Expo water ride opens

For many days visitors who delight in the thrills and joys of the Amusement Park have waited patiently for the opening of the river caves. Yesterday afternoon their patience was rewarded, and the big entertainment opened with marked success. 

The river caves consist of a unique trip through a softly lighted and quaintly designed tunnel in a slowly gliding boat. The occupants move along a rippling stream that has its source in Ye Old Mill. Monsters of fearsome size and shape are passed and, as a climax, the boat is propelled over a water chute. Both in the afternoon and throughout the evening the popularity of the river caves was unbounded, and good business was done. Now that the first novelty has worn off, the various other attractions in the Amusement Park are not being rushed with the same abandon that characterised the first days; nevertheless, each amusement is kept busy with a steady stream of pleasure-seekers.

Yesterday the sunny weather attracted unusually large attendances and proprietors of even the smallest sideshows had reason to be pleased at the good business resulting. The children’s playground is now completed and forms a constant source of delightful amusement for the youngsters.

Do you know who I am?

One of the memories which the Governor-General will have carried away with him from Dunedin will be that of his visit to Knox Church on Sunday morning last. It was an unheralded visit, and the members of the vice-regal party were shown, like any other visitors, to a pew which was unoccupied at the time of their arrival. But his party was not to be allowed to remain in undisputed possession of the pew in Knox Church. One of the regular occupants, blissfully unconscious of the identity of the visitors, came to the service, and his Excellency had to move up, in quite the orthodox fashion, to make room for her. Even at the close of the service, when the minister requested the congregation to remain seated until the vice-regal visitors had taken their departure, she had not realised who the four strangers were who occupied the pew along with her — not until the Governor-General had gently to request her to allow him to pass out. As many of us know by long experience, extrication from a crowded and narrow pew is not an easy matter.

Buses lack trams’ smoothness

We have grown accustomed to overcrowding, in fact we take part in the overcrowding as we want to get home. Trams are solid affairs and have steel wheels, and never skid. When the authorities allow the same overloading of their motor buses, probably from force of habit, it seems time humbly — very meekly — to protest. The buses have rubber tyres, and they cut the corners very fine. 

No need for union?

In the course of a discussion at a meeting of the Otago provincial executive of the New Zealand Farmers' Union yesterday one of the speakers expressed the opinion that the result of the recent general election was the worst knock the union had received for a long time from a membership point of view. The farmers were so well satisfied with the result that they would not realise the necessity for organisation. If a Labour Government bad been returned there would have been no difficulty in the way of securing organisation amongst the farmers.

If I were governor

An entirely novel if somewhat difficult method of regulating the speed of motor cars was propounded by the chairman of the Bruce County Council yesterday. "If I had my way," he said "I would screw every one of their engines down till they could not do more than 20 miles an hour."

— ODT, 2.11.1925 (Compiled by Peter Dowden)