I received a letter late yesterday afternoon from the Short-Wave Department of the Australian Broadcasting Commission, Melbourne, to the effect that, commencing on July 3, the Sunday transmission hours of VLR were changed to the following two periods:—8 am. to 130 pin. 3 p.m. to 10,30 p.m. (Australian time, which is two hours ahead of Shanghai time). The letter containing the information is dated June 14.
Putting back the clock some eighty years in "Sea Dust" (Ward Lock London 3/6), Mr. E, Laurie Long in his usual pleasing manner has given us a yarn of Australia during the stirring times that followed the Botany Bay days. Jim Lawford, ex-convict 237, and a young girl he has befriended, strike gold in huge quantities in the bush, but being accused of murder—falsely of course—are compelled to seek refuge and escape to the South Sea Islands in a trading schooner captained by as tough and rough a sailor as anyone would ever care to meet, Mr. Long is a past master in writing of the sea and his vivid descriptions of Jim Lawford's wanderings around the Pacific, the various native folk he encounters and the continual troubles and scrapes he has with the captain and members of the crew of the ship, make very en-terraining reading. The author also indicates of what manner of men the forebears of the present "Aussie" were composed and he shows how the hardships of the newly-found country were gradually but surely overcome—overcome to give rise to a race of folks who are second to none, Light reading that will quickly pass away an afternoon or evening.—
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.