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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.
Short stories, poetry, pen-and-ink sketches, etc., are invited from the general public upon New Zealand subjects.
Payment for short paragraphs will be made at 2d. a line. Successful contributors will be expected to send in clippings from the Magazine for assessment of the payment due to them.
The Editor cannot undertake the return of ms.
All communications should be addressed to The Editor, New Zealand Railways Magazine, Wellington.
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 20,000 copies each issue since July, 1930.
Deputy-Controller and Auditor-General.
27/9/33.
The annual Church Parade of the St. John Ambulance Brigades throughout South Auckland was held recently at Frankton Junction, the following Divisions being represented—Tauranga (including ladies), Waihi, Thames, Te Aroha (including cadets), Morrinsville, Cambridge, Taumarunui, Huntly, Glen Afton, Hamilton (including ladies), and Frankton Railway.
The parade formed ranks at the Commerce Street railway crossing and headed by the Pipe Band of the South Auckland Caledonian Society, marched via Commerce Street and Lake Road to St. George's Church.
The Rev. R. Boyt, Vicar of Frankton Junction, officiated at the service. Referring to the dress and appearance of all sections he assured them they compared very favourably with those of their Order in the towns of England and Wales with which he had acquaintance.
The Hague Cup competition, which followed the Church Parade, was held in the Railway Social Hall. This event is an efficiency test, and the Cup is valued highly in the South Auckland district. There were about twenty entries for the competition, and these were divided into two sections. A case was set for each section, and the winner had to submit to a final test in order to determine who should hold the Cup for the ensuing year. One section had to treat a patient suffering from a fractured right humerus together with a broken collar-bone on the same side. This section was judged by Dr. E. C. Brewis, of Hamilton. The other section were asked to treat a patient suffering severe bleeding at the nose and a broken patella. This section was judged by Dr. L. A. Milroy, of Hamilton. The final test was judged by both doctors, who then allocated their marks separately.
Mr. Milner, of Glen Afton Brigade, was the winner in the first section, and Miss Chapman, of the Hamilton Women's Division, won the second.
In the final test, judged by both doctors, the case was a patient who had come in contact with a live wire there being no means available to switch off the power.
The marking of both doctors was practically the same, and in each case they declared Miss Chapman the winner, a decision which was greeted with loud applause.
The District Officer of the St. John Ambulance Association, Mr. Cobb, expressed, on behalf of the Brigades assembled, thanks to the doctors for their kindness in consenting to officiate and for their thoroughness in trying to make the competition a pleasure to all.
Dr. E. C. Brewis, in presenting the Hague Cup to Miss Chapman, made it perfectly clear to all that he considered it a great achievement to reach that stage of efficiency which made the winning of such a Cup possible. He expressed his appreciation of the work performed by St. John's men on the various sports grounds and everywhere where they could follow their mission.
Much credit for the success of the whole gathering was due to the good work of the Divisional Superintendent, Mr. C. E. Marshall, and to the ladies of the Frankton R.R.R., who kindly undertook the work of providing afternoon tea.
There are two ways in which the slogan of the New Zealand Government Railways, “Safer by Rail,” may be read.
The first refers to the constant effort made to provide against all kinds of accidents, whether to individuals or freight, by adequate safeguards on the railway system.
The second relates to the comparative safety offered by the respective modes of transport. The slogan has proved accurate and apt in both respects.
When every year adds something to the wealth of things worth living for, then individual safety in the physical sense becomes increasingly valuable, and any system that can offer transport freed from all calculable risks is likely to gain popularity.
This has been the experience of the New Zealand Railways in recent times. They are carrying more passengers, and, although the safety factor is not the only one operating to produce this result, it definitely counts with many travellers, and might well do so with many more.
In the last nine years (to 30th September, 1934), 205 million passenger journeys have been made by rail in New Zealand, and in that time not one fatality has been caused by the Department to any of its passengers. Some idea of this achievement may be gained from the statement that it is equal to giving the whole population of the Dominion a ride on the train fifteen times a year, in each of the nine years, without causing one fatal accident on these journeys.
It is many years since “Safer by Rail” became a standard statement of the Railways here, and the facts given above surely justify its acceptance.
The records for safe carrying of goods are equally impressive. A well-pleased customer of the Department recently referred to consignments of furniture he had forwarded by train, of which the estimated value was £1,500, and the cost of damage 4/6. Supporting this, figures taken out over the last two years have shewn only one-tenth of a penny cost in claims for every twenty shillings of revenue earned.
Regarding the safety of the travelling public as their first duty, railwaymen have made safety principles a major consideration in all their Departmental activities.
The first road service of the Railway Department was run in 1926. Since then the fleets have been increased and, to date, nearly twenty million passengers have been carried by this means. Here again, through adopting the same attitude in management and control, the training of railwaymen in the care of the public has been successful in safeguarding human life, for there have been no fatalities amongst travellers by the railway-owned road services of the Dominion.
Actually the safety advantages of rail travel are secured by a close study of the factors leading to accident and by action to reduce risk to a minimum. If the same principle were applied to road transport generally it would be to the advantage of the public as a whole. Until then “Safer by Rail” is a statement of fact in regard to transport, which means much to those who place a reasonable estimate on the value of their lives or the protection of their goods.
By the year 1900, experience with the “U” and “B” class of locomotives had made manifest the fact that the New Zealand locomotive designer was
At this time, too, the policy of the Government of the day was strongly in favour of having, where possible, all work done in New Zealand. The Railway Department naturally, therefore, adopted the policy that in future all new locomotives required should be designed and built in New Zealand. And by the irony of fate immediately followed the largest importation of English and American locomotives that the railways had yet known!
The reasons for this anomaly were obvious enough. The colony was at this time just recovering from the severest and (let us hope) the longest “depression” that it has ever known.
This depression quickly reached its apex in 1888, but it was a long ten years after before the cloud lifted finally. During these years the provision of new locomotives was out of the question. By 1900 prosperity and progress had quite suddenly returned, and greatly increased traffic came to the railways. The new traffic called for heavier, faster, and more frequent trains. The locomotive equipment, after ten years' stagnation, was of course quite unequal to the demands of the new conditions; and, while the Addington workshops had proved that good locomotives could be built in New Zealand, and that the shops were able to cope with the normal requirements, the Railway workshops were unable to supply the large number of engines then so urgently needed.
