Contents
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25/3/35.
From an Overseas Angle.In a series of articles, “Impressions of Overseas Transport,” appearing in “The Railway Gazette,” Mr. A. W. Arthurton (formerly Secretary of the British Railways Press Bureau) has the following interesting introduction to an article on road competition with the New Zealand Railways:—
“On my visit to New Zealand, it was my good fortune to bear a letter of introduction to Mr. H. H. Sterling, Chairman of the Railways Board, and I thus found the way considerably smoother for my investigation of transport conditions in the country. An hour or so spent in his company left me with the impression of a dynamic personality which, added to intense application, practical knowledge, and vivid imagination, has enabled the New Zealand Government Railways to survive the depression and brought them to comparative prosperity. As I afterwards found in touring the country, he has been instrumental in evolving an efficient and progressive railway system which must be of inestimable benefit to the Dominion and its people.
“The provisions of the Transport Licensing Act, 1931, of New Zealand are somewhat similar to those obtaining in Great Britain. Public hearings are held by the licensing authorities at
(
Rly. Publicity photo.)
New Zealand's new Governor-General arrives in Wellington. Their Excellencies Lord and Lady Galway stepping from the gangway of the Rangitate to be received by Sir Michael Myers and the Rt. Hon.
(
Rly. Publicity photo.)
The Arthur River, Milford Sound, South Island, New Zealand.
Between the Clinton Canyon and the Arthur River is the famous McKinnon Pass. The Arthur valley is part of the magic Milford track, and a traveller (Mr. E. E. Muir) found it rich in bird life, particularly in bellbird (makomako). “Passing under one tree there were as many as six bellbirds singing, almost in unison, together, while others were warbling nearby. We could not but stand and listen spellbound to this wonderful choir of the wilderness.” Both in the Clinton and in the Arthur abundance of native birds were found, and the weka was charmingly inquisitive.
But now the clouds in airy tumult fly;
The sun, emerging, opens an azure sky;
A fresher green the smiling leaves display,
And glittering as they tremble, cheer the day.
Parnell.
The New Zealand
Railways
Magazine
Railways
Magazine
.”
For Better Service
Published by the
New Zealand Government Railways Department
Service Copy
Vol. X. No. 2.
Wellington, New Zealand
Transport Developments.
The Government's decision to take advantage of the Chairman of the Government Railways Board's long contemplated visit to other countries, with a view to investigating railway and other transport developments, is one which should give general satisfaction.
Railway users naturally want the best they can get for their money, and first-hand knowledge of the best obtainable in other countries is more likely to help in still further improving conditions here than much local experimenting.
Members of the Railway Department will see the benefit to be gained in the conduct of their work from the guidance of a Board Chairman possessing detailed knowledge of up-to-date methods in the most progressive railway countries.
Those engaged in allied transport businesses will heartily approve, as will also those members of the general public who realise the great importance of transport in the economic life of the community, and the serious burden which uneconomic competition in this phase of national development places upon the public.
The railways are the key industry in Dominion production and transport. By low freights both for the raw materials of essential production and also for the manufactures of the primary industries, they have been largely responsible for the opening up and development of the country. With all costs taken into account, they are, beyond all question, the cheapest form of transport for the bulk of the traffic to be conveyed along the routes which they serve.
How other countries are meeting the situation created by expensive duplications of services; what railways are doing to protect themselves against other forms of transport; the intimate details of the arrangements made for co-ordination of services including rail, road and/or sea; the comprehensive planning for co-operation in tourist developments; these and other matters bearing on the larger problems of transport control can be comprehensively investigated by personal contact alone. For this purpose the Chairman of the Board which controls the most important nationally-owned enterprise, and at the same time, the most vital transport organisation in the Dominion, is most suitably equipped, both by training and natural aptitude, to carry out the necessary investigation and to report upon ways by which the lessons gained from overseas experience can be applied to New Zealand's transport problems.
In entertaining the Chairman of the Government Railways Board, Mr. H. H. Sterling, at a farewell dinner prior to his departure on tour of America and Europe at the end of April, the executive officers of the Railway Department had an excellent social opportunity for shewing their appreciation of all that the head of the organisation has done to maintain and enhance the standing and reputation of the Department. Those present expressed in the very warmest manner their esteem and goodwill.
As the General Manager, Mr. Mackey, said, his principal officers all felt proud of the conspicuous and successful part Mr. Sterling had played in the transport industry of the country. He had the goodwill of all ranks in the service, and the advantages that would undoubtedly accrue to the Department and the State as a result of his travels and experiences abroad would make the tour well worth while.
General manager's messageThe Standing Of A Railwayman.
It has often occurred to me that the real quality of railwaymen and their rating in the community is not fully realised either by railwaymen themselves or the general public. This is probably due to circumstances which, from the very nature of their employment, have developed a somewhat silent service.
Printed codes, written instructions, and signals—both mechanical and manual—play a large part in the control of the railways, where much of the work must be carried on amidst a good deal of industrial noise—train movements, track and building construction and repair, workshops machinery operation, and so on.
But despite the inducements to an economy of speech in the course of their work, railwaymen need not be silent elsewhere. They have every reason to be given a good standing in the community, and they are, in fact, held in high esteem in all parts of the Dominion.
There is full justification for this. Every railwayman must be efficient in his own work, and probably no employer applies more constant tests in this matter than does the Railway Department. First, every person joining the service must be physically fit, as attested by a comprehensive medical certificate. Then he must have educational qualifications. Cadets accepted in recent years are up to the matriculation or higher leaving certificate standard of the colleges, or have specialised qualifications in engineering, accountancy, or other of the professions. Professional members of the service frequently hold the highest executive positions in respective Dominion associations.
The service itself carries on a system of tuition, training and examination which ensures that only fully qualified men can reach controlling positions in the Department. This applies also to the workshops and to all staffs engaged in train operations, in traffic handling and in any commercial dealings with the public.
Part of the training of a traffic man, as well as the incidence of promotion, necessitates transfer, from time to time, to different positions in the service and to different places in the Dominion. Besides this, the facilities which the Department affords its employees for travel at the time of their annual leave encourages railwaymen and their families to visit other parts of the country. The general result is that the average railwayman not only has a personal knowledge of the physical features of the Dominion but also is particularly well informed upon matters of general public interest. Hence, in whatever locality he may be placed, he has the standing to which a wide range of knowledge and experience entitles him.
The railwayman, too, knows that he is engaged in a service of real worth to the community; this also aids his self-respect and entitles him to due consideration by his fellows.
I am stressing these matters at this time because, in the rapidly changing conditions with which we are surrounded, a stocktaking of this nature is worth-while. I feel that railwaymen, to the extent that they increasingly realise and exercise the influence that is rightly theirs through personal worth and occupational association, can attain a still higher state of personal development and be of still greater usefulness to the organisation and the public whom they serve.
General Manager.
Some Examples of the Bountiful Harvests in New Zealand's North Land(Rly. Publicity photos.)
The large Tung-oil trees shown in the illustration (top left) are growing in a Keri Keri plantation. In addition to the lemon trees seen in the illustration (centre left) there are also many sweet orange trees in full bearing. (See article p. 11.)
ByO. N. .)
Gillespie
(
Rly. Publicity photo.)
Panorama of the New Zealand Tung-oil Corporation's Plantations at Kaikohe.
The title of this article is deliberately chosen with a kindly purpose. It treats of a part of New Zealand whose inhabitants should be “telling the world,” as they say in U.S.A., yet it is comparatively little known even in the big city nearest to it.
Scene 1: Central Hotel, Auckland, 8.15 a.m.
“Hullo, where are you going?”
“Oh! North Auckland—Keri Keri Ohaewai and other spots. Been there?”
“Never. You'll find it hard to get about up there. Where are those places, anyway?”
Scene 2: The Homestead, Keri Keri, 5.10 p.m.
(Reflecting) What a joke! A comfortable train journey, a short ride in a luxurious service car on a perfect road and here we are! Hard to get to!
The train winds out through the wide-spreading suburbs of Auckland, slips past the Waitakeres, and at Helensville we get a glimpse of a river steamer. Thereafter the scenery is notable, particularly the lovely bits where the arms of the Kaipara Harbour cross and crisscross in little blue sounds. At Maungaturoto we get out for lunch, and notice that the air is warming up. From here on the country is rolling and hilly, well filled with settlers facing an awful perplexity, for there can be no weather to growl at. The rainfall is good, and the temperature steady, winter and summer.
In no time we skirt the side of the fascinating Whangarei Harbour. There are miles of this Riviera drive, the water is azure satin, and the hill contours gentle and beautiful. In the far distance is the startling profile of Manaia, a mighty and exact replica of a prone mountain god gazing at the sky.
Then we reach the capital of the North, Whangarei; but of this delightful little city in the making we shall talk later.
There is a pleasant interlude here for refreshment, but, as all the way from Auckland, my camera friend has been hard to dissuade from poking his lens through the carriage window to get a “shot,” I am glad to get away again.
The next episode of the serial is much the same until Otiria is reached. Instead of the anticipated bone-shaker, a magnificent service motor bus stands there with half a dozen brethren. This was a merry half hour. My neighbour was, he told me, a little hard of hearing as he was seventy-four. I could not catch his name, but from his red cheeks, white whiskers and blue eyes, he ought to have been called “Union Jack.” It appeared that he had forty miles to do after he got to Kaitaia, and was doing that little bit on a push bike. I registered surprise and he explained that it was geared for the hills. He helped to prove the statement made to me later by a settler that no one north of Whangarei ever died unless he was run over or gored by a bull.
The Keri Keri Homestead is a luxurious private hotel with beautiful gardens. From the dining room there is a perfect view of the exquisite Keri Keri falls.
The surprise to the visitor from the South is the nature of the country from the railhead into Keri Keri. The scene is English downland, like a Surrey panorama. The second growth totaras and the neat puriris are exactly like those little trees we used to get in the Noah's Arks. They dot the landscape, and with the smooth rich pastures, the lazy sheep thickly clustered, the well-kept fences and homesteads, they make a parklike effect which has the ordered beauty of older lands.
One forgets that this is the oldest part of New Zealand. I played a hymn
(
Rly. Publicity photo.)
Whangarei—seen from the hills.
Fourteen grass tennis courts at Whangarei.
(Rly. Publicity photo.)
At the edge of the dreaming loveliness of the Keri Keri Inlet stands the oldest stone building and oldest two-storey wooden dwelling in the Dominion. The stone building is a busy store and cigarette placards cover up the date. Totara lining boards one hundred years old are nailed to the walls in simple fashion and are so free of warp, that in the dark, you could not tell that the whole wall was not one smooth plank. Upstairs is the Bishop's study and the famous letter recording the first use of a plough in our land.
This fine stone building was erected to keep watch on the Hone Heke Pa that surmounted a low green hill across the narrow sound.
It is a strange but inevitable turn of the wheel of history that is bringing this region, first of all New Zealand to be loved and settled by Englishmen, back to its original pre-eminence. Here I pause to make the prophecy that this district will one day be the most prosperous part of our whole Dominion, and be a hive of human activities of every kind.
Keri Keri settlement, inaugurated and established by the North Auckland Land Development Corporation Ltd., is an indescribable place. It has, at first blush, the air of a large and prosperous garden suburb, but proves to be something far different on inspection. There are numbers of overseas settlers who contrive, in some way, to make the long bench on the verandah of the corner store look rather club-like. Men were drifting about the place when we arrived, clad in shorts, all sun-tanned, an odd one a little ostentatiously “rolling his own” like a real colonial.
Down the cross-road is the utilitarian factory building that has, in the words of the song, “changed the whole course of their lives.” The factory collects the passion fruit at each gate, the farmer's job being to grow and pick them.
Here is a settlement of primary producers who get their money fortnightly throughout the year, and the price is fixed for a long term. They ought to be happy and they look it.
I found an old Wellington friend and he took me to see passion fruit vines, planted in November last, and now bearing fruit. The soil is a dark loam, easily worked, and varying little in quality throughout the settlement area. The combination of warm, even temperature, copious, gentle rains and sunshine, produce a growth that is unbelievable.
By the courtesy of several settlers, I am able to make positive statements about this amazing profit-making paradise. Naturally, the pioneers had the usual experience, and the early difficulties were stern and plentiful. Luckily for the block, men of ample means and unbounded courage and enthusiasm took up land and developed it. Passion fruit is the staple crop, but oranges by the ton are in sight, as the species suitable to the locality has been found after much experiment, and this, the Washington navel, is definitely better than any orange we import. I do not say this after eating one or two, either. My friend of the camera reckoned that I would be a rich orange colour all over if I did not stop! The lemon is of easy and luxuriant growth, cures well, and we often buy them in our cities thinking they are imported.
After detailed examination, I find it to be a fact that one acre of passion fruit in full bearing, will produce from £50 to £80 per annum. One man can, without strenuous effort, look after two and a half acres single handed. The first cost of the land, of breaking it in and of planting, is by comparison trifling, and building is less than two-thirds of city cost. Electric light and other amenities are available.
Grapes grow freely in the open, and down below the unique homestead of glass and concrete belonging to Mr. Little (whose pioneering work and expenditure should get a monument one of these days), there are magnificent hillside terraces of vines and other plants, the result of years of experiment.
The inlet at Keri Keri, showing the oldest stone building and the oldest wooden residence in New Zealand.
(Rly. Publicity photo.)
Captain Edkins' residence at Keri Keri.
(Rly. Publicity photo.)
Fine houses, spacious gardens, carefully tended drives, ornament vista after vista. The settlement numbers two hundred already, and they are arriving all the time. No one can visit this place without a twinge of jealousy. Here are people living a Garden of Eden life of ease and making a profitable income from it. Even the rain is only liquid sunshine. Here is a land where it is really true that “every prospect pleases.”
Any man who retires on a pension (often just enough to let him see his club once a month and potter on a quarter acre suburban section) should have a look at Keri Keri. If he does not decide to come here, he should have a look at himself. There is a safe outlook here, too, for the young working farmer, whose practical experience would prove to be gold mounted.
The word that has done North Auckland more harm than anything else is used to describe its land—“patchy.” The word would be better if the size of the patches were known. The truth is that the area of good land is very large. After all, the peninsula is responsible for a seventh of New Zealand's dairy production. A farm of 450 acres close to Keri Keri is carrying 1,700 breeding ewes, and 90 odd cattle and horses. The owner is a skilled and ingenious farmer, but the bare facts are almost incredible. There is no end to which this land can be put, particularly having in mind the fact that the climate is actually “winterless.” The steady beneficent temperature and abundant rainfall remove at one stroke the two main disadvantages of California, where irrigation is universal, and the expensive smudge pot is absolutely necessary to cope with the numerous frosts.
It is obvious that there is still endless exploration to be done in the methods of using this unique combination of soil and climatic conditions.
All vegetables can be grown here all the year round. Potatoes, yams, kumeras, revel in this soil, and so do all the melon tribe whose tasty and more exotic varieties have only to be known to be appreciated in our country. Grapes ripen in the open air in riotous profusion. Almond, fig, peach, nectarine, and all fruit trees are assured bearers of heavy crops, and early is a mild word when their fruits ripen. All small fruits, similarly, do excellently. You have the feeling, wherever you look, of the fecund ease of growth of everything, and yet the place is free of tropical disabilities. The narrow shape of the peninsula, with its myriad of deep indentations of the sea, give this immunity and add to the riches of the plant life, a legacy of health and strength. One settler, commenting in his dry way on what the land seemed able to do, cracked this joke, “I believe if you dropped a wooden toothpick, it would start to root.”
I left Keri Keri with a feeling of regret and I am going back at the first opportunity. Our illustrations are restricted, naturally, owing to space considerations, but they convey some idea of the progress of this, a most important undertaking of national interest and a contribution to our country's welfare.
The road to Kaikohe is a perfect one, through lovely country, well stocked and closely settled. Kaikohe is a clean and sweet country town, modern and progressive. I was advised there to take a trip to the property of the New Zealand Tung Oil Corporation. Here is another staggering surprise.
A plant crop which is an innovation is subject to two criticisms, firstly will they grow, secondly, who wants them, anyway? Henry Ford is planting them in Florida, so he apparently wants them, among others. I saw them growing, in all stages, so that is beyond doubt. Like most New Zealanders, the only tung oil I had heard of was spelt a different way and was the property of a lady with a blackboard and a pointer. However, all joking apart, this colossal undertaking is being managed with such care, prudence, and zeal, that success is deserved. We passed through seven miles of plantation, all bounded by road frontage. There are vast nurseries, both of tung trees and of varieties of shelter trees. In this climate and in this soil, shelter trees grow in eighteen months, and the groves are being gradually
The old Homestead at Keri Keri.
(Rly. Publicity photo.)
One of the modern homes in course of erection at Keri Keri.
(Rly. Publicity photo.)
I now worked back to Whangarei. The fascinating newness of the Maori place names, makes a new music for the ear all about this district. Ngunguru, Matapouri, Poroti, Kailiu, Whananaki, Ngawha, Pataua, Tutakaka, Nukutahwiti, Waimamaku, sound all about, and, of course nobody knows what they mean. Don't, however, ask about Waitemata, that's a beer!
And so, to Whangarei. This is a bustling, heart-warming town, with the New Zealand provincial capitals' air of being a small city. It is beautifully situated, with two imposing streets of fine buildings and striking suburbs full of beautiful homes. The gardens are rich with flowers and everywhere there is a sub-tropical brilliance of scene. The night airs are cool.
The hotels are good, fit for any city, as will be particularly seen from the picture we show of the modern lounge from which our host, Mr. Powell, took us down the harbour to one of the legendary spots in all New Zealand, the “Hen and Chickens,” the old men's home of the tuatara lizard. There are good golf links, one tennis ground has fourteen grass courts, the motor parks are up-to-date, and the public grounds, particularly Mair Park with its natural swimming pool set in natural bush, are worthy of a metropolis.
Scenic beauties of all sorts, from the great Wairoa Falls, to the picturesque beaches of Matapouri and Ngunguru, are within easy reach.
Whangarei has its own personality and is the rightful capital of this New Zealand Elysium.
Before I conclude, I want to stress one point. Years ago, a member of Parliament, in a natural anxiety to get something done to please his constituents, coined the phrase “The Roadless North.” Now that kind of epithet has a habit of sticking, and there is still an impression that the district is difficult of access and full of terrors for motorists. Nothing of the sort exists to-day. Led by that model of practical management, the Whangarei County, the northern counties have modernised the whole network of roads, which are uniformly excellent. The train services likewise. The timetables are convenient for all centres and junctions, luxurious car services act as feeders at all important points, and the connection, both ways, with the Southern trunk lines is efficient and speedy. I repeat that the Northland is as easy to reach and travel over by road or rail as any part of the Dominion.
I have tried to tone down the adjectives that seem to press for outlet while I write this article. Honestly, however, my story is suffering from suppressed superlatives. Our land is so lovely in so many ways, it is such a pocket world of beauty, that claims for leadership in attractiveness for any one district, are impossible of answer. But no one can blame the dweller in the Northland for saying that his is the best of all. The pity is that he does not seem to have said it long enough and loud enough. And lastly, and above all, the Northland is a land of opportunity, a land of golden chances.
Mr. Little's house of glass and concrete at Keri Keri. Below is seen the landscape prospect obtained from the verandah of this house—typical of the views from most residences at Keri Keri.
(Rly. Publicity photo.)
byArthur L. Stead
Discharging Australian wool at King George Dock, Hull.
Business is now on the up grade throughout the Home railway industry, and ambitious renewal and improvement plans are in progress on all the group systems. To illustrate the optimism of the Home railway leaders, let us take two typical railways—the Great Western and the London and North Eastern—and consider what is being done to perfect their transportation machines.
