sponsored by the Shell Co., and is made by its mobile unit. Many phases of war activities on the home front are shown. A charge of 6d is to be made for patriotic funds. Prisoner’s Second Escape.

A prisoner, who jumped from the express taking him to the Waikeria Borstal Institute in January, stole an auxiliary yacht at Tauranga and was later rearrested in the vessel five miles off the coast, escaped from the prison farm at Auckland on Saturday. The missing man is Richard Humphreys, aged 23, who is at present serving two years’ sentence at Waikeria. Sane Conservation. Various writers and speakers have emphasised the truth that the old-time Maoris were intelligent conservers of natural resources, which they regarded as assets, perpetual yielders of benefits. This fact is brightly mentioned by Mr L. W. McCaskill in the “Education Gazette.” “Although the ancient Maori population may have reached 200,000 in numbers, the system of agriculture and food-gathering left little mark on the native vegetation,” be writes. “Small clearings for cultivation were made in forest or shrubland ox- fern. but these were rarely permanent in nature, and in time reverted to the original covering. In the drier districts tussockgrassland or manuka or fern may have replaced forest, but the total area would be very small. Further, the Maori destroyed only what was absolutely necessary. Before he cut a tree or commenced the fowling season, elaborate rites and ceremonies were necessary he believed that trees and birds were akin to man, that all three sprang from a common source in the god Tane, the fertiliser. We would not have a conservation problem today if we all developed some of the ancient Maori’s reverence for Tane and his offspring.”