Cabled enquiries went out to the locomotive firms of Britain and America. The British firms, however, were just resuming normal operations after a prolonged strike; the English railways were calling for new locomotives just as loudly as New Zealand, and it was impossible for the British firms to supply locomotives in the limited time available. The very virtue of the British locomotive shops proved their undoing on this occasion. Their practice was to build locomotives to the design and drawings supplied by the customer, while the American firms had always insisted on the customer accepting locomotives built in conformity with the standards adopted by the firm. This custom explains the fact that, while British locomotive history is a record of successive designs of various railway companies, American locomotive history is contained in the records and catalogues of the firms building locomotives and, indeed, is virtually covered by the publications of
the Baldwin Locomotive Company. The American practice did not usually prove to be in the best interests of the railway systems, but it did make for quick delivery. Indeed, the Baldwin Company were able on this occasion to ship the first twenty locomotives from Philadelphia a few weeks after the receipt of the first cable. These were tank locomotives (“Wb” and “Wd” class), and it is said that they were really built to a Japanese order that did not reach fulfilment. Possibly Japan's gain was New Zealand's loss. Eighteen locomotives of the 4-6-0 tender type were supplied almost as quickly, but the New Zealand authorities were more particular over the design of the remaining thirteen locomotives and quite a month was taken up with a cable discussion concerning their design. These locomotives were intended for the new fast express service in the South Island, and they had to be designed to burn the “lignite” coals of Otago. The Baldwin Company's first suggestion stipulated a wide firebox engine, and this was rightly approved. Getting down to details, the company then suggested a curiosity in the shape of a Wooten type boiler, the engine to have six driving wheels, 49ins. in diameter, with a rigid wheelbase of 200 ins. The Wooten type of boiler comprised two cabs, one in the ordinary position for the fireman, and one perched about the centre for the driver. Unfortunately time was too pressing to allow the New Zealand engineers to fully satisfy their natural curiosity as to the exact shape the proposed machine was to take. One would like to see how the company proposed to fill up the extraordinarily long rigid wheelbase of 16ft. 8ins. However, trailing bogies had been used already with four driving
“Cortez silent on a peak in Darien” had nothing on the Baldwin Locomotive Company when it first viewed this sketch. Such a simple solution was seized avidly by the Company, and almost before the first locomotive of the new type could be shipped to New Zealand, Baldwin's were building similar engines for all the American roads. It represents, indeed, a veritable “milestone” in locomotive progress. Engines with six driving wheels and a trailing bogie are, from the mechanical point of view, the most economical form of locomotive. They admit, as one with fewer driving wheels will not admit, the use of a sufficiently large boiler to enable power to be generated with higher efficiency from relatively inferior coals, and their adhesive weight is sufficiently adequate to allow for the traction of trains heavy enough for all but the few most exacting services. They also give such balance between power and weight as to arrive at the lowest possible ratio between these factors, and escape the large increase in friction and wear that is inseparable from the use of more coupled wheels; and, altogether, again from the strictly mechanical point of view, they reach the acme of locomotive attainment, combining power, speed, lightness, symmetry, simplicity and beauty, in a degree not possible with any other type.
The title “Pacific” was given to this outstanding type in recognition of the fact that a New Zealand designer had first proposed it and was entitled to the credit for its introduction.
The great majority of the locomotives built in or for New Zealand during the last thirty-three years have naturally been of the “Pacific” type. The experiment, about 1905, with compound locomotives, lead to the “A” class and the adoption of superheat led, in 1914, to the building of the “Ab” class. This locomotive is a simple superheated engine of the “Pacific” type with a cylindrical tender. Designed under the instructions of Mr. H. H. Jackson (then Chief Mechanical Engineer) it embodied all the best features that New Zealand experience or design had evolved, and is probably the most efficient locomotive ever built for all-round service in the world.
Its design incorporated the following features:—(1) The piston valve, which a New Zealand designer was the first (1899) to adopt as standard locomotive practice and which is now almost universally used. (2) The Walschaert valve gear which a New Zealand designer was the first (1888) to adopt as standard practice, and which is now almost universally used. (3) Outside steam-pipes, which a New Zealand designer was the first (1914) to adopt as standard practice and which are now almost universally used. (4) Cross-balancing, which a New Zealand designer was the first (1914) to adopt as standard practice, and which was adopted in 1932 as standard practice in America, and will soon spread to the rest of the world. (5) Superheating of steam, which had been developed in Germany about 1908, but which by 1914 had not yet become standard practice in other countries.
Although seventy-five of these engines had perforce to be built in England as a result of dislocation due to the War, they were all built entirely to New Zealand drawings and specifications. New Zealand track conditions demand that the maximum routine in train speed must not exceed 55 miles per hour, but the “Ab” locomotive can reach seventy miles per hour with safety on a level track; it has developed one horse power for each 100lb. of locomotive weight, which is certainly a record for a moderate sized engine; its fuel efficiency is extraordinarily high and, although this may have been exceeded by special service locomotives, is probably a record for all-round service; it can handle passenger, goods and work trains with equal facility; and the repair costs are markedly low.
On more than one occasion attention has been drawn in these messages to the fact that the welfare of the individuals employed by the Railway Department is dependent to some extent upon the success of the railways in securing business. The point has also been stressed that national welfare is closely allied to railway operations and that support given to the railways would help to reduce taxation. Both these results are indicated in the recent Budget announcement of a partial restoration of wage reductions coupled with a certain degree of relief in other directions.
In this connection it is interesting to recall that the worst railway year in recent times was 1931 when the net earnings of the Railways amounted to only £688,727. Following this, the first wage reduction was made. The net revenue for the year ended 31st March, 1934, was £1,085,558, an improvement of £396,831 upon 1931. This improvement, followed (as it has been) by the Government's decision to increase wages by five per cent., as well as to afford some amelioration in other directions, leaves good ground for the hope that railwaymen will strengthen their efforts to make the service they render increasingly attractive to the public, and for the public to give all possible support to the national transportation system which so closely affects the general financial position of the country.
Every effort of the Board and the Management, after providing for the safety of the system and the adequacy of rolling-stock and facilities, is devoted to following up opportunities for increased business. Each suggestion received either from the staff or the public is welcomed, and if, after examination, it holds out any reasonable prospect of securing remunerative traffic for the Department, it is adopted.
In passenger traffic, the most notable success (following the adoption of all-the-year-round return excursion fares) has been in special excursions to favourite localities or for events of public interest. Opportunity is also taken to co-operate in efforts to make our tourist and week-end resorts more attractive, or better known through combined publicity with local authorities and other interests.
In goods traffic an improvement is also shewn; and the transport facilities and advantages offered by the Department are kept before those requiring freight service. In this matter the business of the Department—and, with it, the welfare of the Dominion—has suffered unduly in recent years as a result of unregulated road competition.
The current financial year, with six months accounted for, has shewn increases in both the quantity of traffic carried and the net revenue derived therefrom. I trust that this tendency may continue, and result in still further improvement in the railway position and business generally.
General Manager.