On the Great Western, there is great activity in the locomotive and carriage and wagon departments. During the present year, the Company are constructing in their Swindon shops ten new “Castle” class locomotives, fifteen new “Hall” class, ten standard goods locomotives, and sixty tank locomotives.
Some 211 new passenger vehicles are being built, these including four twin dining-car units and two kitchen-cars. On the freight side, 2,486 new goods wagons are being turned out this year, more than half of these being open 12-ton trucks for general merchandise. Track renewals covering 390 miles of line are being undertaken; some 130 bridges of various sizes and dimensions are being rebuilt; and the reconstruction is to be completed of two huge modern passenger stations—Bristol (Temple Meads) and Swansea (High Street).
Now for the London and North Eastern story. During the present year, about 5,000 new goods wagons are to be built, 50 per cent. being box wagons. Three hundred new containers are being constructed—a tribute to the proved utility of this convenient method of movement—while the programme also includes the acquisition of 100 new all-steel wagons for the handling of locomotive coal. Eighty-eight new steam locomotives are being turned out this year in London and North Eastern shops. Passenger vehicle construction includes the building of about three hundred new carriages, including ten restaurant cars, four sleepers, and two complete “tourist train” sets for holiday traffic. Track works include the renewal of nearly 500 miles of track, the rebuilding of 37 bridges, and the cleaning and painting of innumerable stations. In connection with this latter work, special colour schemes are to take the place of the usual standard method of treatment, attractive stations now being regarded as a vital selling point for rail travel.
It is interesting to find that, among the new locomotives being built at the London and North Eastern shops, is a three-cylinder 2-8-2 type express passenger locomotive incorporating many of the characteristic features of the ‘Cock o’ the North” machine, described briefly some months ago in these Letters. Intended primarily for hauling day and night passenger expresses over the very heavily graded Edinburgh-Aberdeen section of the East Coast Anglo-Scottish tracks, the new locomotive, named the “Earl Marischal,” differs mainly from its predecessor in respect of the type of motion employed, and the maximum weights in working order of the engine and tender. Instead of poppet valves operated by rotary cam gear controlling steam admission and exhaust, the “Earl Marischal” has piston valves operated by Walschaert-Gresley gear of a pattern similar to that favoured for the London and North Eastern Railway “Pacific” locomotives. The maximum weight in working order of the “Earl Marischal” engine is 109 tons 8 cwts., and of the tender 57 tons 18 cwts.
A unique point about both the “Earl Marischal” and the “Cock o' the North” is that a steam collector integral with the dome is placed on top of the boiler barrel, this being formed of a steel pressing riveted to the boiler top, on the outside. A number of slots
A busy scene at Paddington Station, Great Western Railways, London.
Denis Passenger Station, Prague, Czechoslovakia.
The through Anglo-Scottish trains over the East Coast route work out of the King's Cross terminal in London, surely one of the most interesting stations in the world. European passenger termini make a fascinating study for the visitor from overseas.
Stations like King's Cross, Paddington, Victoria, Waterloo and Euston, all in London, each have their own peculiar interest and individuality; while outside the Empire's capital, big cities, such as Manchester, York and Birmingham, possess noteworthy passenger depots.
Comparable in their own countries with Wellington's fine new passenger station, are depots like the new Italian station at Milan, and the German terminal at Leipzig—both unusually commodious and pleasing structures erected in recent years. Most continental stations lack the raised platforms favoured in Britain, but on the continent a feature is the provision of separate platforms and tracks for handling passengers' luggage. Finland, Poland, and other smaller European lands have railway stations of rather primitive character outside the big cities. Spain and Portugal love an ornate type of architecture for their railway termini; while in the northern lands of Norway and Sweden, one cannot help noticing the special architectural plans followed with a view to combating severe winter climatic conditions.
Travel between Britain and the continent promises to prove exceptionally heavy during the next few months, so popular has the continental holiday become with all classes. Railway-operated steamships, plying between Britain and France, form the principal connection across that troublous stretch of water known as the English Channel. The Southern Railway owns the largest cross-Channel fleet, and this line's daily services between Dover-Calais and Folkestone-Boulogne are rightly world-famed. Among the larger Southern passenger vessels are the “Canterbury,” the “Worthing,” and the “Maid of Orleans.”
The fastest service between London and Paris is the daily “Golden Arrow” express. This famous train leaves Victoria Station, London, daily at 11.0 a.m. Dover (Marine) is reached at 12.35 p.m., and the cross-Channel steamer, waiting alongside, departs at 12.55 p.m., reaching Calais at 2.10 p.m. The French “Golden Arrow” train, operated by the Nord Railway, leaves Calais twenty minutes later, and “Gay Paree” is reached at 5.40 p.m. Forward connections from Paris give fast running to cities like Rouen, Lyons and Marseilles, as well as to most of the leading capitals of central and southern Europe.
The success attending the scheme introduced on the Home railways last year of providing stationary camping cars for holiday-makers at selected beauty spots, has this year led to the introduction of touring camping carriages. These cars are worked by train from place to place, day by day, following a specially prepared schedule, giving holiday-makers an opportunity of visiting numerous attractive vacation haunts with a minimum of trouble and expense.
The cars are virtually caravans on railway wheels. Each vehicle is provided with six separate sleeping compartments, each with its own toilet facilities. Accommodation for a seventh person is available in a spare compartment equipped with a collapsible bed. The cars have also a comfortable living-room, and a kitchen with full cooking facilities. An adequate supply of crockery, cutlery and linen is included in the equipment. The inclusive charge for the use of a touring camping car, apart from the cost of provisions, for a week's tour, works out at from £15 to £20. Already, heavy bookings are being registered, and the tourist camping car promises to prove a sure business-bringer.
Picturesque Rouen on Northern Railway of France.
Written for the “New Zealand Railways Magazine” by)
James Cowan
“We are few, but the right sort,” Nelson wrote of his hearties of the “Agamemnon” in the Mediterranean in 1794. The Taranaki settlers could have said that of themselves in 1860 when the Maori war began. Harry Atkinson was a leader among those stout-hearted farmers from the South of England who founded the New Plymouth settlement and turned soldiers when occasion called. He was a captain in the first Volunteer Rifle Corps in the British Empire to meet an enemy in the field. He engaged in provincial and national politics with the same vigour and success that he had displayed on the Taranaki battle-ground. He was three times Premier of New Zealand; he was knighted during his last premiership, and he was Speaker of the Legislative Council when he died in Wellington in 1892. In his soldiering career he was a perfect frontiersman, as skilled in bush fighting as any Maori warrior. In political life he was a strong but not brilliant figure, a plain-living and plain-spoken man who won place and power by his honesty of purpose, his perseverance and his great capacity for work.
Sir Harry Atkinson, K.C.M.G.
No British Colony planted in a new country had a more courageous, determined and industrious set of pioneers than the men and women of Devon and Cornwall and Essex, with some from Yorkshire, who peopled the bush-covered province of Taranaki in the young ‘Forties, and, under many difficulties, established a beautiful group of farming settlements beneath the seaward flanks of grand old Egmont. There were many families among them whose descendants bear with pride names of high honour in the annals of New Zealand. There were makers of the nation there, the Atkinsons and Richmonds, the Smiths and Hursthouses, the Messengers, North-crofts, Bayleys, Carringtons and Ardens, and many another who very literally cut out their homes from the wilds. It was not only the obstacles of wild Nature they had to conquer in this forest-tangled land that is now the richest region of the Island. There was the Maori, at first a friend but forced into very active hostility when the inevitable land disputes began. The Maori, for all his early amicable dealings with the New Plymouth pioneers, soon realised that the shiploads of English settlers and the demand for more land for settlement would in the end prevail, and the Land League was formed to dam back the pakeha flood.
No need here to tell the story of the foolish Waitara purchase that precipitated the war in 1860. Sharp and bitter war it was, that set the province back well-nigh twenty years. New Plymouth and the neighbouring settlements had a white population of about two thousand five hundred, of whom between five and six hundred were men and youths of fighting age. The town was entrenched; the outer districts were deserted and left to the mercy of the Maori nationalist forces; and the peaceful citizen and farmer were compelled to cease their activities and learn the art of war. There was good material there; none better. They were not Regular troops fighting because it was their paid calling. They served not for the glory and adventure of one of the Empire's little wars. They were peace-loving men forced into defence of their homes. There were rights and wrongs on both sides; as our histories have recorded. The Taranaki settlers, from the greybeard to the sixteen-year-old lad, took the field under sheer necessity of holding what they had won from the bush.
Natural leaders emerged from the few hundreds of bushmen and ploughmen and stock-raisers; men already well schooled in the rugged toil of settlement, familiar with the forest, and its tracks, and quick to adapt themselves to the conditions of guerilla fighting. One of these leaders was young Harry Albert Atkinson, farmer and bushman, a man of yeoman family, strong of frame, eager and sometimes fiery of temperament, fearless yet cautious where caution was needed; determined and masterful. He was one of the first men to join the afterwards celebrated Taranaki Rifle Volunteer Company, when it was formed in New Plymouth in 1858—the first volunteer corps in the British countries to fight an action with a foe. That pioneer company of settler-soldiers was a hundred strong. Atkinson quickly learned his drill; he was already, like most of his comrades, a competent rifle shot. When the tragic quarrel at Waitara began in 1860, two companies were formed, and the No. 2 Company elected Harry Atkinson as their captain.
It was not long before the Taranaki Rifles and the Militia had an opportunity of distinguishing themselves by their courage and steadiness under fire and their efficiency as skirmishers. Their first encounter with the Maoris was at Waireka, on the coast five miles south of New Plymouth. This was a combat of varying fortunes ending most dramatically by a Naval column storming a fortified position and relieving the hard-pressed Volunteers and Militia.
Young Captain Atkinson and his company of riflemen formed part of a composite column despatched to Omata from New Plymouth on March 28, 1860. The force consisted of a small detachment of men from H.M.S. Niger a company of the 65th Regiment, a hundred Rifle Volunteers, and 56 of the Taranaki Militia, the whole under Lieut.-Colonel Murray, a British Regular officer. Captain Charles Brown was in command of the Colonial units in the column. The Volunteers were under Captain Atkinson and Lieuts. Hirst, Hamerton, Webster and Jones; and the Militia officers were Captain and Adjutant Stapp (a veteran of the 58th Regiment, who had served in Hone Heke's War), Lieutenants McKechney and McKellar, and Ensign W. B. Messenger (afterwards Colonel). The mission of this expedition was to rescue the Rev. H. H. Brown and his family and some other settlers who had remained on their Omata farms. As it happened, they were not in danger; the minister was held tapu by the Maoris because of his sacred office. But there was blundering on the part of the superior Imperial officers. The force was ordered to be back in New Plymouth by dark. The Regulars marched by the main road to Omata; the Volunteers and Militia by the beach. There was a strong body of well-armed Maoris entrenched at Kaipopo, a commanding hill about a mile and a half south of the Colonial forces' stockade at Omata. The Maori position commanded the way to the beach; near it a small stream, the Waireka (“Sweet-water”) flowed out through a narrow partly wooded valley. Near the bank of this stream there was a farmhouse, a small building which Mr. John Jury had occupied until the war began. Lieut.-Colonel Murray's force, the main body, opened fire on the Maoris near Omata but before dusk the commander marched his men back to town, in accordance with orders, leaving the Volunteers and Militia to fight it out with the Maoris from Kaipopo Pa, who had almost surrounded them in the valley of the Waireka and were swarming over the broken ground above them.
The engagement developed into a desperate battle, in which the only help the settler-soldiers received was from a few Navy men (Lieut. Blake, R.N., was badly wounded) and eight men of the 65th Regiment who had been left with the Militia. It was now nearly dark and the Maoris kept up a hot fire on the little force at Jury's homestead. This force had suffered several casualties; a sergeant of Militia (Fahey) and a “Niger” man had been killed, and eight men wounded, including Lieut. Hamerton and Private W. Messenger (father of Ensign Messenger); the latter had his right elbow shattered by a bullet.
The Taranaki Volunteer Rifles and Militia in the Battle of Waireka, 1860. Maori Pa Kaipopo on the hill.
(From a water-colour drawing by A. H. Messenger).
Meanwhile Captain Atkinson had been doing useful work, holding a good strategic position above the Waireka stream and on the edge of the cliff overlooking the sea. His company included both Volunteers and Militia. His post commanded the flanks and rear of the terrace on which the farmhouse stood and the mouth of the Waireka. Shooting steadily from this position Atkinson and his men inflicted many casualties on the Ngati-Ruanui musketeers. They stood fast in their position, picking off the Maoris, while the rest of the force hurriedly put the jury farm-yard in a state of defence, throwing together a breastwork of all material available—firewood, fence rails and posts, and even sheaves of oats from stacks near the house.
The condition of the Taranaki men was very serious, for their ammunition was almost done, and it was believed that the Maoris would rush the place when night fell. Firing now was restricted to the best shots; and Ensign Messenger, at Stapp's request, went round and saw that each man had a cartridge for the expected rush. They would then have to depend on their bayonets.
All at once, as night was drawing over the scene the sound of heavy firing and loud cheering was heard from Kaipopo hill. The Maoris ceased to press in on the settlers and retreated hurriedly up the slopes to their palisaded pa.
The order to leave the position was given by Captain Stapp—the most experienced officer in the force, who had been requested by Captain Brown to take charge early in the day's work. Bearing their dead and wounded the Volunteers and Militia retreated on Omata stockade and thence marched back to the town, reaching there after midnight. Atkinson's men formed the rearguard, with the eight soldiers of the 65th who had remained with the settlers.
What had happened on Kaipopo hill to cause such a sudden end of the Maori attack? The settlers in arms discovered that at Omata stockade. Captain Peter Cracroft, the vigorous commander of H.M.S. “Niger,” had marched out a company of his blue-jackets and marines, sixty in all, to the relief of the Colonial soldiers. In the dashing Navy way, he went straight for that Maori stockade, and stormed it most gallantly, his eager sailors making little of the fire from the trenches. Shooting and slashing, the Navy lads were over the stockade and the trenches in a few moments, “like a pack of schoolboys,” as a veteran of Waireka told me. The Maori loss was heavy. The attack was delivered at the right time and in just the right way to save the settler-soldiers from a disaster.
There was tremendous excitement in New Plymouth; the “Nigers” and the
So ended the Taranaki settlers' first battle. Atkinson's and Stapp's men inflicted heavy casualties on the Maoris, but it was Cracroft's splendid attack that decided the day and cleared the district of the Maoris. The tribes had intended to move on New Plymouth, but that offensive was stopped for the present.
There was almost constant soldiering duty for a year following Waireka, until the first Taranaki war closed. The Volunteers and Militia were engaged in many bush expeditions, scouting, and patrolling the roads and tracks, in rear of the town, and now and again skirmishing with the war-parties and foragers of the tribes. There was a sharp affair, the battle of Mahoetahi, where the British and Colonial troops stormed the position held by warriors of the Ngati-Haua and Ngati-Maniapoto tribes from the North; this was on November 6, 1860. Captain Atkinson and his men were in that thrilling charge. Another of the Atkinsons was in the field that day; W. S. Atkinson, who commanded a friendly Maori contingent.
A story of the Mahoetahi affair that reveals the fiery determined Atkinson of those heroic days was told by the late Dr. Grace (who was surgeon with the troops in Taranaki and elsewhere) in his book of Maori War reminiscences. It was still rather dark when Major-General Pratt's column mustered in Devon Street, New Plymouth. The Taranaki Rifle Volunteers were intended to act as support, and space was left in the column for their companies. When the force was ready to march, as the space retained was not nearly filled, there was “much tittering and ridicule,” as Dr. Grace put it, among the Imperial soldiers. Colonel Carey, the Adjutant-General, rode up to Captain Atkinson and said.—
“Captain, this is very bad. Where are your men?”
Captain Atkinson's eyes shone with a fierce light as he replied in a hoarse trumpet voice:—
“Colonel, let the column advance. My men will fall in as we go, and in any case there are enough Volunteers here to storm the Pa!”
This answer electrified the listeners. The news of Atkinson's defiant air spread like wildfire through New Plymouth. His men joined the column in threes and fours as it marched along and soon the complete force of the Rifles was in the column. The force halted below Mahoetahi hill on which the Maoris were concealed (the main highway from New Plymouth to Waitara and the North cuts through the ridge close to the site at eight miles from New Plymouth).
The officer in command could see no Maoris. A thin wreath of smoke curled up on the hill-top. Pratt and Carey were discussing the situation when Captain Atkinson walked up to the General and said, in a voice that did not conceal the emotions seething within him:—
“General, my men were slow in parading. This is our land. I claim for the Taranaki Volunteers the honour of the assault.”
The General looked at Colonel Carey who said:—
“Captain, the dispositions for the attack are not yet completed. In any case, you and your men are entitled to an honourable position in the field. You shall hear from the General later.”
It was decided that the assault should be headed by a company of the 65th Regiment and a company of the Taranaki Volunteers under Captain Atkinson. The Volunteers were extended to the left front of Mahoetahi, their left flank under Captain Atkinson on the extreme left. With a rush they took possession of a hill about a hundred yards from the pa where the Maoris lay hidden. Major Herbert, commanding the combined storming party, received the order to charge. Under a hot fire the Volunteers furiously assaulted the hill-top, bayonet for bayonet with the big Irishmen of the 65th on their right. The Maoris met them hand to hand; there were many desperate encounters with bayonet and tomahawk. Two of the Volunteers were killed. Atkinson himself with a small party occupied a low hill on the left and kept up a destructive flanking fire. The Maori resistance, though heroic, was short. The hill was cleared; nearly fifty warriors lay dead on the field.
In the second Taranaki war, 1863, the Imperial authorities gave the settler-soldiers practically a free hand in bush fighting; they had not made sufficient use of them in Major-General Pratt's time in the first war. More effective methods of frontier service were introduced by the formation of special corps for the purpose of following the Maoris into the bush and clearing the country surrounding New Plymouth town. Captain Harry Atkinson was the soul of these free-roving tactics. His party of fifty men of No. 2 Company, Taranaki Rifles, was the first corps of forest rangers to take the field in New Zealand. Jackson's
Atkinson's force, as the war went on, was increased to two companies and was called the Taranaki Bush Rangers.
These active fellows, armed with Terry breechloading carbines and revolvers, scoured the country, watched all the tracks, penetrated far into the wild bush, and soon had the land free from hostiles for many a mile. Atkinson's principal fellow-Rangers in this arduous and useful commission were Captain F. Webster and Lieuts. Brown, Jones, McKellar and W. B. Messenger.
There was a particularly sharp engagement in the open towards the end of 1863, when Atkinson, Webster and Messenger commanded the Volunteers and Militia, in co-operation with Colonel Warre and the 57th Regiment.
Many a man was trained in bush-scouting and skirmishing under Atkinson. One of his “old boys” was the late Captain Henry W. Northcroft, N.Z.C. Another was Captain J. R. Rushton, of Kutarere, on Ohiwa Harbour, Bay of Plenty; he was the Chief Government Scout at Opotiki after his service on the West Coast. Rushton, tall, lean, long-legged, a perfect bushman, had his first practical schooling in the Rangers. He wrote to me in 1921 about his old comrades and his commanding officer:—
“The Taranaki boys—the Maoris had no chance with them, man for man, in the bush. Skirmishing with them under Captain (afterwards Major) Atkinson taught me much about taking cover in bush fighting that served me well in other campaigns during nearly eight years' service in the Maori wars. It is always pleasing to a soldier to be able to remember with affection his old officer. When spoken to by Sir Harry Atkinson one knew that he was a kind friend as well as a commanding officer.”
