Otago takes shield by numbers

Success has at last come to an Otago XI in the fight for the Plunket Shield. It is some years now since the contests were inaugurated between the four provinces, and it will be remembered that in the first years of the competition the holders had to be met and defeated on their own ground. The system was then changed, and each province had to meet the others annually. Thus this year Canterbury beat Auckland and Wellington, and Otago beat Auckland and lost to Wellington. By defeating Canterbury, Otago brought herself level with the northern province with two wins, and the winners of the shield had then to be worked out on a system of averages. On figuring out those averages it was ascertained that to better Canterbury’s wins Otago could not lose more than three wickets. As it turned out Otago won by nine wickets, and has also won the shield. It is gratifying to know that a purely Otago XI have at last won the shield. Mr J.S. Douglas (Deputy Mayor) apologised for the absence of the Mayor (Mr H.L. Tapley), who was at Waipori, and said that he had had a great honour conferred upon him in being asked to present the shield. On behalf of the citizens he had very great pleasure in congratulating the Otago team on its success. Otago had striven for years to win the coveted shield, and at last that proud day had arrived. In presenting the shield to the president, Mr Douglas wished the team every success in the future. (Applause.)  Mr Clark then handed the shield to the Rev E.O. Blamires, the captain of the Otago eleven,.

Otago doing well

The sporting section of the Otago community, gratified last week by the transference to Dunedin of the Sanders Cup for small sailing boats, will this week display justifiable enthusiasm over the fact that, for the first time, the Plunket Shield, the mark of supremacy in interprovincial cricket, has been won by the Otago team. This latter success is one which we are sure, the other competing teams will not grudge to Otago. The determined and splendid battle which Otago offered last season to Wellington, the winners of the Shield for 1923-24, suggested that this provincial district would be a factor that would have to be seriously reckoned with in the competition in 1924-25. Then the closeness of the finish last month in the match between Wellington and Otago — a match, again, in which the Otago team revealed itself as a team of dogged fighters — will have prepared the cricketing public throughout New Zealand for the result of the contest that ended yesterday. — editorial

A legitimate observation

Infantile mortality has been shown to be affected by a number of factors, and though the actual or approximate effect of each of them is not properly ascertainable, certain conclusions have been reached. There is nothing very surprising in the information that the mortality rate of illegitimate infants is much higher than that of legitimate infants. It is mentioned that the illegitimate death-rate from infectious and epidemic diseases, for example, is seven times as high as the legitimate death rate, while for diseases of the digestive system, congenital debility and other causes peculiar to early infancy it is double the rate for legitimate first-born children. The Statistician is able to state, however, that happily the percentage of illegitimate to total births in New Zealand is very low. — editorial  — ODT, 10.2.1925

Compiled by Peter Dowden