Trade continues to improve in Britain, and the railways are reaping the benefit of the all-round business betterment. Transportation is still confronted with many difficulties peculiar to the times, but there has never been a period since the boom of the postwar years when the railway situation as a whole was so happy as at present. With a continuance of the trade revival. 1934 should prove a red-letter year in transportation's varied story.
Statistics are apt to be a trifle wearying, but the recently issued preliminary statement of annual Home railway returns for 1933, prepared by the Ministry of Transport, certainly calls for passing mention. In 1933 the net revenue of the British lines was £29,600,000, as compared with £27,194,000 in 1932 On the expenditure side, the capital account at £1,174,200,000 showed an increase over 1932 of £3,194,000. Expenditure on railway working was £123,100,000 in 1933, as against £125,228,000 in 1932. The statistics of operation show an increase in engine mileage in 1933 of 2,776,837, mainly accounted for by the addition of 4,401,984 coaching train-miles. Coaching train-miles per train-hour were 14.85, as compared with the 1932 figure of 14.71; and per engine hour 11.58, as against 11.45 in 1932. On the freight side, freight train-miles per train-hour were 9.49 in 1933, and 9.58 in 1932. Freight train-miles per engine hour were 3.69 in 1933, and 3.70 in 1932.
Passenger journeys on the Home railways in 1933 increased by 16,587,594. The introduction in 1933 of cheap “summer tickets” accounted for the conveyance of 19,503,005 additional third-c'ass passengers. In 1933 some 251,102,000 tons of goods and minerals were handled, as against 249,611,864 tons in 1932.
In Britain, the holiday season is now at its height. With improved business conditions, and the re-opening of works and factories in the North and Midlands, workers everywhere are once again in a position to enjoy a well-earned summer vacation, and from all the popular seaside and country holiday haunts come reports of record crowds. The principal London and provincial passenger stations have presented the most animated pictures these summer days, and for many weeks the leading holiday expresses have been operated in duplicate and triplicate to dispose of the immense numbers of travellers making for vacation-land.
As a spur to the hesitating vocationalist, the Home railways have this season issued a wonderful range of attractive pictorial posters and alluring travel literature. The bulky holiday guides annually issued by the Home railways, each run to nearly a thousand pages, and these are backed up by innumerable smaller booklets, each having reference to some particular corner of holiday-land. The “Holidays by L.M. & S.” handbook issued by the biggest group railway runs to 974 pages, of which 144 are in photogravure. In the “Holiday Blue Book” of the L. & N.E. line there are contained 816 pages of useful data, including 6,000 hotel and boardinghouse announcements, and 192 pages printed in photogravure. These annual holiday guides are each priced at sixpence, and they easily rank as best sellers in the Home publishing world.
Continental tours are being widely patronised this season. The two British railways mainly concerned in this business are the Southern and the London and North Eastern. The Southern continental services are centred on the south coast ports stretching from Dover to Weymouth,
Across the Channel, the summer services include many new and faster long-distance trains, some of the all-Pullman type. There is the famous “Blue Train,” covering the 891 miles between Calais and Ventimiglia, on the Franco-Italian frontier, in 21 hours 55 minutes. Popular among experienced travellers is the “Simplon-Orient Express” (Calais-Paris-Lausanne-Milan-Venice - Trieste - Bukarest - Belgrade-Stamboul-Athens). This 2,178 1/2 mile journey is the longest through passenger run in Europe. Another notable train is the “Sud Express,” between Paris and Madrid, a 904 mile trip occupying 22 hours 35 minutes. The “Rome Express,” the “Nord Express” to Berlin, and the “Orient Express” to Vienna and Budapest, are other famed trains out of Paris which this season report record bookings.
New steam locomotives introduced in Britain include a batch of three cylinder, 4—6—0 type, superheated engines for passenger haulage, acquired by the L.M. & S. Company. An interesting feature is a tapered boiler barrel until recently foreign to L.M. and S. practice, but for a long time greatly favoured by the Great Western designers. Working pressure is 2251b. per sq. in., and the three cylinders are of 17in. diameter by 26in. stroke. Total heating surface is 1,625 sq. ft., and tractive effort at 85 per cent. B.P. 26,6101b. Total wheel-base of engine and tender is 54ft. 3 1/4 in., and total loaded weight 134 tons 17 owt.
In all, some 113 new locomotives of this particular design are being acquired. Sixty-three are being built in the railway shops at Crewe and Derby, and fifty are being constructed at the North British Locomotive Company's works in Glasgow. The railway-built engines have tenders carrying 3,500 gallons of water, and the Glasgow-built tenders have a capacity of 4,000 gallons.
The long non-stop runs accomplished by the modern steam locomotive have only become possible by the introduction of special water troughs along the track, from which water may be picked up while travelling at speed. The L.M.S. & S. and L. & N.E. mainlines between London and Scotland are especially well-equipped in this respect, and the “Flying Scotsman,” out of King's Cross picks up something like 11,000 gallons of water from six track troughs between London and the Scottish capital.
The troughs generally favoured are from 600 to 700 yards in length, and each time the hinged scoop is lowered by the fireman of a passing train between 2,000 and 3,000 gallons of soft water are forced into the tender tank. Some fifteen to twenty seconds are occupied in the operation, and the normal water level in the trough is regained in less than five minutes. Each trough is equipped with its own valve and auxiliary tank apparatus, so designed as to prevent the passage of a train on the “Up” line reducing the level of water in the “Down” line trough, and vice versa.
Nearly a century ago, a go-ahead stationmaster on the Newcastle and Carlisle Railway—Thomas Edmondson—revolutionised ticket printing, dating and issuing arrangements, and laid the foundations of the present ticket issuing system favoured by railways all over the world.
The pioneer railways employed paper slips for passenger tickets, and these were laboriously written out, dated and numbered in pen and ink. It was Thomas Edmondson who devised the cardboard ticket, and the efficient and simple ticket numbering and dating machines, and Edmondson's successors at their works in Manchester to-day supply ticket printing, numbering and dating plant to railways throughout the globe. It is a big jump from the early ticket printing machines to the modern electrically-driven equipment that turns out 10,000 perfectly printed tickets per hour. Almost equally marked are the improvements effected in ticket-dating and issuing machines, yet the basic principle of these remains the same as that of the pioneer equipment of Thomas Edmondson's time. If you are ever fortunate enough to visit Britain, in the Lancaster Museum there is a well-preserved specimen of an original Edmondson wooden dating-machine, with unprotected jaws—a feature of early presses that disappeared in 1862.