At first occupied in Parliament when he took his seat there as a Taranaki M.H.R.—with purely provincial interests, it was not long before Major Atkinson found himself battling as fiercely over national issues as he had fought for the land in his Egmont country. He soon became a force in the Legislature; he feared no man and had scant respect for most. By instinct a Conservative, he was suspicious of innovations; he was a practical economist, and he cared not a whit for public opinion when he had made up his mind on a certain course. Sheer force of character and enormous industry made him three times Premier of the Colony. His record as Premier began in September, 1876. He held his place for a year until Sir George Grey succeeded him leading the new Liberal Party. Grey's and then Sir John Hall's terms as Premier lasted until April, 1882, when Atkinson and his conservative following again came into power. In the following year Robert Stout displaced him. In 1887 Atkinson once more took the Premiership and held it until the beginning of 1891 brought John Ballance and his Liberal Party into power and the mana of the old Conservatives was laid low. The veteran of Taranaki, now Sir Harry Atkinson, K.C.M.G., a weary
Arthur Richmond Atkinson
(Died in Wellington, March 26, 1935).
(S. P. Andrew, photo.)
For an estimate of Sir Harry Atkinson as a politician I turn to an excellent brief summing-up of his capacity and career in Miss N. E. Coad's recently published history, “New Zealand from Tasman to Massey” (published by Harry H. Tombs, Ltd.). Miss Coad says that undoubtedly the outstanding Premier of the ‘Eighties was Atkinson, who had been one of the great personalities in the Continuous Ministry of the ‘Seventies. “Strangely enough,” she writes, “he is to-day but little known, but that may be because he did not possess the glittering spectacular qualities and the political initiative of Vogel. True, times were hard during his administration, but that does not explain why Vogel so often gets the credit of important measures that were really carried through by Atkinson. The abolition of the Provincial Parliaments is a case in point. Nevertheless, Atkinson exemplified in his person the best characteristics of the colonial public man. Outside the House he was a working colonist; inside it a hard-working politician whose feet were firmly planted on the ground. No flowery rhetorician he, but rather a plain blunt man who spoke briefly and to the point about essential details… . He had good executive ability—an excellent thing in a Prime Minister. Per contra, he lacked suavity in manner, nor did he possess the polish and courtesy of Grey… . As Pember Reeves put it, he was abrupt, even tart in his manner—overworked people often are. He won the political battle over the Abolition of the Provinces Bill, and he twice restored financial equilibrium during periods of economic stress. Few men have packed so much into a life as Sir Harry Atkinson.”
The Atkinsons were a family distinguished in public life and in the literary world. One of Sir Harry's nephews was Mr. Arthur Richmond Atkinson, who died in Wellington on March 26 of this year, at the age of seventy-two. He was Taranaki-born, the son of Mr. A. S. Atkinson, himself a man of note in Maori research. The family became residents of Nelson, which has always been a centre of culture in New Zealand, and it was there that A. R. Atkinson received the first impetus towards the scholarly life. Oxford gave him the literary tastes which became the great interest of his career, although he took up the profession of the law. He served on local governing bodies and in the New Zealand Parliament, and was a leader in social reform during his forty years and more in Wellington, but the work which called forth his highest qualities of brain and soul was his journalistic writings. He was a leader-writer for the “Evening Post” for, I think, quite thirty years, and daily newspaper work of this kind calls for knowledge wide and deep and varied, as well as for great industry. As book reviewer, under the pen-name “Ajax,” Mr. Atkinson did a very great deal to help forward New Zealand literature, and many a colonial writer has cause to remember him with lasting gratitude. “Ajax,” unlike many reviewers, really took the trouble to read the books he dealt with. He was a pleasant, loveable man, ever ready to help a cause for the public betterment, and out of the richness of his scholarship ever generous with his wise and kindly counsel.
Where Nature Charms and Cures: Told by the Camera Ohinemutu, on the shore of Lake Rotorua, North Island, New Zealand.
(
Rly. Publicity photos.)
The fine Sanatorium and grounds at Rotorua, North Island, New Zealand.
When the Rotorua flats were mostly a manuka wilderness, bubbling with springs of varying temperatures and swathed with steam, to “take the waters” at Rotorua was an adventure. Each bather had to be his own thermometer. But fifty years have brought a revolution, and have made these wonderful waters safe and salutary for everyone, while the scenic assets are available to the tourist at moderate cost with all modern comforts. Do New Zealanders fully realise it? The manuka wilderness has given place to the sanatorium here pictured. The landscape beauty of Ohinemutu, disclosed in the other photograph, is perfect.
ByN. P. , LL.B., M.P.
Endean
The parlour-observation car on the Reso Train.
When I was invited to make a tour in the “Reso” train I was somewhat doubtful as to what “Reso” meant, but on making inquiries I found that it meant “resources” and that the object of the “Reso” train was to instruct not only the people of Victoria but also visitors as to the wonderful resources of this State of the Commonwealth. We boarded the train on a Sunday evening and found it to be as they described “a modern hotel on wheels.” There was an observation car with easy chairs, an excellent dining car where well-cooked meals were served, comfortable cabins, shower baths and every modern luxury.
Leaving Melbourne about 2.30 a.m. on the Monday we arrived at Colac, in the Shire of Colac, in the heart of the western district of Victoria, which contains some remarkably fertile areas. The country generally is suitable for both pastoral and agricultural activities and enjoys an average annual rainfall of 27 inches. Dairying is the chief industry, but grazing and onion growing are other important factors in the prosperity of the district. Wheat, oats, rye and potatoes are also grown. We were met by members of the local authority and driven to Red Rocks, a high volcanic hill which commanded a most sweeping view of the whole countryside for miles around. This countryside presented a network of lakes and beautiful farms of rich soil and splendid pasture. It is very refreshing to find that in Australia, which is considered to be subject to droughts, these rich patches of fertile soil exist.
We then proceeded to the Nestles Milk Factory at Dennington, which is regarded as one of the most efficient factories in Australia. Everything is rationalised and conducted on sound modern lines. Nothing is wasted, not even the milk in the thin-milk water, the milk from which is extracted from the liquid and given to the pigs, which are also fed with condemned chocolate from other factories.
We passed on to Horsham, in the Wimmera District, where wheat is grown in almost illimitable areas. It was pleasing to note that in this mechanical age the tractor is almost entirely absent. I did not notice one tractor in my journey right throughout the whole district, either in train or by motor. The noticeable feature of the farming operations is the use of horses, particularly the Clydesdale breed, and we were shown some remarkable teams of ten horses dragging the harrows round the wheat fields. It was also noticeable that around the edge of the wheat crops a considerable amount of oats had been sown, intended no doubt to provide feed for the horses.
The Seppelt vine-yards was the next place of interest to be visited. After inspecting the vine-yards we journeyed through their wonderful cellars. These now comprise 3 1/2 miles of tunnels cut in the soft, partially decomposed granite rock, and varying in depth from 20 to 40 feet below the surface. Here the uniform low temperature and absolute quiet, factors essential to the making of this class of wine, are assured. The temperature, which averages 58 deg. F., does not vary more than two degrees from winter to summer. After noting the continuous handling to which the wines are subjected in the long process of manufacture, one does not wonder why first-class wines are so expensive.
Continuing the tour, we inspected the workings at the Hume Dam, which is being constructed jointly by the constructing authorities for New South Wales and Victoria. It is located a little below the junction of the Rivers Murray and Mitta Mitta, where the reservoir receives the run-off from a catchment of 6,000 square miles of mountainous country. The lake formed by the dam has, I understand, an area of about 50 square miles (about three times the area of Sydney Harbour) and is not only intended for irrigation purposes, but may be used in the future for hydro-electrical generation.
Ten-horse team harrowing at Horsham, the centre of the famous Wimmera wheat growing province.
A striking view from Red Rock Colac. (In the vicinity there are 85,000 acres of high quality land.)
The famous Mount Buffalo National Park was also included in our itinerary. This is considered one of the finest mountain resorts in Australia—a favourite place for winter sports. It is located on the western fringe of the towering alps of north-eastern Victoria and is portion of the great system of ranges in the south-east of the Australian continent. And even in such a wonderful setting Mount Buffalo National Park stands pre-eminent at all seasons of the year. It was interesting in proceeding up the Valley approaching to the foot of the mountains, to note the extensive fields of hops growing, and also in some cases, tobacco. By way of contrast with the old history of Victoria's bushranging days, it may be mentioned that the “Reso” train passed through Glenrowan, a small township which will go down in Victorian history as the site of the last stand of the notorious Kelly Gang of bushrangers which in the ‘80's terrorised the northeastern district of Victoria. A special train was bringing a number of policemen from Melbourne, and in order to prevent the train arriving safely, a portion of the railway line was torn up on an embankment in the hills near Glenrowan, and all the inhabitants of the township were imprisoned in the local hotel to prevent the alarm being given. However, on the plea of sickness one of the prisoners was allowed to leave the hotel, and he was able to stop the train before it reached the broken line. The sharp fight which then took place resulted in the destruction of the gang. The leader, Ned Kelly, was hanged in Melbourne some time later.
The Buffalo Mountains are in parts between 5,000 and 6,000 feet high and present a beautiful vista of the Valley immediately in front with its patchwork of yellow, green and brown—that is when the mist of the valleys clears away and presents this wonderful view. On the south side of the mountain range there is also faintly visible another valley which seems to present equal charm. Although the climate is somewhat cold in spring and summer in these beautiful mountains, it is only in certain portions of the winter months that mountain sports can be indulged in Rock formations are a feature of the National Park. The Monolith, a great rock whose summit rises above the landscape like an eagle's eyrie, is perched on another huge boulder, ready apparently to topple at any moment. But so well is it balanced that it has weathered countless years and is in daily use as a lookout, a stairway affording access to the summit. Precariously
A section of the extensive open cut at the Yallourn coal field, showing the electric dredge in operation.
The last place to be visited was Yallourn, wherein is situated the amazing electric-power scheme of Victoria. Yallourn is the township on the State Electricity Commission's brown-coalfield. It is a town which has grown up strictly according to plan. The site selected comprised high and dry land on the slopes of the Haunted Hills and was capable of effective drainage while water supply facilities could readily be installed. A permanent belt of parkland has been preserved to keep the township clear of the industrial atmosphere of the works. The present population is approximately 3,600. Yallourn forms the basis of one of the most interesting and comprehensive schemes of electricity supply in the world. While Victoria may not possess a greater length of transmission lines than any other country, it can safely be said that nowhere else do transmission lines stretch for such vast distances over sparsely populated areas. In other words, Victoria possesses a greater length of transmission line per capita than any other country in the world. Yallourn coal field consists of a seam of brown coal anything from 150 feet to 600 feet in depth. The brown coal contains 65% of moisture and is won from the ground by a quarry process. A huge gap, probably 200 feet deep, exists in the earth's surface, and the whole process of extracting the coal from the land is mechanical. Dredges, equipped with buckets, scoop up the coal and convey it to the top where the coal is deposited into railway trucks. (About four inches is the depth of the cut of each bucket.) The coal is then conveyed by rail to the electrical generating plant and automatically the contents of the trucks are dumped into a hopper. The fines are separated from the larger coals, and after the timber and other materials are extracted therefrom, the larger coal is crushed and whatever is required for the electrical plant is conveyed to that plant while the balance is conveyed to the briquetting plant. The briquetting plant process is simple and it consists of subjecting the coal to such a temperature that the moisture contained is reduced from 65% to 15%. The coal thus reduced in moisture is led into compressors and then subjected to certain pressure by the machines, and according to the size as required the briquettes are produced, no foreign matter being introduced in the process. Briquettes are then, according to their size, conveyed into different trucks and taken away by train for the market. This is a wonderful process and I am informed that it was planned by the Germans before the War. Some idea of how the scheme has grown is shown by the fact that, whereas in 1924, when Yallourn began to function, thirty centres were supplied with transmitted energy, the number is now 194. During the same period, the output of energy from the Commission's stations has increased from 220,000,000 to 530,117,855 units. Altogether it must be considered as a wonderful scheme. The capital expenditure of this scheme has been somewhat great, namely, £20,000,000, representing to a great extent developmental works and including a briquette factory, the huge mechanised Yallourn open-cut with its vast reserve of uncovered coal, and the model township of Yallourn. Included in this capital expenditure is about £1,200,000 for the Sugarloaf-Rubicon hydro-electric scheme, which is the Yallourn's main adjunct and supplies the North-Eastern district with energy. Although the scheme has cost a tremendous amount of money, so far as I was able to ascertain the cost of electricity to the citizens of the State was comparatively cheap.
It will thus be seen that during six days this “Reso” train travelled through the greater part of Victoria and enabled the passengers to visit places of great interest throughout the State.
Although the climate has some vagaries, there has been an abundance of water for the past few years. The settlers seem to have made very good provision for their water supply by windmills and catchment areas.
The one outstanding fact in connection with the visit is that Australia is a country of vast areas and of wonderful natural resources. The policy of the country has been to develop these resources to the fullest extent.
Courtesy Always Obtainable.”
The relations between industry, the travelling public and the department were never better than they are to-day, states the “Taranaki News.” The railway service is unceasing in its endeavours to obtain increased business, it shows a willingness to meet special conditions, and the courtesy that is expected of any well-run industrial organisation is always obtainable.
“Bob's Cove,” Lake Wakatipu, South Island, New Zealand.
(Govt. Publicity photo.)
New Zealand Verse
(Press Club, Sydney).
* * *
* * *
Wagon Wheels.”
Railwaymen particularly, will be interested in the latest song success, “Wagon Wheels,” which is the big hit of the moving picture of the same title. It has been suggested that this melody, with its intriguing rhythmic strain, might well become a theme song of the railroad track. There is something irresistibly appealing about the tune. The words are by Bill Hill (the writer of “The Last Round-Up” and the “Old Spinning Wheel”) and the music by Peter de Rose. J. Albert and Son (N.Z. office, 4 Willis Street, Wellington) are the publishers. The price is 2/-.
Margaret McPherson
(
All Rights Reserved.)
This is a simple story, but begins with a Very Great Man.
I shall always be proud that I interviewed George Bernard Shaw when he was in New Zealand, because I alone, out of about three hundred journalists, all better men than I, who wanted to see him privately, was the only one who achieved this honour. You, my reader, probably think it is easy to gain access to Great Men. Not so. The thing is an art, a matter of subtlety, guile and stratagem. Indeed, in this connection I am reminded of an advertisement which appeared in America recently, boosting an infallible thing for killing cockroaches, price 75 cents. Having posted your money, you received back two flat pieces of wood marked A and B respectively, and a printed slip of instructions. “First catch your cockroach,” ran the instructions, “then place it on the board marked A and hit it hard with the board marked B.”
Interviewing celebrities is very similar. One knows exactly what to do when he is caught, but—first catch your celebrity. If all the Trojans had been like the guides and protectors, chauffeurs, couriers, and hotel proprietors who stood between G.B.S. and the public, Ilium had never fallen.
When in doubt, tell the truth. I did so to Mr. Shaw in a letter.
“Dear Mr. Shaw,” said I, “Everyone is determined that I shall not interview you, but I hope you will see me for three reasons:
-
It would give me something to brag about.
-
It would enable me to extract a few guineas from the papers.
-
Since my childhood you have been the chief of my literary gods, and it would make me more proud than I can say to shake your hand.
All good to you always, Margaret Macpherson.”
This, of course, was so utterly childish and ridiculous that it aroused the pity of the giant, and I was given the unique privilege of talking to him for nearly an hour alone in his room whilst Mrs. Shaw bustled about doing the packing.
And can—as the Americans say—Can Shaw talk! We chatted on all sorts of topics—politics, drama, radio, vegetarianism, and so on. Then he pushed me off on my New Zealand journey. In this way—
“Tell me,” he said, “are you English or a New Zealander.”
“I'm a Yorkshirewoman,” I told him, “but I have been in New Zealand for over eighteen years.”
“Have you ever been back?”
“Yes, several times. I have just returned from Home.”
“Yes? Well, now, when you got back to your own country I am quite sure that you found that you had become a New Zealander and that you could not endure England at all. I don't know why you ever went back.”
“Well, Sir, you are partly right and partly not. New Zealand is a dear country, fresh and wholesome and free. But there is no art here, no drama, no music, no culture.”
He eyed me quizzically.
“But, my dear young lady, you must make that. You say there is no art here, but there is very great beauty just waiting to be made into art. No drama! Why, the life around you is pulsating with drama! You New Zealanders are extraordinary, really. You take that long, uncomfortable journey to see an inferior country which you persist in calling Home in spite of the fact that its people ignore you and are scarcely aware of your existence. I wish I could persuade you that This is your home, that this country should be the centre of your art, your journalism, your drama. In your own case, you have travelled all over the world, but do you know New Zealand? You write and broadcast about any land but your own. Allow me to persuade you to do a New Zealand journey and to write about it.”
I felt rebuked by George Bernard Shaw, but I also felt inspired. I realized as I came down in the lift from his suite at the Midland Hotel, Wellington, that my New Zealand journey had commenced already. I stepped into the street in search of art, drama, fun, history, tragedy. Whether I found them the following pages will show.
* * *
It is understood, of course, that no one takes a journey alone, always excepting commercial travellers—those men of mystery and romance. But people like Byrd, Shackleton, and myself
go forth nobly escorted, so now I must introduce you to Hamish. I flatly refuse to refer to Hamish as my better half, but will merely tell you that he is the large young Scotsman who is the partner, and often the cause of my joys and sorrows. Hamish is not an Apollo—but he has very beautiful knees, and when he walks down the street one sees, in one's mind's eye, a kilt swinging; he is incapable of going ten yards without that barbaric prancing step which is peculiar to Highlandmen and high-bred horses. It is as good as a bagpipe to walk with, and will help us quite a lot on this journey. Like all self-respecting Scotsmen, Hamish left Scotland at a very early age and has been all over the world since. Therefore he sees New Zealand with an entirely relative and comparative gaze. His comments on this country are always interesting if not entirely tactful. The day he arrived in Auckland he was asked by a leading citizen to give his opinion of our Queen City.
“Och!” said he, “it's a funny wee place.”
I led him gently round a corner and remonstrated with him, and he is now more tactful, if less frank; but personally I appreciate his comments which are always informative, if not rapturous. For instance, on seeing the Wellington War Memorial statue, quite our finest piece of sculpture, Hamish, did not swoon with delight, but remarked:—
“Aye, it's fine, but not entirely original. The idea comes from Watts' equestrian statue, ‘Physical Energy’ in Hyde Park, London. And Watts, of course, got it from one of the horsemen on the Arc de Triomphe, Paris.”
Our Wellington memorial horseman may not be in the first flight of the world's sculpture, but he is a pioneer of the art in this country. Ride on, aspiring youth, ride forward upon your skyward journey. You shall lead the way for nobler and greater statues; because of the glimpse of beauty that you have given the people of this young country, other young artists shall arise to find divine form sleeping in the marble and clay of lovely New Zealand.
It is customary to speak of Wellington and Auckland as “sister cities.” Sisters they may be, but they certainly are not twins. There is a certain similarity of thought and opinion which they have both inherited from their sturdy parents, our pioneers.
