Purity for plastic minds
Yesterday afternoon, at the Hanover Street Sunday School, the Women’s Christian Temperance Union held a cradle-roll rally. The meeting was made lively by the presence of a large number of babies and small children, and 14 mothers appended their signatures to a promise to bring them up in habits of total abstinence and purity. Mrs Hiett, who presided, gave the mothers some good advice on the necessity of total abstinence. She also stressed the importance of teaching the children the beauty of peace and the danger of inculcating a taste for war by giving the children guns, toy soldiers etc. Miss M.S. Powell gave an address impressing upon the mothers the fact of the plastic nature of the little minds with which they have to deal, and the indelible character of impressions received in the first seven years.
Money for art’s sake
The annual report of the Dunedin Public Art Gallery Society states that the income received from the Smeaton bequest amounted to £2230 11 shillings 9 pence. Pictures to the value of £967 8s 8d had been purchased, leaving £1263 3s 1d unexpended.
Milking ban invalid
The magistrate (Mr R.V. Bundle) gave judgement at Oamaru yesterday in a case brought to test the validity of the municipal by-law prohibiting the milking of cows in the borough. His Worship held that the matter was a proper one for control by by-law on the ground of a nuisance existent or probable, but the by-law was invalid on the ground that it contained no declaration of a nuisance, present or prospective, and left the reason for its enactment to the imagination.
Diseases affect attendance
At the meeting of the Otago Education Board yesterday Mr J.E. Ryan (attendance officer), in his report stated that the attendance at the city and suburban schools was at present affected, to some extent, by illness — principally diphtheria and chicken-pox. An epidemic of the former trouble had broken out in the Port Chalmers District High School. The school committee therefore decided to close the school for a month. So far as diphtheria was concerned, no fresh cases had been reported at the Mosgiel School up to the end of last week, and the attendance was improving.
St John ponders upgrade
At the monthly meeting of the executive of the St John Ambulance Association on Wednesday evening the Dunedin Fire Board Superintendent A.G. Napier urged the immediate purchase of a new and up-to-date English-built machine to take over the long-distance work. A long discussion followed, the financial aspect of the proposal receiving most attention. It was pointed out that a public appeal had already been made for this object. The response, despite several isolated generous donations, had been very disappointing. The cost of an ambulance such as Mr Napier suggested was somewhere between £900 and £100. The actual sum realised was £570.. — ODT, 23.5.1924
Compiled by Peter Dowden
