Oban township, Halfmoon Bay, Stewart Island. - Otago Witness, 30.5.1917.

The housing problem in Wellington remains as acute as ever - indeed, from all accounts seems to be steadily growing worse.

The demand for houses is out of all proportion to the supply, and little is being done to increase the supply. As a consequence high rents are easily got, and people are driven to all sorts of devices to secure houses - from getting up early in the morning to offering bonuses to people who will secure them some kind of a shelter not three miles from the General Post Office.

A New Zealand Times reporter who has had a 12-months' hunt for a house within the precincts of the city recently called on various people interested in letting houses to discover what the present position is and whether anything is being done to counteract the burden being cast on householders by the economic law of supply and demand.

The position seems to be that landlords and tenants regard the present state of affairs as inevitable - something that cannot be altered, like the law of gravitation.

One house agent in a large way of business, in reply to the query whether the ratio of houses to the people wanting them was much the same, said: ''People wanting houses! They come in streams every day. We have given up in despair attempting to provide for clients.''

Doctor shortage

We understand that, in consequence of the shortage of medical practitioners in New Zealand and the difficulty of maintaining an adequate supply of junior house surgeons in the hospitals, the Government has decided that third year medical students must be retained in the dominion and that instructions to that effect have been issued to the Military Service Boards.

A number of students who are affected by this decision have either enlisted or been called up by ballot. In some cases applications by the Dean of the Medical Faculty for the exemption of the ballotted men amongst them were dismissed, a temporary exemption only being granted to enable the students to sit for their first professional examination, which has been held this week.

Application will now be made to the Military Service Boards for a reconsideration of the cases in which this temporary exemption only was granted.

Boxer converted

Bob Fitzsimmons, the famous pugilist heavyweight champion of the world (erstwhile Timaru blacksmith), is now appearing in an entirely new role in America.

He recently married a religiously-minded old lady, and he was so deeply impressed by her depth of religious fervour that he became converted, and he is now busy touring California as a revivalist, gathering immense crowds nightly to hear him.

His first appearance was at San Jose, some 50 miles from San Francisco. The old fighter wept as he delivered his maiden sermon in the First Baptist Church there at the morning service. Many of the congregation were in tears before he concluded.

Bounty on shags

The killing of shags is a most necessary expedient in the operations of the Otago Acclimatisation Society. Rangers report cases where they have found as many as 11 trout in the stomach of one shag. Last year the amount of 64 17s 10d was paid for the destruction of shags at 3s per head, which accounts for 450 of these birds.

Anglers are requested to report to the secretary the localities in which any shag rookeries are noticed, so that prompt steps may be taken to exterminate them.

- ODT, 24.5.1917.

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