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The New Zealand Railways Magazine is on sale through the principal booksellers, or may be obtained post-free for 6/- per annum.
Employees of the Railway Department are invited to forward news items or articles bearing on railway affairs. The aim of contributors should be to supply interesting topical material tending generally towards the betterment of the service.
In all cases where the Administration makes announcements through the medium of this Journal the fact will be clearly indicated.
The Department does not identify itself with any opinions which may be expressed in other portions of the publication, whether appearing over the author's name or under a nom de plume.
Contributions are accepted for publication only upon the express condition that the contributor will indemnify the Publishers of the Magazine against all claims made by reason of anything in the contribution constituting an infringement of copyright or being defamatory.
Short stories, poetry, pen-and-ink sketches, etc., are invited from the general public upon New Zealand subjects.
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I hereby certify that the publisher's lists and other records disclose that the circulation of the “New Zealand Railways Magazine” has not been less than 25,000 copies each issue since May, 1939.
Controller and Auditor-General. 29/1/40.
Every land puts its own particular brand on its inhabitants. In this sense the land makes the people, not only on the physical plane, but also on the mental and moral. So we have the Welsh noted for eloquence, the Irish for wit, the Scotch for pertinacity, and the English for “getting there.”
If New Zealanders have any particular quality for which they have to thank their country, it is a kind of physical and spiritual toughness that makes them formidable in any field of endeavour. This toughness is compounded of many elements which only their own land can provide.
The comparative isolation of New Zealand has developed an independence of action and outlook not possible in countries separated from their neighbours by only a slight distance or an imaginary border line.
The long coast-line and the comparative closeness of every part of New Zealand to the sea has also given our people a sea-sense that makes us all swimmers or navigators in our pastime hours. Then the numbers and height of our mountains make a constant challenge to youth, and climbing and physical fitness clubs flourish from Auckland to the Bluff.
The same toughness that makes New Zealanders the longest-lived people in the world, also makes them capable of protracted studies and a quick recovery from strenuous effort of any kind.
How else could one account for the tremendous labours of a scientist like Rutherford? Nurtured in the richest of New Zealand air, sprung from enterprising and experimenting English stock, tutored under the constantly healthy conditions that only New Zealand can offer, and encouraged by the freedom which only this country can bestow, Rutherford's subsequent sojourns, first in England, then in Canada, and again in England, were marked by a resilience of physique and mentality that made him the wonder of his peers. He lived in a period when physicists were both numerous and brilliant; but he excelled them all by that one characteristic which made him master of them all—a toughness he owed to the land of his birth.
Other influences, besides those of climate and the physical configuration and setting of the land, have gone to the making of the greatness of the keymen who, in turn, have made New Zealand great.
Our country started soundly. It was peopled by a native race exceptional in physique, and in moral and mental endowment. It was discovered, in the modern sense, by the greatest of British exploring navigators. It was stocked by an exceptionally fine selection of emigrants from the British Isles. It has been fortunate in its succession of Governors and Governors-General, from Captain Hobson to Lord Galway, and in its succession of Premiers and Prime Ministers from Henry Sewell to the Rt. Hon. M. J. Savage.
But, above all, New Zealand has excelled as a land of opportunity. Free and compulsory education has given every child a chance in life; and, from the earliest days, the brilliant student, whatever the financial circumstances of his parents, has had his path made easy through High School to University, and thence to positions of importance and influence in the affairs of the country.
The land has lent itself to development, and has been made immensely productive under the fairest and securest system of land tenure.
And through it all the people have maintained a constant faith in themselves and in each other, akin to the knightly faith of the Middle Ages. They have sought and found adventure in every avenue of human endeavour, from the splitting of the atom and the transmutation of the elements to the human battlefields of Europe, Africa and the East.
And wherever they have gone, or whatever they have attempted, that national characteristic of toughness has stood them in good stead, when the last charge or the last ounce of energy was demanded.
During the past month there have been several developments indicating the further spread of a spirit of co-operation in the transport industry. Within the service we were faced with a major problem when exceptional rainfall caused slips and flooding on some of our principal lines in both the North and South Islands at a time of maximum passenger and goods traffic. All members of the staff in the affected areas worked strenuously and cheerfully in a spirit of true co-operation to repair the damaged track and to restore normal working of trains, and they did their best to minimise the inevitable inconvenience and discomfort caused to our passengers on such occasions. A party of the Hauraki Regiment of territorials who were held up at Taumarunui did yeoman service in assisting to clear the line, and their help was gratefully appreciated by all ranks in the service. The Department appreciates the effective co-operation of all concerned on this occasion, also the good spirit in which travellers accepted the conditions imposed by the unavoidable delay.
I found the same co-operative attitude amongst members of the New Zealand Carriers Federation whom I met at their recent annual conference. In the capacity of an executive entrusted with carrying out the Government's policy as laid down by the Hon. D. G. Sullivan, Minister of Railways, I was able to assure them that the Department was with them 100 per cent, in any plans evolved to further rationalise transport, conserve supplies and avoid waste.
Another evidence of co-operation is seen in the Group Travel Association formed recently in the South Island by travel and accommodation interests to avoid overlapping of effort, and to secure the best conditions and lowest feasible rates for those parties travelling for physical welfare, educational and recreational purposes. With this movement the Department is now officially associated.
Most important of all is co-operation, between every section of the transport industry, in the country's war effort, to ensure the maximum of efficiency in meeting every transportation requirement. To this end the principal efforts of the Railways are now directed.
General Manager.
At the New York World Fair there was a transparent motorcar, of which the fenders, hood, and body panels were all of glass. This was an ultra-modern development of the slogan of the glass industry, “See What You Buy!”
It is quite impossible to imagine twentieth century civilisation without this “hard, brittle, transparent substance, compound of silica and an alkali” as the dictionary explains.
But away beyond its utilitarian values for housewife and packer, glass has been one of the beauty-bringers to mankind, and its path of shining glory winds through our history for thousands of years. In the many temples of the arts, and I include in these the New Zealand Centennial Exhibition, folks stand entranced before exquisite examples of craftsmanship in glass. There are exquisite specimens dating back at least two thousand six hundred years, and even in Roman times, the accepted legend gave the Phoenicians the credit for the first glass receptacles. Egyptian tombs held glass amphorae with delicate and intricate designs in colour, and many of us know Waterford glass, with its crystalline brilliancy, and the charm of Bohemian, Muranese, and Venetian ware.
Few of us know, however, that New Zealanders have created notable examples of stained-glass windows, etched, and sandblasted glass panels, and that we make a wide range of glass containers, from the tiny one-ounce medicine bottle to the fullblown quart bottle of good cheer.
By O. N. Gillespie
(Rly. Publicity photos.)
I Remember, some years ago, standing on a green height of the North Auckland peninsula, and watching a white-winged scow passing deep-set in the blue water. “That's loaded with North Cape sand for the Auckland Glass Works,” someone said. I little thought that one day I would see that glittering freight piled up in miniature mountains in the storage shed of a company that was daily turning it into thousands of bottles.
This fine white sand is the ideal medium for glass-making, and constitutes, of course, the main raw material for this industry. The Auckland Glass Company is one of the largest of the great factory plants that line the wide Great South Road out of Auckland, and it keeps well over 300 New Zealanders in work, a substantial proportion of them heads of families. The equipment is the last word in modernity, and the daily output enormous. I found that the first process in the making of glass was mixing. Glass is really a silicate, and a number of other substances are used with the original sand and alkali to get various degrees of colour, ranges of tint, and types of composition. Potash, iron oxide, alumina, soda, lime and other ingredients are weighed with precision on automatic machines, and the conveying to the furnace is managed by a gigantic hopper installation. I noticed also that an ingenious travelling hopper system, devised on the spot, managed the movement of the materials, thus saving much carrying on human backs.
The compound, when finally settled, is fed into a mammoth furnace. One of the serious problems in a glass factory is to get materials sufficiently heatresisting for the walls of this sizeable volcano which maintains a temperature of no less than 2,665 degrees Fahrenheit. A peep through the door into the glowing, coruscating mass is an awe-inspiring sight.
The Auckland Glass Company makes the whole range of bottles from the poison container of opaque pleated blue to the wide-mouthed jam-jar, from the tiny, neat one-ounce medicine bottle to the brown-tinged familiar container for a quart of good cheer. There will be no war famine in “empties” this time, for this great Auckland establishment works at high speed. One-ounce medicine bottles pour out of one machine at the rate of 50 every minute.
The actual making of glass bottles is performed to-day by a collection of uncanny, complicated machines, armed with countless devices which operate with more than human precision, but seem somehow to have their own uncanny intelligence. Long ago, a bottle was “blown” from the end of a tube, as many of us will remember from those exciting visits we made to the tents of glass-blowers at shows.
The demands of mass production have altogether altered the technique. The glass, in molten liquid form, glides down by gravitation, and pours into moulds. These are on circular turntables which go endlessly round, a notch at a time. At a given point, the mould turns upside down, and air is blown in at the precise pressure needful to line the wall of the mould with a coating of glass of the requisite thickness. A plunger makes the hole at the top.
Then another turntable comes into action, the mould rights itself, and finally the bottle sets off on a conveyer track to the annealing furnaces. These are tremendously long ovens of the tunnel variety. “Lehr” is the technical term, and the bottles as they travel on the long conveyer pass through a slowlyrising and then a slowly-falling temperature. I should mention that, as is natural in an age-old industry such as this, there is a distinctive language. For instance,
The temperature is an important question in glass-making, and the shine on certain vessels is got by the skilful use of varying heats.
Jam-jars, with their wide orifices, are made in precisely the same way, and everywhere there is the same feeling of automatic fingers, and sagacious wheels, all moving with the wizardry of mechanical workmanship.
Colour in glass, of course, is a matter of certain chemical ingredients, and I watched the blue poison-bottle materials flooding into their fluted moulds. Naturally, in a factory of the imposing size of the Auckland Glass Company, the army of moulds of various sizes and shapes is immense, but the general principle of bottle-making is the same throughout all variations.
By the way, the natural colour of glass carries, in its transparency, a faint green tinge.
A week could be spent in this forest of giant machines, but there is a limit to any layman's capacity for absorbing explanations of what these superhuman mechanisms are actually doing. The interminable storehouse streets of newly-made bottles are the witnesses to the efficiency of this New Zealand factory and the magnitude of its daily output.
A last surprise awaited us. This was the packing department. The Auckland Glass Company has its own complete plant for making the familiar corrugated cardboard containers. Machines, with heavy creasing rollers, take care of long sheets of this material, and groove it ready for bending at the right angles. The output is not confined to the familiar nests for bottles, for this company makes all the containers for the whole apple crop of New Zealand. Here, also, I saw the three-wheeled Scammel truck which turns in a ridiculously confined space. One of its uses is to convey the rejected bottles for re-melting. The most rigorous tests are constantly in use for flaws, water-marks, and any tiny fault. The smallest blemish means that the reject finds its way back to the furnace to join the molten river again.
The big staff of the Auckland Glass Company is predominantly male, and last year no fewer than four of its members were in the Rugby League touring team that went abroad, which must be a record for one company. This company is a national institution and a cause for just national pride.
The uses of glass are increasing in the world of to-day, and we are promised all-glass houses, roads and countless other things. I was amazed to find the great number of New Zealand secondary industries occupied in making articles from glass. I was astonished to find that New Zealand had a host of craftsmen dealing in the modern applications of glass, both on the utilitarian and decorative sides of our lives.
I have stood with crowds admiring the ancient loveliness of glass garlands, coloured tapestries and gay rosettes of jewels all fashioned from glass, and other manifestations of wonder in vase and bowl and chalice. Mark Twain said, in the way usual with him which conceals a serious meaning under a laughing screen, that he reckoned the students, copying the Old Masters were improving on the originals. Thus I agreed, when looking at the displays in two Wellington city shops, that modern glass-work with its pure simplicity of design, its fine line and delicate colours, and its grace and symmetry, is somehow more satisfying to our eyes. I did not know, however, that these art objects were conceived by New Zealand artists and fashioned by New Zealand craftsmen.
The first example I shall use is the mirror. No household article of decoration has changed in fashion as much as the mirror.
I visited the Wanganui Glass Company's premises first, for I am always pleased to find a flourishing industry in a provincial centre like that pleasant river city.
The making of a mirror under modern
New Zealand uses the hot method; the silvering bench is a cloth-covered large slab, maintained by steam heat at a fixed temperature. The glass is first treated with a thin solution of tin chloride, and then again with liquid silver nitrate and precipitate. This trio, together with the warmth generated by the table itself, produces the fixation of the mirror surface behind the glass. As the glass lies flat on the table, the deep film of liquid can be easily seen.
To keep it absolutely level, the operator skilfully fixes tiny wedges, and, as we watch, the surface goes black, and slowly returns to dull white. Carefully turned over, the glass shows the mirror shining clear. Backing of a shellac varnish is put on first, and then a paint. At a temperature of between 70 and 80 degrees F., a mirror is made in twenty minutes. The old-time cold process took three or four days. There is endless polishing with felt pads and chamois leathers, and the experts who do this work handle everything with scientific precision and meticulous care.
I also looked through the mirror-making plant of Smith & Smith's in Wellington. This firm was established in 1870, has four factories in New Zealand, and a long heritage of experience of local needs.
We all remember the plain mirror with its wooden frame, usually square, but now and again breaking into the impressive originality of oval or oblong. To-day the frameless mirror riots in a bewildering variety of design, of bevel, and mitre and embossed ornament, and lends lustre and dignity to any room.
I found at both establishments visited, modern production plants for converting the plain sheets of glass into this multitude of beautiful things.
First of all, the preliminary steps fall into four; the rough bevelling is done with a cast-iron wheel with carborundum edges; then the powdery edge, rather rough and milk white in colour is smoothed by a special stone “fine flow” spinning wheel; then, a still finer grain stone is used (coming only from Edinburgh), and finally disc wheels of willow wood carrying polishing powder are set to work. Willow is the only wholly satisfactory timber because of its softness and absorbent qualities. The final touches are given by rouge, and both at Wanganui and Wellington rouge is much in evidence.
The cutting of mitres and deep bevels is done by upright wheels of many types, and, of course, the element of personal skill enters largely.
At Wanganui, for instance, there is an émigré craftsman who does miracles of artistry in intaglio work, embossing, and other ornamental work of high aesthetic value. In the words of Smith & Smith's manager, also, “we can do, in New Zealand, anything at all in glass.”
The layman is familiar with the delicate grace of white cameo-like designs in modern windows, doors and panels. These are done by the new sand-blast process. The impact of the sand works at the back of the glass, and any effect can be got from filagree arabesques to masses of cloud effects.
Obviously the depth of the routingout can be varied infinitely by the sandblast method, and fairy-like nuances of line and shadow produced.
Modernistic design suits glass work. By means of colouring at the back of the glass, lovely effects are got, and there is no limit to the play of an artist's fancy. I saw in the display at a Manners Street shop, a noble picture in glass of Hobson and a Maori chieftain, a jewel-like bluebird flying across the top of a leadlight mirror apparently part of the glass scene, and at Smith & Smith's I saw feminine figures of entrancing perfection apparently swimming through the glass in silhouette.
The harmonious perfection of the panels and doors of the Wellington Railway Station is the work of the Wanganui Glass Company, and the list could be extended indefinitely.
Etching is also a process that has added to the possibilities of art work in glass. I found also that leadlight production was in a high state of development
The coloured glass is cut to suit the designs which are drawn in pattern books, and I did not realise how many widely differing kinds of glass existed until I saw the serried rows of samples at Wanganui. The vast store-room at Smith & Smith's is another sight of educational value.
These planned and progressive institutions make it possible to claim that in the use of glass for harmonising and enriching the beauty of our homes and buildings, New Zealand is not lagging behind world movements.
The crowning glory of glass art work is the stained window. It will be news to many readers that fine stained-glass windows are designed and fabricated in New Zealand. There is no need any more to import these precious additions to the dignity and charm of our sacred or secular public buildings.
The processes are most intricate. The stained-glass window is a painting in and not on glass. The pigments are fused into the very substance of the glass itself, and are kiln baked. Noble effects are got by the uses of depths in the etchings. Often times, as in the case of a serene saint's face, or slender blessing hands, the etching is on one side and the pigment on the other. Often, the pigment is on both sides of the glass. Antique glass has to be used for much of the composition of background and surroundings, because of its surpassing depth of colour. The artificer is aware all the time that the colours have to permit of light transfusing them. Smith & Smith's have contributed much to the beauty of windows in New Zealand. At the Maori Memorial Church at Kara-kura on the East Coast, there is a three-light window which is worth a special journey to see. It is an allegorical representation of the Western Front with the Crucifixion in the background. The Maori soldiers in the foreground were beloved lads of the district and their lineaments have been caught with photographic reality. Maori mats with their traditional meanings of history have been expressed in glass with exact fidelity, and the well-known Good Samaritan window at St. John's Presbyterian Church, Wellington, is a monument to the artistic craftsmanship of New Zealanders in this difficult medium.
I do not recall any journey through industry in my year's steady pilgrimage, that gave me more pride than this series of visits to the places engaged in glass-work. Beauty and usefulness join hands here in helping New Zealand's destiny towards a fuller and lovelier life.