Life is a laundry for Pressing Problems. Fortune's flat-iron smoothes us smartly or smarts us smoothly. Life's pressing processes include a multitude of methods, such as the X-press, the De-press, the Suppress, the In-press, the Com-press, the Re-press, and flatty degeneration of the heart. When the iron mentors our soul we wilt or we won't according to the state of our starch. Some buckle and bulge, others get a gloss that won't wear, the languid lie limp and lustreless, and a few are a-frayed and dis-made and pass their daze covering a multitude of skins. But life is pressing and the game goes on:—
The hot-press leaves an impress of D-press, Re-press or X-press. X-press is man's method of concealing what he ought to say behind what he says. But time was when his tongue was the hand-maiden of his mind instead of the jailer of his J-P's and Q's; for human articulation arose originally from an ingrown urge to ask for things; but even before he could actually articulate in the first person puerile, or make his language liquid on the pint at issue, he was sufficiently proficient in requestrian exercise to deliver a demand in dubious notes uttered from his air pockets. When he wanted anything, from a wife to the wish-bone of a wombat, he gave short and succinct notice of commotion (or “causis bedlam”), before taking Opportunity on the ’op. If the party in possession was smart enough to lead a club, he cribbed the steak with “one for his knob” and there was no further argument—being as how it takes two ‘to augment an argument. From this pre-historic practice arose the term “hie jack-pot.” Sometimes, in those dim distraught days of dumb-crambo, even unaspirated air was unnecessary, as the eye often acted as an apt pupil of the earliest Hitlerites.
The eye can be vocal as well as focal. Even to-day the language of Love is often operated through the optic, disproving the theory that love is a “blind.” But the optickle illusions of love can be discounted as an hysterical feat rather than an historical fact, for Love laughs at lock-smiths, lock-jaw, lock-outs, knock-outs, sacri-farcical homecooking (or burnt offerings), and other hazards of the I-seize; anything that can do all that has more valor than value, as a witness for the Defiance. But, as a weapon of defence, the eye can often say more than a claymore. Sometimes, while the lips lisp of love and laughter the optic emits the “gypsy's warning” with icycles on.
But, to the puerile all things are puerile, and the average humming bean would be practically dumb in blinkers, proving that much of our vocabulary is vain and su-piffle-ous. Certainly sometimes the world would go less flat if less talk went round. Which reminds us:
But a world flat or fat has little beering on the Freudom of speech. Nine-tenths of even modern lunguage when trans-elated fun-dementally means nothing more than “gimmey,” “I-wanter,” or some such clamorous claimer.
If it were true that “man wants for little here below” he could get along nicely with one or two assorted snorts like the ox and the “oss” and other members of the sterner sects. Why, a cow, by unlatching her grass-chute and unleashing her a-cow's-ticks, can issue a complaint (when she is in the moo-d) calculated to make a whine merchant sound like a gay caballero. A sheep can express a world of “whoa” in a one bar “bah.” It seems such a waste of wind for man to have invented oodles of tortured chin-chaff almost solely for saying, “pass the mustard,” “mine's a beer,” or “that will be ninepence.”
But, bootless or soul-less, man's interior yearnings dominate his exterior earnings; if, by saying more he can get more, it is easily explained why he talks himself to death. But, by the insane token, money is only “scrap” which is more scrapped over than scrapped, and perhaps man is more skinned against than skinning. Money means either means or moans and, boiled down to a mess of pot-hooks, it mis-represents the difference between getting all you don't really want and wanting all you don't really get.
Vittle statistics prove that money is responsible for more debts than any other form of slickness. Many cashualities also occur through people's failure to observe the role of the rude and the laws of the high seize. Truly, money is the mote in the beam-ends, but it is also responsible for such wealth-giving sports as “hurling the discount,” “Over-draughts,” “Stakes and adders” (usually indulged in on racecourses), “Half-crown and rancor,” and “Hope Scotch.” We will say nothing about “cash returns” because we have discovered that it never does. But while on the subject we must mention that old old song, forever new, “When you and I were stung, Maggie.”
Speaking of song, how true that sage saying, “where there's croak there's ire!” For song has ever been man's method of promulgating moral uplift by aural uproar. Song certainly fires the imagination although it frequently incinerates the emotions. Song can make the soul soar—or sore. Song can express or depress, stimulate or simulate. It is an inspiration to higher searchers and hire purchase.
Week-end railway trips to the Chateau have been exceedingly popular this winter, which has been an exceptionally good one for those interested in snow-sports. The running of an afternoon express from Auckland has greatly facilitated travel arrangements, guests leaving the Northern city at three o'clock arriving at National Park before midnight.
The express thundered on and on through the night, wheels clack-clacking in monotonous rhythm, carriages swaying to the curves of heavy bush country south of Taumarunui. The moon rode high above the tall trees, a disc of silver caught and held in the rippling sea of fleecy clouds that raced across the face of the sky…. A sharp, bright night, with the tingle of frost and snow in the air, a night that held promise of good sport at the Chateau next day—if we got through! For the worst blizzard of years had come tearing down from Ruapehu's icy slopes a few days before, and the roads of National Park were buried deep in snow. But the prospect of a week-end's skiing was good enough to send two or three score of Aucklanders hurrying off in a spirit of optimism and simple faith in the ability of the Chateau management to rise to all emergencies. So I dozed fitfully in the pleasantly warmed carriage, and woke suddenly to a glare of hard white light outside. Snow! It lay thick on the fallen tree trunks beside the track, carpeted the ground, and ran in gleaming rivers of white down the steep banks into the gullies. We were nearing Raurimu, a real snow-town, deep in sleep beneath the midnight stars. Strangely white was the Spiral track, all the huge boulders turned into gleaming mounds, the bush streams, rivulets of ink running between wastes of snow and ice. Half an hour later we were crowding into roomy motor buses at National Park, with the white trail of the road glittering beneath the strong headlights.
Many a time had I motored, tramped and ridden down the long, level road from old Waimarino station to Whakapapa, but never had I travelled down a Snow King's way such as we traversed that night! The tussock, the tall spear leaves of the flax, all the roadside shrubs were half buried in snow; the road itself was thickly glazed with ice, and down by the Mahuia cutting, there were road-side drifts eight or ten feet deep. All that day, and the previous day, a gang of men had been shovelling away the masses of snow piled across the road, and our cars were the first to get through without the aid of the tractor.
Through the beech forest beyond the lonely little Haunted Whare ran the white ribbon of the road. Presently the glitter of lights across the snow heralded journey's end, and a few moments later we were in the beautiful Chateau lounge, blessing the kindly forethought that had provided steaming hot tea and an appetising supper on this cold and frosty morning, for it was now nearly one o'clock, and we were chilled and tired.