Of these two ladies, Auckland is the more elegant; she carries herself with an air. Her outline is more suave, gently undulating. Her streets are wider and more modern, and she has a flair for unusual jewellery, decking herself with pretty oddments such as the University Tower, the Civic Theatre, the Memorial Museum—the first in Byzantine, the second in early Moorish, the last in Greek architectural style. Wellington, on the other hand, does not care a fig for such gewgaws, rather disapproves of them, in fact. She has a style that is rugged and grim. Stark against the sky she carries a fortress-like fringe of chimneys. In her sterner moods, when the rain comes down and the wind blows, she is a perfect old hellion.
Auckland flaunts her jewels on a genteelly curved finger—but are the jewels real? Wellington contends that they are not. The University Tower is pronounced to be cheap, tawdry, meretricious. Personally, I like it. It is a faery tower and might have come out of the “Arabian Nights” (Douglas Fairbanks' version, let's admit it). The Civic Theatre with its miles of oriental carving, is another of Auckland's show places. It is one of the finest picture-halls south of the Equator. But is it really fine, or merely decadent? Wellington, that gruff old mother, doesn't corrupt her children's taste with unwholesome sweets and bizarre ornaments. She has diamonds, but she keeps them modestly hidden away. Such things as the Turnbull Library are unrivalled in the whole wide world, but Wellington keeps quiet about it.
Auckland is the Norma Shearer, Wellington the Marie Dressler, of cities. Yet Wellington can be adorable when she likes… .
“Age cannot wither, nor custom stale, her infinite variety.”
She may greet you in the morning with a wind like a sharp knife cutting round the corners. The rain drives against your legs, the serrated hills, like black-edged teeth all smeared with grime, seem to crouch nearer; in short, the old harridan is showing her teeth. Then suddenly her features soften; dusk falls, and Wellington puts on her magic veil embroidered with little lights. She is no longer a scowling witch, but a little shining princess who dances, twinkling, into our hearts. It is the ace of enchantments.
Which is your true love, Auckland or Wellington? If you are not married to either of them, then my advice is, choose Wellington, but pay frequent visits to your charming sister-in-law.
Of Wellington's jewels, the chief is the Turnbull Library; the aristocrat and emperor of all the libraries I have ever seen. Like all aristocrats, the Turnbull is not showy in externals. When you arrive there, having walked up a tiny concrete path, and knocked at a discreetly closed door, you are beset with the misgiving thought that you have come to the wrong place. Surely this is just some gentleman's private house. And now his housekeeper comes to let you in, and you prepare to explain your mistake and apologise for the intrusion.
Popular Oriental Bay, Wellington, New Zealand.
(Rly. Publicity photo.)
Of course, of course, this polished hall with its deep luxurious carpets—how could you have thought it was a public institution! But it is. In you go, amongst gleaming tables and voluptuous armchairs; everything is speckless, rich and comfortable. And now you come to the majestic book-cases containing thousands of rare editions, all specially bound in hand-tooled leathers. I tell you, it is exactly like a bibliophile's dream of paradise.
The Turnbull is a comparatively small collection, but its value per square inch is greater than that of any library in the world. It has treasures which would be beyond your belief did you not see them with your own eyes. It has, for instance, the finest existing Milton collection outside the British Museum; some of the things in this group, indeed, the British Museum has not got. There are first editions of “Paradise Lost,” “Lycidas” and “Comus,” these three books alone being worth over £10,000.
Among other gems of the place are between two and three thousand autographed letters from famous people, including Carlisle, Shelley, Charles Darwin, King Edward VII, Queen Alexandra, Sir Edward Burne-Jones, “Joe” Chamberlain, Disraeli, Gladstone, Edmund Gosse, Anthony Hope, Richard le Galienne, Lord Rosebery, “Dick” Sheppard, Mrs. Humphrey Ward, and countless others whom I do not mention.
One of the fascinating volumes brings you the fragrance of an old and decadent story. This is a copy of “Dorian Gray” containing a letter from its author, Oscar Wilde. Mr. Johannes Andersen, chief librarian, handed it to me. “First, smell it,” he said.
It had an exquisite perfume.
The book had been presented to a new friend of Wilde, one Payne.
“Dear Mr. Payne,” runs the letter, “The book that poisoned or made perfect Dorian Grey does not exist; it is a fancy of mine merely. I am so glad you like this strange-coloured book of mine. It contains much of me in it. Basil Hallward is what I think I am; Lord Henry what the world thinks me; Dorian what I would like to be in other eyes perhaps.
Will you come and see me? I am writing a play and go to St. James' Place, No. 10, where I have rooms, every day at 11.30. Come on Tuesday at about 12.30, will you? But perhaps you are busy. Still we can meet, surely, some day. Your handwriting fascinates me, your praise charms me. —Truly, Oscar Wilde.”
The New Zealand section of the library is naturally the finest in the world. Amongst other things there is the log of the “Endeavour,” the ship in which Captain Cook discovered New Zealand, kept by one of the ship's officers. There is also Cook's first log, all in his own tiny copperplate handwriting. One interesting copy of Captain Cook's journal is beautifully bound in wood from a tree that he planted on Clapham Common near London.
A very different story attaches itself to another volume bound in wood, the “Aurora Borealis.” This is the world's first example of polar printing, and was produced by members of Shackleton's Expedition in 1908. This engaging production bears a foreword by Shackleton himself.
“In London lovers kiss in the talkies with the utmost abandon.”
“The reader will understand,” he says, “the difficulties of producing such a book quite up to the mark when he is told that, owing to the low temperature in the hut, the only way to keep the printing ink in a fit state to use was to have a candle burning under the inking plate… . The printing office was only 6 ft. by 7 ft. and had to accommodate a large sewing machine and bunks for two men.” The binding of this volume is a side of a wooden packing case bearing inside the back cover the luscious legend “Beans.”
To give you an idea of the value of the books in the library, let me tell you that there are about 60,000 volumes, and the estimated value of the collection is about a quarter of a million pounds. This works out at over £4 per volume. As a matter of fact there are books worth over £100 each scattered about all over the shelves just like common novels. This has had an ageing effect on Mr. Johannes Andersen, the chief librarian. As far as the library is concerned he is rather like an old she-bear with its cub, so proud is he to show off its points, so jealous in protection of its treasures. Never for a moment does he allow you out of his sight, and if you are permitted to hold one of the most precious books in your hand, it is a greater compliment than if he had met you with a brass band and a bouquet.
And the man who collected these treasures, what manner of man was he? Alexander Horsburgh Turnbull was born at Wellington in 1868. He was educated at Dulwich College in Ireland and no doubt it was in that scholarly atmosphere that he acquired his taste for fine and rare books. Collecting was his passion and his hobby. When he returned to New Zealand he became assistant director of his father's shipping business, and he remained in the firm until ill-health compelled him to resign in 1917; but his real life was that of a bibliophile and philosopher.
Alexander Turnbull was a very shy man, retiring and reserved. He had a few dear friends amongst men mostly older than himself. His greatest moments would doubtless be the arrival of letters from his agent in Europe telling him of some first edition that had been tracked down for him.
He was very keen on the art of book-binding, and the world's most famous binders have many specimens in the Library—such craftsmen as Zaehnsdorf, Riviere, and Sangorski being represented over and over again.
He left his collection “to His Majesty the King, in trust as a reference library to be housed in Wellington.” He always regarded his books as something that he had bought not merely for his own pleasure, but ultimately for the good of his countrymen. He loved New Zealand as he loved his library.
I hope that I have not made Wellington seem too scholarly a place. It is not. Its inhabitants have, in most cases, never been in the Turnbull Library, but rather patronise the talkie theatres, of which there are many. And yet, I would not, on the other hand, convey to you the idea that the Wellingtonian is a gay dog. He is not nearly so gay as, for instance, the Londoner. In London you see innumerable couples walking arm in arm along the streets. In Wellington, Hamish and I are the only ones who do it. In London, lovers kiss in the talkies with the utmost abandon. Hamish and I dare not do it here. It simply is not done. There is a sort of primness in the air. But come along; we will go to Christchurch.
ByRobin Hyde ”).
Iris Wilkinson
Russell, Bay of Islands, North Island, New Zealand.
(Rly. Publicity photo.)
So this … so this … was Russell.
“Perfect,” said I firmly.
The train from Whangarei had splashed its way through grey veils of moisture, thoughtfully supplied by overfed rainclouds which looked as though nothing could possibly discourage their tireless energies. Finally, after grim concentration on ham sandwiches we came to a dead stop. “Opua, ladies and gentlemen… Launch here for Russell.”
“That,” said the ever-obliging, ever-informative “Man Who Had Been There Before,” “is our launch, Knoxie II.”
Very chic and sturdy is Knoxie II. Green, with handsome cream-coloured trimmings. Little waves bobbed up and down in a handsome Brussels lace pattern alongside. And overhead, stretching all the way across a world of jade sea and darker green islets, sparkled the best-looking rainbow I have seen for years.
What magic is there in Bay of Islands waters, that makes their crisp flash around the prow of a launch a thousand times more fascinating than the rest of New Zealand's perfectly good ocean? Is it true that only where humanity has lived long, dreamed, quarrelled, builded and fought does Nature wake up from her trance of sunlit days, and take a hand in the game, shining in peace where happy memories are to be found, frowning in lonely majesty as one slides past the little rock which was once the scene of combat?
People who come to Russell are usually occupied, to the exclusion of all else, in the pursuit of swordfish and suntan; and this is well enough. But were I staying in Russell long, I should begin, almost automatically, to keep an eye open for ghosts. And at moments when the great milk-of-jade smother occasioned by the mako's leap should distract one's attention from anything else under the sun, I should look over my shoulder for the slim beaked prow of a red-ochred war canoe, on its way back from the South to Heke's terrible, dominating pa at Keri-Keri. In the misty, silvery moonlight of Russell nights (perfectly sheltered is the little town, and as quiet as a dream), I should think to hear the rough shouting of the traders who used to swagger down the street that once boasted over thirty hotels. Almost all New Zealand's early history, since the pakeha first turned his attention to a green new isle in southern seas, is crowded into this strangely placid bay. Ghosts …. the place is full of them.
Paihia on your left…..A quaint and charming little resort, complete with bush, birds and bungalows. It has been labelled “exclusive,” and as that devastating word always means that people flock to partake of the exclusiveness, many think that its future as a holiday centre is even more securely settled than Russell's. Be that as it may or mayn't, Paihia (where the rugged blue-grey stone of the new Williams Memorial Church makes it appear older and more English than the far more elderly little structures of wood at Russell and Keri-Keri), is a place of great peace and pleasantness.
If I wanted to make a fortune in Russell, (nobody is so utterly prosaic, the sole desire of the tourist heart is to catch a finer and fatter “swordie” than will nibble the line of any other visitor), I'd buy one of the sleepy-looking, memory-stored old gabled houses which line the few streets of the tiny town, and endeavour to make it just a little like the taverns which must have winked golden eyes out to sea in the palmy days of whalers and sailors.
A club presides over the destinies of those who go down to the sea in launches, and have urgent business (with “swordie” or with mako), in the great waters. Its premises are not exactly pretentious, but it's a very important institution: and seldom have I seen more placid satisfaction with life, the good sun and the ways of the world than is expressed in the faces of seasoned fishermen, who from an early hour in the morning are up and about, comparing notes and fish-stories. They all wear shorts, they are all sun-tanned to the magnificent mahogany hue dear to readers of Ethel M. Dell. But it's no good, my dears, no good whatsoever making for Russell and endeavouring to attract the notice of these stalwart sea-gods. Fish is all they care about; the old superstitions of the sea are rather amusingly in favour hereabouts. This launch or that (all for hire to the tourist prepared to see makos and die), is supposed to be lucky, or the reverse: the catch of a really O.S. fish from any boat is always widely advertised, not only by word of mouth, but in the printed catalogues which set forth Russell's various advantages.
Grey and rose, and delicately misty like a perfect opal was the Russell sunset, tiny clouds, like plumage dropped from flamingoes' wings, reflected in very still waters. What peace there is in that shimmering, island-dotted sweep of sea ….. yet ever the ghostly masts and sails of the long-ago whalers, the ghostly prows of the half-forgotten Maori canoes, seem to round the headlands in the half light. An easy walk from the township stands the flag pole, thrice cut down in the days of “the rising of Koro-rareka,” thrice raised again in defiance of the odds of numbers. In the churchyard of the St. Joseph's lilies, you will find old graves commemorating the death of men who fell in that rising. If the gaiety, the sport, the cheerful dolce far niente atmosphere of the place claim you by day, after dusk you will almost certainly lift the curtains of the world of history.
Cream launch? Fishing-grounds? Launch to Keri-Keri? Or what you will, Madame. Morning offers a delightful variety of trips over these green sparkling waters.
I know a very sad story about Keri-Keri. Two young people, blithe of heart,
journeyed there on a particularly hot, dusty, and, if one may so describe it, thirsty sort of day. After explorations of an exceeding thoroughness, calculated to develop the leg muscles but not to cool the brow, they were delighted to be asked by the occupant of a charming bungalow whether they couldn't manage to accommodate one drink apiece. “Yes,” said they, that they could, and willingly. Tumblers of a promising length, and brimming with fluid of even more promising amber hue, were thereupon produced. They quaffed, blinked. The liquid offered for their consumption was none other than Keri-Keri's famous (or is it notorious?) passion-fruit. That's the way Keri-Keri feels about its passion-fruit. Nobody thinks anything of walking you miles and miles to observe the notable behaviour of some vine or shrub, which is “coming along nicely.” And, indeed, the sunny settlement, which is by right of charm alone one of the most interesting places in the North Island, may one day become New Zealand's California.
The name Keri-Keri is variously interpreted, but the version that I liked best was “Rumbling Waters.” A little freshet does decide to turn itself into a rapid just at the entrance to the bay; and beyond this sparkle of waters (swept by the long locks of willow-trees) prance the graceful white launches, home away from home for full many a business man who forgets all about being tired once he arrives in this idyllic country.
Keri-Keri's store I thought far more imposing than anything in Russell, where you could, if you liked, buy calendars in the shape of quite recognisable swordfish, novelettes, mosquito and suntan lotions, or milk chocolates. But the Keri-Keri store has a history… . All the way back to those old dream-days of strife, hopes and ambitions it goes again… .
It is built of very thick stone walls, which look as though they should stand the centuries. Warm and brown and evenly cemented, they are, and you'd hardly guess that Maori hands built them under the guidance of the first missionaries, in the days when the cannibal feast was still taken as a matter of course and the war canoe was dyed red with blood as well as with ochre. The deep-set windows are securely barred; for in this store, women of the pioneers and their
Historie Keri-Keri, in the Far North of New Zealand.
(Rly. Publicity photo.)
Upstairs, great silvery cobwebs drape the now empty rooms which were once Bishop Selwyn's library. Touchingly this greatest of the early missionaries, who died in England homesick for his wild New Zealand, and who, like Marsden, was a man whose strong unresting personality made him more enemies than enough, has written of the peace he found in this still room of the thick stone walls, its quiet “so uncolonial.” He writes hoping for hours of meditation here, “that there may be some abundance in myself, from which I may give to others.” Another missionary records the joy with which he saw the plough, for the first time, enter New Zealand soil. It is gone, the little patch of corn which was cultivated by these forerunners, who established a tiny college of training for the mission life here, against every possible difficulty: until later this was moved inland to Waimate. But surely it will not be long before New Zealanders, recognising in “these old shades” the builders of their land, in the tranquility of the cobwebbed room the cradle from which something of greatness and dignity emerged, commemorate the early missionaries in the best possible way. Why is not this upper chamber of meditation, now given over to the spider and to the keeping of a few stores, entered only by a steep and twisted old staircase, converted into a museum where every possible relic of its old occupants might be kept? Then indeed the visitor might feel in its drowsy air that “abundance” of which Selwyn writes.
Tea in a nikau palm kiosk …or passion-fruit, of course, if you're determined to do in Keri-Keri as the Keri-Kerians do. This quaint little place, kept by a charming New Zealander who has become something of an authority on ancient Maori lore, and on the early history of the North, is well worth a visit.
It is Maori-built, and the fingers of the natives have not yet forgotten their old craft in thatching. Wind and rain stay outside, where they belong; and one devours (not without vigour) hot cakes, and discusses the legend of Maui, whose fish provides New Zealand with its first and fishiest fish story, and leaves even Zane Grey gasping in the rear.
Talking of joi de vivre: I was not a little astonished, on emerging into the bright sunshine, to see the very substantial form of a retired sea-captain, dressed briefly but brightly in shorts and shirt, executing a very notable version of the hornpipe on the green. One of the most enthusiastic inhabitants, he was. His little cottage, with its garden bourgeoning with sweet-peas and kumaras, was a model of bachelor tidiness. Leave Keri-Keri? Return to civilisation, trousers, tittle-tattle? Not, Sir, if he knew it.
Some of the inhabitants dispense with the formality of having a house, and abide cheerfully on launches. A former M.P., his barque celebrated for its spick-and-span beauty, is among these: and very cheerful he looks. But don't think Keri-Keri is without its more elaborate mansions. One resident, who like many others in the little colony has spent most of his days in China, has glorified the entrance to the Keri-Keri inlet with an astonishing but very attractive pagoda, bright sky-blue and scarlet adornments brightening the landscape. Not everyone, not everywhere can abide in a sky-blue pagoda: at Keri-Keri it can be done, which is just one more little advantage of the Winterless North, where, to say true, almost everything appeared to me advantageous.
And the Christmas tree was beginning to burn with slow scarlet flame, on the gleaming run back to Russell. Little inlets, where dwell charming English folk who, like most Northerners, are hospitable on sight, and whose one hankering after the outer world seems to be a craving for books and magazines, were lighted with the red torches of blossom … and the cool silver sea, haunt of memories, heaven for “swordies” and fishermen alike, whispered legends under the swift keel of the boat. There's no need for that silver sea to say “Come back!” Come back they must, all who have seen its rippling beauty.
Railway Speeds
3ft. 6in. Gauge.
Some interesting comparisons of long-distance speeds over the 3 ft. 6 in. gauge appeared in a recent issue of “The Railway Circle Record” of Capetown. Japan and Java jointly hold most of the records for narrow gauge running; over the 373 miles between Tokyo and Kobe and the 512 miles between Batavia and Soerabaja respectively there is a dead heat in the overall speeds, stops included, of the best trains, which in both cases are 41.5 m.p.h. The Java Limited makes both the longest and fastest runs at present operative over either 3 ft. 6 in. or metre gauge track, the former being a non-stop journey over the 133.5 miles from Batavia (Weltevreden) to Cheribon in 172 min. east-bound and 171 min. (46.8 m.p.h. average) westbound, and the latter the run from Solo to Madioen, 60.8 miles, in 77 min., at 47.4 m.p.h. An earlier report that a 50 m.p.h. schedule had been introduced in Java proved to be without foundation, the distance between Batavia and Buitenzorg having been over-estimated. The best long-distance running on the South African Railways is over the 455 miles between Johannesburg and De Aar, covered at 35.6 m.p.h., inclusive of stops; after that comes the New Zealand Government Railways, with average speeds of 29.7 m.p.h. over the 369 miles between Invercargill and Christchurch, in the South Island, and 29.6 m.p.h. over the 426 miles between Wellington and Auckland, in the North Island. The best that the Rhodesia Railways can produce is to run from Bulawayo to Salisbury, 296 miles, at an average speed of 27.5 m.p.h.—From the “Railway Gazette” of 3rd August, 1934.
Mt. Egmont from Pukekura Park, New Plymouth, North Island, New Zealand.
(Rly. Publicity photo.)
By)
Tangiwai
The necessity for restricting the felling of the indigenous forest of New Zealand can never be stressed too much or too often. The bush is going, in a thousand parts of the Dominion, and it is not being regenerated. The planting of exotic trees can never be a satisfactory remedy for the deforestation that meets the eye everywhere in travelling the country, a deforestation that does not stop at lands which may be considered suitable for farming but which denudes even the ranges of their necessary clothing of trees.
