All Blacks beat French selection

New Zealand beat a French team by 37 points to 8. Forty-five thousand people saw the New Zealanders win. They gave their war cry. Porter opened the New Zealanders’ account with a try at the corner. Immediately afterwards Hart scored. White was the next scorer. Brownlie started a magnificent movement, the whole team participating, and resulting in Hart scoring again. In quick succession both Brownlie and Svenson each added a try, one under the posts, but all three kicks at goal failed. Just before the interval Cooke added a try. The Frenchmen started the second spell strongly. Thereafter the New Zealanders maintained the attack. The French backs offered a strenuous defence, but both Brownlies scored between the posts, Nepia converting both tries. Just before the whistle Svenson added an unconverted try. Apart from the first few minutes in each half the New Zealanders easily dominated the game. The Frenchman showed their usual fault of holding on to the ball too long.

New liner exceeding 31kmh

A wireless message received from the motor ship Aorangi yesterday by the Union Company stated  that she was logging over 17 knots and was behaving excellently. The vessel expected to arrive at Kingston (Jamaica) to-morrow.

A many-cornered mystery

One thing that must strike any stranger who selects Dunedin for the new experience is its friendliness. One stops a passerby to ask directions, giving the excuse, "I am a stranger." The almost invariable reply is "I hope you will like our city" — if not in that exact phrase, the sentiment is somehow conveyed. No one I have thus approached so far has seemed too busy to stop a minute to give careful directions for one’s guidance. Another excellent thing about Dunedin is the clear marking of the streets. Not only a board at one corner, but in the longer streets a board part way along is often to be seen. One thing at first was very confusing to me, until my companion and I had secured a map of the city and suburbs and had a comfortable hour studying it. We could not master the prevalence of Moray place. "Here is Moray place,’’ she would say. "It can’t be, we passed its corner two minutes ago," I would reply. ‘‘Well, read the board then." In desperation I stamped one morning, crying "Bother Moray place; it turns up everywhere." But having gleaned from the map that it is but a larger Octagon, surrounding the real Octagon, I feel able to defy it, when a board bearing its name confronts me at a corner.

Breeding like rabbits

"If I had my way there would not be a rabbit in Otago in five years’ time," said Mr R.T. Sadd at yesterday’s meeting of the Taieri River Trust. Mr Sadd explained that his plan would be to prohibit the sale of carcases and the export of skins, thus making rabbits nothing more than a pest. In this way land-owners would set about the total extermination of the animals. In conversation with a Daily Times reporter later, Mr Sadd stated that it had been estimated that three pairs of rabbits, with an average of six to the litter, would, in three years, produce 9,000,000 of their kind. "Assuming that 10 rabbits eat as much as one sheep," added Mr Sadd, "what would you sooner have — the produce of 10,000,000 rabbits or 1,000,000 sheep?" There was only one answer to this pointed question. — ODT, 13.1.1925

Compiled by Peter Dowden