But nobody was tired next morning. A very few hours of sleep suffice in these invigorating altitudes, and before ten o'clock, the entire stock of skis and snow-sticks in the Chateau equipment room was exhausted. The snow was over a foot deep outside the building; and girls and boys were swooping down the ramp on skis from the front door! We took our first tumbles on the golf course, then gaining confidence, made
There were no instructors to make easy the way of the novice; the only ski school in which we enrolled was that of hard won experience, and if anybody thinks this ski business is child's play, not to be taken seriously, let him or her land upside down in a snow-drift with legs crossed, and a pair of seven-foot skis waving hysterically in the bright blue sky above! A few experiences such as this, a few additional spills through leaning too far forward—these are the worst of all!—a few hours pushing up through the snow-covered tussock in order to come swooping down again—well! if by any chance there is a single muscle in one's body that has not been exercised to aching point, it is the root of the tongue! But the appetite one carries in to dinner that night is superb! So we stayed out all day, as pretty a day, as pretty a scene, as one could wish to see, a world of snow and mountains, a singing blue sky, dark forests, league upon league of snowy plain stretching out to the clear blue hills thirty miles away, and up and down the white road, groups of men and girls on skis. Many of them were experts, practising for the Winter Snow Sports, swooping down steep slopes, ducking deftly under crossed snow-sticks, executing stunts and giddy turns, doing all the tricky things that make these sports a show worth miles of travel to see.
But late that afternoon a searching, scolding wind came down from the icy heights, and the tree tops swayed and tossed against a sky of sullen thunder-blue… . A sky of anger and un-ease, the menace of dark clouds piling up all round the wide circle of the horizon, the last of the snow-flakes whipping off the trees; there was no surprise in the heavy patter of rain that started soon after dinner that night. And with the rain, the storm broke, a storm that raged all night, shouting and roaring all round the great solid building, driving deluges that lashed against the windows like a million grey witches' whips.
Next morning the snow had vanished. The ski-track was a thing of sodden desolation, a grey and muddy morass winding through uncovered wastes of tussock. But the forest road across the Whakapapanui was still almost a foot deep in snow, so we trudged a couple of miles up to the roadmen's hut, where a band of enthusiasts was acquiring a few additional degrees of ski-skill. Next morning, they said, they were going right up to Salt Hut; the barometer was rising, it would freeze hard that night, and there would be splendid fun for all up at Scoria Flat.
But next morning I was back in a city office, looking out over the top of my typewriter at a strip of blue sky, shining gloriously over several acres of roof tops and chimney pots… .
With each consecutive mystery tramp this season, new records, numerically, have been established, and yesterday's tramp—the fifth this year—was no exception (states the Christ-church “Star”). Six hundred and fifty people from the city and towns along the route travelled by the train, breaking the record of 560 by 90. An attractive route had been mapped out over the downs country in the Mount Grey district and the walk was not in any way strenuous.
The tramp was the twenty-first since their inauguration by the Railway Department, and it was gratifying to the officials that the outings attained their majority under such pleasant circumstances. Six properties were traversed and trampers were quick to show their appreciation of the property owners' kindness in granting them permission to cross their land.
The fat man is proverbially good natured and easy going. But here is a fat man accused of being difficult to live with. His wife writes to tell us about him. Just read what she has to say. Her letter is candid; it is amusing; it is worth publishing word for word as she wrote it. Here it is:— “My husband a little over twelve months ago started taking Kruschen Salts for indigestion, heartburn, etc. Not only can he now eat anything (including my pastry), but he is now 13 1/2 stone only, instead of 15 stone. What I consider more important than anything else, though, is the splendid effect Kruschen has had on his temper. He is now fit for a woman (not an angel) to live with. My husband is sixty next April, and I am fifty-four next June. I recommend Kruschen Salts wherever I go.”—(Mrs.) E.D.
The six salts in Kruschen assist the internal organs to throw off each day the wastage and poisons that encumber the system. Then, little by little, that ugly fat goes—slowly, yes—but surely. Kruschen does not aim to reduce by rushing food through the body. Gently, but surely, it rids the system of all fat-forming food refuse, of all poisons and harmful acids which incidently give rise to rheumatism, digestive disorders and many other ills.
One of the secrets of the effectiveness of Kruschen is the exact proportion of the six different salts it contains. That is why every batch of Kruschen Salts is tested and standardised by a staff of qualified chemists, before it is passed for bottling.
Thus Kruschen can always be relied upon—it will have the same happy results for you that it has had for others.
Kruschen Salts is obtainable at all Chemists and Stores at 2/6 per bottle.
History has seen some remarkable changes in the popular estimation of prominent figures in the life of the nation. The lapse of time brings a more balanced and better-informed view of disputed causes, and a more generous attitude towards those who were once regarded as enemies. New Zealand has seen the vindication of Maori leaders who were in their day denounced as rebels, and whose principles and actions are now admitted to have been those of patriots fighting for their people's rights. In this sketch of a leader whose ethics were those of a peacemaker, the celebrated Te Whiti-o-Rongomai, of Taranaki, the writer shows that in history even the best-intentioned of Governments have sometimes failed to deal justly with a political opponent, and that might is sometimes confused with right.
The land, always the land, has been the cause of contention that led to the tragedy of war in New Zealand. There was only one exception, perhaps, Hone Heke's little war in the North. But that issue was not complicated, or aggravated, by the confiscation of land in revenge for rebellion against the white Queen's authority. In the wars of the Sixties the first and last issue was the land. The key to all the campaigns and expeditions, up to and including the fortunately bloodless invasion of Parihaka, Te Whiti's great camp, in 1881, is to be found in the taking of Maori land by force of arms. There is no need here to recapitulate those old unhappy wars, except to explain that the great blunder of the disputed Waitara purchase in 1860, with all the arbitrary acts that followed it, began the long and bitter struggle of the races which a more enlightened national opinion has closed and healed. The great tactical mistake of our Governments in the Sixties was the revengeful seizure of enormous areas of land, the ancestral homes of thousands of the Maori race. Apart from all questions of right and wrong, and the impossibility of proving fully who were innocent and who were guilty of the acts described as rebellion, it would have been far cheaper to have purchased all the land in Waikato and Taranaki and elsewhere that was confiscated by process of law and occupied by force of arms. The Waitara purchase was officially renounced by the Government, and the justice of Wiremu Kingi te Rangitaake's objection to the purchase was tacitly admitted, but the Government of the day blundered into another war, and followed it up by the policy that the Maori describes as “muru-whenua,” that is, the forcible taking of land without giving any equivalent for it. Probably the view held by the ruling politicians in the Sixties was that the Maori race was a dying one, bound to disappear before the pakeha, and that it was therefore not necessary to consider the future generations of the Maori, and the innocent children of the combatants. At any rate they were dispossessed of their best lands, and what reserves were made for them as a kind of afterthought were quite inadequate.