The scenic aspect is not the greatest consideration. The climatic value of the native forests, and their value as sources and regulators of water supply is not yet sufficiently recognised, much as has been said and written about it.
The hills, the bush, the water—the three are interdependent. Steep ranges, stripped of bush, waste into bare ridges, their stony gullies mere race tracks for land-eroding torrents. Provincial towns and townships throughout New Zealand will suffer greatly for water in the future unless their people make a noise about it and demand that the high country from which the water comes that is their life, is preserved as Nature made it. Not another tree should be destroyed on such mountains. No commercial influence should be permitted to make a destructive breach in the policy of conservation.
New Zealand is perilously underwooded. France, Germany and other greatly populated foreign lands have far more timber in proportion to their area than New Zealand has. This country half-a-century ago was so liberally timbered that the bush-destroyers were given a perfectly free hand; the result we see to-day. A certain amount of reparation is being effected in the new exotic forest plantations, but that does not go nearly far enough. Nothing can ever be so valuable to a country as its own native timbers. For water conservation purposes, let alone timber-yield purposes, the varied jungle and mossy-floored indigenous bush can never be replaced adequately by introduced pines and firs. And yet there is timber-felling going on at this moment on high broken country reserved for city water supply needs. It is amazing that this destruction should be permitted.
In some places there is interplanting in remnants of the bush that should have been regarded as a sanctuary with the inferior quick-growing foreigners. This is the sort of thing that Lord Bledisloe, in a notably vigorous address, condemned as producing a “mongrel forest.” Our ex-Governor-General was a far-seeing man with a practical knowledge of forestry and an intense admiration for the New Zealand bush.
Timber milling is overdone in many parts of New Zealand. In the King Country in particular even the ranges are being stripped of timber. Add to this the destruction of young trees that would make a new forest if the settler did not consider them “scrub” fit only for burning-off. New Zealand will be a sorry picture a few years hence if the present rate of chop and saw is not reduced as far as the native forest is concerned. More attention to planting and regeneration would absorb in useful national work the energy that is now being displayed in destruction.
The fact should be hammered home to the public consciousness that the Dominion now has only a percentage of 11.7 in its proportion of State forest to open lands. (That was the last estimate; it has probably been further reduced.)
One of my old-soldier acquaintances in the Waikato had been a corporal in Jackson's and Von Tempsky's Forest Rangers. He had a farm near Te Awamutu. Customarily, out on the farm and in the bush, he wore a sheath-knife on his belt. The knife was a veteran like himself. It had been nine or ten inches long of blade, but the point had been broken off, and he had reground and pointed it; even then it was like a young bayonet. He told me its story.
“That's one of old Von's bowie-knives,” he said. “He had a lot made for us at a blacksmith's in Auckland when the Forest Rangers were divided into two companies and he had command of one. You know, old Von was a terror with the bowie-knife. He had learned to use it in Mexico and Central America. Certainly it came in handy in the bush, and as we had no bayonets it was comforting to know you had a good sticker on your hip for a scrimmage. I've had that knife more than thirty years. See how it's worn down.
“I've used it for all sorts of jobs, hacking bush tracks, pig-sticking, skinning sheep, cutting up my tobacco and my loaf of bread. It'll last my day, my boy!”
Old John the Ranger told of one of his warpath mates, a Jamaica negro who had been sailor and gold-digger, like himself before he became a Ranger. At meal-times he used to apostrophise his bowie-knife thus: “You old son of a gun, you've dug into a Maori's vitals, you have, at Waiari, you know you have! Come on now, you're going to cut up me vittles!”
(ByN. S. , M.A., Dip.Ed., Dip.Soc.Sc.)
Woods
(Photo., A. P. Godber.)
Looking out from the portal of the Otira tunnel (5.31 miles long), South Island, New Zealand.
In Part I. we studied the Public Works scheme of 1870 as put forward by Sir Julius Vogel. Vogel had proposed to borrow from six to ten millions and to use this to weld the isolated provincial settlements in New Zealand into a strong united nation by linking up the various parts in a comprehensive Public Works Policy, by opening up the country to settlers, and by a vigorous immigration policy. Vogel proposed three chief securities for this loan; the Government was to purchase the land along the proposed routes and hold this as a railway estate whose improved value was to be utilised to cancel the debt; the Government was to impose a small betterment tax on private properties which the new railways increased in value, this revenue also to be used to cancel the debt; and main lines were to be completed before branch lines were begun.
This scheme was too daring for the men of that day. In the debate in the House it was referred to as a monstrous bubble which would ruin hundreds of families by inducing a spirit of gambling. The provinces, moreover, were at once jealous of a scheme which lay outside the control of their own petty politics. With characteristic short sightedness their representatives refused to surrender the proposed railway estate to the General Government. Their representatives were, in the main, land-owners who bitterly attacked the betterment tax. Both the land reservation and the betterment tax were thrown out by Parliament, but the interest of the country was aroused by the prospect of more capital. Already Dr. Featherstone and Mr. Francis D. Bell had secured from the Home Government the guarantee of a loan of one million. Now the greater Loan Bill was passed by the House, but in a different form from Vogel's original, and stripped of his proposed securities for the repayment of the loan. Concessions had had to be made to the provincialists and to the gold-fields members. Under these changed conditions, power was granted the Government to borrow large sums to be expended as follows:—£2,000,000 on railways, £1,000,000 on Immigration, £400,000 on North Island roads, £300,000 on purchase of North Island lands, £300,000 on water races for goldfields, £600,000 on telegraphs, £40,000 unappropriated. The colony had not grasped the essential point in Vogel's scheme—completeness.
Vogel now made a serious mistake in permitting the policy to be carried forward under his approval. He did not fail to warn the country of the dangers to which it was opening itself, but he submitted to its exactions. “Mr. Vogel had an opportunity such as seldom falls to the lot of a colonial statesman. He had just launched—and in all honesty of intention—a policy fraught with purpose, great and good, which would place the country of his adoption in the van of the world's progress… . He might have taken a bold stand and told the House that he would be no party to a scheme for general plunder, reckless spoliation; defied the banditti and stood or fallen by his own policy … . but Julius Vogel was not equal to the occasion.” Paper read before Dunedin Financial Reform Association, Sept. 1888, by W. H. Pearson. “Public Works in N.Z.” by W. J. Bull. Ibid.
The administration and responsibility of the Public Works scheme was vested in the Central Government, subject to some exceptions in which its action depended on the previous concurrence of provincial authorities. These exceptions were subsequently abolished. As soon as the session of 1870 closed, it became necessary to organise a department to undertake the organisation and control of the work. This department was at first in the hands of the Colonial Secretary. As soon as adequate funds were raised and important works and immigration on a large scale had been begun throughout the whole colony, a special Minister was appointed, and shortly afterwards there was one for each Island. In the latter part of 1872 the whole department was divided into two—Public Works and Immigration—each under a Minister.
In 1872 Vogel went to England to negotiate for the loans. A rise in the prices of wool and wheat improved the colony's credit, with the result that the loans were fairly easily negotiated, though at a high rate of interest. Vogel on this visit also made arrangements for letting the contract for constructing the railways.
Parliament quarrelled almost immediately with the terms under which Vogel had given the contract to Messrs. Brogden and Sons, a well-known English firm. The contract had been for the construction of light, narrow gauge lines designed for the early production of revenue at a sacrifice of convenience in travelling and working. Severe gradients were adopted in preference to flatter and more expensive lines, and curves of sharp radius in
Many other errors in policy apppeared. The influx of gold into England from goldfields in Australasia and America brought the gold value down. English ironmasters induced New Zealand authorities to take a large portion of the borrowed money in railway material, and thus to lay in an immense stock which was every month falling in gold value. In New Zealand itself farmers were affected by falling world prices. They had bought land at high prices in the anticipation of a continued boom, and their mortgages now became too heavy. The result was a general contraction of business. These factors, operating through the years following 1870 upon a debt contracted without adequate security, only increased the difficulties of the country.
The continuity of the scheme was also destroyed. Land in Canterbury sold at the uniform price of £2 per acre. Wheat in 1871–72 was at a high price. These two factors gave the province an enormous impetus, with the result that it demanded branch lines to feed the great South Trunk Railway. This was fatal to the unity of Vogel's scheme. The money designed for main lines was diverted to branch lines in the South Island. Parochialism triumphed over common-sense and national welfare and there ensued in Parliament a scramble for local lines.
Probably the greatest blunder was the committing of the surveys and construction into the hands of inferior and inexperienced engineers. The estimate made by Sir Charles Fox for the New Zealand Railways was £3,500 to £4,000 per mile, including telegraph, fencing, rolling stock, and locomotives. His estimate allowed for a wage of six shillings per day, and was based on a very thorough experience of the Queensland railways which cost £6,500 per mile, of the Canadian railways which cost £2,900 per mile, and of the Norwegian railways which through flat country cost £3,270 per mile, and through heavy country cost £4,660 to £5,380 per mile.
The work in New Zealand, however, was not entrusted to British firms or to the engineers who had been associated with these other projects, and this, as we shall see, cost the country a great deal. New Zealand engineers had not the necessary experience. A more careful selection of routes and construction of lines would have saved enormous sums spent on renewals, repairs, etc. “The constant application for fresh appropriations for the completion of works, the repeated mention of damage done by floods to the various lines, and of extra bridge work required, all go to show that there must have been grave errors in the original estimates, and still graver defects in the construction and laying out of the lines.” The result was an additional and unforeseen expenditure.
W. J. Bull quoted the following illustrations of this—
(a) The estimate for the Greymouth-Hokitika line in 1871 was £85,000. In 1876 this estimate had to be revised at £222,000; (b) on the Timaru and Point line in one place a box culvert had subsequently to be replaced by a bridge 315 yards long; (c) On the Moeraki line half a mile had to be abandoned after its construction; (d) the tunnels on the Wellington-Masterton line were found to be too narrow to admit of the passage of engines, while the platforms had to be shifted back to make room for the trains to pass. It was discovered after they had been built that all the tunnels on this line required lining. (e) One portion of the Picton-Blenheim line had to be shifted after its construction, and the flood openings enlarged and increased in number; (f) the Grey Gorge bridge collapsed and had to be reconstructed.
As the result of such expenditure the New Zealand railways cost almost £7,000 per mile, an enormous figure considering that they were on a narrow formation with little fencing in many places. Thus the national debt was increased beyond what had been anticipated, and beyond what the country could make comfortable provision for.
The Parliamentary strife occasioned by the great Public Works Policy had one other important effect during these years. Vogel had throughout his career made it plain that he supported the Provincial Governments so long as the disunited state of the country made their retention necessary. The railways, however, were to be national and not provincial.
The provinces had commenced borrowing in the previous decade, Canterbury having set the pace by borrowing large sums to build the Lyttelton tunnel. The provincial loans were spent recklessly on poorly reproductive objects. Southland, for example, had spent large sums on a wooden tramway to the goldfields and on harbour works at the Bluff. The province soon found that it could not meet the interest and resorted to the disastrous expedient of issuing paper money. The Central Government was embarrassed by such transactions in its own efforts to raise loans. Moreover, the new Immigration and Public Works Policy took out of the hands of the provinces many of their former functions. Their importance thus became steadily less. There were nine Provincial Councils in a population of a quarter of a million, and each of these nine was separate in taxation, land settlement, education, licensing, harbours, railways, etc. In most of these provinces there had grown up an elaborate system of government by responsible Ministries, together with an unwieldy parliamentary procedure and a somewhat farcical method of party government. By 1870 four provinces had become jealous of their more fortunate neighbours, while the South growled about the exactions of the North for the prosecution of the Maori wars. There was no tendency to union observable in the provinces, and while they remained isolated they were too weak to embrace any scheme of satisfactory progression.
Thus in the interests of the new national policy of railways and other public works the provinces had to be cleared away. In this chapter we have already seen the mischief wrought by them in utterly destroying the wise provisions of Vogel's measure, and in giving the construction and surveying into the hands of people much less experienced than the English railway builders which Vogel himself had in mind. When, in 1872, the jealous provincialists went so far as to defeat a wise measure for planting national forests to cope with the rapid deforestation Vogel hesitated no longer. In 1874 the Provincial Governments were abolished.
In Part I. we studied the scheme put forward by Vogel. In the present study we have seen that scheme in the hands of the New Zealand Parliament of the day. We have studied something of the grim struggle provoked by Vogel's scheme and of the faults which were allowed to creep into the newly propounded railway policy. What is more important, we have seen the clearing away of obstruction to the scheme, and we shall be in a position to appreciate the amazing progress made despite all these disabilities, and to see how in the birth of her railways we find the birth of New Zealand herself. In no other country probably have railways and national unity been so closely linked together.
(By “
Pumice.”)
(Railway Publicity photo.)
Apple Orchard at Stoke Valley, Nelson, New Zealand.
On a platter before me, for the sake of what we writers term atmosphere, I have grouped a number of apples, their sun-rouged skins reflecting themselves in the polished wood beneath them; and, at the side of these is curled a cream and red peeling, snuggled amid the coils of which is a very small core. The lamplight is selecting from all for my entertainment, a kaleidoscopic maze of sparkle and colour ravishing to the poetic eye. The rose and amber hues of health, the golden gleam of wealth, the sparkling jet of wet seeds, the scintillating sheen of nectar dripping from broken cells—to all these does the soft finger of Light point, saying: “Mark you, her beauty is more than skin deep.” But I remove my eyes from the contemplation of too much pulchritude and my mind turns on more serious things.
I had spent the day in orchards, grading and packing sheds along the Moutere hills and at the apple port of Mapua in the height of Nelson's apple season. The apple-lands, they are called—a local term embracing the Waimea Plains, Moutere, Tasman, Mahana, Motueka and Riwaka, the garden of New Zealand. You must see to believe. Acre upon acre, row upon row in their hundreds of thousands of evenly spaced, evenly pruned, heavily laden apple trees. Can you picture them in blossom? Then you have kissed the hem of Beauty's wedding gown.
Like you, I have eaten many apples in my day. Like you, no doubt, I ate innocent in thought of all that goes to bring the sweet, red apples to my waiting teeth. But now I know.
Forgetful of all that was before the fruiting, I see the orchard trees staggering beneath a weight of fruit. Step-ladders support the pickers—girls, boys, women and men—who just pick and pick and pick. Sledges and carts convey the rough boxes (so precious these) to the packing sheds, and here begins a selecting process that is, possibly, even more important than are the arduous duties of the judges in our beauty competitions.
My friend who brought in the last load tips the contents of the cases on to a large, sloping tray, gives them a skilful push, and departs for more . . apples. From below the narrowed end of this tray there runs a double line of little canvas “buckets” attached to an endless chain running over a series of cogged wheels far down into the length of the packing-shed. Between the pairs of “buckets” is a belt with raised sides which moves in opposition to the “bucket chain” so that it returns to the delivery tray, turning downwards not far from it. To each side and a little below the delivery tray stand a number of girls, who are the sorters.
The engine starts up. Comes the creak of cogged wheels, the clanking of the long chains, and the intermittent clicking of the “buckets” as they tip. Comes from further down the shed the quick, regular swish, swish, swish, of wrapping paper, and beyond this the snap and thud of hammers the trampling of feet and the sound of occasional voices all blended in an apple grading symphony.
Fascinated for awhile I watch the sorters and that ingenious grading device, the “bucket chain.” The apples slide down the delivery tray on to two sets of parallel and oppositely revolving poles, each of which is wound with rubber ropes in such fashion that a screw is formed which rolls the apples slowly into the hands of the girls who sort them. Quick fingers seize the anxious little pome, others passing on to a like fate, none escaping. Trained eyes, immune to its blushing coquetry, appraise its worth, decide its doom. It is rejected. It is placed on the return belt between the “buckets.” It moves back happily towards the tray. But, alas! The sudden dip over of the belt precipitates it into a bin below the tray, from which bin it will be loaded roughly into rough boxes and stacked aside. If the market is worth while, these rejects will again be picked over and may find a local consumer. If not, then for them the ignominious dump, the pig's jaws, or the plough. I watch this rejecting process in utter consternation. Why, Oh, why reject these lovely looking apples? Because—this one lacks the right percentage of colour; this one has no stalk attached; this one has a spot; this one a bee sting; this a minute dent; this one is too large; this too small; this one is too ripe (beautifully ripe, she means). I watch in dismay. Am I dreaming? These luscious apples … ? Pass . . reject . . reject . . reject . . pass . . reject . . reject . . pass . . pass . . reject . . “Many are called, but few are chosen.” For about one in three seems to pass, and I follow one of these fortune favoured successes, free from blemish, both colour and shape perfect, and—yes—it has a stalk and it has not been stung by a bee! So it is placed in and runs down a narrow trough to be caught in an up-coming canvas “bucket” and carried off down the chain. Proud apple! No chorus girl ever was subjected to such inglorious inspection; no fishing-fly, and certainly no M.P., ever chosen so meticulously. And now comes an act in this selection of immaculate grace that is as effective as it is mechanically simple. Seated on its square of canvas—the magic carpet awarded the chosen few—the self-conscious apple goes joyriding on . . on . . on . . on . . until, click! The carpet tips, rolling the
Opposite one of these graded bins a packer is at work, so deftly, so surely. On a wheeled trolley line before him, is an export box. Convenient to his left hand is a stack of wrapping papers stamped with the Associated Growers' brand. With his right hand he seizes an apple from the “sized up” bin. Swish! The apple, now decently robed, is placed swiftly and accurately in its order in the box, the order of this packing being so arithmetically perfect that a number of apples of a given size fits exactly into the case in all respects save height, for, to the obvious glance, the contents overtop the case a clear inch or two. But no adjustment is made and the case is shot down the lines to the lidders where, lids and all to hand, men nail our choicest apples down for foreign lands—in, hitherto, foreign cases. But it has been found that New Zealand-grown pinus radiata, suitably seasoned, makes good cases, and a local firm manufactured nearly one million of these last season. At the apple shed doors, the cases are worth nearly as much as the fruit that fills them!
Two boards to a lid, strengthened by narrow slats, four nails to each board, and one blow of the hammer to each nail, and then the wiring of the cases. A clever instrument, this wirer, and a New Zealand invention. It tightens the wire, twists it securely, and even tucks under the cut ends. But our now lidded case still bulges ominously top and bottom, and on enquiry, I learn the trick. For, when these cases reach their overseas destination they will be flat and full, and without bruise, mark or sign, the whole package of apples can be removed from the box like dates from a packet—only less so, as it were! The equality of size, the wrapping paper, and the packing arithmetic ensure this effect.
Next comes the labelling. We have all seen these New Zealand fruit labels with their numerous brands of numbers and letters indicating the growers number, grade and variety of apples, the number in the case and other whatnots of information for the marketing authorities—not mere “Red Tape” but the signs of that vigilance that is the safeguard of the whole export industry.
To the apple port at Mapua is the next stage, and here, about one case in twenty is opened, inspected by a Government official, passed for export or returned, with the whole consignment it represents, to the grower awaiting anxiously in his packing shed. I was present what time one such consignment was returned to a shed from Mapua. Too ripe! A sad enough sight, all considered. The platter of apples I mentioned above, consists of some of these, rejected by that last, final and fateful inspection. Sad, I say, but no doubt right. For so much depends upon the upholding of our hard won supremacy. Last year sixty-four million pounds weight of peerless apples left our shores for other lands. And—each of these nearly two hundred million apples was handled at least three times in the packing sheds alone! And these apples go out to the world in ships as far away as the shores of the Baltic Sea. An interesting and romantic calling. I have learnt that the South Americas prefer the large and highly coloured apples, and that Germany, too, has a penchant for size, whilst English taste runs to the more genteel type. I could not learn as to Scotia's peculiar choice, so we must infer by convention.