A Railway transport record was established during the recent severe floods in the North Island, when the Taumarunui railway staff, at very short notice, transported in one day nearly 4,000 passengers and their luggage by road, a distance of ten miles. Connection between Auckland and Wellington express trains was thus maintained and the traffic kept open between the two terminal cities.
When news of the unfortunate flood and the slip on the Main Trunk Line was received by the railway officials at Taumarunui every man in the service, from the stationmaster downward, put energy into the huge task that confronted them and worked like Trojans without thought of how the clock went around. At least two of the head officials were on their feet for a period of sixty hours continuously and, with a smile at the finish, said they were still fit. The same remarks apply to the refreshment room staff. As soon as the manageress heard there was a slip on the line she called the local bakers and pastrycooks from their beds to get busy among the dough; and a local milkman had to be co-opted to see that milk came to hand in ample quantity. Had they not to cater for hungry men and women in numbers greater than ever before? What a job of work it was! But the girls—like the men—gave of their best to render satisfactory service. Before the job was over some of the girls were nodding their heads over their work, but the manageress, good general that she was, urged them on with the words, “only one more train.”
And what wonderful service was rendered by the passengers themselves! Men, women and children, how philosophic they were, treating the temporary delays and inconveniences as a great adventure for, after all, they were not so badly off as the poor refugees in Europe. There was, perhaps, a chronic grumbler, but that kind of person is to be found in all walks of life. However, the great majority of the passengers expected to rough it a little and they sat on their handbags cheering themselves with the thought that they were having an extra bus ride for their money and would have some exciting things to talk about when they reached home.
Moreover, there were the taxi drivers, motor truck owners and the bus proprietors, to say nothing of the many owners of private cars who offered their services to the department.
The only food that the taxi drivers had time for was an odd cup of tea and a biscuit handed to them while on the job. It was the taxi men's job to pay particular attention to the elderly women. If these helpers had been doing service for the Allies in the effort to win the war they could not have been more enthused with their work.
On the day after the flood no fewer than fourteen express trains arrived, and five of them from Auckland were in the yards at one time. It meant that upwards of 2,000 persons from the five trains had to be fed and transported as quickly as possible by road for ten miles and then transferred to trains that were arriving from the south. But this was not all. There were the luggage vans to empty from five expresses and the luggage transported by road in like manner and transferred to the luggage vans down the line. What a job! At one time the thousands of bags and parcels, when piled up, nearly reached the roof of the station. Yet everything went off without a hitch. It simply shows what trained officers can do when it comes to special organisation for a great emergency such as this.
One aspect of the flood is that it has been responsible for bringing Taumarunui into prominence as a railway centre. Few outside of the railway service would dream of the remarkable development that has taken place in this fern and tea-tree swamp of a few years ago. Who knows, for instance, that it is at Taumarunui where thirty to forty engines of all types come for a Sunday rest. It is here, too, where the big express engines are changed while passengers are resting their heads on pillows oblivious of the safety-first work that is being done on their behalf. All they know of it is the music of the tapper as he goes his round tapping the wheels, and the steaming of the engines past their windows before the gentle bump tells them the train is ready once more to carry them into the dark of the night like passengers in the Ghost Train!
Mr. E. C. Brown was the first station-master appointed at Taumarunui, and he is still alive. In June, 1904, he was
What an extraordinary change in thirty-six years! Contrasting yesterday with to-day we find now that Taumarunui boasts of a stationmaster (Mr. M. L. Bracefield), a chief clerk, a clerical staff of twenty, two foremen, twenty-two guards, nine shunters, thirty-one porters, three signalmen, and one store-man, while in the locomotive department, under the charge of Mr. T. A. Edwards, there is a running staff of ninety-seven and a fitting staff of ten. There are in all 43 engines in the district and, normally, no fewer than 44 trains come and go every day in Taumarunui, and from eight to ten specials may be added to that number in busy times. For the three days following the recent flood no less than 14,500 tons of goods traffic was handled in Taumarunui yards. To-day there are 67 railway houses in Taumarunui and there is a population of railway servants and their families numbering between 500 and 600. Taking in the maintenance branch of the service the population of railway servants and their familes in the district would total round about 1,000. The Taumarunui railway station is open day and night for the whole twenty-four hours, and the refreshment room, with a staff of fourteen, gives almost continuous service.
The extraordinary growth of the railway service and business at the chief town of the Central King Country is strangely marked by the growth of the historic totara tree near the old Maori pa. This tree should be preserved as a land-mark. The notice board on the tree at one time read: “This tree was planted by Puia, the father of Manuaute, as a token of the promise of safe
custody to Mr. H. Rochfort and his party of surveyors who were blazing the track of the Main Trunk Railway.” Puia little thought when the tree was planted that its growth would coincide with the rapid development of railway business in a centre which then was but a rough-clad pumice flat among the hills.
(Continued from p. 53.)
It is significant that few really important matters are completed over the wire. Few men would risk a proposal by this method. For one thing a suitor would probably find when it was all over and he was wiping the perspiration off his brow, that he had been on the wrong number; and, even supposing he was on the right number and drew the lucky marble—well, ask yourself! At such times the point is inevitably reached when the voice is practically superfluous.
Jiltings are different, and the telephone is probably the ideal instrument for severing foregone conclusions. A jilting must go with a bang and end where it finishes, or there is danger of the parties arguing themselves into another engagement. But for important transactions like borrowing a tenner the telephone is useless; it is far too easy for the other party to ring off, when you can't make him feel a mean hound by fixing him with the moist sad eye of impecunious melancholy.
What did you say? Ring off? Well, perhaps you're right.
By J. Joyce Garlick
Governor's Bay, at the southern reach of Lyttelton Harbour, was one of the first settlements in New Zealand. Like Akaroa, a still earlier settlement a few miles away, Governor's Bay has all the charm of an old-world scene.
There is little to doubt that the Bay owes its name to Governor, Sir George Grey. He was at Lyttelton to welcome the colonists on their arrival on 16th December, 1850, and the fact that his vessel was lying at anchor near the Bay would suggest the origin of the name. Before this time, however, there were settlers at Governor's Bay, notably Messrs. Manson and Gebbie.
According to early settlers the Bay was a very beautiful place, with its hills and gullies clothed with luxuriant native bush and giant tree ferns. As early as 1856 a bridle track was made as far as Dyer's Pass, and later a road was constructed as far as Gebbie's Flat. Most of this work was done by prison labour, and many contracts were paid for in land.
Years before the advent of the European the Bay was a Maori settlement. Ohinetahi Pa, defended with a palisade of split tree trunks, and with ditch and parapet, was a focal point for Maori gatherings.
One of the oldest of the few remaining homes in Governor's Bay is the charming home, of unique architecture, known as Potts’ home. Situated at the head of the Bay, the old home is on a steep slope, and through beautiful trees, commands a peerless panorama of the Lyttelton Harbour and surrounding hills. Mr. Potts was a very early Canterbury settler, but the home was not, however, built by him, for he had three predecessors. Mr. Dobbs built the home in 1852, and it was he who named it. It was subsequently bought by Mr. Willam Thompson, then by Mr. William Boag. An amusing tale is told of Mr. Boag's housekeeper, who received as wages ten cows, which became the nucleus of the herd of cattle so well-known in later years at Burnside Farm, Fendalton, Christchurch. Later, Mr. Thompson sold the home to Mr. Ben Moorhouse, member of a very well-known pioneering family in Canterbury, and he sold it to Mr. Potts. Mr. Potts was the type of Englishman whose cultural contribution to the life of early Canterbury could not be estimated. Much of the propagation of the Canterbury flora was due to his scientific botanical knowledge.
The architecture of this unique old home reveals two distinct periods. The original home was surrounded by a wide verandah on to which French windows opened. Later, but still at an early date, the building was cut in two, and a very substantial portion of three stories built in the centre. The stone was carried from a quarry which supplied the stone for the Christchurch Cathedral, and also from Rat Island, in the Bay. The stone is of two kinds, yellow stone faced with sandstone, and grey stone, the warm tone of the yellow stone providing a charming effect. The stone steps were cut by hand, and on a step is an inscription dated 1866, which vouches for this fact. There is also a very capacious cellar, for the Potts family were gay folk, and kept open house. There was a family of a round dozen.
In direct contrast to this home, but one which also boasts of being partially built of the same stone as the Cathedral, is that at present occupied by Mrs. Garlick. Mrs. Small, one of the first settlers, first lived here. She came from Galway, Ireland, in 1875, and lived at first at the barracks at Addington, where she was married. Later, she lived at (Continued on page 51
)
One hundred years ago, on the 18th April, 1840, the first newspaper to be published in New Zealand made its appearance. Printed in a raupo whare on the banks of the Hutt River where Petone now stands, the pioneer news sheet appeared within a month of the landing of press and type from the ship Adelaide.
The career of the “New Zealand Gazette,” like that of many of the early colonist newspapers, was short, but full of incident. Comprising four pages about the size of the present newspaper page, it consisted mainly of advertisements and local news, written in a racy style characteristic of its editor, Samuel Revans, who was a good businessman with but few pretensions to literary ability.
In politics our first newspaper was against the Government and its land policy and wholeheartedly in support of the New Zealand Company. Like so many other newspapers that have followed it, when its idol fell into disfavour among the settlers the “Gazette” also waned in popularity and, although it outlived its first rival by a year, its 363rd number was its last.
It was characteristic of early New Zealand journalism that the many journals which appeared had ephemeral lives, the average span of newspapers in the first ten years of organised settlement being only twenty months, consisting of weekly or less regular appearances. New Zealand, nevertheless, has always been well served with the news. In 1842, only two years after the founding of the colony, no fewer than nine newspapers were being published—four in Auckland, two each in Wellington and the Bay of Islands, and one in Nelson.
The Government of the day was rather intolerant of what we know as the freedom of the press, and the “New Zealand Advertiser and Bay of Islands Gazette” (for long names were fashionable in 1840) was the first to run foul of officialdom. Like the “Gazette” it was against the Government on the burning question of the day—the tardy allocation of land to the new arrivals.
Being published at Kororareka, the seat of Government, it had to be more circumspect than its southern contemporary, but, after making some mild suggestions of reform in its twenty-seventh issue, the editor was hailed before the Colonial Secretary, Mr. Shortland, to show reason why he should not be prosecuted under an old New South Wales ordinance for printing a seditious newspaper. The “Advertiser” did not survive the shock.
In spite of the many handicaps faced by the colonists, the early newspapers were surprisingly good. About the same dimensions as the newspapers of to-day, they consisted generally of only four pages, all hand-set and appearing mainly once a week. The average subscription was 6d. to is. a copy, or £2 a year. The “New Zealand Spectator” (Wellington), boasted of only 130 annual subscribers at this figure, and although publishers were willing to accept produce or other goods in lieu of cash, subscription arrears were a constant source of worry to them.
Advertising rates, judged by modern standards, were modest. “The Spectator” charged only 3d. a line, while the rates of a northern paper were 3s. 6d. for 12 lines. The bitter rivalry which often existed among contemporary papers, all too frequently exhibited by extreme rudeness toward each other in the literary pages, often extended to the commercial side and subscriptions and advertising rates were mercilessly cut.
The outspokenness of editors who were new to journalism, bringing down both official and unofficial wrath upon the papers concerned, must also have severely strained the financial resources of the pioneer papers, some of which, faced with the prospect of three or four simultaneous actions for libel, ceased publication and were seen no more.
Technical details too often proved almost insurmountable to the pioneers. For many weeks the “Spectator” (Wellington) was forced to appear printed on red blotting paper, which, by the way, took the ink very well indeed. Papers of varying shapes and colours were pressed into service by other publications in days of acute shortage.
The “Nelson Examiner,” which long bore the proud title of the colony's most literary newspaper, was once forced to appeal to its subscribers for supplies of treacle, essential in the inking of formes. Its readers raided their larders so that the popular “Examiner” could continue to appear. The “Otago Witness” was not so fortunate. Shortly after a fruitless appeal to its subscribers for paper it was forced to cease publication.
Another man-made difficulty triumphantly overcome resulted in the production in Auckland of what is probably the strangest newspaper ever to appear. The “Auckland Times” for its first ten issues was printed on the Government press, but Shortland, by then Lieutenant-Governor, again proved himself a thorn in the flesh of the Press. Whether it was the policy of the new publication of which he disapproved, or whether he feared that its printing bill would not be met, is not clear, but the result was that the “Times” found itself without press or type.
The proprietor, Henry Falwasser, was undaunted. He canvassed the town to secure all manner of type from many strange sources, including metal that was normally used in the printing of bills and posters. For the press, a mangle was employed to produce the weekly sheet, that is now treasured as a curiosity. The compression of the mangle varied, so that sometimes the print was black enough to be read from the back of the paper while at other times it was too faint to be legible.
Where it was readable at all it presented to the eye the strangest conglomeration of figures that could be imagined. Small capitals, italics, Old
The “Times” was issued gratis to its readers while the emergency lasted, but by the time new type and a press had arrived from Sydney it had attained a fairly respectable appearance. It had a rival in the shape of the “Auckland Chronicle and New Zealand Colonist,” which, more fortunate than the “Times” in its printing arrangements, dubbed its contemporary “The Old Lady of the Mangle,” and was unkind enough to insert in its pages an advertisement which read: “For Sale, a Mangle: Apply to the proprietor of the ‘Auckland Times.’” However, the “Times” survived its snobbish rival by two years, so it had the last laugh.
Another instance of rivalry between newspapers is related by Dr. Hocken, who has interested himself in our early journalism. The “New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian,” edited by a committee of six gentlemen, aspired to a higher standard of journalism than its more racy contemporaries. The committee, therefore, felt very pained when an issue of the “Spectator” appeared with a highly scandalous advertisement of which they had had no knowledge. When, the following week, the maligned person retorted with an even more scandalous reply in the hitherto unsullied pages of the “Spectator,” the committee decided it was high time to have their printing done elsewhere.
The ex-printers of the “Spectator,” now jobless, retaliated by inaugurating an opposition paper, the “Wellington Independent,” which appeared twice as frequently as its rival, at half the cost, and with cheaper advertising rates.
The “Spectator” was not dismayed. Secretly it entered into negotiations with the owners of the press rented to the “Independent's” printers, bought it, and thus left the “Independent” impotent. Friends rallied round the stricken printers and, four months later, with type and press obtained from Australia, the “Independent” appeared again, to pursue such a vigorous existence that ultimately it absorbed the “Spectator,” which had fallen upon hard times.
The early newspapers had to depend almost solely upon local events for their news, for telegraphs, cables and inter-provincial communication were nonexistent. The arrival of a vessel from Home was therefore a big event in the life of the proprietor-editor-reporter-printer, who would row out in a small dinghy, board the incoming vessel and buy up all the English newspapers obtainable. Back in his office, the highlights of the news contained in them were digested, composed in type and appeared in the next issue off the press, to be eagerly devoured by the citizens.
Some strange characters appeared in New Zealand's literary world of those days, perhaps the most notorious of whom was one Dr Martin, who came to Auckland from Sydney to edit the newly-founded “New Zealand Herald and Auckland Gazette.” Within two or three months, so vigorous was his style, several libel actions threatened.
A Government official, Mr. Fitzgerald, entered the “Herald” office and seized certain manuscripts written by the editor. Failing to secure their return, Dr. Martin challenged Fitzgerald to a duel. When Fitzgerald refused to participate in this Martin labelled him in many quarters as a blackguard and a coward. The newspaper wilted under the strain of such unethical conduct on the part of its editor and ceased publication after only ten months’ existence.
The freedom of the Press was a somewhat doubtful privilege in days when men were prone to resort to direct action. The “New Zealander,” our first morning penny newspaper, was rather sympathetic to the Maori side of the Maori Wars, and one of its articles was construed by the naval men in port as a slight upon their honour. Carrying a stout hawser, a large naval party marched to the newspaper office.
There, while the majority waited outside, holding one end of the hawser, the leaders marched in the front door and out the back, then throwing their end of the rope over the roof of the building to the remainder of the deputation in the street outside. The proprietors were then approached and the nature of the navy's grievance pointed out to them. A full retraction was demanded, failing which they would pull down the establishment. The retraction, naturally, was forthcoming.
The reporter of those days was not lacking in resource. When the Dunedin magistrates, annoyed by alleged mis-reporting of their business, decided that “reporters should be for ever excluded” from their meetings they thought the matter had ended. The next issue of the “Otago Witness,” to their surprise, contained its usual report of their deliberations, and, although the culprit was censured, the magistrates must have been left with an unexpressed admiration for the man who always gets the news.
When Sir George Grey came out as Governor to the new colony of South Australia, he was accompanied by a young man whose “name and money had been prominently employed” in its foundation. George French Angas, in his early ‘twenties, was keenly interested in sketching the strange country in which he found himself, and its stranger aboriginals. He had studied anatomy and the art of lithography, was connected with the Wakefield ventures, and had even suggested (1838) that a charter should be granted to a British company to forestall the French in New Zealand.
