The prospects of a lively meeting attracted a large audience to the Coronation Hall, Milton, last night, in response to a request by the Borough Council publicly to discuss ways and means of entertaining the returned soldiers on their proposed Sunday motor outing as the guests of the Otago Motor Club.
At the commencement of the proceedings the Rev. A. Hopper (Methodist minister) moved a resolution expressing sympathy with the objects of the Motor Club in giving the outing, but recording an emphatic protest against the trip being held on the Sabbath Day, and trusting, in deterrence to the conscientious convictions of a large section of the community, consideration of a serious objection that may be urged against a breach of the recognised observance of the day of worship, that the Motor Club will choose some weekday for the function.
This motion was defeated by an overwhelming majority, and the Mayor (Mr C. King) declined to accept a somewhat similar resolution adopted by the office-bearers of the Presbyterian Church.
The meeting emphatically supported the previous decision of the council to entertain the returned men, and a strong committee was formed to make arrangements to ensure a fitting reception to the men.
• In various ways a military camp is like a big boarding school.
The men have the joy of boys in singing jingles and in nicknames and banter and jokes.
The custom of the camp is the custom of the school, and the custom of the world - and will be for ever.
The hardest knocks go to the softest folk.
The greener a man is the more he will be boiled or roasted.
Therefore, the prospective soldier, about to turn Trenthamwards, should be on guard against wearing a lost-sheep expression.
The more he looks like missing mother, the more he will be made to feel that he has need of her.
The camp is not cruel, but the camp is human, and it is human to err a little in the way of teasing.
A few men tend to go to the other extreme.
They have evidently taken chest-expanding exercises, and they affect a swagger, as if the training period was a mere formality, a bore to be endured as a preliminary to very rapid promotion.
Between these two styles lies the way of the recruit who wishes to fit smoothly into the camp.
If he has not entered the camp with mates, he should promptly find suitable companions - an easy process.
Any chaplain will be pleased to help in the making of friendships.
• The advantages of lime as a manure were testified to in a striking manner by Mr J. Wingate at the meeting of the Manawatu Farmers' Union.
He instanced the case of a farmer at Hunterville who had decided to experiment with lime on his oats.
He had applied 8cwt to the acre, and as the result had been able to graze the land almost bare two or three times, after which he had allowed the oats to grow, and had taken three tons of chaff to the acre from it at the end of the season. - ODT, 16.2.1916.