That was the position in Taranaki; that was the issue that embittered the Maori mind, and would have led to a renewal of the disastrous wars but for one man, and that man was Te Whiti, the prophet and priest and little king of Parihaka.
Peace, peace, was ever Te Whiti's call and watchword; it was the guiding principle of his life. Peace and good-will, and self-sacrifice in the cause of peace. He suffered imprisonment in the cause of his people's rights, he urged peace, non-resistance. “Guns and powder,” he told his people more than once, when there were signs of impatience at the aggressive actions of their pakeha opponents, “shall no longer be the protection of man. Our weapon is forbearance, patience, non-resistance. God is our refuge and our strength.” He made strange oracular utterances that often mystified the pakeha; he was described as a fanatic and a madman, but his fine madness saved his people and the country from fearful strife.
There certainly was truth in many of Te Whiti's prophecies. This was one of his sayings shortly before his arrest by the military in 1881, when he declared that he was willing to be made a sacrifice for his people: “Though I am killed, yet I shall live. The future is mine, and little children will answer in the future when questioned as to the author of peace, ‘Te Whiti,’ and I will bless them.”
In the year 1904 I was riding round the Mountain, from Hawera to New Plymouth, and in the course of that leisurely horseback tour, when I turned off the main road to visit various Maori villages and explore old battlefields, I called in at Parihaka, the town of the Prophet. My visit to that Mecca of Maoridom was prompted and fortified by letters from two Maori chiefs of
That evening Te Whiti invited me to his meeting-hall, to see his poi parties rehearse their dances for the coming monthly festival of the faithful, the 18th, the anniversary of the beginning of the never-forgotten Waitara war, in 1860. The poi dance was more than a mere amusement in Parihaka. It was a semi-religious ceremony; the ancient songs centuries old were chanted, and Te Whiti's speeches were recorded in a kind of musical Hansard and given forth in high rhythmic song to the multitude at those periodical gatherings. It was a memorable evening in that dance-hall, where I was the only pakeha.
“Sit with me here,” said the prophet, “and tell me what you think of my poi girls.” Many of the people, men and women, seeing their leader bring a guest on to the dais, spread with many soft mats, came up to “hongi” with me, in polite salutation, and I pressed many noses of the Taranaki aristocracy that evening.
Those were memorable poi song and dance acts, altogether different from any others I had seen. They were very wild and high, unrestrained in voice and action. The tossing white plumes with which every one of the dancers, about thirty-five of them, had decked her flowing black hair, the bright, glittering eyes, the old Polynesian hulalike vigour of the women's movements in perfect time to the songs, gave the poi-swinging a touch exciting to the senses. But it was the high ceremonious chanting that was the most thrilling part of it. The songs were ritual, historical, sacred. Te Whiti explained their significance, one after the other. I think we were there for more than two hours, watching and listening and admiring. The old man was exceedingly proud of his poi women and girls, and they seemed to put forth their best efforts for his critical eyes.
It was fitting that the old prophet of the Mountain, when he was laid in his grave yonder, beside his home—that was three years after my visit—should be farewelled with the ancient chant of the Aotea canoe and the invocations of the ancient days, to the tapping sound of many poi balls. To the Maori fancy the leader's spirit still lingered, with a smile on the spirit lips, to hear once more the music of his beloved “rangi poi.”
One other memory of Parihaka is still rather vivid. It was a kind of anti-climax to the primitive pleasure of the poi-women's night. Te Whiti's handsome daughter, wife of Taare Waitara, gave me a comfortable room in the prophet's big house, and I slept a dreamless sleep, after that long day's ride and the long talks and the varied entertainment of Parihaka town. But early in the morning the room became strangely warm, and the warmth increased. I wondered sleepily if the house had caught fire, and at last got up to investigate. The flax mats on the floor were quite hot. In the passage outside I met my hostess. “Oh,” she said, laughing, “that's always a little surprise for our visitors. The baker has to begin his work very early.” Then I found that the community bake-house was just below the dwelling.
Parihaka baked all its own bread; the large bake-oven turned out several hundreds of loaves two or three times a week to feed the faithful, and an extra large supply was needed for the gathering of the 18th of the month.
Later on that day, as I rode on to New Plymouth along that beautiful coast, I met many little parties of Maori travellers, some of them families packed in carts behind slow-plodding bullock-teams, bound for Parihaka; and all of them wore in their hair or their hats, the white feather badge of the prophet of peace, the raukura of Te Whiti-o-Rongomai.
It is a classic name, Te Whiti-o-Rongomai. It means the flight across the sky of the shining one Rongomai, the god whose visible form was a meteor. Rongomai was one of the deities of the Taranaki and other West Coast tribes. The son of the Mountain who was to become the most revered leader of his people was a descendant of the famous pair, Takarangi and Rau-mahora, whose love-story, written for Sir George Grey by a Taranaki chief, was so poetically paraphrased by the Governor in his “Polynesian Mythology.” When he was a young man he distinguished himself by assisting the shipwrecked people of the steamer “Lord Worsley” when that vessel was wrecked on the Taranaki coast, and he and his fellow-chiefs Arama Karaka and Wiremu Kingi Matakatea (not the Wiremu Kingi of Waitara fame) metaphorically cast their garments of protection over the pakehas on a hostile shore. They procured carts for them and saw them all safely conveyed to New Plymouth. Te Whiti accompanied his fellow-warriors of Taranaki in the early fighting against the British forces on the coast, but after 1864 he fought no more, and steadfastly devoted himself to the study of his Bible and the doctrines of peace.
Like many a pakeha preacher he gave strange and twisted interpretations to some of the Scripture chapters over which he pored. His favourite book was Revelations. (Te Kooti, in exile, went to the Psalms and Isaiah for his passages of promise and consolation.) He developed a strong belief in the affinity of Jew and Maori. “We came from the land of Canaan,” he told me. “Kenana was our first Hawaiki; our last Hawaiki was Rangiatea.” (This is Ra'iatea, in the Society Islands; the chief seat of sacred Maori learning was on that island.)
Some writers and some Maori speakers have stated that Te Whiti did not take part in any of the Taranaki wars. But he undoubtedly was with his people in the fighting south of New Plymouth in the early part of the Sixties, and the late Te Kahu-pukoro, the head chief of Ngati-Ruanui, who was wounded in the desperate but hopeless attack on the Sentry Hill redoubt in 1864, told me that Te Whiti was one of the chiefs leading the Hauhau warriors there. Tohu Kakahi, afterwards his fellow-prophet at Parihaka, was also there. They, like Wiremu Kingi te Rangitaake, were not armed with guns; each carried a tokotoko or walking-staff and directed his men. They relied on the magic Paimarire incantations taught by the prophet Te Ua. But Te Whiti soon perceived the folly of Pai-marire, and he abandoned any faith he might have had in the Hauhau charms. Thenceforth his only study was the Maori Bible.