In 1844 Angas came to New Zealand. His first sight of the coast could have given him no finer impression of its beauty, for the perfect cone of Taranaki (Mt. Egmont) gleamed white against a pearly dawn-cool sky, “frittered into delicate tracery by the fresh east wind,” as he says, “and drawn up like a curtain revealing the snowy mountain in bold relief. …”
The impressive sketch which he made on the spot was later to form one of the best plates in his large folio volume,” The New Zealanders Illustrated,” material for which was to be collected during his stay. In the foreground of the Taranaki picture a Maori war canoe with a reed sail rides the deep indigo swell of the sea, over which two black gulls are skimming. The whole effect is one of pearly enchantment, hazed with the dim blue atmosphere of morning, and like all the rest was lithographed so as to reproduce faithfully both its deeper and more evanescent tones.
Angas had but one object; he wanted to paint the Maoris, their tattooed faces, their fine old chiefs, their women, their whares, pahs, weapons, implements and the representations of their gods. Meryon had considered them a dying race; but whether or not Angas realised the tremendous historical value of his work, he began a systematic search for relics that were fast falling to decay, and for the men whose names are now famous in the early history of New Zealand.
“Up to the present time,” he writes in a preface dated London, 1st July, 1846, “the New Zealander … has never been carefully and faithfully portrayed; and his habits, costumes and works of art, though so rapidly disappearing before the progress of Christianity and Civilization, are yet unrecorded by the pencil of the artist.
“To accomplish this task, I visited both Islands of New Zealand, and spent a considerable period in travelling round their coast, and penetrating through the interior—by seeking out nearly every tribe of natives, and living amongst them for sometime, in the remote and almost unknown parts of the country, I have succeeded in obtaining portraits of the most important chiefs with their families, and have made drawings, on the spot, of all objects of interest connected with their history…”
Starting from Wellington, Angas began his expeditions under the guidance of one native companion. He visited the blood-thirsty Rauparaha, now an old man, and drew the pah of his savage confederate, Rangihaeata, of Wairau fame. It was named Taupo Pah and had just been built near the harbour of Porirua. In the distance the snowy mountains of the South Island gleamed above a stretch of pale lazuline sea, and Angas sat down among the flax plants to paint them, with the pale green Island of Mana in the middle distance, the palisades of the pah to his right and three canoes. A native wrapped in a mat gazes in the direction of Mana where stood the carved house Kai Tangata (Eat Man).
This isolated home of the celebrated chief formed the subject of another sketch—“Rangihaeata's House on the Island of Mana.” Angas says it was” built many years ago by the formidable warrior of the Nga-ti-toa tribe, who
Still another impression of Taupo Pah shows a curious open cage erected on poles to contain tapu (sacred) articles placed there by the tohunga (priest), who alone could approach them.
Among many portraits secured at this time, Angas painted the nieces of Rauparaha in garments of white-dressed flax, and long black curling hair; and a “Scene in a New Zealand Forest near Porirua,” showing tree-ferns with greyish trees in the background, fallen logs, and a foreground of ferns starred with scarlet fungi.
Other fine native pahs and whares were drawn, and several portraits of women, for whom Angas seemed to entertain a particular affection. Of these, “Toenga,” daughter of Waraurangi of the Nga-ti-Maru tribe, Great Barrier is worthy of special note. Nearly all the members of her tribe had been exterminated “a few years since” by the Ngapuis; and she is shown wearing a flax garment trimmed with tufts of red wool, and a European sailor hat of yellow straw garlanded with great sprays of clematis. Other studies of native women include the wife of one of Rangihaeata's warriors and her daughter, both having elegantly curled hair plumed with tufts of albatross feathers at the ear.
Arriving in Auckland by sea, Angas drew a chief at Orakei Bay, and crossing to the West Coast executed a portrait of “Te Mutu, with his sons, Patuone and Te Kuri.” The chief appears in a rich garment of dog's hair, holding his large greenstone mere; his younger son wears a flax mat dyed black with hinau and impervious to rain. At Hokianga, a very celebrated personage sat for him—Tamati Waka Nene, agent of the Treaty of Waitangi. “Nene, or Tamiti Waka” as he calls him, shows a kindly faced man, the friend of Europeans, in a garment of whitish flax and holding his ornamented taiaha (staff).
Journeying into the Waikato country, the heart of Maoriland, Angas reached Kaitote, the pah of Te Whero Whero, later to assume kingship of his race. His sketch shows Taupiri mountain, smoke-blue in the distance, the palisaded fence of the pah enclosing several large native huts; a gathering of chiefs is taking place in the foreground.
Angas now heard of a very celebrated monument—the carved memorial to Te Whero Whero's daughter. It was hidden away at the deserted pah of Raroera, a tapu or sacred spot to which he stole away to obtain a drawing. It was, he tells us, twelve or fourteen feet high, and in “a tolerable state of preservation.” Its carving was an elaborate example of native skill, a perfect specimen of which was rare enough even in those days; and he copied its intricate lines faithfully, even to the eyes of paua shell. Te Whero Whero was so “exasperated on his daughter's death” that he cursed all the neighbouring chiefs, but gave Hongi's suit of armour—presented to the latter by George IV—as utu or payment to the chief of Mokau. “Rusty and unused at the secluded village of Paripari” Angas was to view this historic gift.
“Te Whero Whero or Potatau, the principal chief of all Waikato,” was drawn in a crouching position wrapped in a mat and leaning against a log. During the sitting, rain began to fall, whereupon the chief ordered a shelter to be erected over the artist, while he himself continued to sit on during the showers.
Potatau's attitude was most courteous and friendly throughout; and learning of Angas's intention to penetrate still farther into the interior, he wrote a letter of introduction for him to carry to Te Heuheu, the famous chief of Taupo. It reads as follows:
Whata Whata,
4th October, 1844.
“Friend Heuheu,—Health to you! Let your hospitality be very great to this stranger who is going to see you. Your name has carried him away. He is a writer of images; he belongs to me—to Potatau. Be kind to this European. Take heed you do not despise my book (letter?). He is a strange foreigner from England.
By me your friend Potatau.”
Angas obtained a very beautiful sketch of the “Volcanic Region of Pumice Hills, looking towards Tongariro and the Ruapehu.” “The scene was one of vastness and solitary grandeur,” he tells us; and even the lithograph gives some faint impression of that cloudless day (4th November, 1844) when the stranger in a strange land sat down among the tawny, gold-brown grass of the foreground and painted the pearly slopes of the mountains against a smoke-grey sky.
Arriving at Taupo, Angas made a remarkable portrait of the aged Te Heuheu, with his silver hair like “the snowy head of the sacred Tongariro.” Dressed in a fine flax garment and holding his great mere Te Heuheu's mere, the famous Pahikaure, was said to have the power of invisibility to all but its owner, and had been five times burled with ancestors.—Tregear.
forming a background. Te Heuheu was overwhelmed by a landslide in May, 1846—little over two years after this date.
Now the great chief had laid a tapu on many things, including his old pah on a neck of land jutting into the lake, and on Mount Tongariro, which he considered especially sacred and spoke of as his backbone. No one was allowed to ascend and many were afraid to look at it; and Angas was forbidden to make any representation of it. This he only succeeded in doing by giving his Maori guide the slip, while he stole away unseen to secure a sketch from Lake Roto-aira. The perfect truncated cone of Tongariro rose streaked with snow against a stormy sky; the palisades of “Motupoi” (Motu-o-Puhi) Pah were outlined in front of the mountain across the lake, whose deep blue waves, done in a very spirited fashion, bore a canoe to shore in the foreground. Another view of Tongariro shows the pah on a green hill contrasting with the vivid indigo of the lake waters.
Waitahanui, the old pah of Te Heuheu, on a spit or peninsula, Lake Taupo, formed another subject which Angas sketched at his own risk. Deserted and made tapu, it contained many fine old carved buildings. “I was fortunate to make drawings of most of these which I obtained by stealth,” he says, “Te Heuheu having forbidden me to represent any object that was tapu… Here I wandered alone over the scenes of many savage deeds—ovens where human flesh had been cooked in heaps still remained, with the stones scattered round and blackened by fire … and the plover and the tern screamed mournfully through this desolate waste of ruins.”
In his sketch, the pale gold palisades of the pah with their carved posts reddened with ochre, were set off by the thunder-purple background of Tongariro and the deep azure of the lake.
Many other valuable records were obtained by Angas both at this time and during his journey to Auckland, which he reached “by devious ways.” They included detailed drawings of Maori patakas or store-houses, their weapons and implements. Others showed the manners and customs of the race in the days before pakeha (European) influence had caused them to fall into disuse. Numbers of portraits of chiefs in their garments of dog's hair or flax were also secured, including a study of Te Ohu, an old tohunga or heathen priest, with white hair and beard.
Angas at last sailed for Kororareka (Bay of Islands), and from thence to New South Wales and England, where he arranged for the publication by subscription of his “New Zealanders Illustrated.” It contained sixty plates, the reproduction of whose colours was particularly true. This folio volume is, according to J. C. Andersen, “one of the good things in New Zealand books,” “a book seldom met; a desirable thing,” with a value of little under fifty pounds.
Thus the work of G. F. Angas became of rare historical value because he was just in time to capture much in native life and lore that was about to disappear. He was also a true artist whose technique enabled him to make “the first true representation of the Maoris.”
How the public taste changes with the years! China tea was all the go at one time. Now it is Indian. In days gone by brandy was the popular spirit. Now it is whisky. Formerly American tobacco was exclusively smoked. Now the demand is for the brands of the National Tobacco Co., Ltd. (pioneers of the tobacco industry in New Zealand), at all events in this country. Ordinary tobaccos (too rich in nicotine) are apt to affect heart and nerves if smoked habitually. National Tobacco Co.'s goods are practically free from nicotine, and quite safe to smoke. Why? Because they are toasted. This process also accounts for their wonderful flavour and bouquet. And—mark this!—they are the only toasted tobaccos. Ask for “Riverhead Gold” and “Desert Gold” (sweet aromatics), “Navy Cut” (a specially choice blend of medium strength), “Cavendish” (the renowned sporting mixture, a great favourite, also medium), or “Cut Plug No. 10” (a fine, full-flavoured baccy). These brands (in universal demand) are on sale at all tobacconists.*
All honour to the pioneers who built a new nation beneath the Southern Cross and founded the race which enabled the immortal name of “Anzac” to be born on the prccipitious cliffs that faced a little cove on Gallipoli's shores. But tribute, too, should be paid to the nation's athletes who have carried the Silver Fern to all parts of the world, in keen international competition, and have brought fame to New Zealand.
All things must have a beginning, and I propose to make a start by recalling some of the deeds of that great old-time all-rounder, R. O. (“Dick”) Jarrett, who passed away a year or two ago. Dick was known as “the New Zealand Sandow” and was offered a partnership by that great man—the man who made the world “muscle conscious.” Strong men were favourites in New Zealand when Dick was in his prime, but they could not match the genial Dick. He would duplicate all their feats… . and then go one better. I have claimed Dick Jarrett as a New Zealander, but he was born in England and came here when three or four years of age. Early in life he worked in a bakery and developed lung trouble. Doctors shook their heads and gave him but a short time to live.
Then emerged the real Dick Jarrett. He went into the open spaces; he worked hard and never watched the clock. Before long those hacking coughs had disappeared and Dick became a convert to sport as a means of improving the health of the nation. He originated a series of deep-breathing exercises, exercises that met with Sandow's approval when the strong man visited New Zealand. Dick introduced a sane physical development scheme into New Zealand schools, was the first sprinter to use the crouch start in New Zealand and introduced basketball into our country. Surely such a man deserves a place among our great sportsmen … apart from his undoubted skill as an all-round athlete. Dick was New Zealand's best all-rounder for many years and held his own at boxing, wrestling, running, walking or gymnastics. As a fireman he set New Zealand records at fire-contests that stood for many years.
It is a pity that a complete record has never been kept of the early days of New Zealand sport. I remember the task that confronted Mr. L. A. Tracy, at that time secretary-treasurer of the New Zealand Amateur Athletic Association, when he began to prepare a complete list of placed men in national track and field championships. I gave him a little assistance … but little as it was, it took me many days of search through musty files to gain just a little information.
But although it is well-nigh impossible to present a complete record, I have been fortunate in receiving from that grand veteran sportsman, “Dorrie” Leslie, many old programmes that reveal the early existence of established sports clubs in New Zealand.
One programme is that printed for the Caledonian Society of Otago for its 31st annual gathering. It bears the date, 2nd January, 1893. This society was established in 1862 … only 22 years after the first settlement in New Zealand. Joe Scott, whose exploits have been recorded in the “Railways Magazine” and whose photograph appeared in the February issue, made his debut at the thirteenth gathering organised by the Otago Caledonian Society.
Dorrie Leslie, who has long been recognised as New Zealand's premier starter of track events—he fired the first shot at the Olympic Games in 1932— was himself a great athlete. As was the case with Joe Scott, Dorrie Leslie put up a side-wager to race any man in Australia, without receiving any takers. I have a programme, dated 1894, for a “Grand Exhibition of Sprint and Long-Distance Running and Walking to be held on the Recreation Ground, Napier,” in which the stars were Dorrie Leslie. Matt Morrissey, A. Hall and A. Francis. They competed with pace-makers in their special events—competing against time— and Dorrie won the mile walk in 6 min. 33 1/5 sec., well outside his best performance. He once held the world record for the one-mile walk.
Walking seems to be a lost art …. unless the petrol restrictions bring a renaissance. From the time when Joe Scott started, as a walker, to make athletic history, New Zealand produced undoubted champions for many years. Scott, Leslie, Creamer, Wilson and Kerr all brought fame to New Zealand. F. H. Creamer, former holder of the one-mile world record, was a fortunate
Here is the story that deserves a place among Ripley's “Believe It or Not” series:
On 20th March, 1897, Creamer won a one-mile walk at Auckland in 6 min. 27 2/5 sec., a world record. At that time New Zealand worked under Australian athletic control and an application was made for this to be accepted as a record. In cabling the application reference, was made that the sectional times were 82 1/5 sec. for 440 yards and 3 min. for the first half-mile. Creamer was granted the record for the mile—and also for the intermediate distances. Thirty-three years later Dave Wilson, who had led for the first two laps, produced cuttings and proved that he was entitled to the intermediate records. By that time Creamer's record for the mile had been displaced and the intermediate distances were no longer recognised, but I wrote to Thomas Andrews, publisher of a leading American sporting annual, and he made the appropriate corrections in the chronological list of records.
It was but a few years ago that I learned that the blacksmith, outside whose forge I had spent many an hour as a small boy in Gisborne, was none other than Creamer, the great walker.
The names pass in review … Arthur Holder, who won four events at the New Zealand track and field championships at Auckland in 1897 and filled second place in a fifth event, and Batger, great hurdler who accompanied the Wood Brothers, Jack Hempton and L. H. Cuff as a member of the first New Zealand athletic team to England —away back in 1892. Batger once held the world record of 61 2/5 sec. for 440 yards hurdling, over the high hurdles. When the New Zealanders returned they spoke of a new style of starting …. “They put their hands on the line and crouch like a dog before springing out,” they said. But Dick Jarrett, mentioned earlier, had already used it in New Zealand before they had returned from the Old Country.
Remember Randolph Rose, winner over the American Lloyd Hahn, at Masterton, when he covered one mile in 4 min. 13 3/5 sec. to establish a world record for a grass track? As was the case with Joe Scott, many years earlier, public enthusiasm sent Rose abroad to show his wares and even to-day there is a fund stabilised at £1,000, the residue of that public subscription. So much money was donated that it was possible to send Rose and his manager, Jack McHolm (himself a star athlete) to England and Europe, and leave a balance exceeding £1,000. The interest on this amount is used to finance New Zealand athletic teams in overseas tours, but the principal remains as a trust account.
Randolph Rose has been described as a “freak athlete.” He was undoubtedly the heaviest mile runner seen in a generation and the manner in which he won important races without training was nothing short of amazing, but I venture to say that he could not do it against New Zealander milers of to-day. Rose did not train because he did not want to; he seldom had time to devote to fitting himself for competition, but worked on the farm until it was time to race. Had he been given the opportunities received by American athletes I am convinced that Randolph Rose would have beaten Jack Lovelock to the honour of being New Zealand's first holder of the coveted one-mile running record.
I have purposely not made reference to our greatest miler, Jack Lovelock. His deeds are too fresh to require recounting here. I will briefly recall the deeds of past champions.
Billy Savidan, Empire Games champion at six miles, New Zealand representative at the Olympic Games of 1932 —he finished well up in the 5,000 and 10,000 metre events—is one to whom I could devote much space. Rose was big, Billy was small. Moreover, the smiling Aucklander's merit was obscured for a time by the ill-luck that made him contemporaneous with Rose, but his day was to come. His name is written prominently among New Zealand athletic records.
Two great athletes were Billy Woodger and Lachie McLachlan. Old-time athletes are divided in their views as on whom should rest the mantle of New Zealand's greatest amateur sprinter, some declaring for Billy Woodger, others for Jack Hempton, but Dick Coombes, the “Grand Old Man of Australian Sport” classed Woodger, who recently retired from the New Zealand Railways, as the best sprinter produced in Australia or New Zealand for a generation. Hempton was the first New Zealander to cover the 100 yards in 9 4/5 sec., to equal the record that still stands unbroken despite the visits of such great sprinters as Scholz, Kirksey, Carr, Simpson, Best and Carlton.