But what a pandering to fastidious appetites in an anxious trade! What appalling local waste of rejects! What straining efficiency! What ingenuity of devices! What science, art, work and knowledge! What . . what . . what, Ah, what lovely apples!
Philosophically I select an extra luscious reject from my platter and sink my teeth deep into its mellow flesh, wondering the while why careless old Adam accepted that First Apple without examination, grading, or official inspection of any recorded kind. Surely, at least, a bee sting marred its belle tournure! And then a terrible feeling comes over me. What if he had rejected it! Ye gods! Perish the thought!
How did briar pipes originate? The story goes that a manufacturer of meerschaums who visited Corsica in 1844 chanced to drop—and break—the meerschaum he was smoking. By way of a temporary substitute he carved himself a pipe from Corsican bruyere (briar) root. That was the first briar! And the experiment proved so successful that the manufacture of these pipes soon developed into a flourishing industry. To-day briars are produced by the million! The finest briar-root, by the way, still comes from Corsica, and the best briars cost money. But your “dyed-in-the-wool” smoker cares little for the expensive pipes. With him it's the tobacco that counts! Some folks can smoke anything; the tobacco lover wants the best. Tastes differ, but the constantly growing demand for the toasted tobacco, so pure, fragrant and free from nicotine, is proof positive that New Zealanders are not slow to appreciate a really good thing. All four brands: Navy Cut No. 3 (Bulldog), Cavendish, Riverhead Gold, and Cut Plug No. 10 (Bullshead) are in every-day request all over the Dominion.*
(Rly. Publicity photo.)
A Typical Apple-grading Machine, Nelson, New Zealand.
By
Quentin Pope
On the level field of turf, under the soft light of the September sky, the rain steadily falls. It comes with a gentle persistence, the inevitability of the breaking of a long drought. The great, clay bank to the north is packed with people, black with umbrellas, one great patch of overcoats and turned-down hats. They have been there, some of them, for six or seven hours, patiently waiting in the relentless rain. For this Rugby match is to decide the Rugby championship of the world.
Twice these teams have met in international strife. At Dunedin, New Zealand won by a margin which seemed comfortable to those who did not see how sheer luck favoured the home team. At Auckland, the Springboks succeeded by a potted goal. The crowd may not know of the circumstances of that Dunedin win, but it knows that it was gained by a try granted after a debatable force-down.
“Boy” Morkel leads his great team from the corner of the ground where the dressing-sheds stand, a man mountain, with his seventeen stone supporter, Royal Morkel close behind him. The Springboks look immense in their green jerseys as they hurry out into the drenching rain to find the ground far better than they expect. At their best on dry ground, they have had a wonderful tour with only two defeats, that first test loss and a failure against Canterbury where a potted goal turned the scale. The All Blacks, shoulders hunched, trot along behind them and take their places with the rain in their faces. And then Fletcher, that fine Auckland forward, kicks off and the game has begun.
There is a muffled roar from the crowd as the All Blacks, as fit as possible after their training camp preparation on the other side of the harbour, dash into action. It is frenzied attack, but the first thrust is parried. Not for long, though, for those leaping forwards pounce on Gerhard Morkel, “the greatest of full-backs” and drag him over. Bunched, the black jerseys rush the ball over the line as the crowd goes delirious with delight. For once the Springboks have been caught napping and many a match has been lost that way. There will be a score in the first minute, but no, as Belliss hurtles through the air Van Heerden beats him to the ball. There is a scrum, and Ifwerson, the pivot of the New Zealand back-line, gets the ball and flashes it to Roberts, but the half-back misjudges in a kick through, and a force-down brings relief. Another scrum and again Belliss goes away, head down, shoulders up. Roberts dashes behind him and as the ball comes off his toes snaps up and sends the leather to touch near the goal-line. Then the whistle, a silence, a roar. A penalty to the All Blacks. It should be worth three points, but no, Fletcher fails to get the necessary distance and seven minutes of hot assault end with easy relief.
For the first time now, the South Africans get past half-way. It spells the turn of the tide of war. The green forwards are gradually asserting superiority in the scrums, they are using their extra weight well. But as they break through they fail to control the ball in the rushes. The greasy oval eludes them, slides off boot and leg and is sent back by the waiting foemen. The New Zealanders expend themselves in individual efforts against the green phalanx; by quickness and initiative they break through, but behind the opponents are quick backs with sure hands, most of all Gerhard Morkel. He anticipates everything, misses nothing and regains the ground lost by cool, sure kicks. Again and again the All Blacks check the attack, they pounce on the ball as a gap appears and break through. Each time Morkel undoes their work. He almost steers the ball over the posts from a penalty when Belliss gets offside and he keeps Kingston, the soundest of full-backs short of the class of genius, very busy. There is another chance to score when the nimble Zeller marks on the twenty-five line as the All Blacks rush out, but he dawdles over the kick and it is charged down. The Springboks, like the All Blacks, are too eager, and control is sacrificed for speed. It aids the defence, which is erratic enough. Mark Nicholls (playing his first “international” and still in his teens—he will go far that boy) is smothered, the solid Steel is caught. He misses his kick and the situation is bad when the whole opposing pack tear down the line into a gap; but again over-eagerness checks the attackers and they lose the ball right on the line. It has been a bad moment and the crowd sighs relief. At last, after almost ten minutes of hot attack, New Zealand works out and on neutral ground the Greens get a free-kick which Richardson kills by leaping in the air.
The rain begins to flood down now, and with it the Springboks go tearing into action. The New Zealand backs, one by one fail to find touch and each time the ball is sent soaring back over the heads of the assailants towards the New Zealand line. But for once Gerhard Morkel fails and Ifwerson, quick in action, drives the Greens back to half-way. Roberts is playing gamely stopping rushes, but he incurs a penalty now and Morkel fails to get the ball up. There is a fumbling counterattack by the All Blacks, out of which Siddels, the wing three-quarter comes to life. He picks up, kicks, traps Gerhard Morkel and opens the way for Fletcher to send the ball to Fea. At last the backs have a chance. But Fea's pass is dropped and Steel, who ultimately gets the ball, is hemmed in. This flash is followed by disaster. There is fighting between some of the forwards as the two packs battle it out, and the Springboks win. Gradually they make way downfield, Roberts
A Reliable Travellers Guide
Mr. J. W. Davidson (Commissioner of Railways, Queensland) at The Hermitage, Mt. Cook.
From right: Mr. and Mrs. Davidson, Mrs. Lissiner, R. Wedderspoon and L. Whisker.
As they resume it is seen that the All Blacks have bowed to fate. They cannot hold that mighty pack with seven men, so Belliss, the wing forward, is lending his weight in the rear of the scrum. The Springbok's three-quarters, so long unable to get the ball in combined movements, show their speed. Zeller and Michau, the half, begin quick raids which are ended only when the Natal player is hurled bodily into touch. It is an individualist battle again, with quick kicking through openings, or short, rapid runs making the ground that is gained. But this time it is evident that the All Blacks are playing better and with greater cohesion. Their defence is not so good as that of their rivals save when Ifwerson and Kingston are at hand. But their forwards are still going as hard as ever and that in spite of repeated repulses. West, McLean and Moffitt take the ball to the African twenty-five and this half, it proves, is to be as much in favour of the home team as the opening spell went to the visitors. Royal Morkel is off-side now, but Nicholls joins the list of kickers who cannot get the ball to rise. The New Zealand forwards burst through again, Gerhard Morkel saves and McLean, Richardson and Moffitt see another rush come to nothing. Kingston plays prettily in stemming the South African kicks out, but misplaced faith in the backs spoils another chance when Roberts sails round the blind side and slips as he endeavours to open the play. Fea picks up and hands the ball to Steel, but the winger cannot take the pass and Mellish ends the attack where it began. It has been a hot fifteen minutes with the All Blacks forwards working like demons, and now comes relief from an unexpected quarter; the referee is knocked out. The South Africans sprawl around in gratitude at the check, and when play begins again Zeller is trapped and the home forwards are on the line like a thunderbolt. Ifwerson snaps the ball and dives headlong at a wall of green, but the human barrier is sound and it needs to be. For the first time the defence sees signs of weakness by its backs. Steel and Roberts check efforts to break clear and then Nicholls finds touch close in. There is a rapid clearance from the line-out and Nicholls, with Steel waiting for a pass, cuts into the middle of the defenders and loses a possible score. It is an escape and Zeller clears, but the hard-won ground is re-conquered by an All Black forward rush and under a penalty kick the pack comes down fast, catching Morkel again, but losing the chance when McLean excitedly kicks too far. Van Heerden makes the next mistake; he misses badly as the All Black line charges upon him, but the ball bounces luckily and shoots off at an angle away from the attacking force. The escape is brief; McLean starts another rush and Zeller stops it in the last yard. The Springboks are tiring now in these conditions. They show their weakness in the line-out for an All Black is unmarked and quickly Siddells throws the ball to him. He has only to seize it and plunge over the line—and it slips through his fingers. Morkel has to force to save the day after Van Rooyen has made a foolhardy effort to run the ball back down the field. Suddenly the whole struggle goes flat and stale. Both teams are tired, and just as the bell clangs the ball pitches into touch almost at halfway.
Perpetrated and Illustrated by
Ken Alexander
If the world is a stage, the stage is a world to which man turns to forget the exigencies of existence:—
His world forgetting, by his world forgot, “pro tem” to face the footlights or the “movie lot,” where each one acts a part—Gog and Magog, contorts his face and mouths his monologue. Each player is a hero conquering, a jester or a gangster or a king; an Alexander living once again, a grandee swanking in the ports o' Spain; a “clown,” like Charlie Chaplin, in a part portraying “laughter with a broken heart”; a villain—or a mother white of hair, whose motif is the ever “vacant chair”; or else the slap-stick men, who gag their wag through reel on reel of light and lissom play; a miser, or a mistress of a king, a factory girl—who has her foolish fling among the champagne bubbles and—alack! goes gay, until the hero plucks her back. The humble hero, struggling to attain some greatness which is prisoned in his brain—until at last he takes Success to wife, in ways which wouldn't stand the test of Life. But that's the secret joy which acting lends; the mummers twisting life to suit their ends.
We see the things unfold, before our eyes, which in our hearts we know for happy lies. We know that real existence doesn't move within a preordained and logic groove; we know that Sin so often reaps the things which we were taught that only Virtue brings; we know that Cinderella, in real life, can never be the Prince's wedded wife; we also know that slick Coincidence thrives only in the world of high pretence. And so we all believe “the play's the thing,” because it gets Illusion on the wing, and gives us all the heart-beats and the glee of things as we would wish such things to be. For instance on the screen and on the “board” we know that love will reap its due reward, and all the wounds and worries of the heart (which every lover suffers) are the part which they must play to whet our appetites for love requited and the might of Right. We know that in the country of Illusion, the more the pain of striving and confusion, the surer do mischance and pain afford the satisfaction of a just reward; and that's the reason why we like to see life lived as truly as it ought to be.
We know the gangster, out upon a “bend,” himself is sure to meet a sticky end. We know the cru-el father will relent, who cut his daughter off without a cent—for that's the way the business ought to go, if Life were acted like a decent show. We realise the villain who has slain the brewer on a continental train (and wangled things in such a subtle way, that everyone's suspected through the play), is bound, by every precedent, to meet his fate within the final hundred feet.
It stimulates our faith in actual life, to see such logic rising out of strife. And then the merry men who crack a quip, and sting our sense of humour with their whip, do but reflect our dormant sense of fun, which revels in the rays of humour's sun—the instinct to resort to merry-making, which ever was a sign of man's awaking. For, after all, 'tis laughter which, at least, puts man an inch or two above the
“An Alexander living once again.”
From bellicose posturings of the naked head-hunter to the masked mummery of the medicine man and the mumbo-jumbo of the jungle to the unreal realities of the sin-and-muttergruff, entertainment depends for success on its power to present the commonplace in the habiliments of Romance. For Romance always has been something which happens to somebody other than ourselves. Thus we say of the millionaire who has fought his way from gutter to Gotham, “what a romantic career,” while he, poor wretch, spends his days trying to keep his digestion revolving on dog-biscuits and soda water, and his mind from dwelling on the opportunities he has lost of being poor but happy.
But the world is not to blame for our insatiable hunger for illusion. The Machine has brought a mechanical monotony into our lives, for which the only antidote is the elixir of Illusion.
But, in my humble opinion, the present-day sophisticated sob-and-sin symphony projected on the silver screen often is not removed sufficiently far from reality to provide that forgetfulness so necessary for the preservation of sanity. Perhaps this is due to the fact that most pictures appear to be produced and played by men and women with names like items in the menu of a German beer-garten lunch.
When the lights go out in the citadels of celluloid, what do we see before us with their handles turned towards us? We see an array of names on the screen calculated to cause the caretaker of the Tower of Babel to join the Smith Family Robinson. For the best part of ten minutes before the actual film unfolds, we read something like this:—
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Produced by the Bunkum-Wurst
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British - American - Worldwide-Punk Pictures Corp.
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Adapted from the book “Quiet Byways,” written by Sigfried Somnolence.
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Adaption by Herman van Welter.
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Dialogue by Fritz Fiddlestix.
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Continuity by Joak Madz.
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Costumes by Jacques Fitz.
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Directed by Jaegar Unnerware.
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Assisted by Carl Coma.
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Assisted by Al. Rong.
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Musical effects by the Bash and Bang Boys.
Love and Lipsticks.
The machine has brought a Mechanical Monotony into the world.
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Lord Layeasy——Eddy Gatt.
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Lady Ermyntrude de Lustre——Gerta Gubb.
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Mary Moloney——Kate Katz.
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The Big Brain——Wilmer Wurm.
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The Butler——Saul Tipz.
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The Maid——Zizi Spitz.
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The Philanthropist Douglas McJacobs.
You will note, dear reader, that there is not a Smith or a Jones or a Brown in the whole shooting match. No wonder the dear old “mellow-drammer” has died in the bath, and that continental sophistication has captured the celluloid.
You ask, “what's in a name?”, and I reply that a person with a name which sounds like a tropical disease or a plate of mashed tamales cannot possibly see eye to eye with the world, and should not be allowed to vent his complexes on the cosmopolis. Men and women whose names sound like echoes in the canyons of Delirium could not be expected to recognise the “straight banana” with a theodolite.
If ever I detect an advertisement announcing a play or picture directed by Albert Brown, written by Henry Smith and released by John Robinson, I will book seats for seven consecutive nights; and if the leading lady is Doris Jones, the hero Percy Prout, and the villain William Simkins, I will know that here at last is the dear old “drammer” with a real kick in it.
Ofttimes we old 'uns pine for the dinkum drama of yesteryear where, within the first five minutes, the old squire was foully shot in the rhododendrons. The villain who did it attempted no deception toward the audience but twisted his satanic moustachios in a manner so incriminating that any judge would simply reach under the rostrum for the black cap without a word of evidence; but nobody on the stage ever suspected him, and he went right ahead with his fiendish courtship of the late squire's lovely daughter (coupled with the squiral acres and herditaments). But it was all honest-to-goodness drama, with out any modern exotic aids such as cocaine, kidnapping, gangsters, illicit love, or murder on the sky-scraper roof. The sin was sincere
“
The Play's the Thing!”
(By “
Shibli Bagarag
My readers will, if they are fortunate enough to be in a position to purchase the volume, readily understand my superlative enthusings over “Maori Music,” by Johannes C. Andersen, recently printed for the Polynesian Society by Thomas Avery and Sons, New Plymouth. From every aspect—literary style, historical value and artistic format, this is one of the most notable books ever published in New Zealand.
How fortunate this Dominion is in its historians! But, alas, how inadequately are they rewarded! The book under notice must have taken years in its compilation and no doubt many months of careful thought and artistic discernment in its production. The result is a volume of inestimable historical value and of permanent joy to the collector. The cover, the jacket, the end papers and the many faultlessly reproduced plates will be a “joy forever” to the connoisseur.
The author is modest in his preface. His book, he claims, “can be considered no more than an introduction to the study of Maori music.” With similar modesty Shakespeare might have described “Hamlet” as a curtain-raiser. It is impossible to do more than merely hint at the vast storehouse of knowledge gathered together by Mr. Andersen. The history dates from observations during Cook's first and second voyages, covers Tonga, Niue, Hawaii, etc., and New Zealand. Mr. Andersen is the appealing historian—he has made his book attractively interesting.
His selection of illustrations has brought together an imposing gallery of pictures. Such a book must necessarily be expensive, but the price, £2 2/-, will not daunt the true New Zealand bibliophile. I propose to refer to other aspects of the book in later issues.
* * *
Before I leave this work I must refer to one of the discoveries made by the author. Truth will out and the blight cast on the romantic story of Hinemoa and Tutanekai is, if disturbing, not without its element of humour. Mr. Andersen has proved conclusively that Tutanekai could not play on the Koauau (flute) and that the music heard by Hinemoa was played by Tiki. Tutanekai gave his sister to his friend as a reward for his services.
* * *
University journals are always interesting. These oftentimes brilliant young students, love to dip their pens in the purple ink of satire, the red ink of Communism or the green ink of agin-everythingism. It is interesting to note therefore that students of Victoria College recently decided to publish a weekly newspaper, “Smad.” The first issue gives promise of brighter things to come. As long as there is the necessary editorial restraint—that is, reasonable restraint—there is no reason why “Smad” should not grow and prosper.
* * *
The latest (March) number of “Art in New Zealand” contains the result of another of the literary competitions of that quarterly—the short story. The judge, Mr. C. A. Marris, reviews the entries in a manner most helpful to the entrants. He has no hesitation in placing “Robin Hyde” an easy first. His selection confirms me in my opinion that “Robin Hyde” is one of the most brilliant short story writers this country has ever produced. A Wellington entrant, Cicely F. Ellis, is given second place, and Miss Una Craig, of Auckland, third place. Keeping to the literary side I must confess a particular admiration for the review section of the magazine. With one or two exceptions reviewing in New Zealand consists of a transcription of the blurb on the jackets of the books concerned. “Art in New Zealand” does the job as it should be done. Last issue we had Eileen Duggan as reviewer, this March issue “Prester John” takes his turn with almost equal success. On the pictorial side the March issue has two excellent colour blocks and several in black and white.
* * *
Hector Bolitho's “Older People” is due here shortly. Mr. Bolitho refused to allow his book to be described as “reminiscences.” In writing to his publishers, he said, “I do not wish my book to be accepted as a shower of gossip about great names. I think that all young people draw confidence and help from some person who is older than themselves. I have been fortunate in being allowed many friendships and kindnesses from older
A Dickensian Bookplate from the library of the late Charles Wilson.
* * *
Some interesting purchases have been made recently by Newbolds, the big second-hand book dealers of Dunedin, from the library of the late Mr. W. H. Trimble, who presented the unique Whitman Collection to the local Public Library. The books bought include the following:—Galsworthy.—“A Commentary” (first issue) with long autographed letter. George Meredith.—“The Egoist,” with three page signed letter. The illustrated (colour) edition of “The Pavilion on the Links” with R. L. Stevenson's signature. The Galsworthy letter is dated 1909, and lays out in brief his whole philosophy and attitude to the writer's craft.
* * *
Reviews.
