Local and General.

Gisborne Times, Volume LXV, Issue 10301, 10 January 1927, Page 4

Local and General.

Mails which left Wellington on December 7 per s.s. Tahiti, via San Francisco arrived in London on Janu, ary 6, 1927.

Gisborne Girl Guides are in camp , Jlr .E. M. Hutchinson’s Waikohu /perty. Miss Laing, head ot uide camping in Is T ew Zealand, is in large. The camp continues till January 14.

The Hawke’s Bay executive of the Farmers’ Union in a letter to tho Poverty Bay executive, read at Saturday’s meeting, expressed full approval of the latter's proposal to urge the Government to set up a Wool Board,

Poultry reached record prices at Bathurst (N.S.W.) just before Christinas. Turkeys were so scarce that £5 a pair of gobbler swas paid. The shortage was due to the fact that most poultrvmen sent their birds to the Sydney market.

A sports meeting which promises to be of more than ordinary interest is that organised by the Waerenga-a-ktiri Sports Club, to be held on Jan. 29. The committee is offering a special prize of a 17 guinea cup for competitors in the horse events. Mkitar months of work the new temwle at ltatana is now practically com/pleted, and the opening service is scheduled for January 25. A very large gathering of natives is expected for the opening ceremony for which arrangements are now being made.

A fine spirit of school loyalty was shown at the Brondesburv and Kilburn High School for Girls, lironde.vbery Park N.W., when £IOO was raised to help Miss Mirian 5 iolet Lovelock, a pupil of the school, to accept a Somerville entrance scholarship, which entitles her to three years at Oxford University.

A quantity of paper cargo at the bottom of No. 1 hold on the "W aiuui on her last trip from Auckland to Gisborne was found, on being unloaded, to be slightly marked by water which had leaked in through tho hull. No serious damage was done, and the slight leakage is expected to be retiftired on the vessel’s arrival at Aucl#and to-day. fruit is suffering severely as oJresult of the prolonged spell of wet breather, and dry rot has accounted nor a large percentage of the apricot crops. Nectarines are .also splitting badly. Though black spot is making its appearance in a number of orchards. the apple crops promise to be prolific, and a large quantity should be exported again this year.

A representative fanners’ meeting at Waimate passed a resolution that the present method of grading produce at the ports is most unsatisfactory, as the farmers have no say in the* matter and suggest to the Minister that the graders should be appointed by the Department of Agriculture and made solely responsible to that Department.—P.A.

Auckland taxi' owners whose cars are not fitted with meters have been requested by the City Council to cease plying for hire until meters are installed. The owners have had nine years in which to comply with the bylaw. Owing to their repeated representations it was not carried out, but iu June last it was decided to enforce the bv-law as from January 1, 1927. —P.A.

Steady progress is reported by the contractor for the Gisborne High School batli, and it is practically assured that it will be available for use by die time the school re-opens. The Board is making every endeavor to carry out all additions to the pool necessary to make the bath fulfill all modern * requirements. Additional funds for the completion of the cubicles are still being received.

The question of the apparent unfairness of farms bounding State •reserves having to bear the full burden of the boundary fencing was referred to by Mr. H. S. Briant at Saturday's executive meeting of the Poverty Bay branch of the New Zealand Farmers’ Union. It seemed to him that such a condition was hardly fair. The president (Mr. M. T. Trafford) stated that the Union had been advised that the Minister was considering the .question.

Stamps come to albums by devious routes. There is an example of this lying in a collector’s safe in London, in the form of an envelope or a letter carried in the Boss-Smith flight to Australia. The aeroplane landed in Mesopotamia, and a soldier, hearing the aviators were bound for Australia, asked them if they would take a letter to a friend or his. Permission being granted, tlie letter was written and handed over—to become one of the greatest rarities of the air-stamp collectors.

A meeting of the combined queen carnival committees was held on Friday evening last, when Mr. H. F. Forster presided over an attendance of over 50. Following on an offer from Mr. Vincent Barker to allow the Mcßae Bath Committee the use of his grounds on Thursday, January 20, it /Was decided to organise a garden fete when various novelties and attractions will be staged. Among the attractions will be a Pierrot entertainment, Grecian dancing on tlie green, and public dancing in Mr. Barker’s ball room. -In addition, numerous other side-shows and novelty events will be conducted by the various queen carnival committees. Special prizes will be awarded for the best decorated tri-cycles, bicycles, prams, and children’s push chairs. Special lighting effects will bo arranged and, given fine weather, tho fete should present quite a novelty t.* the Gisborne public.

After several months, during which period Lyttelton watersiders refused to work overtime on Saturday afternoons, work was resumed on Saturday afternoon on the AY a bine and Kurow as a result of an agreement between the employers and the union by which the men will receive eight months’ back pay at the rate of l£d an hour and will receive an increase ‘until the termination of tho agreement. A hitch occurred, however, when the Union Coy. made a call for labor at 10.30 o’clock on Saturday morning for the Tot nr a, which was expected to arrive early in the “afternoon. The Union Coy. asked the men to start work at one o'clock, but they refused to accept employment. It is stated that the reason given by the men was that, if they were required to work in tb« afternoon, they should have been given work during the morning'. Tho pay clerks of the various shipping offices are at present busily engaged in making up the back pay, which will entail about a month’s work. In some cases, some of the watersiders should receive between £7 and £B.—P.A.