Lachie McLachlan's professional world record of 21 2/5 sec., made at Napier in the closing years of the last century, still stands. He is generally acclaimed as the best cash athlete produced in New Zealand, although George Wareham has his supporters.
I could fill pages with the deeds of Arthur Halligan who represented Great Britain and Ireland at the Olympic Games in London, or H. St. A. Murray, New Zealand's first Olympic hurdler, George Davidson, who wore the Silver Fern at the Olympic Games in 1920 and defeated the great Charlie Paddock in one heat of the sprints and won through to the final of the 200 metres although only a few days off the boat after a long voyage from New Zealand to Antwerp, and of “Buz” Sutherland, the splendid all-rounder who won athletic titles in New Zealand, South Africa and Great Britain and represented South Africa at the Olympic Games in 1924, but space will not permit.
In my next article I will refer to other famous sportsmen who brought fame to New Zealand.
Radio broadcasts of concerts given by the New Zealand Forces in Britain will have assured all of you of the cheery and confident spirit which exists among this splendid body of men. This optimism is everywhere apparent throughout the length and breadth of the country. We do not under-estimate the difficulties which face us, but we know full well that ultimately right will triumph over might, and to this end one and all are pulling together as never before, sustained by the knowledge that across the Channel our very gallant French allies, like the peoples of our own Empire, are with us to a man.
In normal years, with the coming of the long summer days, the Home railways are busy perfecting their arrangements for the movement of the season's holiday traffic. This year, of course, the situation has been entirely altered by the war, and holiday business will undoubtedly be on a much smaller scale. Actually, there are no restrictions upon civilian travel, and such amenities as restaurant and sleeping-cars continue to be placed at public disposal. With so many men serving in the armed forces, on munitions, aircraft production, and so on, and with the enormous call for transport on the part of the Government, however, the railways could hardly be expected to launch out on ambitious holiday campaigns. Such a move would, in any event, be unpopular with the general public, and so our vacation arrangements this summer will be on a modest scale. Excursion travel is mostly confined to the running of trains conveying parents anxious to spend a few hours with their evacuated children, and of the big passenger publicity campaigns commonly launched at this season there is practically no evidence.
Very wisely, the Home railways are working on the assumption that Government demands for transport will increase, rather than decrease, in the months that lie ahead. Priority always must be given to troop and supply trains, while important freight business such as foodstuff handling also ranks before ordinary passenger movement. The freight train is, indeed, “King of the Road” on the Home railways today. Smoothly and efficiently the railway freight machine is backing up the national effort, and a few figures recently officially released, relating to activities on a typical line—the London, Midland & Scottish—may be quoted.
During the first four months of the war, the L.M. & S. operated the highest loaded wagon mileage (520,600,000) since its formation. During the same period of 1938, the figure was 428,000,000. The number of loaded wagon journeys was approximately 10,500,000, or roughly 2,000,000 more than in the same period of 1938. For the conveyance of loaded traffic the L. M. & S. has run a daily average of 4,000 freight trains, an increase of 500 trains per day. Empty wagon trains have, of course, also shown large increases to correspond.
At this season out-of-gauge loads are always conspicuous on the Home lines. The war has resulted in a big increase in this class of traffic, and the large stock of special wagons (totalling some 50,000) is kept in constant employment. One new traffic is that rising out of the supply of gas cylinders to the barrage balloons. Special wagons, styled “lowfits,” are utilised. They are equipped with drop sides and ends, and road vehicles loaded with the gas cylinders are run direct on to these trucks, thereby saving handling. There is also a big demand for the heavier rail wagons employed for the movement of big guns and armour plates. Explosives, too, are handled in immense quantities, and a great deal of ingenuity has been shown in converting trucks to this purpose by the provision, for example, of suitable racks for shells and bombs. All this special business, as well as the ordinary day-to-day movement, is being handled like clockwork in fair weather and in foul, in daylight and during the black-out.
In these Letters we have always taken extreme care that all our news should be true and authentic, and when speaking of conditions in Germany particular watchfulness is called for, in view of the great distortion of official news emanating from Berlin. There have been many reports of the unsatisfactory state of affairs, from the enemy viewpoint, on the railways of that country, mostly from neutral observers. Carefully sifting these, there is undoubtedly point for the belief that the German railways are by no means coming up to the expectations of the Nazi war-makers in their day-to-day efforts. Although the German army mobilisation was completed long before the outbreak of war, the railways controlled from Berlin have found themselves unable to cope with civilian traffic over many routes. During the past winter, coal and other vital supplies have suffered great delays, while the long series of serious railway disasters on the German lines tells its own tale. Now there is proposed a four-year plan for the complete reorganisation of the German railways. A strange time is this to set about a job of that sort!
The absence of enemy air attacks during the winter enabled the Home railways to perfect their precautionary measures, and complete air-raid precaution schemes are now in operation at all points, enabling railway operations to proceed with a minimum of interference during a raid. At each of the larger stations there have been appointed from among the staffs a chief A.R.P. warden and deputy wardens, with fully-trained squads of fire-fighters, first-aid contingents, and decontamination and demolition squads. Railway workers have entered into A.R.P. training enthusiastically, and lectures and demonstrations have been well attended.
Just fifteen years ago there was celebrated, with appropriate ceremony, the one-hundredth anniversary of the opening of the world's first public railway—George Stephenson's Stockton & Darlington system, now embraced in the London & North Eastern Group. The present year sees the one-hundredth birthday of quite a number of important Home lines, so that both here and in New Zealand this is a time of centennials.
Among lines forming the L.M. & S., there is the Midland Counties Railway, opened from Trent to Leicester on May 5th, 1840; the North Midland Railway, which reached Rotherham from Derby on May 11th, 1840, and pushed forward to Leeds on June 30; and the Manchester & Leeds Railway, opened between Normanton and Hebden Bridge on October 5th, 1840. Of course, that colourful figure in Home railway history—George Hudson, the “Railway King”—comes into the story, for on July 1st, 1840, Hudson—then Mayor of York —attended at York station to witness the dispatch of the first train to leave that point with through passengers for London. On the Great Western line, March 30th, 1840, saw the opening of the London-Reading tracks. On August 31st, 1840, G.W. trains commenced to run from Bristol to Bath. Rounding off the 1840 record, on May 11th of that year through trains began to operate between London and Southampton on what is now the Southern system; while on May 12th, 1840, there was opened the first railway in Sussex—the Shoreham and Brighton line.
Commencing February 1st, one-class accommodation became the rule on all London Transport trains except the through-trains between the Aylesbury and Watford Joint lines and the Metropolitan Railway. The vast majority of travellers were third-class passengers, and year by year there has been less and less demand for first-class accommodation. The war, too, has led to a considerable increase in business, and the first-class cars on the Metropolitan and District lines reduced the accommodation for passengers as a whole and led to unequal loading. This move for the withdrawal of first-class accommodation is one which ultimately will extend to all the Home railways. In days gone by, we had three classes— first, second and third. Second-class disappeared some years ago, and first-class will undoubtedly follow suit before long. The classification arrangement is a relic of the old stage-coach days, and while there are still a few passengers who prefer to pay a little more for special accommodation, their numbers decrease year by year with changing ideas and the gradual improvement of the third-class car. Incidentally, as recorded last month, the French railways are considering abolishing first-class on all but the principal long-distance trains.
(From the French of Paul Verlaine).
It is said, with truth, that if a number of old Maoris, each equally well-versed in ancient Maori history and legend, is asked to tell a certain story, each will give a different version. Each narrator will no doubt have some historical basis in his narrative, but each will colour it with his own imagination and imagery.
I have found this true in regard to the story of the great canoe Takitimu which is reputed to have brought to New Zealand the ancestors of the North Island East Coast tribes of Ngati-Kahungunu. I have had several versions told to me, and have read several others. But none has impressed me so much as that related to me by a fine old chieftainess of Hawke's Bay.
She is a valued acquaintance of mine and has given me much joy with her tales from the store-house of her wide knowledge of Maori tradition.
We were talking one day of Tamatea, the ancestor of the great chief Kahungunu from whom the East Coast Maoris take their tribal name. The thick tattooed lips of my old friend broke into a smile and into her kindly brown eyes crept a hint of sparkling reminiscence.
“Tamatea? Ah, he was a funny chap, that one, my ancestor of thirty generations ago,” she said. She spoke, as she always does, with a curious mixture of colloquialism and ultra-correct English. But her voice is always melodious, almost caressing in its softness.
“I shall tell you, my friend, the story of Tamatea and how he brought the great canoe Takitimu to Aotearoa from far Hawaiki,” she went on. “One day, on the island of Hawaiki, Tamatea's grandmother was out for a walk when she heard in the forest strange sounds of hammering. When she went to investigate she found Tamatea and his warriors building a huge canoe.
“She went forward and asked, ‘What is this, my grandson?’ Tamatea grinned at her—ah, he was a merry youth, that one!—and he said, ‘I am going to sail my canoe away across the ocean with the other great canoes which are leaving next week.’ He had suddenly made up his mind to do this, for the other canoes were all nearly ready to leave. ‘You'll do no such thing,’ declared his grandmother, ‘You're only a great big boy, with no sense in your thick head!’
“Tamatea laughed. Although he was young, he was a noble warrior and a fine navigator, but he knew he was not clever. ‘Don't you worry, grandmother,’ he said. ‘I know I'm not very brainy, but my crew will be! I am going to take with me all the tohungas and learned chiefs I can find.’ The old woman tried to argue with him but he only laughed at her and went on building his canoe.
“The great migration began before he was ready. Arawa, Tainui, and the other canoes left two days before Takitimu was finished. ‘No matter,’ said Tamatea, ‘we'll soon catch up to them.’ His grandmother went down to the beach to see him off. ‘You're mad,’ she sighed. ‘Even though you had all the tohungas and wise men on earth with you you'd still get into mischief. I know you! But take this with you.’
“She handed Tamatea a battle-axe. ‘When you are in trouble with the gods,’ she said, ‘wave the handle. When you are in trouble with men you know well enough what to do with the other end!’ Tamatea laughed and said she could trust him to do that!
“So away from Hawaiki sailed the great canoe Takitimu, bringing my ancestors to New Zealand. For many days they journeyed to the south but no sign did they see of the rest of the fleet until they reached the equator. There a mighty storm was raging. Arawa, Tainui, Matatua, Kurahaupo, Tokomaru—they were all there; but none of the canoes was game to cross. The waters of the equator were rising up threateningly, terrifying them and making them afraid to attempt to go further.
“But what did Tamatea do when he arrived? Ah, he was a cunning one, that! He grabbed up the axe his grandmother had given him, and waved the handle over the ocean. Immediately the sea became tranquil and allowed all the great canoes to sail on to Aotearoa, our Land of the Long White Cloud.
“Takitimu, manned by such brave and strong sailors, sped away from the other canoes of the fleet, But the voyage was taking longer than they had expected and soon their supplies of food ran out. Tamatea—that wild one!—with hunger gnawing at his stomach, began to utter angry incantations.
“So fierce was his expression and so menacing his manner that the crew knew he was debating which one of
tohungas and shouted, ‘You!’ The crew shook with fear.
“But the selected man was a very wise tohunga. He did not want to die so he used some of his own art. Waving his arms over the waters he chanted a supplication to the gods. They answered his prayer, for immediately a huge number of fish sprang out of the ocean into the canoe. So, for the time, everybody had plenty to eat.
“Soon, however, all the fish were eaten and the crew began to starve again. Once more Tamatea grew angry and ordered another of the tohungas to get food for them all, or else die. This priest prayed to the gods of the air. They heard him and sent hundreds of sea-birds fluttering down into the canoe. These were soon killed and gobbled up.
“Then it was another tohunga's turn to be frightened into providing food. This one also prayed to the gods of the sea and this time they sent shell-fish floating to the surface of the ocean. And so on did the crew of the great canoe Takitimu wend their way across the Pacific Ocean—sometimes hungry, sometimes afraid, but always trusting in the navigation and courage of noble Tamatea.
“At last, one day the look-out cried, ‘Aotearoa!’ The crew, weary and famished, stood up in their places, gazed eagerly towards the horizon, and soon were echoing the cry ‘Aotearoa!’ They were happy. At long last they had reached the Land of the Long White Cloud.”
My old Maori friend paused for breath. All through her narration she had seemed to live it, acting the part, and illustrating every episode with appropriate gesture, facial expression and modulation of voice. Now, she flung out her arm in a last dramatic gesture and then brought it slowly in to rest softly on her breast.
“Thus,” she whispered gently, “did my forefathers come to New Zealand hundreds of years ago.”
Her version of the legend is by no means the same as others. But it is a beautiful legend and, as told to me, almost every word is impressed on my memory. And probably it is as true as any other version. Who knows exactly what happened away back in the mists of early history when no written records were preserved?
What happened to Tamatea and his canoe Takitimu is also shrouded in fancy and guess-work. Some say that after founding, on the East Coast, the great tribe that was to be called Ngati-Kahungunu, Tamatea's roving spirit again called him. It is claimed that he and his warriors made a great overland journey in from Hawke's Bay, carrying with them Takatimu. Then, navigating the Waikato River, the canoe was hurtled over the Huka Falls and wrecked. There, some claim, it can be seen lying to this day.
Others say that the Falls were successfully negotiated, that Tamatea drove the canoe down the Waikato and finally out to sea and down to the South Island. These people claim that Takitimu is still in the South Island. We can only accept the legends for what they are worth—part of the tradition and culture of a noble race.
In 1810 the sealing vessel Sydney Cove dispatched a boat's crew, consisting of five men and a boy, to search for seals near the South Cape. They did not return, and the following strange story is that of the sole survivor, James Caddell.
* * *
Hunneghi, the chief of Oouai, whose tribal lands lay on the east coast of Foveaux Strait, was angry! The fierce light of battle shone in his dark eyes, and twisted into ugly contortions the tattooed lines on his face.
Like all of his race, he sincerely believed in the worship of land, as the source of all life, and just as implicitly did he believe in the law of Utu, which demanded satisfaction for every wrong.
The cause of his anger was righteous in his eyes, for here, on the wild, wavelashed shores of his coastal domain, enemies had landed. Not warriors of native blood, but pakehas—people who came in white-winged ships to steal the seals, and maybe the land also, from his people. True, only a boat-load of men had clambered on to the rocks at the foot of the slippery, kelp-covered cliffs, but they were trespassers and thiefs, according to the native law, and Hunneghi vowed vengeance.
Stealthily he and his warriors crept nearer the sealers, and the attack came suddenly and with deadly results. Amidst all the confusion and horror, James Caddell, a youth of sixteen years, was momentarily forgotten, since the Maoris were intent on striking down the men first. Caddell, horrified at the spectacle of the murder in front of his eyes, was panic-stricken. It would be his turn next, he knew. These cannibals would kill him, and then feast on his flesh. Such things had happened before in other parts of New Zealand.
His eyes searched frantically for some vague avenue of escape, and then he saw the stately figure of the chief, Hunneghi, standing a little apart. Here, he reasoned, was his only hope. With a leap and a cry, he had reached the side of the Maori chief, and in terror his arms closed round the neck of Hunneghi, as he pleaded, white-faced, for his life. His voice sank to a sob, as he begged that this great chief might spare him the fate of his comrades.
Hunneghi did not understand the language of the English sailor boy, but suddenly the warriors stood back, and there were low mutterings as of disappointment among the men.
Caddell waited for the fatal blow to fall, hardly aware that almost a miracle had happened. He had touched the Ka-ka-how (the outward mat of the chief) and in that moment his person had become tapu—he was sacred, and his life was to be henceforth spared. Such was the deep belief in the Maori law of tapu, that not a hair of his head was likely to be harmed. He was a prince among them!
Hardly understanding his position, Caddell was at first only sickly aware that he, alone, was saved the fate of helping to provide the cannibal feast that followed—the gruesome feast in which the five men of his boat were roasted and eaten.
In such a remote, wild place, he realised that there was little hope of his ever being rescued from his captivity, and gradually, after the first horror and despair had passed, Caddell resigned himself to his strange destiny. He learned to understand the Maori language, and adopted the manners and customs of the natives, even embracing their beliefs and fables.
He lived as the natives lived, and the Maori Kai and Inu (food and drink) became his. He learned to snare the birds, and to honour the law of tapu which decreed that only one bird's egg in seven, be taken—this last, proving the wisdom of the Maori, in that it was made to prevent the extinction of the birds after the manner of the great moa. Caddell ate fern and raupo roots, and the kernel of the karaka berries, which were previously always soaked in water for two moons until the poison had been eliminated. The little blue rat, known to the natives as kiore, also formed a substantial part of the diet of the Maoris of these parts, as well as the more edible fish and mutton-birds.