“The Griffith Case,” by John Bentley (Eldon Press, London), is one of the most intricate detective stories I have read. The series of events prior and subsequent to the murder of Marcus Griffith, a wealthy money-lender, are of a vastly complicated character. A solution if imminent, the suspect has made his confession, when an additional murder, that of the dead moneylender's butler is perpetrated. The whole structure of built-up evidence falls to pieces. The all discerning mind of a super-Sherlock Holmes, in the person of Sir Richard Herriwell, a noted antiquarian, carries through to an amazing denouement. Price, 7/-.
In these days of chain stores and mass production when everyone is looking for a lot for a little money, the Century Omnibus books being produced by Hutchinson and Co., London, come as a veritable god-send. These huge volumes of over 1,000 pages each retail at 6/-. They cover a range to suit all tastes, and, best of all are of a high literary standard at the same time appealing to the average reader. As they contain no rubbish, they are a sound permanent literary investment. This month I will deal with two of the series.
“A Century of Humour” is edited by P. G. Wodehouse. With one of our greatest living humorists as the selector, the feast of fun is difficult to improve upon. The humorous short story has always been a speciality of mine—candidly I am rather conceited in my knowledge and sense of judgment. Therefore I went through this book critically and if it is any consolation to Mr. Wodehouse I can find no fault in his selection. All the great humorists of the past century are there—E. V. Lucas, W. W. Jacobs, Barry Pain, H. G. Wells, A. P. Herbert, G. K. Chesterton, Wyndham Lewis—all the happy brothers of laughter. It is a glorious feast of fun.
Now it is an excellent idea to place alongside this book on your reading table another Century omnibus, the “Book of Strange Stories.” While you are still shaking with mirth because of a story in the other volume read one of these weird “Strange Stories” and you achieve one of those wonderful contrasts that, after all, make life so interesting. Strange stories are neither humorous nor creepy—they are just strange. They provoke serious reflection on the weird results of authors' imaginations. Famous authors represented in this collection include George Meredith, Thomas Burke, Oscar Wilde, Somerset Maugham, Sheila Kaye-Smith, Algernon Blackwood and De Maupessant. The stories have been selected by “The Evening Standard.” (My copies from Whitcombe and Tombs.)
“Earth's Quality,” by Winifred Birkett (Angus and Robertson, Sydney), is published with glowing appreciations from such well-known critics as Mary Gilmore and Elliott Napier. The latter describes the novel as “undoubtedly one of the best and most effectively written Australian novels that has yet appeared.” It remains for this humble scribe to agree with the judgments of these high authorities. This book will appeal particularly to New Zealand readers. As Mary Gilmore observes, the outstanding thing about the novel is the knowledge the authoress shows “of the land and the things of the land.” The story is engrossing, and the character sketches are artistically done.
* * *
Shibli” Listens In.
Mr. F. W. Doidge, the well-known New Zealand pressman, has resigned from the Beaverbrook organisation in London and is returning to the Dominion shortly.
“Music in New Zealand,” that admirable monthly journal published by Harry H. Tombs, Wellington, has now been in existence four years.
The latest casualty in the periodical field in New Zealand is “The Radio News,” the first issue of which appeared about a year ago.
Included in the imposing list of world-famous writers who appear in the “Evening Standard's” “Book of Strange Stories” (reviewed in this issue) is Hector Bolitho.
Cabled advice has been received in Sydney that “Landtakers,” by Brian Penton, has been selected by the London “Daily Mail” as the book of the month.
Whitcombe & Tombs Ltd. will publish shortly from the pen of Johannes C. Anderson a volume on book collecting in New Zealand.
“Frivolity,” a monthly humorous magazine run in Sydney on the lines of “Aussie” ceased publication a few weeks ago.
A further indication of the rapid development in the book publishing world in Australia is the recent establishment in Sydney of a Literary Agency.
Clergyman's Frank Letter
How He Reduced His Waistline by 4 1/2 Inches.
Now Feels Half His Age.
There is a delightful frankness about this letter from a clergyman. It is also notable for the spontaneous tribute which it pays to a well-known medicinal saline:—
“For some time,” the letter reads, “I have been intending to write to tell you how much I have benefited by taking that excellent remedy, Kruschen Salts. When I first started taking Kruschen, my weight was 15 stone 10 lbs. After 12 months it had dropped to 13 stone 2 lbs., and now varies between 12 stone 10 lbs. and 13 stone. I have avoided or lessened my consumption of certain things during that period.
“Formerly my waist measured about 42 inches, now it measures 37 1/2 inches. Before I took Kruschen I often envied the members of my Young Men's Club—that is to say, I envied their suppleness and their good figures. Now that is a thing of the past. I can do physical exercises which I never dreamed of doing before. My health has never been better, and I can put to shame many a young man half my age. My age is, by the way, 42, but really I feel more like 21. After the tremendous benefit Kruschen has bestowed upon me, I wish it every success.”—(Rev.) W.H.G.
The commonest type of obesity is that caused by an accumulation of waste material which sluggish eliminating organs have failed to expel from the system. Nature, in an effort to dispose of this clogging wastage, stores it up in the form of fatty tissue.
The six salts in Kruschen assist the liver and kidneys to throw off each day all undigested food substances and excessive watery waste matter. Then, little by little, that ugly fat goes.
Kruschen Salts is obtainable at all Chemists and Stores at 2/6 per bottle.
(Continued from page 53)
—if a trifle vigorous, the love of hero and heroine was of the clutch-as-clutch-can, two-way type of the good old days; and when he got down on his knees to bury his head in her lap, after being accused (wrongly, of course) of putting the old squire on the spot in the rhododendrons, anybody could see from the way her eyes swam—and even floated on their backs—that if he were to shoot up the whole company (including the manager) she would still love him in that good old fashioned way.
Also, the villain never failed to rouse such loathing in the sentimental hearts of the “gods” that beer bottles (empty, of course) were frequently hurled from the heights.
But for good clean murders, double-action heart-beats, and simple sin, Bland Holt had the modern synthetic sob-story licked to a frazzle. Of course, all the plots were the same plot, and everybody knew that finally the hero and heroine would be wedded in the old village church; that the last act would portray the villain, wearing broad arrows a yard long, chewing his moustachios to pulp in a cardboard cell of solid stone, while he hearkened to the hammers putting the finishing touches to the scaffold in the yard. Sometimes, when I see sordid sin posing on the silver sheet as drama, I long for a return of the days when melodrama was mellow.
“It would be a good thing for dentists if smoking had never been invented,” writes “Forceps” in a London journal devoted to dentistry, adding, “tobacco-smoke is one of the very finest preservatives of the teeth. It may discolour them sometimes but it frequently prolongs their usefulness to old age. Sweets, on the other hand, are the dentists' best friends. Children and women, who are always munching them, very often suffer badly from defective teeth, and I never pass a lolly-shop without wanting to take off my hat to it. But tobacco-smoke assuredly prevents decay.” So it does. But the tobacco should be a special quality. “Toasted” is ideal for the purpose, because, owing to the comparative absence of nicotine in it, it can be smoked so freely without affecting the health. All five brands of the genuine toasted—Cut Plug No. 10 (Bullshead), Navy Cut No. 3 (Bulldog), Cavendish, Riverhead Gold, and Desert Gold, are splendid teeth preservers, and more fragrant and delightful tobaccos are simply not to be had whatever price you may pay.
An interesting and amusing instance of the various ways in which the South African Railways and Harbours serve the public, particularly the farming community, is contained in the following copy of a note handed to the driver of train No. 1400 at Mevamphlope, on the North Coast Line, on 10th August, by a farmer resident at Nyoko: “Will you oblige by whistling like hell as you pass through the farm in the hope of lifting the locusts. Thanks.” The driver acceded to the farmer's request and, from the latter's point of view, the ruse was quite successful. All the locusts took flight as the train roared through the farm, whistling continuously. They had their revenge on the driver, however, for the swarm settled in a railway cutting a few miles ahead and the train was delayed several hours on account of the engine wheels being unable to grip the rails.—“South African Railways and Harbours Magazine.”
By
Helen
To-Day's Fashions.
A-Top, our frocks show much the same silhouette as last year, but trimmings are varied. Interest is centred on sleeves and neck-lines, with an occasional glance at the hemline where ruckings and kiltings may find a place. The jabot shows endless variety, from the small pleated jabot falling from a plain round neck-line, to a cascade of frills, a butterfly bow, or wing-like projections. Necklines are plain, draped, or cut out, but usually high. Elaborate sleeves are seen on hostess gowns, but not so much on the “all-day” garment, where the long tight sleeve has returned to its own.
* * *
Again, with coats, it is the neck-line which has altered. Coats are semi-fitting, many half-belted. Tweeds show cravat or scarf collars and interesting revers. Wing revers, wide and sharply pointed, are new. Coats for more dressy occasions show endless variations on fur. Flat fur trimming is new this winter; so are dyed furs and the large double fox fur collars which lend such an air of elegance.
* * *
Hats are mainly of four types—the tricorne, variants of the Russian cap, the large flat beret of pancake variety, and the ready-to-wear. The latter, this year, is dented and pulled and tucked in the crown, pushed up at the back and kinked over the right eye, decorated with a twist of corded ribbon, a coloured ornament or a feathered mount and sent to the shops to ravish the eyes and the purses—of women-kind. Luckily, hats are not as expensive as they were.
* * *
Shoes are sensible and really smart. Sports shoes are no longer the clumsy, heavy things they were a few years ago. Most golf shoes show inlays of a contrasting leather. Shoes for town wear no longer show so much two-tone combination. Shoes are trimmed with another leather in the same tone, or interest is centred on punching or stitching applied in new ways.
* * *
Our girls say they are not going to knit as much as usual this winter. Not that knit-wear is less popular. Oh no! But the cosy jumpers and cardigans we have been making during the last two or three winters won't wear out. Probably, however, most of us will be tempted to get out the needles again when we study the new knitting books. For knit-wear is certainly keeping up-to-date, and the new woollies are the last word in style. And really, a hand-knitted jumper plus tweed skirt is less expensive and more comfortable to wear than a winter-weight woollen frock.
* * *
The Guarded Tongue.
I speak not of she who knows she moves among potential enemies whose keen ears are ready for any careless pronouncement and whose caustic comments throng the lips in readiness (if such there be in this present world of peace—such women as even Cranford knew, and Jane Austen painted in all their waspish finery); but of she who ever is thrust back within herself from those heights where she sometimes is and where her mind knows her spirit is at home, thrust back by small discomforts—headaches, common colds—ills of the flesh, which claim attention, and force down the level of her energy below the plane of her best self. Of she I speak. She knows her outlook, her ideas on life, and how her friends are placed in her regard; in her high moments she has overlooked, as from a mountain-top, her little world-and found it good. But, being flesh, her spirit must go down into the valleys. Then, oppressed with weariness, perhaps, she knows all that she feels, but cannot feel it; remembers the truths that she has set to guide her life, but cannot trace the path she trod to find them; keeps her friends in her heart, but cannot reach out to them.
Then, at these moments of low energy, low thought, low being, must she most carefully guard her tongue, that she belie not her true emotions, retract not from her true faith, wound not her true friends. Then must she show her wisdom, and endure, and guard, with golden silence, her life's hoard of treasure.
* * *
Backs.
Nowadays backs are important. The fashionable evening dresses, bathing suits, sun suits, and many of the sports costumes make it imperative for girls to take extra care to present the loveliest possible back to the world. The ideal back is flat, straight and slim, with a beautiful skin, and does not show the bony structure. Thin backs with protruding shoulder-blades, crooked spines, or fat backs, are not beautiful. To remedy these defects it may be necessary to consult a physical instructor, who, if the trouble warrants it, will no doubt recommend posture exercises. These exercises should be performed regularly as “a flash in the pan” is of no use at all.
A blotchy or pimply skin can be cured by thoroughly scrubbing the skin, using a long-handled bath brush or loofah, and plenty of soap and warm water. Dash with cold water to stimulate the circulation and rid the skin of many of the blemishes. A good cream may then be used very beneficially.
* * *
Home Nursing.
It is almost a necessity that every person who is likely to do any home nursing shall be able to use a clinical thermometer. In the case of adults the temperature is usually taken in the mouth. With children it may be taken
* * *
The first temperature should be taken before the early morning drink is given, and the evening one before the bed-time sponge. After taking a temperature, read the thermometer, and make a note of it. The thermometer should then be washed with cold water and dried. When the temperature is being taken frequently, or in infectious cases, the thermometer should be kept standing in a glass containing a weak solution of disinfectant. A small piece of cotton-wool should be placed in the bottom. Stand the glass on a small plate, and have a piece of dry cotton-wool to wipe the thermometer before using it again. When the temperature has to be taken several times during the day a record should be kept, either on a chart (which can be bought at any chemist's) or on a piece of paper. Make a note of the temperature and the time it was taken. Never rely on your memory.
Miss Iris Astwood.
The Ngaio Railway Settlement is cooperating with the local residents to try and liquidate, in part, a debt of £1000 on the Church of England, and is running à Railway Candidate in the Queen Carnival which was the means devised as likely to bring in most money.
The queen chosen by the committee was Miss Iris Astwood, eldest daughter of Mr. J. H. Astwood, of the Locomotive Branch.
Believing that the railway employees will always lend a helping hand for a deserving cause, the committee are hoping to have the Service behind it in its venture and would be deeply grateful for offers of help in any shape or form.
Mr. S. Simpson, of Head Office staff, is Chairman of the committee, and Mrs. F. C. Wilson, Organising Secretary, and representatives of all nearby branches of the Service complete the committee. Further particulars will gladly be supplied by Mrs. Wilson, 'Phone 45–273, Wellington.
Invalid Comfort.
There are many points that make for the comfort and well-being of an invalid. In the first place, choose the most cheerful and sunny room available. Remove any superfluous furniture, ornaments and hangings, taking care not to make the room more bare and comfortless than the case demands. The bed should be narrow, with a good firm mattress. It is difficult to make a patient comfortable on a sagging bed.
Care must be taken when making the bed to pull the under-blanket and sheet very tightly and smoothly, and tuck them well under the mattress. Avoid creases, as they are the cause of great discomfort and bedsores are often traceable to poorly made beds. The lower blanket and sheet should be well tucked in at the top of the mattress, and the top sheet and blankets tucked well under the foot, so that the bedclothes do not slip. Fold the sheet back about eighteen inches over the blanket. Bed linen should be changed frequently. Due consideration should be given to the situation of the windows and the patient should avoid facing the light.
* * *
Ventilation.
Ventilation is one of the most important factors in regard to the hygiene of the sickroom. Pure air is absolutely necessary. It is essential to keep the air pure and fresh, and at the same time to avoid draughts. The windows should be open at the top. A wide open window causes less draught than one open only a few inches. The judicious use of a screen is a great help in the case of a patient who complains of draughts.
In addition to the daily bathing or sponging, see that the teeth and mouth are thoroughly cleansed, and the hair well brushed and combed. Carry out any treatments that may be ordered by the doctor. Clothes should be changed frequently.
Thick undergarments are not necessary. It is better to have a light porous garment next to the skin, and wear a warm bed jacket when necessary. It is a good plan to have separate garments for day and night wear.
Food and crockery should not be left in a sick room. Drinks that are left with a patient should be covered. Water for drinking should be renewed frequently.
When serving food, the tray should be made to look as attractive as possible. The napery should always be clean, glasses and silver polished, dishes and china the nicest available, clean and unchipped. No necessary articles should be forgotten (as, for instance, salt and pepper). All food intended to be hot, should be really hot, and served on a hot plate, and all food intended to be cold, served on a cold plate. It is a good rule to serve too little food rather than too much. A second helping can always be given if wanted. * * *
The Common Cold.
I have heard people coughing in shops, in trams, in theatres. Brrr! What would winter not be without its colds! One of the greatest benefactors of mankind will be he who frees our winter season of its worst encumbrance and leaves us free to enjoy the sparkling zest of frosty nights and mornings, the sense of well-being which rises in us as we breast a buffeting wind, the cool keenness of silver arrows of rain. Till that happy day, when King “Cold” is driven from his throne and with him the myriad germs, his ministers, we will enjoy our winters as of old.
Half the battle is to be suitably clad. Thank goodness (and doctors!) that we have departed from the musty, fusty Victorian idea of coddling ourselves. True, a few hardy people seem to be going to the opposite extreme and to be courting pneumonia in every southerly gale. The wiser ones do not boast of going through the winter in locknit, but sensibly invest in lightweight Shetland wool undies which are as dainty and slim-fitting as silk. Also with careful laundering they wear marvellously.
Home Notes.
Soup is most tempting and appetizing during the winter months—in fact regardless of the season it adds variety to the menu. It is nourishing, economical and easy to prepare.
Stock for the foundation of soups is the liquid in which meat, bones, poultry, fish or vegetables have been boiled.
To make meat stock, wash the meat and cut into pieces. Break up the bones. Put into cold water, allowing about one quart to each pound of meat. Bring to the boil, then simmer for four or five hours. Odds and ends of meat (cooked or uncooked), bones, ham bones, bacon rinds, etc., may be put in the stock pot.
The stock pot should be cleaned daily. No stock should be left to stand after being cooked. Strain and allow to cool before covering it in the safe. Unused stock should be boiled up every day. Stock for soup should be made the day before it is to be used so that all the fat may be removed.
Vegetables and flavouring should not be added until the soup is required.
Save vegetable water and add to the stock.
Peel and slice pumpkin and one large onion. Cover with cold water or stock. Simmer gently until the pumpkin is cooked. Remove from fire and mash until the pumpkin is free from lumps. Return to the fire and add 1 to 2 cups of milk and thicken with cornflour. Add salt and pepper to taste. Simmer gently for ten minutes. Just before serving add one dessert-spoon grated cheese. This soup should be fairly thick.
N.B.—Marrow may be used if liked instead of pumpkin.
Boil a fowl (an old one will do quite well) in two quarts of water, or stock, for three or four hours. Wash about six leeks and cut into half-inch lengths, put into the pot with salt and pepper to taste; cook for half an hour. A quarter of an hour before the soup is taken from the fire add eighteen stoned prunes.
Celery, 1 head; butter, 1 1/2 ozs.; white stock, 1 pint; milk, 1 pint; flour, 3 dessertspoons; seasoning to taste.
Wash and cut up the celery. Saute in the butter for five minutes. Add the boiling stock and simmer till tender. Pass through a sieve, re-heat, add milk and bring to the boil. Add seasoning and flour mixed to a smooth paste with a little milk. Simmer for ten minutes. Serve with croutons of fried bread. Two tablespoons of cream may be added just before serving.
N.B.—Saute is to fry without browning.
Ingredients: 1 quart milk, 2 tablespoons tapioca, 1 tablespoon finely chopped onion, 1 tablespoon butter, 1/4 cup grated cheese, 1 tablespoon chopped parsley, salt and pepper to taste.
Method: Boil the milk, with the onion, tapioca and seasoning until the tapioca is clear. Add the butter, cheese and parsley, and cook until the cheese is melted.
Use grated carrots, onions (or leeks) and parsley with any finely chopped green vegetables, such as spinach, silver beet, celery, cabbage, etc. Seasoning.
Just cover with water and simmer gently until the vegetables are cooked. Serve without straining. This soup is excellent for those who are slimming.
* * *
Save the water in which vegetables are cooked to use for gravies and sauces, and adding to soups. This water contains the most valuable part of the vegetables—the vitamins and mineral salts.
Three or four tomatoes, 2 eggs, 1 tablespoon breadcrumbs, 1 dessertspoon butter, salt and pepper, 4 teaspoons milk.