In 1868 he fixed upon Parihaka as his home, and stirred little from that spot—except when the Government haled him off to prison for his principles. He adopted the raukura and the poi ball as his emblems; the white feathers of the albatross (in the later days the goose-feather was the usual substitute) and
It was hard for some of the warriors to accept tamely the amiable counsels of the Prophet of the sacred Mountain. Titokowaru, after he had recruited his force following on his defeat by Whitmore in 1869, was anxious to fight again. He was very restive under the military survey and road-making on his lands on the Waimate Plains. “If the mosquito bites my leg,” he said to Te Whiti, “I must slap it.” The prophet's reply was, “Were not your ears singed?” This was an allusion to the war chief's defeat by the Government forces. Titokowaru deferred to the sage counsel of the spiritual leader; and even when a Government road was put through his cultivations he did not stir; his day was done.
It is strange at this time of day to recall the condition of the Taranaki frontier in that tense period, 1878–81, culminating in the advance on Parihaka and the arrest of Te Whiti on the 5th of November—significant date—1881.
In protest against the occupation of Maori land—which had been confiscated, but which Sir Donald Maclean, Native Minister, had practically returned to the Maoris—the followers of Te Whiti ploughed up some of the land of settlers near Hawera. There were demonstrations of military force, and many arrests were made, but the Maoris invariably contented themselves with passive resistance. The immediate cause of the trouble in 1879 was the action of the Grey Government, without having allocated certain promised reserves out of the confiscated land, proceeding to sell 16,000 acres of the Waimate Plains for settlement.
The survey of the Plains was begun because the Government was anxious to get the land into the market. “My belief,” the Hon. Mr. Macandrew wrote in a minute to Cabinet in 1878, “is that it [marketing the land] will place in the Treasury half-a-million sterling.” If the land had been ready, it was added, it would have placed the Crown in funds to a very large extent, as purchasers were waiting. And even before the Maori reserves had been marked off, the Government sent advertisements to Australia offering the choice lands of the Waimate Plains to selectors. Te Whiti and his people did not know exactly where they stood. A change of Government occurred, and Sir John Hall became Premier, with Mr. John Bryce as Native Minister. A Royal Commission recommended the setting aside of 25,000 acres of the Parihaka block for the Maoris. This was a totally inadequate provision out of a very large area which the natives considered rightfully theirs. The ploughing and survey obstruction continued as a protest. Te Whiti sat fast, and counselled continued protest without resort to arms.
Taranaki by this time was a great military camping ground. There were redoubts and stockades everywhere but at the Maori villages, and a force of about 1500 Armed Constabulary and Volunteers was assembled, under Major Roberts, with Mr. Bryce practically the commanding officer. The Maoris had no fortifications, had no arms except a few shotguns.
Bryce invaded the native land, after various proclamations, marched into Parihaka with Constabulary and Artillery, had the Riot Act read to a peaceful and silent assembly of some 2000 Maoris seated in the marae of the village, and called upon Te Whiti and Tohu Kakahi to surrender.
The circumstances of that tragic farce, as it has been described, have often been told. The Maori leaders, and in fact all their people behaved with a calmness and dignity strangely at variance with the military strong hand of the autocratic Bryce. Te Whiti and Tohu were dressed in graceful korowai robes, the classic garb of old Maoridom; they eschewed all pakeha clothes that day. It was a dignified act, that reversion to the “kakahu Maori.”
There was dignity and a patience and resignation, in the pathetic leave-taking of Te Whiti and his people. “Even if the bayonet be put to your breasts,” he had counselled them, “do not resist.” They did not resist when the two leaders had gone, and they were dispersed, and drafted' away in detachments, “just like drafting sheep,” as one of the Constabulary officers described it to me. It was written of the Maori assemblage that day that “such completeness of good temper under circumstances of great provocation has never been paralleled in history.”
Te Whiti and Tohu were kept in custody by the Government for about two years—without a trial. Te Whiti repeatedly asked for a trial; his request was ignored. It is extraordinary to think that such things should have happened in New Zealand only fifty years ago. But the strong hand was the only law where the Taranaki “fanatics” were concerned. The Government was influenced throughout by West Coast pakeha opinion, which had assumed a kind of frenzy. One perfectly ferocious newspaper editor wrote, in 1879, when Te Whiti's followers were being arrested in parties: “Perhaps, all things considered, the present difficulty will be one of the greatest blessings New Zealand ever experienced, for without doubt it will be a war of extermination… . The time has come, in our minds, when New Zealand must strike for freedom, and this means the death-blow to the Maori race.” So New Zealand struck for “freedom” in the manner prescribed by the warlike editor, and found a perfectly unarmed, peaceful foe, whose little children carried loaves of bread to the troops, and whose most formidable act was a performance by some poi girls who would not get out of the way of the advancing Constabulary.
It is pertinent and illuminating to conclude this brief sketch of Parihaka days with the opinion of a Government official of that period. Major Robert Parris, of the Native Department, was no philo-Maori. He had been responsible to a very large degree for the arbitrary actions of the Gore-Browne Government at the Waitara in 1860, when he supported the purchase of the disputed Pekapeka block from Teira and disregarded the paramount chief Te Rangitaake. In a report to the Native Minister at the end of 1881, he wrote the following remarkable review of recent events, amounting to a vindication of Te Whiti's character and policy:
“… Those who are capable of taking an impartial view of the whole case and can admit the full right of the Maori to strive by all fair means to retain his old free mode of life and enough of the primeval wilderness of fern and forest to enjoy it in, will find in Te Whiti's conduct much that is worthy of their sympathy and respect. Te Whiti was, in fact, the representative in this part of New Zealand of the love of the Maori people for their ancient customs and ways of living, and of their dread of being hustled off the scene by swarms of strangers, and by the introduction of new conditions of life under which they instinctively feel themselves unable to compete on equal terms with the eager and vigorous newcomers in the struggle for existence. Regarding Te Whiti's position and career from this point of view, all feeling of irritation against the man for his steady opposition to the progress of colonisation must disappear, and we can properly estimate the firmness, combined with total absence of any recourse to violent measures, with which he maintained the unequal contest for so many years, and can sympathise with his hopes and understand his prophecies, however quaint their form, that in some mysterious way a higher power would interfere and protect the rights of the weaker race.