Caddell submitted to the ordinance of being tattooed, and almost insensibly he became gradually changed from an English sailor boy into a strong and fierce Maori chief—nearly as native as the warriors from whom he had been saved. Tonghi-Touci, the soft-eyed daughter of the chief Hunneghi, became his wife, and Caddell's attachment to this Maori maid was a genuinely affectionate one. Tonghi-Touci was also the sister of a chief, as well as the daughter of one, so that by this two-fold tie, James Caddell became a prince of no small importance among the people of Tarai-Poenammou.
Other sealing parties came and went in neighbouring islands, and certain captains who came to know of this strange white chief, who had almost lost his mother tongue, and who could only speak Maori intelligently, credited him with great cunning, and with being a dangerous man. That, of course, is the pakeha side of the story. A truer version would probably be that Caddell had come to love the kindly, if outwardly fierce natives with whom he had lived as a prince, and accordingly he looked at the pakehas with the same distrust —alas! so often well-founded—that the Maoris exercised toward the invaders. Possibly he was regarded as a dangerous man because he matched his brains against the brains of the white man—his brother—for the benefit of his adopted people. Because of his English youthhood, and his long association with the natives, he had an advantage.
Be that as it may, his presence certainly helped to pave the way for peaceful intercourse between the Maori and the pakeha, and in 1826 the natives gave the sealers and whalers the island known as Codfish Island, where they could live in safety with their Maori wives. This gift portrayed real generosity on the part of the Maoris, and thereafter came no further stories of cannibal feasts in these parts.
In 1823, James Caddell was persuaded to visit New South Wales, but he refused to leave his land of adoption without his princess. Eventually, in the company of his wife and another chief, he paid a visit to Sydney, where he paraded the streets in his native costume beside his dark-eyed wife. However, he was not happy in civilised surroundings, and seized the first opportunity of returning to the wild foam-wreathed shores of the South Cape area, where in a carefree style, he lived among the natives as the great White Chief of Oouai.
Asuggestion was recently made at Hawera, that alpine clubs and other interested organisations such as local bodies should meet to discuss the best means of celebrating the centenary of the first ascent of Mt. Egmont by a European, Dr. Ernest Dieffenbach having reached the summit of the mountain on 23rd December, 1839. On the 16th of August, 1839, the New Zealand Company's vessel Tory came within sight of the shores of the North Island. On board the little ship was Dr. Ernest Dieffenbach, a naturalist in the employ of the company. He was destined to become known as one of the most painstaking and reliable of the early explorers. This man of science has left behind a splendid record of the New Zealand that was, and it is characteristic of him that whilst he writes vividly and in an interesting fashion of his discoveries and geological and botanical findings, he tells us but little of himself. We can, only by reading between the lines, as it were, get a glimpse of his indomitable courage in the face of hardships and difficulties.
To read his two volumes, “Travels in New Zealand,” published in London in 1843, is to draw aside a veil and be transported to a land that we find hard to believe was our own New Zealand a hundred years ago.
It was late in the month of November, 1839, when the ship was sailing up the West Coast of the North Island, that Dr. Dieffenbach first saw Mt. Egmont, and he was filled with a desire to climb it. He wrote: “I scrutinized the sides and lofty summit of Mt. Egmont, which, once thrown up by the mysterious fires of the deep, was now apparently in a state of repose, to discover whether there was any possibility of ascending it, an undertaking which had never yet been achieved.”
The Maoris of the coast were friendly, but they could not understand his intention of making an ascent. They told him that there were moas and reptiles on the mountain, and that the latter would eat him.
On 3rd December, accompanied by a tohunga (priest) and an “American man of colour,” he set off. For eight days this oddly-assorted little party wended their way southwards. Their troubles soon began. It rained heavily practically every day, and worse still, their scanty supply of food, which consisted of dried shark, potatoes and maize, began to give out. They were reduced to eating the roots of ferns and the hearts of cabbage trees. It was not until the sixth day, that a clearing in the dense forest afforded them a glimpse of the mountain with its summit veiled in the clouds.
They were a considerable way up the Waiwakaiho Valley, when conditions became unbearable. There were no signs of the weather abating, no dry wood, and their food supply was exhausted. Hungry, and wet to the skin, they decided to abandon the trip. The return to the coast was hurriedly made by a different route.
The resolute doctor was not easily discouraged, however, and on the 19th December, he set out again. In addition to his companions of the previous trip, there went with him a European whaler named Heberley, and E Kake, a Maori chief. The latter had two slaves with him, one of whom was sent ahead.
After a march of four days, the foot of the mountain was reached and the ascent commenced up a ridge that runs from the summit to the north-east. With only fifteen hundred feet to climb, they came to the snow-line. The two native attendants began to pray and refused to go higher. Their feet were uncovered, they were feeling the effects of the intense cold, and in any case, was not the mountain forbidden ground? Accompanied only by Heberley, the doctor continued the ascent. His narrative records:
“The slope of the snow was very steep and we had to cut steps in it as it was frozen on the surface. Higher up we found some support on large pieces of rugged scoriae.”
And so they reached the highest point.
“A most extensive view opened before us and our eyes followed the line of coast between Kawhia and Waikato. I had just time to look towards Cook's Straits when a dense fog enveloped us and prevented all further view.”
The years have passed and the face of the province has changed. Egmont rises up, not from the wild country that Dieffenbach knew, but from an expanse of rich farming land. As it beckoned to men on those far-away days, so is its call answered to-day by the young climbers of Taranaki. To them it is “The Mountain,” a mountain beloved.
There is the “swish” of ski on rounded slope and the crunch of bootnails on the ice. “Tapu” is no more.
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On his news-hunting rides from Drury to the military posts in the district in the winter of 1863, Von Tempsky frequently called at a solitary house on the edge of the bush, between Papakura and Wairoa. This was a farmhouse and roadside inn combined; it was a halfway house on the dangerous road to Wairoa (now the township of Clevedon), and it was called the Travellers’ Rest. All the other settlers had left their homes in that part of the frontier, for there was always fear of attack from the dense bush that extended to the Hunua and far over the ranges. But sturdy squarebuilt John Smith—“Old Smith” he was popularly called—laughed at all the injunctions of the Army patrol officers that he should lock up the place and take his family to Auckland. “What! Clear out? Not me!” he said. “I'll hold my castle against all the Maoris in creation.”
His resolute, self-reliant spirit was shared by his family. His cheerful wife, his three big sons and his three daughters, with a man servant, were the garrison of the Travellers’ Rest. They were armed with half-a-dozen rifles, two double-barrel guns and a good supply of ammunition. Old Smith made his house bullet-proof by strengthening it inside with seven-feet-high sawn timbers and slabs, and by cutting loopholes on all flanks. The stables were well-covered by loophole fire. Smith had been a sailor, and Von Tempsky soon discovered that he had been in California also, trying his fortune on the diggings; that rough school of adventure always seemed to have developed to the full a spirit of independence in those who breathed its heady air. Thick through of chest and shoulders, firm-set as a rock, resolute of air, this bushy-bearded borderer looked just the man to make a stout fight for his rights. Von Tempsky liked him at first sight, and his talks with him increased his admiration for this first-rate specimen of a frontier settler.
Here under the hospitable shingled roof of the Travellers' Rest he met for the first time the young officer in command of the first corps of Forest Rangers, enrolled as the result of the attractive invitation to arms in the “Southern Cross.” Lieutenant William Jackson—we were to know him well in after-years as Major Jackson, commanding the Waikato Cavalry Volunteers—had chosen Smith's inn as his headquarters on account of its contiguity to the great Hunua Bush, the hunting and hiding place of the war parties. There was good dry barn accommodation for Jackson's fifty lively Rangers; and old Smith was very willing to receive the company of carbineers in his quarters. He now reaped the benefit of his courage and self-reliance in the form of protection and profit.
Jackson, presently to be promoted from Lieutenant to Captain, had been selected by the military heads to command the bush corps formed by way of experiment at first, to scout the bush on the flanks of the Great South Road, and especially to chase the native defenders out of the Hunua Ranges. A difficult task, still a persistent plan of campaign on those lines would at any rate keep the main military road free from ambushes and sudden volleys from the gloomy bush. The young commander was the right man for the rough work. He was a Yorkshireman whose family had taken up bush sections between Papakura and the Hunua and his labours in bush-clearing and pioneer farming had toughened his frame and developed his powers of endurance. He was one of those backblocks men who could trudge all day under a heavy swag. He had had no military training, but hard experience was presently to supply that need.
It was Old Smith's wife who introduced Von Tempsky to Jackson in the big living-room of the Travellers' Rest. The two borderers quietly appraised each other. A contrast, that pair, who presently were to share in many an adventure together. Jackson, young John Bull even to the short muttonchop whiskers; Von Tempsky, swarthy, lean, a glint of fierceness in his dark eyes, a suggestion of the Magyar and gipsy in his cast of features.
“I like the looks of your Rangers,” said Von Tempsky, “most of them seem used to the rough end of life, if I'm any judge of men.” He had watched the company march in from a bush excursion. To the eyes of the veteran campaigner they were the right stuff for scouting and forest patrol. There were unmistakable sailors among them, there were two muscular Jamaica negroes—“as good as any white man,” Jackson said, “and more sober than most”—there were diggers from Otago and Coromandel; eager young axemen, bush-settlers'ssons. To a regular soldier's eye they would have seemed a raffish, disorderly lot, with their variety of dress, their blue blanket rolls worn just as the bearer pleased; but they handled
* * *
“I see you're interested in my fellows, Mister Tempsky,” said Lieutenant Jackson one day, as he and the soldier-correspondent sat at lunch in the Travellers' Rest. “How would you like to come with us for a bush expedition? I'm taking the company for a scout through the Hunua bush towards Paparata. Do you think you could stand the walk? It'll be hard going, I warn you, but it'll be a bit of active service experience for you.”
This was exactly what Von Tempsky had been waiting for with hardly suppressed eagerness. He was secretly amused at Jackson's apparently poor estimate of his bush-tramping powers. If the young Forest Ranger officer had only known of his acquaintance's campaigning and roughing it in many climes, he would scarcely have adopted so patronising a tone. However, Von Tempsky was content to let that pass. He chuckled inwardly at the thought that Jackson would discover before very long that he was entertaining unawares a practised soldier of bush experience far greater than his own.
“I'll be delighted, sir,” he replied. “It certainly will be an experience, and I shall, I hope, have something of interest to send to my paper.”
“I can promise you that, old man,” said Jackson. “I think I know where we can fall in with some of those jokers who've been laying ambushes and raiding the Wairoa farms. My Rangers will give a good account of themselves, I warrant you, if ever we pick up the Maori tracks.”
So it was arranged. Von Tempsky was to ride in from Drury two days later and accompany the Rangers when they set out at daylight next morning. Joyfully he promised timely attendance. He came in just before dark and dined with Jackson and his wife and his fellow-officer, young Ensign McGregor Hay, the stalwart son of a pioneer settler near Papakura. Von Tempsky learned that Hay William McGregor Hay became a barrister and solicitor, and after the war practised for many years in Hamilton.
The night fog still blanketed the valleys and ranges when the fifty Forest Rangers fell in in front of the Travellers' Rest. Jackson inspected his men, armed with their breechloading carbines and their Colt revolvers; saw that each man had his fifty rounds of Terry ammunition in his pouches, his revolver cartridges also, and three days’ rations in his haversack.
The mists were thinning and the sun shone out soon after the order to march was given. The Rangers took the track with the zest of schoolboys bound on a holiday tramp and Von Tempsky's heart leaped at the thought that here at last he was on the warpath again.
He was content to follow at the tail of the single-file for a while. He carried his Mexican sword, his revolver was at his belt. There was no sound of bugle, no tap of drum; those inspiriting soldier sounds were not for a bush-scouting party.
About noon Jackson called a halt. The party had emerged from the narrow track under the twilight shade of heavy timber on to a long cleared opening with felled and partly-burned trees still blackening the newly-grassed level.
“Buckland's Clearing,” explained Jackson when Von Tempsky joined him. “We'll have a bite of tucker and then get along in that direction.” He pointed to the south, where the dense forest went up in waves of green and blue to high ranges.
“Paparata lies somewhere yonder, no one knows exactly how far. It's a regular nest of Maoris, I believe, and fortified. We'll have a shot at finding it anyhow, and try the quality of our carbines if we have any luck. Besides, we may fall in with scouting parties any time.”
After half-an-hour's rest the Rangers, refreshed with a tot of rum from their leather-cased bottles and with their thick sandwiches from Mrs. Smith's kitchen, stood to arms again and continued the silent march. Von Tempsky now went with Jackson to the head of the company; young Ensign Hay took the rearguard duty, with Jackson's trusty sergeant, Southee. Now the track disappeared entirely in high fern, where it was difficult to break a way. Von Tempsky slashed at it with his sword but soon found that his companion's method was the best—treading it down by sheer weight. Exhausting labour. Both he and Jackson were glad to give place to reliefs from the single-file party.
Into the bush again; now it was unbroken, primeval. Kauri trees linked branches overhead, some of them looking like grey cliffs, so enormous were their straight boles rising without a branch for fifty feet or more. The
“Take it easy, Mister,” said Jackson. “You'll knock up, and we'll have to carry you.”
“I'll have to be a very dead man, sir, before you put me on a bush stretcher,” said Von Tempsky, laughing. “I'm enjoying this; it's glorious! Everyone of these tanglefoots is a Maori to me. Off mit his head.”
The light faded in the bushy depths, where the human pigmies were struggling along like so many insects in high grass. Presently it began to rain. The country grew wilder. The small gullies that gave trouble out of all proportion to their size became deeper and steeper; they were ravines now, and the heavily laden Rangers made heavy work of it, clambering down into and out of the jungle-wooded depths. The clouds hung low on the ranges; the ground was more and more uncertain. All around became a dim chaos of tree-trunks and branches and dark-leaf curtains.
“Enough for to-day,” said Jackson. “We'll get some water and then camp.” A gleam of a half-hidden stream and the murmur of a waterfall in a gully were welcome to the tired thirsty men.
The Rangers descended to the creek, and drank their fill of the water; filled too the billies—they called them quart-pots in those days—and encamped on a narrow bit of level ground on the other side of the brook. But no camp-fires were lit. This was enemy country. Each man looked to himself, chose his tree, unrolled his blankets, and tucked himself into them.
Jackson and Hay stationed sentries for the first watch of the night; they were to be relieved every two hours.
Von Tempsky and the two officers made their night quarters underneath a big rata with a root-buttressed hollow where some old boar had made its lair. The Rangers ate some army biscuit and the remains of their lunch sandwiches. No hot drink for them, but at any rate they could smoke, and with his pipe going well the “paper-man,” as Jackson and Hay called their companion, felt quite comfortable and sleepy.
Von Tempsky remarked on the safety and comfort of the New Zealand bush as a camping-ground.
“Now, if we were in America or Australia,” he said, “we'd have beaten all about these ferns and bushes and hollow trees for snakes. It's as much as your life is worth to lie down there without clearing the ground first. And even then you'd as likely as not find a poisonous bedmate in the blankets with you in the morning.”
A rainy night, and no fire. But the Rangers slept well.
* * *
Next day was colder and wetter. The little corps penetrated far into the trackless forest. Dark gorges of the wildest character, with veils of mist trailing along the precipice sides, opened up at their feet. No Maori trails there. About four o'clock in the afternoon Jackson halted for the night. Thoroughly drenched, the men built rough shelters of ponga fern-trees and nikau palm leaves and requested permission to light fires to dry their clothes to some extent and warm themselves.
Jackson, Hay and Von Tempsky held a little council of war. It was decided that fires might be lit as soon as darkness had set in fully. They were, however, to be extinguished two hours before daylight.
Von Tempsky and his friends stretched their feet towards their own small blaze, and contemplated through their tobacco smoke the camp scene before them—a perfect picture of a brigand band's bivouac — and the prospect of dry socks in the morning. The rough huts or wharau, run up in a few minutes, kept out the rain quite well; the long leaves of the nikau are the readiest and best of bush-roof material. So all were in comparative comfort that night on the scouting trail—all except the sentries during their hours on watch. But, as Jackson remarked, eight shillings a day and the honour of being a Forest Ranger must be paid for in some way.
In the latest issue of “New Zealand Best Poems” there are a few poems so good that they overshadow the remaining verse, which, if not quite worthy of inclusion in an annual anthology, are at least presentable in less select company. Yet there are twenty-nine poems in the collection and one would think that in the course of a year New Zealand poets would give us this number and all of them worthy of an anthology that has set such a high standard in past years. The trouble is, I think, that the publication is not representative. Any lover of New Zealand verse will find some notable absentees in the latest issue. Nevertheless, we find this year splendid verse by Douglas Stewart, a last pathetic poem by Robin Hyde, two poems with characteristic strains of tragic beauty by Helena Henderson, a sign from Gloria Rawlinson in two poems that her art is as fine as ever; also, other well-known poets, Arnold Wall, C. R. Allen and Dora Hagemeyer are represented. One poem outshines them all, “Communion” by P. C. Penty, which is Byronic in its theme and its expression—communion with Nature,
“When birds are hurled across a leaden sky
And from the ground there swells a wild wet cry
Of rushing streams and foaming tossing seas.”
How these fine words re-echo.
