Our present Governor-General's nationality is evidently no bar to the expression in public of the sense of humour he is known to possess. At the civic reception this week some of the speakers referred to the excellent impression that he had made by the speech which he delivered after the swearing-in ceremony at Parliament Buildings on Saturday afternoon. In humorous vein Sir Charles Fergusson replied that he wished he had never made Saturday’s speech. "After listening to the extraordinarily kind remarks that have been made," he said, "l begin to regret that I ever made that speech the other day, because I feel like the golfer who has gone round in the best number of strokes that he ever did and feels it would be better for him if he never tried to go round again." Touching on a more intimate matter later Sir Charles said: “My father and her Excellency’s father were greatly interested in and had many friends among the Maori race. Indeed her Excellency, I believe, had the reputation of being expert in the Maori language. — (Applause.) Whether she deserved that reputation I do not know, but at any rate may I tell you that at the time when we were engaged to be married one of the newspapers, in one of those charming flights of fancy that newspapers sometimes indulge in, in announcing our engagement referred to our connection with New Zealand, and said that the young couple were able to converse with each other in the Maori language. — (Laughter.) For my part I am happy to say that her Excellency conveyed her concurrence with the proposals which I had laid before her in a more natural, and to me a more intelligible manner." — by ODT Wellington correspondent
No pressure
Our Lawrence correspondent states that a barometer which hung on the wall at the local Athenaeum mysteriously disappeared, and all efforts to regain the missing article were of no avail. Recently the barometer was returned by post from Hastings. How it got there is a problem which has not yet been solved.
DCC urged to buy buses
At the meeting of the City Council last night, Cr Halliday complimented the tramways committee on bringing forward the report on motor buses. The report had not altered his opinion that buses should be got as soon as possible. If they had not 20 buses they would have competition, and the only way to stop that was to get the motor buses in first. If they let a private company get in they would damage the road, and they could not be got to pay for the damage.
Staffer’s son pinches DCC car
Cr Sincock wanted to know why an accident to a corporation motor car at Green Island had not been referred to. He understood the car was damaged when it was not in the corporation employ. The car which had the accident had been taken and used for a wrong purpose by a person not in the council's employ. Cr MacManus wanted to know why, when Mr H. King, their inspector, had admitted that it was his son who had taken the car, the son had not been prosecuted. Cr Wilson said the officer referred to by Cr Sincock had been fined fairly heavily, but not so heavily as he (Cr Wilson) would have liked. The son was to have taken the car, at the bidding of his father, from the corporation yard to his (the father's residence), which was permissible. — ODT, 18.12.1924
Compiled by Peter Dowden
