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Manawatu Standard, Volume LIII, Issue 28, 30 December 1932, Page 6

The “Standard” will not Ire published on Monday next, January 2, which is being observed as New Year’s Day. At about 11.45 o’clock last evening the Palmerston North Pire Brigade received a box call to Church Street West, but an investigation showed the alarm to be false.

Four youths, when walking on Boxing Day, from Castlecliff, Wanganui, along the beach to Kai-iwi, caught 100 flatfish, though they had neither net nor spear. Seeing that the fish were plentiful, they drove them into shallow pools, and then flicked them on to the sand. Two of the party came home with 30 fish each, and distributed them amongst the neighbours. Lectures by Professor von Zedlitz, of Wellington, and Dr. J. C. Beaglehole, of Auckland, opened the seveilth annual summer school of the Auckland Workers’ Educational Association at Wesley College, Paerata, on Tuesday. Nearly 100 students are in attendance from over the whole North Island, but mostly from Auckland. Mr W. H. Cocker, 8.A., LL.B., is camp director. A Wanganui angler, now at Taupo, makes a suggestion for preventing some of the waste of trout by burying them, and enabling the sending of trout to places where it can be used for food. The waste of trout is abnormal at this season of the year, and the surplus fish are buried by anglers, who are allowed to catch up to 15 per day. Some people, he says, will contend that transport could not be arranged during the hot weather, but he maintains that it could. In Australia, where the climate is hotter than here, Murray cod are packed and sent a distance of 300 miles or more. Two Timaru residents, Mr E. Wallace and Mr D. Grant, had an unenviable experience one day last week while on a visit to Mount Cook. It is stated by the Timaru Herald that the two young men, accompanied by a guide, went over the Copland Pass to the West Coast. They came back by way of Graham’s Saddle, the guide on the return journey being Mr A. Dewar, a former" resident of Timaru, but who is now stationed on the West Coast. When on the Saddle the party had a mishap, all three being precipitated down a slope for a distanoe of about 300 feet, eventually coming to rest on a rock outcrop. All three suffered injuries. The guide, who unfortunately had his glasses smashed, is stated to have suffered snow blindness, and was taken to the Haast Hut. The other two members of the party eventually reached the Hermitage, and returned to Timaru, but both have now practically recovered.

Although the season has been so suitable for growth and the poliutukawa trees came into flower earlier than usual, the show of crimson was not so fine this Christmas ns in some past seasons, an Auckland paper says.

In a series of lectures on “Germany, the Old and the New,” at the Educational Workers’ Association’s Summer School at I’aerata. Professor G. W. von Sedlitz, of Wellington, mentioned that the public of Germany expected victory in the war riglrt up to the last and their defeat had left a revulsion of feeling against anything militaristic. Injuries were received by Mr J. S. Harrison, a Wanganui Aero Club pilot, on Wednesday afternoon, when the aeroplane he was about to fly struck a hole and overturned. The pilot was precipitated from his seat, striking liis head in the fall and rendered unconscious. Mr Harrison was removed to his home. His condition is favourable. The aeroplane was not seriously damaged. The Lyttelton watersiders last' week received a Christmas box in the form of hack pay amounting to between £SOO and £6OO. Since last August they have been working on a flat rate of Is lid per hour, but as the result of negotiations the employers conceded the men an extra penny an hour, and in making this payment retrospective to August paid out the amount in one sum. The payments in individual cases ranged from 2s 3d to 355. Tire decision of the employers affects the whole of the New Zealand waterfront.

Although the wrecked Southern Cross cost some of the generous English friends of the Melanesian Mission £25,000, she was a one-shilling ship as far as the Board of Trade was concerned. Bishop Baddeley explained the situation to a Hamilton audience the other evening. Theoretically he was the owner of the vessel, which was registered with the Board of Tyade in his name. In order .to become the “owner.” he wrote out a cheque for one shilling, and he was duly registered. The cheque, which was never cashed, was afterwards framed and kept as a curiosity.

A clever piece of work lias been on view at the Bluff. It is a model of the original Hog Island lighthouse, made and turned entirely by hand, and is the work of Mr T. Stalker, of Bluff, who has been working on it during the last six months, states an exchange. The old lighthouse on Dog Island was erected in 1665, and a reconstruction effected in 1918. Built of mahogany, shell, and copper, the model, including the base, stands 29in high, and at the bottom is 4in in diameter. It is made to scale and is correct in every detail of measurement. Obtaining the photograph, the buiider placed it under a powerful magnifying glass and took accurate measurements, and later got further particulars regarding the old lighthouse to verify these. Four hundred and thirty pieces of shelL are inlaid in the model, no fewer than 188 pieces of mother of pearl being used to form the white band round the middle, while the dome is made up of 66 pieces of pawa shell. The windowsills are made of mother of pearl, and the balcony is supported by 12 tiny brackets of the same material. The window panes are of glass.

Two places on the globe have not yet felt the depression. The American steamer Golden Eagle, which arrived at Auckland from Los Angeles this week, discovered them the first time she was ordered to calL at the islands of Tarawa and Funifuti. She is to call there again on her way back to Los Angeles, after discharging her present cargo at New Zealand and Australian ports, and her crew are eagerly looking forward to their next visit to those happy isles. Both are on the Equator, though Tarawa is near the Gilbert Islands, while Funifuti is one of the Ellice group. The natives wear little more than a happy smile, and need little to eat. Fish are plentiful in the lagoons, and coconuts ashore. On such a simple diet the natives can live by a minimum of work, but ’in order to obtain luxuries they export their coconuts by the Golden Eagle, receiving in return rice and tobacco. The visit of the Golden Eagle, once in every four months, is therefore celebrated with feasting and dancing and the drinking of much coconut beer. Another import much sought after in Tarawa is empty beer bottles full ones being denied to the natives. The beer bottles are stood neck downwards in the ground round the graves in the local cemetery.