I found an instant appeal in “K in Wellington” by Barbara Dent. Had it been published earlier it must have found a place in the recently published book of Wellington verse. One other poem I must refer to before I have done, “The Old Men” by Helen C. Wheeler, a sombre picture powerfully etched. But all old men are not as grey and as sad as this. I know old men who are as glad in heart and appreciation as the youngest of young men.
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Since the last issue of this Magazine had gone to press two further numbers have been published of that Centennial series, “Pictorial Surveys of the Past.” I watch for these as I waited on the progressive appearance of my favourite papers of the long ago, “The Boys’ Own Paper,” and “The Boys’ World.”
And just as I would be waiting on these papers for another instalment of some serial of pirates or schoolboys, so in these surveys I wait on the latest chapters of our island history.
Letterpress, illustrations and lay-out are uniformly good in this series.
* * *
Dora Hagemeyer's songs of nature are as pure, glistening and as gently born as the dewdrop on the flowers she loves so well. There are twenty poems in her “Sonnets and Other Songs” published by Harry H. Tombs, Wellington. Each poem reflects new and glistening colours from the soul of the writer. I do not agree with the foreword to this book, that “Life is a greater wisdom than belief,” else why did Dora Hagemeyer write these lines:
What is the heart but a manger
For cattle gaunt and thin?
Till the spirit descends with singing
And the Christ-child wakes therein.
This is surely not only life, but belief that all hearts may sing with the grand and the noble things of life. Whether in joy or pain this poet finds happiness in life,
… Grief is a lonely thing
For out of grief the soul comes pure
As young grass out of rain.
* * *
Grief, however, is rarely mentioned, only as a path to consoling realisation. Dora Hagemeyer is indeed a poet for those who in these dark days cannot see the sun—her words pierce the clouds and show us the brightness above. In short, her message is in these beautiful lines from one of her best poems,
Life's loneliness alone defies the rust
And leaps ahead into a breaking day
A wing—a song—a prayer out of the night
Swings on through time in countless rings of light.
* * *
In New Zealand the art of printing is on a high level. That this is due largely to the standard set by some of our younger entrants in the typographical field will be evident from comments I have made on this page from time to time. Now we have a Specimen Book of Printing Types published by the Caxton Press. This booklet would delight the heart of any typographical enthusiast even in the older countries. There may be, however, enough of the personality of the compilers of this booklet to set some doubting whether it fits in with Holbrook Jackson's dictum “that self effacement is the etiquette of the good printer.” Yet, in this booklet and other productions of the Caxton Press the comfort and comprehension of the reader have never been sacrificed at the expense of this personality. In short the owners of the Caxton Press might moderately satisfy even the epicurean tastes of Holbrook Jackson or of Eric Gill.
* * *
New Zealand art and the Centennial is featured in picture and letterpress in the latest issue of “Art in New Zealand.” The splendid work being done in this connection by the State and by art organisations is appropriately recorded. Two beautiful colour blocks are included among the Centennial picture reproductions. General articles include a two-page commentary on the caricatures of Noel Counihan with two full-page reproductions, an appreciation of T. A. McCormack's Water Colours, an article on Folk Dancing by Paula Hanger, an illustrated article on Clay Modelling, interesting Art Notes, etc.
* * *
Beverley Nichols and other young writers have written their autobiographies when barely out of their 'teens, so I presume we may not cavil at a young Wellington writer and printer, Noel Farr Hoggard, giving us a potted autobiography. In a booklet of thirty-four pages he writes interestingly of his young life and mentions many local writers. It is a tale of modest achievement modestly told.
* * *
To write a critical survey of literary matters one must naturally be singularly well-equipped. The task, as far as this country is concerned, is, however, not such an onerous one, particularly where it is reserved for one field only, that of fiction. Even so, “A History of New Zealand Fiction” by E. W. Smith, recently published by A. H. & A. W. Reed, fails in a few respects. It appears to be the effort of one who is relying to an extent on the sometimes incomplete records of the past. The author's comments are at times rather critical, with a tendency to smile at the expense of others. We find the following declaration in an early part of the book: “No honest critic, however enthusiastic and anxious to praise New Zealand literature, can pretend that the country has yet produced writings qualified as literature.” Without quoting a number of notable examples of real New Zealand literature over the years, it is evident that E. W. Smith has not read two books published last year, Schroder's essays, and Cresswell's “Present Without Leave.” Neither is in the field of fiction, yet whereas another collection of essays is included in the author's bibliography, Schroder's are not mentioned. There are a few important omissions from the fiction list including Gloria Rawlinson's “Music in the Listening Places,” O. N. Gillespie's anthology of New Zealaand short stories (New Zealand fiction at its best). We find poor old “Gloaming” treated as fiction, whereas Helene Greenwood's novel, “The Splendid Horizon,” is not mentioned. A list of magazines which have published New Zealand fiction is given, but the fine work done by “Art in New Zealand,” “The New Zealand Artists’ Annual “and the “New Zealand Railways Magazine” is forgotten. The book, however, is a useful reference book and except for some recently published novels is a complete bibliography.
All day long surged the crowds, spreading out over the Exhibition Grounds like a dark, animate sea.
At last the final straggler had departed. The caretakers have locked up for the night. The wind catches up the scattered debris and sweeps it diligently aside. The great cream-coloured pavilions and courts stand revealed in all their grave simplicity; the high-riding moon carving alabaster and ebony shapes against their chaste facades.
The flags lift noiselessly on their sentinal poles…
In the still dark pools the stars lean down to see their faces. … A shudder ripples over the water. A light breath as of ghost sleepers awakening. All around the pavilions and courts flows that sighing murmur of sound. It is taken up by the wind; it becomes a stir of movement. The grounds are peopled by flitting shades. For them the midnight hour—the whisper and rustle of a shadowy concourse—the Ghosts of the Exhibition.
From marble pedestal and gilded frame they step—down into that wonder erected to their commemoration. In a vast throng they come—those long-dead pioneers, drawn from their pictured immobility by the powerful pull of the living. The swirl and rustle of crinolines, the patter of feminine feet, and the firm forceful tread of men echoing down the years.
In the Pioneer Hut a sigh quivers through as its occupants stir to life. The fire leaps higher in the grate. The old “Go Ashore” Cooking Pot resumes its simmer. The pendulum of the faded wall-clock starts again its rhythmic motion. The notes of a piano sound, explored by ghostly fingers. A piece of unfinished tapestry is lifted again to its frame. The wooden cradle rocks gently. A music-box begins its old-world tinkle. The occupants move as though waking from an enchanted sleep. With clasped hands they step out of the picture—into the living wonder beyond.
Come the Maoris, side by side with their pakeha brothers, in ceremonial dress, painted—in festal array. They chant softly as they move; a song that had lifted to the feathered tree-tops over a hundred years ago.
On the Tower Pool, the dark shape of a canoe glides silently into the shadows…
In the Dominion Court, the farmhouses set on the miniature hillsides become animated with life. The trees take on a vivid, more vital green, flowers move and sway. The sheep and cattle grazing in the fields are no longer things of plaster and clay. In the industrial areas the factories and mines are once again hives of throbbing activity. The model towns and cities with their busy harbours spring to vibrant life.
Within the British Court comes a curious whirring motion. Out of the past they come, in winged procession, filling the rustling courts with their breath of flying sound. Gurney's old steam-coach of 1827, propelled forward by its charcoal fire boiler. The “Rocket,” moving cumbersomely; that curious phenomenon of passenger-train which was the herald of present-day steam locomotion. A strange assortment of vehicles, trains and cars, and hovering above them—their propellers filling the air with a harsh clamour—the air-planes of early invention.
On the agitated pools are gathered an amazing medley of craft, crowding each other to the green-tipped banks. Brigs frigates, and Viking ships of the ninth century; old-time sailing ships and paddle steamers—and holding pride
(Continued on page 47).
(Continued from page 45).
of place—“The Comet,” first passenger steam-vessel to challenge the seas.
Even Playland is invaded. Crinolines swing out as the merry-go-ground whirls its joyous way. On the roller-coaster an adventurous antique train takes a single track in a swift downward sweep. Tinkle of laughter, joining with the wind in its leaping play…
In the Tower of London these old shades move more slowly, in dignified procession. Monarchs passed and gone. Statesmen, clerics, leaders; their velvet gowns trailing noiselessly across the stone-flagged floor—out into that ghostly concourse that overflows the courts.
Only the modern Exhibit Courts stand cold and silent, their faces blank to the night. For them there is only the present—and the future. No crowding ghosts here to flit and haunt…
In a back room an old caretaker stirs uneasily, wakes at some outward sound, and grumbling, takes up a torch to make his rounds.
An agitated stir moves that ghostly multitude. There is a sound like a mighty rush of wind.
Was that a cloud that drifts low above the deserted grounds, moving silently into the velvet darkness beyond?
From their marble pedestals and gilded frames, the old pioneers gaze austerely down. The Pioneer Hut is cast once more into its enchanted sleep. The modelled hills and valleys of the Dominion Court are wrapped again in sombre shadow. The cities and busy harbours are still. In the British Court a curious procession of vehicles, trains, airplanes and ships voyage once more on their mechanised tracks. The Tower of London is cold, emotionless, still.
In the quiet pools the stars gaze down….
Still grumbling, the old caretaker shuffles back to his room and climbs into bed.
Silence—only the wind outside, resounding faintly round the deserted courts.
I Stood in the driver's cab of a standard railcar as she ran swiftly on through the night. I had just passed from the well-lit car where the passengers were lounging, reading and playing cards as they sped towards their goal at more than a mile a minute. They hadn't a care. To them travelling consisted of stepping into the car as it drew up beside a platform and making themselves comfortable until it pulled into their destination, but sitting beside me now was the man in whose care they were. He gave not the slightest sign of how he regarded this responsibility. He sat in silence, his hands resting on the simple controls, his eyes glued to the track where the great white beam, turned slightly to the right to pick up the mile and chainage posts, lit it up with the brightness of day.
There was no doubting his knowledge of the line. Long before a curve could be seen he had eased the throttle back so that that there was no need for sudden braking. A slight sway and we were round, the throttle went forward again, and the speedometer needle crept back to 60. As we rounded one curve a dim yellow light could be seen ahead, and beyond it a green. The guard put out the tablet, we flashed beneath the yellow light, the green, clicked through the points, the new tablet clashed home, a blur of light, another set of points, and we were on the open line again. Behind us I knew the porter was ringing the next station to advise that we were coming, but to all appearances we were a world apart, a coterie of travellers rushing through the night with their safety in the hands of one man, the driver. This thought made me look at him again, but he was as imperturbable as ever, giving no sign of his thoughts.
We were climbing now and the buzz of the engines became a whine as he switched in the converter. Up a grade where steam trains hiss, snort and struggle, we did an easy 20 m.p.h. Through a deep cutting and we were over the top, on our way down the other side. There was hardly a tremor in the car as we swept round the long curves and ran roaring out across a viaduct on to the long straight beyond. We were going faster now, as mile after mile the parallel metals ribboned into the headlamp as we hurtled through the gloom. Far away on our left could be seen the twin lamps of a motor car and occasional pin pricks of light showed some farm-house set back from the line.
Then I saw a cluster of lights in the distance, and against the black of the night rising columns of white smoke could be dimly discerned. Groups of red lights with our solitary green in their midst came into view, and soon we were gliding through the points to pull up alongside the platform. The passengers gathered up their belongings and descended. The driver sat and waited to take her back to the shed. For me it had been a thrilling experience; for him … just another trip.
The writer is indebted to Mr. M. Neighbours for the opportunity of being shown through the well-known Brick and Pipe Works of Messrs. Neighbours and Sons at Waimangaroa, eighteen miles from Westport. This kiln is the largest in the South Island, while experts consider that the clay in the vicinity is the finest of its kind in the world. The Neighbours family has been associated with brick-making for generations and the members of the firm are thoroughly conversant with every phase of the industry.
The history of brick-making takes us back to the days when primitive man discovered that by shaping moist earth into rough blocks, allowing them to dry, first in the shade and then in the sun, they became sufficiently hard to be used as bricks. Such sun-baked bricks would not be suitable in a land like ours, but in some countries, particularly Assyria, they proved to be so durable that bricks which were used over 6,000 years ago to build the city of Babylon, still remain. Strangely enough, cottages made of sun-baked bricks in certain parts of England are still inhabited, and are warm and comfortable in winter and cool and pleasant in summer. In some Eastern countries sun-baked bricks are used to-day, the same methods being employed as were adopted thousands of years previously. Some years ago an effort was made to revive the use of these bricks, but people prefer the properly baked ones as they are more durable and can resist far greater pressure.
Among the best accounts of early brick-making are those of the ancient Egyptians, who not only left written records but also valuable pictures of the men engaged in the making of bricks and pottery. The Nile mud which was used for this purpose shrinks greatly when dried, and unless the utmost care was taken the bricks would crack and fall to pieces. In order to obviate this the Egyptians mixed chopped straw and reeds with the clay, and were very careful to protect the freshly-made bricks from exposure to the strong sun or wind.
Although we refer to bricks as being made of “clay,” they are actually made from a complex mixture of clay, sand and other materials, for which the term “brick-earth” might be more suited. Pure clay does not contain sufficient fusible material to unite the particles when the bricks are heated. Sometimes brick-earth resembles garden soil, sometimes it is very sticky, and sometimes it is so hard that it would seem totally unsuitable for use. If limestone is present in the clay, it forms quick-lime when burned, and later the lime will slake and cause the bricks to fall to pieces. Chalk, however, is a valuable ingredient, because it is formed of minute particles, which, when heated, combine with the clay forming a fusible slag. This is particularly necessary for the making of specially strong bricks. The colour of the bricks depends largely on the substances present in the clay. If there is much iron-oxide the bricks will be red, while under certain conditions they may be a blue-black colour.
In the Waimangaroa Brick and Pipe Works the machinery used and the various processes of manufacture are very interesting. The brick-making machine makes 6,000 bricks per day. The sandy papa used comes down into trucks and is shovelled straight into the pan. It is then crushed to powder by the rollers, and goes into the pug machine which fills the dice. The table turns for 30 seconds and then stops. This interesting machine has an automatic arm which pushes each brick out as soon as it has been pressed. The bricks are next put on a barrow and wheeled out to dry, which process usually takes a week, providing, of course, that the wind and sun are suitable. When dry, they are wheeled back to the kiln and burned at white heat for three days and three nights.
The clay for the manufacture of
Fire bricks are made from fire clay, nineteen acres of which is in the vicinity of the kiln. Fire clay is like a black slate and has to be subjected to great crushing before being reduced to powder. These bricks can withstand any heating conditions which would cause ordinary bricks to melt.
The most interesting part of the works was the pottery section, replete with the Potter's Wheel, the most ancient tool known to the potter. When Omar Khayyam stood in the potter's house making his observations he probably watched the craftsman manipulate the wheel, and it has changed but little in essentials through the passing centuries. The wheel is used for making deep, circular vessels, such as cups, jug, and bowls. It is a round piece of board set horizontally on top of a revolving spindle, the speed of which is controlled by the potter. He throws a lump of clay on to the wheel so that it sticks fast and revolves with the wheel. As the wheel spins he fashions the article, working from the base. His fingers, bent in a peculiar manner, touch the top of the article, and it rises into a vase. Another touch and the top rolls over into a lip.
The manipulating of the wheel demands deft fingers, skill and accuracy, and the many beautiful examples of the potter's art made on the wheel by Mr. S. Neighbours reveal these attributes in a high degree.
(Continued from page 16)
Governor's Bay, where she died nearly sixty years ago. Her first home was a tiny two-roomed place built of square stone blocks by a quarryman who was getting stone for the Cathedral, the quarry being just at the gate of Mrs. Garlick's present home. As time went on, one or two tiny daub rooms were added. One, 6ft by 9ft. high, with a tiny window, still remains. The large blocks of stone for the Cathedral were sledged about two chains, then conveyed by lighter to Lyttelton, and thence by boat to the Heathcote River, Christchurch.
The delightfully picturesque Anglican Church, St. Cuthbert's, with its separate belfry, situated on the hillside over-looking the blue waters of the Bay, dominates the scene, and is inextricably associated with the life of the settlers. Previous to its erection, and up till 1860, services were held in a small sod building. The monuments in the old churchyard bear the names of many a hardy settler, but the lives of these indomitable folk constitute the real monument, and one which is being gratefully remembered at the present time throughout the length and breadth of the land. The first burial was that of Robert Munro, dated March 16, 1867. The story of a burial which took place in 1869 is instinct with chivalry and devotion. It was that of Mary Crompton of Little River. The body was borne on foot by eight men from Little River, a distance of forty miles, so that she whom they loved might rest in a real cemetery. The inscription is no longer visible, but the headstone remains. The foundation of this church was laid in 1860, and there was no hurried jerry-building about its erection. It took two years to build, some of the stone being brought from the beach, and some from Garlick's quarry. The first high roof was of shingles and more picturesque than the present corrugated iron one, and the thick walls with the very deeply inset latticed windows and substantial buttresses add to the charm of the building. The porch, with its cobblestone floor, is reminiscent of an English village church.
