Varsity records beaten

The athletic meeting in connection with the New Zealand inter-university tournament proved a most successful affair. The weather was fine, but a fairly brisk southwest wind blew down the Caledonian Ground.  There was a large attendance of the public and they were treated to some excellent competition. In the 100 yards championship the New Zealand university record of 10sec was equalled and in the mile championship walk the university record was beaten by over 5sec. Variety was lent  to the afternoon’s sports by some wild ragging amongst members of the student spectators. It was all reckless, good-natured fun and some of the “scrums” were quite in the nature of what is understood to be a feature of American football. No one was hurt.

Nutrient-rich steel by-product

The application of a dressing of basic slag has the valuable effect of increasing not only the bulk of the yield and the quality of the grass, the latter being of really more importance than the former. It has been shown that one ton of hay from a slagged plot has a considerably higher feeding value than one ton of hay from an unslagged plot, and it follows that the feeding value of herbage on a slagged field has a substantially higher value than the same weight of hay from a field which has not  received a dressing.

Taonga hidden from Te Rangihīroa

The hope of placing Punga-a-Tainui, the anchor-stone of the Tainui canoe, in the Auckland War Memorial Museum seems farther off than it was a little while ago. Last week a party of Natives removed the stone from the Mokau River, where it has lain for centuries and conveyed it to a place of safety known only to themselves. For some time Dr P. Buck and Mr George Graham, of Auckland, have been trying to persuade Natives in the Auckland province to place their tribal relics in the new 

Auckland Museum for safekeeping, seeing that many such relics are in danger of being lost or damaged. 

Dr Buck stated that he had seen the hereditary chief of the tribe, who had agreed that the anchor would be better in the museum than in the river, although it had lain there for five and a-half centuries. The main obstacle had been the feelings of certain old people in the tribe. 

The Natives who removed the stone made it clear to European onlookers that their place of safe-keeping was not the Auckland Museum. The anchor is of sandstone, about 4 feet long, and shaped like an hour-glass with a thick waist. One end is rather larger than the other. The stone is heavy enough to hold a large outrigger eanoe, such as Tainui undoubtedly was. According to tradition, after the long voyage from Hawaiki, the canoe made its final landing place in New Zealand at the mouth  of the Mokau. Two white stones, marking its bow and stern, are still shown on the spot where it is said to have been hauled on to dry land. 

The stone is naturally regarded by the Natives as a very sacred object, and many songs and tales have grown up around it. Among other things, it was supposed to be the luck-stone, or “mauri,” of the Natives who fished off the Mokau Heads. 

It is to be hoped that Dr Buck may vet be able to persuade the tribe as a whole that the new museum really is a noble shrine commemorating the honoured dead, and that after all it is a worthier resting-place for the stone than some hidden spot which in 50 years may be forgotten and the relic lost.

— ODT, 6.4.1926