Yachties give orphans a treat

The Otago Yacht and Motor Boat Club held its annual picnic for the children from the various Dunedin orphanages on Saturday afternoon at Broad Bay.

The picnic took the form of a launch cruise, and promptly at 2pm the following launches departed from the Harbour Board’s wharf landing stage: Norana, Ngaio, Silver Fern, Laura, Aotea, Stella, Eureka, Matai, Fan, Rewi, Marewa and Hazel. Each boat carried a full complement of merry young picnickers, who sang lustily as the boats set a course for the bay. The weather was overcast at first, but improved considerably later, and with a fresh breeze and sparkling sun the run down the harbour was all too short. Each child was provided with a bag of sweets. On arrival at Broad Bay the children were taken charge of by the hostesses and escorted to their summer residences to partake of afternoon tea. Games and music entertained the little guests till close on 4pm, when everyone assembled at Mrs R. Hudson’s residence to receive a special gift or toy. Commodore Sundstrum, in a few words, welcomed the children, and said he hoped they had had an enjoyable afternoon. Judging from the many smiling faces there was no doubt that everyone had had an exceedingly happy time.

We have a lot on our plate

There would seem to have been a singular absence of inspiration in the framing of some of the regulations under the Motor Vehicles Act. The old method of identification of a vehicle is to be discarded. The number plates of motor cars are in future to bear without exception the letters "NZ" as an introduction to the numerals. It is to be presumed that these familiar letters are not intended to have a merely decorative value, but what useful purpose they are expected to serve has not yet been satisfactorily indicated. They will not assist identification; — in fact, placed in front of numerals to the number perhaps of five, they will only make identification the more difficult. Police officials are understood to prefer some mark indicative of the district in which the car is registered, and motorists apparently take the view that the most suitable plan would be to prefix to the registration number letters indicative of the police district in which the car is owned. In any case the letters "NZ" on the number plate are obviously superfluous.

— editorial

A pernicious practice

There are evidently some persons in Dunedin whose sense of humour, if so it may be called, is of a most perverted character. The City Fire Brigade received a call to Fingall street, South Dunedin, last night, shortly after 10 o’clock, but on arrival at the locality it was found that the alarm box had been maliciously interfered with. The fatal accident which occurred some years ago, when Fireman Baxter was killed when the brigade was proceeding to what turned out to be a malicious false alarm, would, one would think, prevent any person from again indulging in such a pernicious practice.

Freight wagons derail

A number of trucks, loaded with sulphur for Messrs Kempthorne, Prosser’s works, broke away on the private siding at Burnside on Saturday morning about 7 o’clock and crashed into the dead end. Four of the trucks were derailed and considerably knocked about. The cause of the breakaway is not known. 

Keep it rolling

It eases the steering process, when worming in and out of a parking space, to keep the car moving, if only creeping, when tugging at the wheel.

— ODT, 12.1.1925  (Compiled by Peter Dowden)