An early settler tells of the Mullock, the first coastal vessel which traded to Lyttelton. Her itinerary included Heathcote and the bays in the harbour. She broke down on her last trip, and was towed to Governor's Bay, and beached. There she remained until the Great War, when some of her plates were reclaimed, and so severing, as it were, another link with the past.
Some men have to go to the doctor about it. They are beset with a ringing in the head and voices calling from a far distance. Their index fingers grow stiff and weave small circles in the air. If their wives call them suddenly they bark “wrong number!” and slam down their tea cups.
And while they explain their hallucinations to the doctor his telephone rings; he hurls himself across his desk and man-handles the receiver as though it were the throat of his best enemy or his worst friend. He is suddenly transformed from a benign dispenser of physic and physiology to a Samson disputing the right to bite with Leo the lion. He is a changed man. It is possible that even his wife might respect him could she see him pitting his courage and cunning against the horrors of invention.
When it is all over he sinks wearily into his chair and smiles a pathetic apology. “You see how it is,” he says. “There is no hope for you. Even I—.” He buries his head in the filing cabinet, A to J. “It goes like that all day,” he sobs.
So, when next you see a haggard man spring in the air like a wounded buck at the tinkle of a bicycle bell, do not jump to the conclusion that he has looked into a glass damply, not wisely but too often. When you espy a gaunt man with a haunted look in his eye and a pack on his back making for the nearest snowline, do not assume that some firm's Imprest Account is unlawfully in the red. Here is a man deserving of your sympathy rather than your blame—a refugee fleeing from the tyranny of the telephone and the baleful burr of the buzzer.
The telephone is truly the friend of man; but even a friend can grow pretty sticky if he rings bells and constantly shouts into your ear things which you would be a happier and better man if you never heard.
There is nothing wrong with telephones; it is the way they are used that gives us pain. Most people delight in conveying the worst of tidings by telephone and reserving good news for communication by the slowest methods known, even to telegraph boys. How often do you pick up the receiver and hear a voice telling you that your Uncle Tightwad has kicked the cash-register and left you a tub full of gilt-edged, platinum-plated securities? But if your house is on fire or your wife has gone on a permanent hitch-hike with a party of the third part the news will come at you over the telephone with the celerity of a homing brickbat in Ireland.
The telephone was invented with the best of intentions. Mr. Bell figured that it would be nice to have an instrument to convey felicitations and items of mutual comfort between people of kindly instinct and humane understanding. Later, the aeroplane was perfected with something of the same idea—and look at it now!
There are many business men who insist that the telephone, to-day, is a lethal weapon rather than an instrument.
Even when it is not used with malice aforethought or for the purpose of elevating the breeze in your vicinity it is an exhausting instrument. If you pass a friend in the street you can say, “How do you do?” and let it go at that without being expected to stop and thrash the matter out to the last symptom. But if you have an impulse to
There certainly are super-souls who do not flinch when the buzzer fires off at them, but they are people who would spend their spare time leaning against wild bulls or firing catapults at tax collectors if there were no telephones to give their daring an airing. Such people are not shaken to the suspenders even when their creditors get them hooked up and play them on the end of the wire.
All of the above explains why nice people with nice faces and usually humane instincts answer the telephone in a manner suggesting that they hate it intensely, and a voice at the other end even more. This is why ordinarily courteous men snap “Brrump!” at you through the telephone while others moan “Ye-aaaaaaa-s,” as though passing away in the most frightful agony at the other end; also why many howl at you despairingly as though bemoaning the brevity of life and the infinity of the human voice.
Surely there must be some deficiency in an instrument that can play such havoc with the human soul. There is. The general who advised his troops to hold their fire until they saw the whites of the enemy's eyes knew the value of the human eye as a subsidiary weapon. That is the real reason why a row over the telephone is so shattering. You can't see the whites of your adversary's eyes or his teeth; you can only hear the latter snapping. You can both shout until piebald in the face, but where's the satisfaction of shouting a face piebald if you can't see it going piebald? You can call each other all the superlative twirts and lying hounds known to unnatural history, but you both hang up feeling that a strand of copper is a poor substitute for a block of wood.
It must be understood that all the foregoing refers to men. Women appear to be better equipped for blind talking, undeterred by the limitations of time and space. No doubt woman, with her shattering logic which knocks spots off the man-made article, contends that speech and sight, coming from different addresses, are not necessarily interdependent. But it is more than likely that she is grateful even for a telephone, when the alternative is talking to herself. Not that women talk any more than men—they only talk longer. It was the future Mrs. Bell who hounded on poor old Bell to produce the telephone; but there must have been occasions, later, when he sat, with his face sunk in his trouser cuffs, moaning, “What have I done?” The different attitudes of the sexes towards the telephone are reflected in their respective approaches. A woman says: I want to ring up Mrs. Nonstop-Babble about her operation.” A man says: “I have to ring up old Bullswool-Blah about his gout—darn him!”
(Continued on page 15)
In many ways of peace and war the British spirit has triumphed over tremendous difficulties. The hero of these verses is one of a long line which stretches through the centuries. Here is one of the last notes in the diary of Captain Robert Falcon Scott, the famous Antarctic explorer who was overtaken by death during his return from the Pole in 1912: “Captain L. E. G. Oates, 6th Inniskilling Dragoons, was next lost. … He was a brave soul. He slept through the night, hoping not to wake, but awoke in the morning. It was blowing a blizzard. Captain Oates said: ‘I am just going outside — and may be some time.’ He went out into the blizzard, and we have not seen him since.”
* * *
That portion of the Summit Road, on the Port Hills between Lyttelton and Christchurch, offers one of the most attractive scenic drives in New Zealand. Most visitors agree that, until one has taken advantage of a walk along the Summit Road, one cannot fully appreciate all the beauty that Christchurch and the Canterbury Plains have to offer.
The road commences just above Sumner, on the sea coast, seven miles from Christchurch. Passing through Sumner, Evan's Pass is ascended, the top of which merges into the Summit Road proper. From then onward the road runs in an undulating line, with easy grades, for approximately eighteen miles, along the top of the Port Hills which follow the contour of the upper reaches of Lyttelton Harbour.
After leaving Evan's Pass a fine panoramic view of Sumner is obtained. Then, after gaining more altitude, Mount Pleasant is reached. The view at this point is superb; away to the right stretches a vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean; almost directly below lies Redcliffs, built around the south shores of the estuary. The estuary itself is separated from the sea, except for a small outlet, by a narrow spit upon which part of the seaside Borough of New Brighton is built. At full tide, on a calm day, the estuary resembles a placid lake and it is here that a large number of Christchurch yachting enthusiasts indulge in their summer recreation. In the background, looking towards the north-east, the gaunt snow-capped peaks of the Kaikouras stand out vividly on the skyline.
Farther along the road one observes the Heathcote, Horotane and Avoca valleys, which, with their rows upon rows of fruit trees and tomato plants, present a pretty picture. From above the Heathcote Valley a splendid view is to be had of Lyttelton and the numerous picturesque little bays in the harbour. Incidentally, this spot is interesting from an historical point of view; it was here that the pilgrims from the first four ships stood and gazed down on the fertile Canterbury Plains where they were to make their future homes. A steep track, which they hewed out of the hillsides from Lyttelton to Heathcote and known as the Bridle Path, still remains in good repair—a reminder to later generations of the courage and pioneering spirit of their forefathers.
The road now veers to the harbour side of the hills and from here one has a fine view of the upper reaches of the harbour and of Quail Island. Farther on a splendid panorama of Christchurch is revealed. The outskirts of the city are clearly discernible and numerous large tracts of green here and there denote the presence of parks and playing fields, with which Christchurch is plentifully endowed. The dominating feature of the skyline, in the city area, is the tall spire of the Anglican Cathedral rearing its head majestically above all the surrounding buildings. From this vantage point on the hills the city presents a magnificent sight after nightfall. A maze of multicoloured Neon signs, amidst a sea of twinkling lights, distinguishes the business area from the suburbs. On the outskirts of the city the lights dwindle and then gradually merge into the inky blackness beyond.
The next point of interest on the road is the “Sign of the Kiwi,” at the intersection of the Dyer's Pass road from Cashmere to Governor's Bay. Here, a halt may be made for refreshments before resuming the journey to Kennedy's Bush and the “Sign of the Bell-bird”—another rest-house where refreshments may be obtained. From this elevation, Lyttelton Harbour with its bays and inlets presents a magnificent picture. A mile or two farther on, to the south-east, one looks down upon the sparkling waters of Lake Ellesmere. From this vantage point, also, looking from north to south, the fertile Canterbury Plains are seen at their best. Some fifty miles to the west the plains, presenting an endless variety of colour forms, merge into rolling foothills backed by the wonderful snowcapped peaks of the Southern Alps. This view in itself is more than compensation for the whole journey.
The Summit Road now dips down sharply to its termination at Gebbie's Pass, the return journey to Christchurch being made across the plains via Tai Tapu and Halswell. This scenic drive provides a feast of Nature's loveliness as inspiring as it is sustaining.
After showing almost all our coiffure during the summer, we are not surprised to find some winter fashions electing to cover the hair. Of such are the snood and the hood, and the many types of hat with back drapery.
Snoods may be of any material, but the most popular overseas are those of crocheted net. Snoods may be drawn up under the back hair by an elastic, or they may be draped round the head and tied with ends falling at the back in school-girl fashion. Some hats have snoods fastened over the narrow hat brim at the back.
For evening wear, snoods are made of gold or silver thread ornamented with sequins.
* * *
Hoods are a delightful fashion for colder climates. They may be attached to long coats, short coats, evening coats, day frocks, ski suits. They may be detachable (by buttons or zipper). They will almost certainly roll back to form a flatteringly soft collar. They may be lined with a glowing velvet to accent a sombre wool frock, or with fur to give richness to a tweed coat.
But they refuse to flatter any but a young-looking face. You may be thirty-five or forty, but if your face is soft and rounded a hood may be for you. Try one and see.
* * *
As for back draperies to hats, have something hanging over your back hair if you wish to be fashion-wise. Straight ribbon tails will do. Or buy, if you will, a length of wide, very stiff ribbon; fold it in half, and gather into the shape of a pouched bag; attach the gathered end by an ornamental clip to the back of your tiny tipped-forward chapeau—and there is Paris or New York chic!
A flat little Breton sailor has two felt pig-tails behind the ears. A more girlish hat has a flat ribbon bow drooping over the down-turned medium-width back brim.
With a tiny hat, perched forward on the head, wear a veil draped over the hair and sometimes round the chin.
* * *
Toppers are more like opera hats in every stage of “concertina.” They may be merely flattened, or squashed forward, or waisted, or tucked back and front to give a forward impulse. However they're treated, they're definitely 1940—and an exception to the “cover the hair” rule. When one comes to think of it, there are always many exceptions to any fashion rule—thank goodness!
Very little of the war influence is yet seen in women's clothes, but we are hearing things from overseas.
Epaulettes of gold braid or metal will extend the heavy shoulder line. Buttons, maybe gilt, will march in military line. Hats will copy the more rakish military styles. Gold braid and cord will be used extensively for trimmings. Military red and black feature in the dress parade.
Styles for the danger-zones are hand-bags which are also gas-mask holders; luminous belts, buckles and buttons for black-out nights; wool “all-occasion” suits, advertised as just right for the air-raid shelter.
But men insist that their civilian suits should show no trace of the military influence!
“Elsie was the easiest of my children,” said the proud mother of a grown-up family. “She never showed temper or answered back.”
“Yes, but Mother doesn't know, even now,” said Elsie to me, later, “how I used to feel at times, and what a lot of remarks I made inside myself. They all thought me a placid child who never minded being left out if there wasn't enough to go round—even if it was only a banana I missed through being at the shop when Cousin Emily arrived with fruit for us children. ‘Elsie doesn't mind, do you dear?’ said mother afterwards. ‘The next door children were here to play and, of course, it wasn't fair to give fruit to ours and not to them. I'll buy something for you, dear, next time I go to town.’ I didn't say anything, of course (not out loud!), until I got away to my hidey-hole behind the rhododendron bushes. A banana
“And when an invitation came for Ada or me to go and stay with Auntie in Wellington! If only they hadn't discussed the possibility in front of me!—and then decided that Ada should go, as she was a year and a-half older (forgetting that she had had the last holiday), and that she could take my new coat which was a bit big for me (and I felt so proud of myself in that coat, and looked forward to wearing it to Sunday School) and my new pairs of socks that Grandma sent, and even my little blue bag, I remember! They were so sure that I wouldn't mind staying at home and lending my best things to Ada. But I wept gallons behind the rhododendron bushes; and nobody knew, so I didn't get any sympathy.
“And next time, again I was Mother's dear little girl, who was so easily pleased, and never made a fuss, and there were only two tickets for the circus, and Johnny and Bill were boys and so keen on animals. So ‘dear little Elsie’ stayed home, and hid once more in the rhododendron bushes, and said all sorts of naughty things under her breath and finally wept gallons.
“But as I could never bring myself to say anything in company, I've a reputation for placidity even to this day,” laughed Elsie.
“Of course, no one was ever actively unkind to me; but they just didn't realise that small things are often world-shaking to a child. That's what makes me so careful with my two boys. I'm so dead scared of hurting their feelings that everything has to be absolutely fifty-fifty between them. When Grand'ma sent Bob 5/- for Christmas, and only 3/6 for Alan because he was younger, I was very annoyed.”
Elsie's two boys are fine little chaps. There seems to be less friction between them than is the case in some families I know, where the parents, kind but unimaginative, could well take a leaf out of Elsie's book.
A young married woman showed me her painfully cracked finger-tips.
“My hands are not used to housework yet,” she laughed.
“Are you doing anything for them?” I asked.
“Oh, I'll rub in some cold cream for a night or two, and they'll be all right—till next time.”
“But you've such pretty hands. It's a pity to spoil them. Can't you save them at all?”
“Well, I wear rubber gloves when I'm washing the ‘coloureds.’ That's a help.”
“Of course it is. How about dishes and vegetables?”
“Oh, I don't bother. It seems such a nuisance struggling into and out of gloves so many times a day. Do you think I'm careless? Perhaps I should take more trouble. I used to be terribly fussy about my hands before I was married.”
I gave her my ideas about hands.
It always makes me sorry when I see married women's hands looking cracked and stained, comparing so unfavourably with those of the unmarried. True, a housewife's hands need more care than an office girl's, though she has less time for it. But extra attention to hands is well worth while, if only to avoid that terrible cook-laundress inferiority that some women feel when in company. I've seen many a pair of hands hidden by evening bags or the edges of bridge tables.
Certainly it is a nuisance to have to don rubber gloves every time one washes dishes, but those extra seconds are well spent, for water is the enemy of beautiful hands. For housemaid tasks, such as mopping and dusting, cotton gloves are well worth while to guard against the drying and roughening effect of dust, which acts on the skin like fine grit.
Bed-time care is most important. If hands are cracked, use a mild ointment. Otherwise, rub in any recommended hand lotion (such as a mixture of mutton fat, glycerine and rose water) or even cold cream, paying special attention to the corners of the nails, where the skin is apt to become dry. The lotion may be well rubbed into the hands and the excess wiped off with cleansing tissues, or old gloves may be worn at night.
One friend tells me that she massages her hands and feet every night with olive oil. She then wears old cotton gloves and a pair of her husband's socks to bed. “Of course I look a fright,” she confided. “But at least my hands are respectable by day-light and I shan't have 'hot-water bottle’ feet.”
With the approach of cold weather, hand culture is still more important if one wishes to avoid that much-married look—and hands can be a terrible give-away!
The ability to relax when off duty is one of the most valuable gifts one can have in these troubled times. Rest, apart from sleep, counts for much, provided the individual lies in bed relaxed and calm, and is not disturbed by unrest of body and soul. We therefore need not be unduly worried if we have a few wakeful hours during the night, so long as we do not banish sleep altogether in our feverish anxiety about our inability to sleep.
Indigestion, poor circulation, etc., tend to cause sleeplessness. Tea and coffee, especially coffee, taken at supper may in certain persons prevent sleep, while others can take these beverages at any hour of the evening and fall asleep without difficulty. Poor circulation is a physical condition which may be overcome by diet and exercise.
Most parents are ready to recognise and act upon symptoms of ill-health in children. But it is more timely to lay emphasis upon the signs of health in childhood, rather than to wait for the child to have a temperature or the eyes darkened by shadows underneath.
Good posture, for instance, plays a very important part in the child's welfare, as it is not only an indication of health, but it is a certain basis for continued health. Any slovenly or slouchy posture with the weight of the body thrown to one side is the forerunner of ill-health.
The tongue is a sure sign of digestive health, and in good health is clean without spots or coating. The eyes are clear, bright and alert, and the inner membrane lining the eyelids is deep pink in colour.
The muscles of a healthy child are rounded and firm, giving a sense of strength, rather than any softness or flabbiness.
A healthy child, although perpetually on the go during the day time, enjoys sound sleep at night.
A healthy child is usually happy, and free from nervous jerky movements.
One tin salmon; 2 cups mashed potatoes; 1 cup browned cracker crumbs; 2 cups parsley sauce; salt and pepper to taste.
