Dunedin was reached on Tuesday after a 40-minute flight. The machine was later partially dismantled and taken to the Exhibition.
More buses for city
Cr Douglas moved the adoption of the Tramways Committee’s report. The following day No5 bus would be completed, and it was proposed to take the Mayor and councillors in it to the Exhibition.
Cr Begg: "Who’s to drive it?"
Cr Douglas, continuing, said that the body of No 6 bus was practically completed. They were waiting for the chassis. The six bodies being made in Timaru were practically completed, and four others being made in Dunedin were also nearly completed. The 10 chassis were, however, held up on vessels. Cr Larnach asked if it would not be advisable to get hanging straps on the buses.
Cr Scott: "Inside or outside?"
Cr Larnach said in one crowded bus the other night the passengers were banged from one side to the other.
Cr Douglas, in reply, said he would look into the question of getting straps placed in the buses.
Dunedin’s ponga grove
On Saturday last members of the Dunedin Naturalist Field Club visited the bush at Burkes for the purpose of studying ferns. The party was under the leadership of Dr J.E. Holloway, and the locality chosen proved a profitable hunting ground, since 31 different species of ferns (nearly half the number scheduled in the club’s catalogue) were noted, and that in one gully only. This bush is one of the few places in this district where the beautiful silver tree fern (Cyathea dealbata) still flourishes. In company with it grow two other tree ferns, Hematelia Smithii and Dicksonia squarrosa.
Debauchery in Invercargill
Invercargill, although a no-license town, has yet some wicked, wicked ways. A visitor from Dunedin called one fine Sunday afternoon to see a friend, and trapped him in the act of boiling down parsnips in the wash-house copper. He was making wine, and was "going to make some more next Sunday." The man had a furtive air about him which suggested that he was taking advantage of the absence of his wife and family. Pained at this departure from the spirit of prohibition, the visitor called on another friend, a man in whom he had every confidence. Alas, his morale buffered another serious jolt, for the master of the house was at a keg — what appeared to be the father of all kegs. His spare time energy had been devoted to the brewing of beer, and at the moment he was bottling it in colossal quantities. Shamelessly he confessed that the family rhubarb supply had been raided to satisfy his craving for rhubarb wine. Of this he had a cellar of some 100 or so bottles, while the beer supply exceeded this. Home brewing, it appears, is one of the popular pastimes in the southern town, and hospitality flows freely. Each man seeks to make better beer than his neighbour, and what care they for the great issue at stake? — ODT, 8.10.1925
Compiled by Peter Dowden
