We may confidently anticipate that the near future holds an astonishing list of new air records. The era of flights that are to throw a girdle of communication round the earth with unprecedented celerity is even now being steadily ushered in.
The Trans-Atlantic passage has long been the enterprising airman's goal, and immense interest has attached to the attempts to make this long overseas flight in which both British and American airmen have been participating this week.
American airmen, using a seaplane, which gave them the advantage of being able to come down to the water and to refuel, have actually accomplished the flight to the Azores.
While this constitutes a Trans-Atlantic flight it is not one from mainland to mainland and is of a less sensational character than the non-stop flight from St. John's, Newfoundland, attempted by Mr Harry Hawker - an Australian by the way - in company with Commander Mackenzie Grieves as pilot, which has unfortunately, there seems too much reason to believe, ended in a tragedy.
Housing country teachers
The large question of the finding of accommodation for school teachers in thinly populated country districts was raised in the Otago Education Board meeting yesterday by a letter from the Tuapeka Flat School Committee asking for the erection of a teacher's residence.
The committee stated that it did not know where the teacher was to get lodging in the district. The chairman (Mr J. Wallace) said that parents in the country seemed to be quite determined not to take teachers into their homes as lodgers. But it was quite wrong to expect young people to live in the country alone.
The board could not send young women into the country haphazard to hunt round for accommodation in an unknown district. The country people would have to wake up to the fact that they would either have to put themselves about in some way to accommodate the teacher or else go without teachers.
Mr Livingstone put forward the suggestion that ''shacks'' on wheels, which could be drawn alongside a house, might be provided for teachers. The secretary of the board mentioned that there were at present 40 teachers' residences belonging to the board unoccupied. It was decided to decline the application.
Dunedin Oval dressing sheds
A start has been made with the erection of dressing accommodation on the Oval. The authorities concerned have provided for a building which when completed should be sightly as well as substantial and convenient.
It has been suggested that during the progress of erection there might be placed in a suitable position on the ground a light rail on which the ladies and boys might hang their outer garments while playing.
This would obviate the danger arising from the practice, unavoidable at present to some, of players with heated bodies resuming clothing that may have been lying for an hour or more on damp grass.
- ODT, 22.5.1919
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