Grease mould with butter, sprinkle in few cracker crumbs and line with mashed potatoes. Drain oil from salmon and remove skin and bones. Season with salt and pepper and pack in mould. Cover with layer each of potato and cracker crumbs. Place a few pieces of butter on top and bake in hot oven for about half an hour. Turn out on platter and serve with egg and parsely sauce.
Add 2 eggs (hard boiled); 1 tablespoon chopped parsley; and 1/2 tablespoon vinegar to white fish sauce.
Six tablespoons flour (flat); 3 tablespoons butter; 1 cup fish sauce; slice of onion; 1/2 cup milk; salt and pepper to taste; lemon juice.
Boil stock, milk and onion for five minutes. Melt butter in saucepan. Add flour and stir over fire for a few minutes (do not brown). Gradually add stock and milk and simmer for 10 minutes, stirring constantly. Strain, add seasoning and a few drops lemon juice.
Add 1/2 cup oyster juice to 1 cup white fish sauce and bring to boiling point; remove from heat and add 6 oysters blanched and quartered.
Required amount of oysters; 3 table-spons butter; 2 tablespoons flour; 1 cup milk; yolks of 2 eggs; cayenne pepper; salt.
Steam required amount of oysters and cut each one into 4 pieces. Make white sauce by melting butter, adding flour and stirring milk in gradually. Cook until thick, stirring constantly. Add seasoning to taste and remove from fire, when cool, stir in beaten egg yolks, reheat, stir until thick, then add oysters. Serve in patty shells.
After puff pastry has been thoroughly chilled roll out to 1/4 inch thickness and cut with round biscuit cutter. Cut centres from half of pieces with small cutter. Moisten edges of rounds with cold water. Bake in hot oven for 25 minutes or until golden brown.
Note: Shells may be kept in closed tin and reheated when ready to serve.
Pare the potatoes and place in cold water for 20 minutes or until firm. Cut in slices, strips, balls or any fancy shape, and dry thoroughly. Drop quickly into fat hot enough to brown them by the time they come to the surface. They are cooked when they float. Drain, sprinkle with salt and serve hot.
Two cups hot mashed potatoes; 2 tablespoons butter; 1/2 teaspoon salt; 1/3 teaspoon pepper; 1/4 teaspoon celery salt; few drops onion juice; yolk of one egg; 1 teaspoon finely chopped parsley.
Mix ingredients in order given and beat thoroughly. Shape, roll in crumbs. Dip in egg and then in crumbs again. Fry until lightly browned in deep fat and drain on brown paper.
The services rendered by the Railways Department in overcoming the difficulties associated with the transport of passengers during the recent serious floods on the West Coast, have won many expressions of appreciation from travellers on the trains affected. The following are some typical tributes received by the Department.
From One of New Zealand's Most Highly Esteemed and Prominent Citizens.
In justice to your staff I think I should write to say that I have occasion to travel by rail quite often, and am always delighted by the courtesy and efficiency with which the service is operated. In particular, however, I am moved to write because of my experience while going by train from Christchurch to Greymouth on Monday, the 4th March. The service had been seriously disorganised by floods and consequent wash-outs. Accordingly there were unduly large numbers on the train. When we reached Otira it was necessary to improvise transport by road to Jacksons over very badly damaged roads, and thereafter by makeshift trains to Greymouth. Your staff at Otira Station, the train staffs and your bus drivers, all excelled themselves by their good sense, their competence and their tolerance and consideration for the passengers. In particular your bus drivers did a very difficult job in traversing such badly damaged roads with great skill and, indeed, with great courage too, having regard to the heavily loaded and unwieldy vehicles they were driving.
Altogether, I was very much impressed with the manner in which these abnormal difficulties were overcome, and as one of the passengers concerned I would like you to know of my appreciation of the treatment we received.
* * *
From Mr. W. F. Herrick, General Secretary, United Commercial Travellers’ and Warehousemen's Association of New Zealand.
It is my pleasure to give the following extract from the Report of the Committee Meeting of the Otago C.T. & W. Association:—
“Appreciation by Travellers of Railway Department:
Mr. A. W. Clapp reported that the expeditious manner in which the Railway Department had repaired the roads and rail, and so facilitated transport following the recent severe floodings on the West Coast, had been the subject of very favourable comment by travellers on the Coast. The damage done had been extensive, and it was a great credit to the Railway Department to have effected repairs in so short a time.”
This will be published in the March issue of “The N.Z. Traveller.” It is only one instance of comments made by our members.
I may state that over the years the Railway Department has been looked upon as the acme of perfection in repairing damage (by whatever means caused) in a remarkably short time—this is evidenced by the minor delays experienced, and these with a minimum of inconvenience.
* * *
From Mr. Geo. Davidson, Secretary, Commercial Travellers’ & Warehousemen's Association of Otago.
At our recent monthly meeting, members of our Association who have recently been travelling on the West Coast, spoke in very appreciative terms of the excellent work which had been done by the Railway Department in clearing and rebuilding the line which was badly damaged by recent floods, and thereby enabling goods and passenger traffic to proceed with a minimum of delay.
It was felt by the Committee that such references should be passed on to the Department.
* * *
From the Rev. W. A. Curzon-Siggers, St. Martin's Vicarage, North East Valley, Dunedin.
I should like to express my appreciation of the work of two members especially of your Department in arranging during the difficulties caused by the floods at Greymouth for the transport of passengers from that town who had urgent reasons for getting to their various homes. I refer especially to Mr. Smart, at Greymouth, Stationmaster, who made every endeavour to arrange transport through such routes as might be open on Thursday and Friday of last week, and ultimately fixed up for a party of about eighteen to go to Westport and there be picked up by a Railways Service Car, and Mr. Hanna of the Railways Road Services who arranged the transport from Westport via Blenheim to Christchurch and himself took the party and arranged meals and accommodation for those desiring it. By the good work of these officials and their staffs three people were able to get to Wellington via Picton and I with others was enabled to get back to Dunedin: in my case I was thus able to fulfil engagements last Sunday which I had anticipated having to cancel.
I thought that the Department might care to have a personal testimony to the courtesy and organising ability of these officials during a very trying time when ordinary communications had broken down.
To start “Panorama of the Playground” with a reference to the Eucharistic Congress recently celebrated at Wellington might at first seem out of place, but I have a reason. Twelve months ago it would not have been possible to accommodate more than a few hundred spectators in front of St. Patrick's College, Wellington, but nearly 40,000 people were able to worship, or witness the dignified proceedings that marked the Congress, and among the many excellent Centennial Memorials in Wellington and surrounding districts none has a greater value than the grassy sward that has replaced the “Farm” and bushland that, for half-a-century, had graced St. Patrick's College.
When it was decided to demolish the tennis courts and level the hilly country, past students of St. Patrick's College—a college with a wonderful sporting record—might have had sentimental misgivings at the removal of the old whale ribs, the few native shrubs and rather worn tennis court. But, thanks to the vision of the Reverend Fathers, St. Patrick's College now possesses something that it had never possessed in its 55 years of existence—a sports ground. It was on this sports ground that the Eucharistic Congress was celebrated. This was the first official function held on the new sports ground and one of the principal figures in the proceedings was Archbishop T. O'Shea, who was a member of St. Patrick's First Rugby XV—in the year the college opened, 1885.
Thousands of yards of soil have been excavated to make a sports ground that will be unique in New Zealand. A hill has been levelled, a track, 220 yards in circumference, has been pegged out and arrangements have been made for the provision of jumping pits, discus and shot-putting circles and a sprint track of 75 yards. It will not be a sports ground as possessed by some of the more fortunate colleges, but it will be a sports ground valued for that very reason. Over almost insurmountable obstacles, the optimism of Father T. Cleary, Wellington's most energetic sporting official, triumphed, and in view of the amazing sporting record made by St. Patrick's College under past difficulties it is only reasonable to expect greater things in the future.
I am not an “old boy” of St. Patrick's College, but if I were such I would feel it only fitting that I should show my appreciation of a good job well done by supporting the Rector and his Reverend Fathers by subscribing sufficient funds to complete the transformation of the “Old School.”
St. Patrick's College was opened in 1885 with Father Felix as Rector. This reverend gentleman died of wounds received in Dublin during Easter, 1916, but left his mark on the scholars who studied under him. One of these lads was T. O'Shea, a native of San Francisco, who commenced his studies at St. Patrick's in its initial year. In that year he was a member of the First XV, along with C. Diamond (later to captain the Victorian Rugby reps.), and P. McMahon (later a pillar of the turf). Four years later, T. O'Shea was captain of the First XV and First XI. To-day, he is His Grace Archbishop O'Shea, S.M., Archbishop of Wellington, the first student of St. Pat's to be made bishop.
Rugby representatives from St. Pat's have acquired a reputation for toughness—not to be confused with roughness. Is it any wonder that the lads were tough players? They did not have any grassy swards on which to train. They trained on the gravel that covered the “playing field” at the rear of the college.
I will mention just a few of the famous Rugby players that learned the game at this college: Eric Harper, famed member of the “Original All Blacks” was a student at St. Pat's. So was Maurice Brownlie, who is included in all the composite teams when a “World XV” has been chosen. J. R. McKenzie and Tom Lynch went to California with the New Zealand team in 1913 and also to Australia in 1914. Father P. Kane (P. Markham as he was known on the football field) played against Australia in 1921 and Father P. McCarthy played for the All Blacks in 1923, while two Hawkes Bay representatives, Tommy Corkhill and Jack Blake, also won All Black honours.
Two other students to win fame as Rugby players were P. F. McEvedy (a member of Bedell-Sivright's team in New Zealand in 1904 and vice-captain of the Anglo-Welsh team in New Zealand in 1908) and A. B. O'Brien (manager and three-quarter in Bedell-Sivright's team in 1908). It would be impossible to cover the list in the space available, but five former pupils of St. Pat's have won Rugby honours in Australia. They are C. Diamond (captain of Victoria in 1899), V. Redwood (played for Queensland and Australia in 1904), L. McCarthy (N.S.W. representative),
Four representatives, Kaipara, Ratima, P. Blake and J. Blake won places in New Zealand Maori teams at intervals, while innumerable players have won places in North or South Island teams.
Three past players, H. C. Hickson, B. McCarthy and C. H. Tattersall have represented New Zealand at cricket, while Cam Malfroy was one of New Zealand's best tennis players after captaining the College First XV. Even soccer has called on St. Patrick's for a New Zealand representative—J. Burke.
In track and field sport the college has a proud record. A Evenson (hurdles champion), W. J. O'Kane (44oyds. hurdles champion), J. Prendeville (3-mile champion), E. T. Harper (440yds. hurdles champion), and C. S. Harper (broad jump and high jump champion) have all figured in national sport.
As was the case in 1914–1918 past pupils of the college are rallying to the colours. In the Great War nearly 500 past pupils answered the call of duty and more than seventy paid the Supreme Sacrifice. One hundred and twenty were wounded, 60 gained commissions and 13 were decorated. The total number of pupils from 1885 to 1916 was 1,384, and of this number, almost one-third, 454, had enlisted. It is indeed an honour to be an Old Boy of this college.
Twice a day I pass the college and each time I look across to marvel at the change that has been wrought. I pass, too, the thickly populated suburb of Berhampore, and recall this extract from the college magazine of 1910:—
Clergymen, (most of them anyway) are notoriously heavy smokers, and have always been, says an 18th century writer: “The generality of parsons can no more write a sermon without a pipe in their mouths than without a Concordance in their hands.” Tobacco is undoubtedly a great aid to literary effort. But it's not all gold that glitters, and it's not all tobacco that is reliable. The great fault of so many brands is that they are overloaded with nicotine, and nicotine constantly absorbed through a pipe into the system is not a good thing. Ask any doctor. The perfect tobacco should not only be fragrant and soothing, but as free from nicotine as may be. And the outstanding example of the kind is found in genuine toasted. This tobacco—Cut Plug No. 10 (Bullshead), Cavendish, Navy Cut No. 3 (Bulldog), Riverhead Gold and Desert Gold—combines a fine flavour with a beautiful bouquet, and being practically without nicotine (toasting is responsible for that) is as harmless as tobacco can possibly be. There is nothing finer manufactured.*
“Berhampore has been made a highly respectable suburb, probably with a policeman to look after it. Once it was a romantic region. The ‘Pats’ boys were the pioneers of Berhampore. They wrought the beginnings of to-day's splendid Recreation Ground there. They had the first playing field there, a ground with a sharp slope, and there was always enough gorse remaining to give a memorable point to the play in the low tackles. We grew to know the peculiarities of that tricky field and made our knowledge disagreeable to our opponents…. Every time we played we carried heavy goal-posts about a quarter-mile to the ground.”
That was the spirit in the early days; the spirit that carried the old school along is evident to-day and with the formation of a sports ground that will enable track and field sport—including Rugby—to be carried out on grass instead of on cinders St. Patrick's College celebrates its 55th birthday and looks forward to the future with confidence.
* * *
The “Centennial Mile,” won by Vernon (“Pat”) Boot at Wellington saw brilliant racing under atrocious conditions, and the time, 4min. 15 4/5sec., stamps it as one of the most brilliant track efforts ever seen in New Zealand. The run was made even more meritorious when it was learned—before the race—that Boot, who has been undergoing military training at Trentham, was suffering from influenza. He triumphed over the strongest field of milers ever assembled in the Dominion. Four of the five contestants had returned better than 4.20 for the distance, but few spectators considered that this time would be made under the conditions. A driving rain and a heavy track were not conducive to a fast race but Boot came within two seconds of the New Zealand record.
* * *
The tragic death of Stan Jenkin, holder of New Zealand professional boxing titles at light-heavyweight and middleweight, following on his welterweight title bout against Vic Caltaux is a bitter blow to the ring sport. Jenkin was a good winner until the last half-minute of the 15-round bout, when he ran into a barrage that persuaded the referee to halt the bout. The deceased boxer was of pleasing personality, popular in and out of the ring and a credit to ring sport. To Caltaux will sincere sympathy be extended. His is a heavy cross, and he carries with him the sympathy of all who saw a cleanlyfought contest end in tragedy.
* * *
Our democratic sporting army! A brief message in Wellington a few days ago announced that our soldiers had already swung into action on the Rugby fields in Egypt and stated that Lieut.-Col. King, Major J. T. Burrows and Private J. Griffiths had been appointed to select a New Zealand Army XV. Morrison, Coull and Wales were three prominent players mentioned as having played good games; they are but three of New Zealand's well-known players to don khaki. Jim Wynyard and Eric Tindill are also doing their bit and will later join their old team-mates across the water.
A lady motorist was driving along a country road when she saw a couple of repair men climbing a telephone pole.
“Look!” she exclaimed, “they must think I never drove a car before.”
* * *
College Student (writing home): “Say, how do you spell ‘financially’”?
Room - mate: “F-i-n-a-n-c-i-a-l-l-y,’ and there are two r's in ‘embarrassed?’”
* * *
“I've just been congratulating Colonel Blaze,” said a guest at a banquet. “He's been appointed governor of a prison.”
“Really?” asked his pretty neighbour. “Now, for a job like that does one need influence, or does one just start as a convict and rise from the ranks?”
* * *
Mr. Dash was always courteous to women. One day when he was airing his views on politeness he remarked that he had never seen an ugly woman.
A woman standing near, who happened to have a flat nose, overheard him and said: “Sir, look at me, and confess that I am ugly!”
“Madam,” replied Mr. Dash, “like the rest of your sex, you are an angel fallen from the skies, but it was not your fault that you happened to fall on your nose.”
* * *
A Parliamentary candidate was canvassing constituents. He explained his opinions to one housewife, a newcomer to the district, and ended by saying, “Well, madam, those are my views, and I am hoping this constituency will return me.”
“Some hopes you've got, mister,” she said, sadly. “Although I ain't lived 'ere long, I can tell you the people 'ere never return anything!”
“Please, sir could I have to-morrow afternoon off—”
“Your grandmother, I suppose!”
“Exactly, sir. She is making her first parachute jump.”
* * *
“I never felt so punk in all my life.”
“Do any drinking last night?”
“Yes, and when I went to bed I felt fine. But when I woke up I felt terrible. It was the sleep that did it.”
* * *
Two big coloured caddies had had some sort of falling out, and warnings of intended violence were exchanged whenever the two passed each other.
“You jest keep on pesterin’ around wid me,” declared one of the lads, “an’ you is gwine to be able to settle a mighty big question for the sciumtific folks!”
“What question dat?” asked the other.
“Kin the dead speak!”
Young Wife: ‘I want a cigar for my husband.”
Clerk: “Fairly strong?”
Young Wife: “Yes, please. The last one broke in his pocket.”
* * *
We like the tale of the Scotch coal merchant who was always being worried by his acquaintances to supply them with coal at a lower rate than his other customers. So, because he was a friend of theirs, he reduced the price by two shillings, and, as they were friends of his, he knocked two cwt. off the ton.
* * *
“The average German believes every word of the Nazi propaganda,” says a novelist. He gobbles what's garbled by Goebbels.
* * *
Teacher: “Willie, give me a sentence with the word ‘archaic.’”
Willie: “We cannot have archaic and eat it it too.”