Beat the eggs slightly, add milk, butter, breadcrumbs and seasoning. Cut a slice off the tops of the tomatoes and scoop out some of the centre, sprinkle with pepper and salt, fill with egg mixture. Put on the lid of the tomato. Place in a greased tin in a moderate oven until the tomatoes are soft. Time about twenty minutes. Serve on rounds of fried bread or buttered toast. Grated cheese may be added to the mixture if liked.
The world's annual consumption of cigarettes now runs into billions. Originally they were all hand-made, consequently comparatively expensive. Then some ingenious person invented a machine which turned out as many cigarettes in an hour as hand labour could produce in a week. Naturally prices fell, and cigarette smoking fairly caught on. But the cigarette tobacco in use at that time was far from present day standards, and you'd have searched in vain for brands of such superlative quality as Riverhead Gold or Desert Gold—two of the finest cigarette tobaccos in the world! The three other toasted brands (chiefly favoured by pipe smokers), Cut Plug No. 10 (Bullshead), Cavendish, and Navy Cut No. 3 (Bulldog), are also unequalled for flavour and bouquet, and for their comparative freedom from nicotine—eliminated by toasting. All five brands are in universal use and are manufactured in prodigious quantities to meet the evergrowing demand. Their popularity has brought out various imitations — that was inevitable! It is the penalty success always has to pay. But the real toasted cannot be imitated.*
(By
Tohunga
In explaining the origin and meaning of sundry Maori place-names some time ago, I mentioned the name of Lake Taupo as a subject for a future discourse. I have heard the name translated off-hand as meaning the lake of “settled gloom” from the words “tau,” to settle or rest upon, and “po,” night or darkness. This was mere guesswork. In elucidating Maori-Polynesian place-names it it usually unsafe to jump at conclusions. It is advisable to consult the local Maoris if there be any, for origins before attempting to interpret the words. Very frequently, as in this case, a story of exploration, adventure, some incident of long ago, is bound up in the ancient name.
The circumstances of the place-naming are preserved in authentic tradition dating back six centuries. The full name of the Lake is Taupo-nui-a-Tia. The meaning is “The Great Garment of Tia.”
This Tia, as the late Te Heuheu Tukino and other elders of the Ngati-Tuwharetoa and Arawa tribes told me many years ago, was one of the Polynesian chiefs who came to our shores from Tahiti in the canoe Arawa. He, like the priest and high chief Ngatoroirangi, explored the interior of the North Island. As he travelled along the eastern coast of the great central lake, he saw above the pumice-strewn beach at one point a curiously-marked lava cliff. Its configuration and colouring seemed to him to resemble the shoulder garment he wore, a rough cape called a “taupo” (the word is now obsolete), consisting of leaves of flax, some yellow and some black, attached to an inner woven mat, making a rainshedding outer garment. Below the strangely-marked cliff he halted to make obeisance, like a pious Polynesian, to the spirit of the place, the soul of these vast impressive solitudes into which he was travelling. He recited the prayers considered needful to propitiate the local deities, and he set up a post as a place of sacrifice, and incantation. To this post he fastened his “taupo” mat and left it there, and having thus paid his respects to the soul of wild Nature, he trudged on southward with his party on their pioneering way.
From this incident came the name of the place, Taupo-nui-a-Tia, which in course of time acquired a wider significance and was applied to the whole lake. Those volcanic cliffs famed in old tradition are near the site of the village Hamaria (Samaria, a missionary-era name), nearly opposite Motu-taiko, the island off the eastern coast of the lake.
They are vertical bluffs of a very regular columnar lava rock, varicoloured. The Austrian geologist, Dr. Hochstetter, passed along the beach there on his exploring journey seventy-five years ago, and he observed the peculiar formation and colouring of the cliffs and described them in his book on New Zealand. The Maoris call the place the “tino” of Taupo, the exact spot from which the lake derives its name.
Very few of the wise old men are left. Here and there in a little kainga a venerable survivor of the wars and the vanished bush life remains to tell the story of his fighting youth and repeat the chants of war and peace with which his mind is stored. Just now I recall an admirable old type of the past; a man who was both warrior and sage—Tauke, of Taranaki, who died in 1916. I like to think of that “elder statesman,” as he was in his little world; his face and figure are before me now in memory's eye. It was in 1904 that I first met him; a relative of his took me to greet him in his village at Hokorima, on the famous Waimate Plains.
Tauke's home was in the most beautiful part of all Taranaki. Around were grassy fields and the sociably close-grouped dwellings of his clan. Above, on the north, framed like a picture between two soft green spires of foliage, rose noble Egmont, Tauke's sacred Taranaki, swelling up from the purple-hazed forests, up in glorious massive lines of rest into a silver spearhead eight thousand feet above the plains. On the green marae in front of Tauke's house we found the old man sitting, with a coloured blanket girt about his waist, his white head bare, white as Egmont's top. He was poring over the ecstatic visions of the Dreamer, in the “Whakakitenga,” or Revelations, in a fifty-year old copy of the Maori Bible. The old man laid his book aside and took off his glasses when we came up and greeted him.
He looked the mystic that he was, with his patriarchal beard, and his deep penetrating eyes peering out from under white-bushy buttresses of brows. One of his hands was scarred and mutilated; the thumb and part of a finger missing. “That happened at Te Morere,” said Tauke.
The ancient man was a type of the strongly patriotic Maoris, fervent to the point of fanaticism, who presented a stubborn front to the pakeha on the West Coast from 1860 onward. He was steeped in warrior ways from his earliest youth. He was born in captivity; his parents were taken away to Waikato in one of the cannibal raids of the period 1820–1830. When peace returned, he and many of his people were liberated, and they returned to Taranaki.
As a young man he was one of the Taranaki chiefs who went to Waikato to share in the uplifting of Te Whero-whero Potatau—his old hereditary enemy—as the first King of the Maoris, and he was at Ngaruawahia, the royal camp, when the Taranaki War began in 1860. Hurrying back to his tribe, he was in time to fight against the Imperial and Colonial Forces at the battle of Waireka, where the New Plymouth settlers for the first time met their Maori neighbours in combat.
(By “
Play Boy
Everybody, and especially everybody in the world of sport, is proud to be an “old friend” of Mr. J. W. Heenan, who has just recovered from his severe illness and operation to be greeted with the welcome news of his promotion to the responsible but congenial post of Under-Secretary for Internal Affairs.
Mr. Heenan attended Mt. Cook school and Wellington College, and completed his law course at Victoria College. With his native enthusiasm for sport and inspired by the wonderful sporting record of Mt. Cook school in the 'nineties (it produced such heroes as Billy Wallace and Billy Woodger) he naturally played football and ran races; but he cheerfully admits he never reached champion standard; it is as a lover, judge, and administrator of football, amateur athletics and boxing that he has made his mark upon the tablets of New Zealand sport.
His knowledge of all these sports is encyclopaedic and his wonderful memory has made his mind a record of all the stirring feats and matches of his generation. He cemented friendships with virtually all the visiting athletes and sportsmen of his time, and is a mine of stories relating to all the world champions. His burly figure and rugged features are as well known at Trentham as at Athletic Park, and one is sure that he looks on the many constitutions and rules he has drafted for racing and sports bodies as a prouder monument to his legislative skill than all the Bills he has drafted during his career as Parliamentary Draftsman.
The “Railways Magazine” congratulates him warmly and sincerely on the latest recognition of his merit and on his return as Head to the Department he entered many years ago as a cadet. We have indeed a personal reason for our pleasure, since it is to Mr. Heenan that we owe the suggestion that the very column in which this note is printed be incorporated in the Magazine. The appropriate title, “Panorama of the Playground,” is his, and, if the nom-de-plume “Playboy” is not entirely his, this is so only because his illness, now happily past, compelled it. We have grounds for hoping that New Zealand's gain will not be the Magazine's loss, and that Mr. Heenan will continue to direct, inspire, and enlighten these pages.
A quite remarkable coincidence attended the drawing of the stumps at the end of the 1934–35 competition in each of the four centres this year. In each the competition was very close the result depending upon the fortunes of the last match. In three centres the first and winning team compiled a reasonably good total on the first day and left the losing team a fighting chance on a somewhat poorer wicket on the second day. These losing teams all gave a more or less disappointing display, redeemed in each case by only one feature—a stern fight by one batsman to rise superior to adverse fortunes and conditions and hit off the necessary runs to snatch victory for his side.
In Auckland, Bob Steho was the hero, and his 48 represented a much better performance than the figures indicate. Digging himself in after his earlier comrades failed, he showed that he could find the boundary even with the featherweight bat he insists on using, in spite of expert advice. In Wellington, the youthful ex-Otago all-rounder, Moloney, made 103 in a great innings, inspiring for its courage and determination. In Christchurch, Charley Oliver did equally well with his 162, displaying a great variety of scoring strokes and, in the latter part of the innings, banging the ball to all parts of the field. M'Mullan, in Dunedin, made only 40, but his, too, was a dogged display given when all seemed lost and raising the hopes and cheers of the spectators.
Such efforts to turn defeat into victory are among the most stimulating features of the old game, and it is pleasing to record these and also to remind you that Steho and Oliver are Railwaymen.
The season was rather a lean one in each of the four centres. Despite the wonderful weather, no outstanding innings was recorded, the bowling lacked distinction and the fielding, taken on the whole, was poor. A ray of hope comes from the country districts, particularly perhaps Hawke's Bay and Taranaki, where the average of the play is distinctly higher than of old, and the play of the locally nurtured cricketers shows that to acquire free batting style and sound, accurate bowling free from body-line tactics, it is no longer necessary to learn one's cricket at an English university. I am afraid that even that good sport D. Blundell will, on this year's play, have to admit that there is something in this latter contention. Earlier in the season, Mark Nicholls promised to shine equally well as a batsman-wicket-keeper, as he did as a five-eighths, but the hopes faded and the younger half-back, Tindall, is still the star candidate for the batsman-wicket-keeper position in a New Zealand team.
Now that Time cries “Over” and white flannels leave the green, the whistle is blowing for a strenuous season for the striped jerseys, and a harder one still to follow for the “All Black” ones.
I did not see the victorious Poverty Bay team of last season that downed the colours of Hawke's Bay (Ranfurly Shield holders), and gladdened the heart of their selector, “Shag” Thomas, ex-Petoneite and now in the Railway District Office at Gisborne. I saw, however, most of the other provincial teams playing, and also watched club matches in the various centres, and was not surprised at the somewhat inglorious display of the New Zealand team in Australia, nor am I hopeful of the prospects of the coming tour.
The most disheartening feature of present day football is the lack of “football brains” among the inside backs. This was noticeable in club games everywhere last year. Wellington club football was certainly the best in this respect, but this best was a long way behind the Wellington standard of the previous year, which showed such promise that even men over fifty admitted it was hopeful. Outside Wellington the only senior club that showed a glimmering of the proper piercing strategy was the Otahuhu club in Auckland, coached by railwayman Pat O'Hara. While here I must mention that the Mt. Albert Grammar School team in Auckland is being coached by someone who knows how the inside game should be played. While inside back play was disheartening in club football, it was atrocious in the representative games. Not since that terrible display by the New Zealand team against Australia in Auckland, when the referee and Bush saved New Zealand with penalty goals, has such a low-water mark been reached as in the first spell of the Wellington-Auckland game last year. One could understand our “All Blacks” being off colour in that game so soon after their return from Australia, but the display of Kilby, Lilburne, Page and party was beyond all excuses. However, the game did encompass one good object
I spoke of playing oneself into the New Zealand team. There are many rumours afloat that it cannot be done unless one plays for the right club team. Joe Dellabarca, the Eastbourne fisherman forward, is an instance in support of the rumour. In the Wellington representative team this player has eclipsed all records ever attained by any forward in New Zealand (and by very few backs) as a dangerous scoring man. He has averaged better than one try per match, and his tries were achieved by honest-to-goodness hard work and almost miraculous (for a hard-working forward) speed and dash, with such sense of anticipation of play as is rare in any player. His try from a break-away at half-way in the Canterbury match, when he outpaced Hart and Co., will surely long remain as one of the great tries of history, certainly I have never seen such a try scored by any other forward. The tries he has paved the way for and handed over on a plate for some of his heavier waiting (very much “waiting” in many cases) conferees to score are more numerous than his own. But Dellabarca, an All Black if ever there was one, cannot play himself even into a North Island team. The fact that Fuller of the same club cannot play himself out of one seems to prove that club influence is not the prevailing factor. Personally, I put it down to the fact that the majority of the selectors were bullocking forwards of the over 14 stone in weight type when they played football.
The only other outstanding feature of last season's play was the devastating attack of Smith, the Hawke's Bay wing three-quarter. Why one should connect him with “bodyline bowling” in cricket is not altogether clear. His play, though fierce to a degree, was absolutely clean and fair as far as one could judge from the line. Certainly it was just as pitiless and effective as “bodyline bowling” proved at Adelaide.
However, we must wait for the tests!
Wit And Humour
When Lord Ranfurly was Governor of New Zealand his official duties called for much travelling and contact with local and other authorities in every part of the Dominion. It is recalled that one evening in Feilding he looked wistfully along a road that seemed to stretch into infinity. “What is at the end of that road?” he asked of a bystander. “Kimbolton,” was the answer. “Oh,” said Lord Ranfurly; and then, “Has it got a Mayor and Borough Council?”
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The holiday train was crowded. In one coach was a woman accompanied by a little girl and a boy. The children were full of high spirits and gambolled through the coach, much to the annoyance of other passengers. Finally one could stand it no longer.
“Madam,” she said, “if you can't keep your children quiet I shall lodge a complaint.”
The mother sighed.
“Your misfortunes don't compare with mine,” she replied. “My little girl has just swallowed our tickets, the boy has broken a coach window, I've left my purse at home, and we're on the wrong train.”—From “The Santa Fe Magazine.”
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A tramp entering the gates of a suburban villa knelt down on the lawn and began to eat the grass. The old lady who lived in the villa, noticing the pathetic performance, came out on to the doorstep and said: “My good man, are you so hungry that you are obliged to eat grass?”
“Yes, ma'am,” replied the tramp.
“Oh, dear!” said the lady. “Come round to the kitchen door, the grass is longer there.”
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Manager: “Vot? You come into zees famous restaurant, drink ze glass of water, an' zen walk calmly out!”
Scot: “Hoot, mon! Did you expect me to stagger oot?”
That a certain young man is wise beyond his years was proved when he paused before answering a widow who had asked him to guess her age.
“You must have some idea,” she said.
“I have several ideas,” said the young man, with a smile. “The only trouble is that I hesitate whether to make you ten years younger on account of your looks, or ten years older on account of your intelligence.”
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Old man Cohen placed a ladder against the side of the house, then called his son, Abie, aged seven, and after some difficulty got the boy to mount to the top. “Now jump,” commanded Cohen.
“I'm frightened,” said Abie.
Cohen stood underneath, holding out his arms. “Do as papa tells you—jump, papa is here.”
Abie finally did jump. Cohen stepped aside and Abie fell with something of a bump.
“Let that teach you a lesson,” said Cohen, “never to trust anybody!”
The twins had been brought to be christened.
“What names?” asked the clergyman.
“Steak and Kidney,” the father replied.
“Bill!” cried the mother, “it's Kate and Sydney.
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Three deaf old gentlemen were in a railway carriage on the way to London.
The one nearest the carriage window looked out when the train came to a standstill.
“It's Wembley,” he said.
The second man shook his head.
“No, it's Thursday,” he replied.
“Thirsty?” said the third deaf man.
“So am I. Let's all get out and have a drink.”
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“H-How m-much is th that old c-car?” inquired the man who entered the garage.
The garage owner surveyed it thoughtfully. “Make me an offer,” he said.
The man who stuttered inspected the wreck. “I'll g-give you t-t-tw—”.
The garage owner grew impatient. “I'll take it. Twelve pounds.”
“G-Good!” said the other. “I was t-t-trying to say t-t-twenty.”
The Busy Life.
“What day av the week is it Mick?”
“Why, Wednesday, av coourse!”
“Hauly schmoke! I'll have to hurry!—I t'ought it was Toosday.”
Variety In Brief
A Hardy pioneer, of Toko, Taranaki, Mr. D. Maxwell, has sent the following note, recalling days lang syne, to the writer of the “Famous New Zealanders” series regarding the late Professor Macmillan Brown:—
“Your articles on New Zealand generally touch me at some point—someone I have known. But you have followed me to Scotland. I was playing marbles with Professor Macmillan Brown at the Irvine Academy in 1855.”
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It is popularly supposed that New Zealand was discovered by Tasman in 1642. Learned historians have suggested that Juan Fernandez anticipated Tasman and touched on New Zealand during a voyage in 1576; but even Fernandez is put out of the running if a note I encountered the other day in an old volume of the Transactions and Proceedings of the New Zealand Institute has any basis in fact. This note, to be found in a paper read before the Otago Institute in 1870, states that the Editor of “The English Mechanic,” answering a correspondent in the issue for December 3, 1869, p. 279, pointed out that in various Arabic geographical works of the 13th and 14th centuries, which are to be found in the main libraries of Vienna and Paris, there are references to New Zealand as “a very large and mountainous country in the farthest Southern Ocean, beyond and far south-east of Ray (Borneo), and Bartailie (New Guinea), and as being uninhabited by man, and containing nothing but gigantic birds known as the ‘Seemoah’.” It would be interesting to have a look at those old Arabic books. So far as I know there are no copies of them in New Zealand. The reference to the gigantic birds was obviously inspired by the moa. In the old days, of course, the Arabs were the geographers of the world and intrepid explorers.—D.J.C.
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Greece has been slower in railway development than any other country of the Old World, with the possible exception of Persia. At the dawn of the Twentieth Century the railway had secured only a slight foothold in the Hellenes; there were not more than 700 miles in operation. Whilst the construction of the steel way was pushed forward with all haste in practically every country, to bring the respective capitals into overland touch with each other, railway communication with Athens was not established until the year 1916! The reason for this backwardness is somewhat inscrutable, but after taking into account the mountainous character of the country, it is generally recognised that political perplexities, peculiar to the Balkan States, played a more important part in scaring away the capital necessary for railway construction.—Pohutu.
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For several years past it has been the custom of the United Friendly Societies of Dannevirke to organise an annual railway excursion from that town to Napier. By most residents, and especially by those school children less fortunately situated in regard to holidays, the event is eagerly anticipated as a welcome relief from the inevitable hum-drum of life in a provincial town. Business people declare a general holiday, and the town presents a deserted appearance when the two heavily passengered trains have left for Napier. For most, the seaside presents the greatest attraction, while all with an eye for exquisite beauty will pause a while to contemplate the charming layout of the Marine Parade. The return trains are packed with tired but happy people, and small children doze over pleasant reminiscences of bathing in the brilliant sun of the “Nice of the Pacific.” As one lad was heard to remark on alighting at Dannevirke, “Gee, but it was great riding in on them big breakers.”
Perhaps not a few of the more seriously inclined think of the troublous times, four years ago, when Dannevirke lodged and fed its quota of a thousand refugees from the north. So she stood by Napier in her hour of need. And so each year as January draws to its close does Napier stand by Dannevirke in its need of the health-giving tang and pure air of the sea.—“Alpha.”
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Although it is seventeen years since the Great War ended, the New Zealand soldiers who were stationed at Bulford have not been forgotten. The New Zealand soldiers cut in the chalk on Salisbury Plain a huge kiwi, and recently some English soldiers were employed in removing the turf which had grown over it. Other regimental badges there of English forces have not received the same careful attention as the New Zealand one, and they will soon be completely obliterated if steps are not taken to preserve them.—F.D.T.