LOCAL AND GENERAL

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21222, 19 September 1940, Page 6

LOCAL AND GENERAL

£3OOO Orchid Show. Six thousand exotic orchid blooms valued at £3OOO were on display in Sydney this week. Some of these precious flora arrived by air from Java. Cyclist Injured Facial abrasions necessitating his removal to the Waikato Hospital, were received by Ernest Thorpe, aged 32, of Anglesea Street, when he fell from his bicycle in Seddon Road this morning. Businessman’s Death Regret at the death of Mr G. W. Vercoe was expressed at the annual meeting of the Waikato branch of the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand in Hamilton last night. The meeting stood a moment in silence. Mail Box on Fire N One of the mail boxes at the Te Aro post office, Wellington, was found to be alight shortly before 10 p.m. on Tuesday, and a quantity of mail was destroyed before the flames were smothered. The police and fire officials nre inquiring into the cause of the fire. Warning Issued A warning that acts of vandalism or theft in connection with State housing development throughout New Zealand would henceforth be severely dealt with has been issued by the Minister of Housing, the Hon. H. T. Armstrong. The Minister stated that the action of careless and, in some cases, dishonest, persons had caused loss, inconvenience and delay to the housing scheme. He washed to make it perfectly clear to the public that a continuance of the nuisance could not be tolerated.

Von Luckner’s Visit Recalled The coincidence that at a luncheon only two years ago Admiral Harper and Count von Luckner had been the joint guests of the Christchurch Businessmen’s Club was mentioned by Mr S. G. Holland, M.P., recently. “It just shows how gullible we British are that we should entertain a man who was obviously a German spy,” he said. “I remember that while he was at our table the telephone message came that he could go rowing on the Avon or anywhere else but that he must not go to Ripa Island because we were busy there. And now German bombs are raining on London.”

Post Office Burglary A safe containing £34 in cash, £4O in postal notes. £23 in social security stamps and £2O in revenue stamps and letter cards has been stolen from the Paengaroa post office, near Te Puke, at which a burglary previously occurred about nine months ago. The thieves entered the post office through a window at the back. Apparently the safe was taken through the front door to a waiting vehicle. An attempt was also made to enter a store next to the post office. The glass doors were broken, but bars on the inside prevented an entrance being mmde. London Is Safe ! Employees of a Hamilton firm put their heads together yesterday during a spare moment and came to a mathematical conclusion that Germany, or any one else who liked to try, would take more than 2000 years to destroy London by aerial bombing. This was the way the answer was obtained: Dropping 500 bombs a day for 365 days a year, and reckoning that each bomb would have an average destructive area of five square yards, it would take 433,664,000 bombs to destroy the Empire’s capital. That would take 2376 years. Even if the average destructive area of a bomb were greatly in excess of the estimate, it would still appear that Adolf Hitler and his henchmen have no chance of seeing their object achieved. Londoners appear resigned to resist this enemy effort to weaken their morale—for 2376 years, if need be.