“As regards the practical results of Te Whiti's leadership of the Maoris of the West Coast,” Major Parris continued, “it is perhaps hardly too much to say that if he had shaped his course with the special intention of enabling the Government to tide over without bloodshed a period during which there was a constant risk of collision between the races—but during which the Government (from want of funds or other causes) was not in a position to compel submission without involving the country in a ruinous war—he could not have been more successful in accomplishing this difficult task. It would, of course, be absurd to impute to Te Whiti a desire to prepare the way for the final bloodless victory of the forces at Parihaka, but it should, I think, always be remembered in his favour that it is mainly in consequence of his strong personal dislike to bloodshed and violence that this happy result has been obtainable.”
That estimate of Te Whiti's ethical principles and policy and of the Maori cause would have been a sufficiently strong defence of the old patriot of Taranaki had it emanated from a consistent defender of the native race. It is all the stronger and more convincing coming from an official of the Government which attacked and imprisoned Te Whiti and dispersed and dispossessed his people. It sums up admirably the views of those who were able to take a fair-minded unprejudiced view of the Taranaki situation in the troubled Eighties.
ON Thursday, 5th March, 1868, there began a trial in Christchurch which presented many unusual features and some very inconclusive inferences. Whether the verdict was justified is a question that one may now be permitted to seriously doubt.
In a part of the town, then known as the Market Place, two men were partners in business and lived on the premises. Things had not prospered with them; hard times had caused them to contemplate ending the business and separating. From time to time too, extending over a long period, there was evidence that frayed nerves occasioned exchanges of angry words, but no evidence of personal violence was proved, much less alleged.
During the night of the 7th February, 1868, the house (or an annexe thereto) caught fire, and only one of the two men escaped. The other, the elder of the two, John Rankin by name, perished in the flames. The floor of the room in which he had been sleeping had burnt through and his charred body was found on the floor below, under some parts of the bed frame. The day after the fire Rankin's mate, Thomas Densley Swales, was arrested for the murder of Rankin. The evidence was purely circumstantial and, today, one is entitled to speculate whether the verdict was justified on the evidence.
On the day of the trial's commencing the bench was occupied by Mr. Justice Gresson. Mr. Duncan, of Christchurch, appeared for the Crown while the prisoner had the services of Mr. Wynn Williams. The jury empanelled for the hearing of the case were: Messrs. Chas. Turner (foreman), Ed. Banks, Wm. Bannatyne, Jas. Brace, Jos. Goodwin, Robt. Hicks, Jos. Irvine, Ed. Lees, John Stanton, Geo. Ticknor, Hy. Wyatt and John Yorke—names which are still well-known in Christchurch.
On account of the possibility of proof failing to establish that the remains found on the premises were those of Rankin, the prisoner was charged with, first, the murder of Rankin, and, alternatively, with the murder of a person unknown. The evidence, however, left little doubt that the remains were those of the prisoner's partner.
The Crown relied on the fact that the two men were together in their house at Market Place on the night of the fire; that they had been on bad terms and had actually quarrelled that night. They had gone to bed about 10 o'clock. A young woman, Sarah Ann Pope, living next door, heard a noise which she thought was a groan and soon after, on looking out, saw that the house was in flames. After the alarm was given the neighbours gathered round and extinguished the fire before the house was completely demolished, though part of it was badly burnt. The Crown said that Rankin had been stunned by a blow and then the house set on fire. What evidence there was for that theory will be noticed later.
After the plan of the house had been proved by the first witness, Sarah Ann Pope told her story. She said that she lived next door to Swales and Rankin, both of whom she knew well. After ten o'clock on the night in question (she placed the hour as near 11 o'clock) she heard noises as if shelves were falling. She got up out of her bed and looked towards the next house and, to her horror, saw that the house was on fire. She noticed that a man was standing, quite still, at the bottom of the garden. He was dressed and he was wearing a silk bell-topper hat. The witness then ran out to a neighbour's, a Mr. Money, and gave the alarm. She cried out, “Fire!” and several persons, including Mrs. Money, came rushing out towards her. Next time that she noticed him he was standing quietly near the post office nearby.
Pat Tobin, the next witness, said he knew Mrs. Pope. He also heard the cry of “Fire!” and ran towards the burning house. He tried to open the door, but it was locked. He succeeded, however, in opening the door nearest Clarke's house. The fire consumed three houses in all.
Then came the well-known police inspector, Peter Pender. On hearing the fire bell he went to Colombo
Charles F. Money, a publican, said that he heard the fire alarm. The lean-to at Swales' was on fire. Swales came to the hotel and told the witness that he was in bed when he was awakened by the smoke. The prisoner was fully dressed, “his necktie was nicely tied and his collar was fixed round his neck.” Prisoner told the witness that he had dressed in the yard.
His boots were laced. The witness also spoke of the question put to him by Walton, which had already been sworn to by Inspector Pender. The witness added that the prisoner had also said to Walton that he would not answer him in a public room, Walton's answer to this being, “You're a —– old rogue.”
To a question put him by Mr. Wynn Williams the witness said that Swales had been drinking.
Isaac Allen was the next witness, and he said that he knew both the deceased and the prisoner and they were not on good terms. He saw Swales on the road during the fire and he said to him, “Poor Rankin has not got out of the fire. I'm afraid he's burnt.” The witness asked him how it happened that he was left in the house, and Swales replied, “I called out ‘fire!’ to him, but he replied ‘non-sense,’ and gave a snore and turned over in his bed.” He said that he had thrown the bag, which had been found, out of the window. Later on, Swales told the witness that Rankin had between £20 and £40 in the business. He thought Swales said that if the bag was found then his books were all right.
Elizabeth Smith, of the Wellington Hotel, said that Swales had been drinking on the day of the fire. Previously he had expressed nervousness about fires. He had said that if his house caught fire then the old man might not be able to escape. About 4.30 a.m. she asked him where the fire was and he said he did not know of any fire. She refused him a drink. Apparently at the time prisoner was very much the worse for drink.
Rebecca Money, wife of the publican, went to the fire on hearing the alarm. When she saw Swales she said to him, “What a dreadful thing, Mr. Swales, your house is on fire.” Swales simply put up his hands and said, “Yes, Mrs. Money, my house is on fire.” She then asked him, “Is the old man out of the house?” To which Swales said, “I don't know. I had enough to get out myself.” Thomas Smith, another publican, said he was often in Swales' house. At both 2.30 p.m. and 9.30 p.m. on the day of the fire Swales was in the hotel.
He told the witness that all that was needed was a fire to utterly ruin him and Rankin. Someone mentioned insurance, but the prisoner said, “Don't talk about fires, I am not insured.” Some six weeks earlier he had explained to the witness that on account of his old age and frailty he thought that Rankin would be unable to escape in the event of the building catching fire.
At 11.20 p.m. his wife had drawn his attention to a groan following a blow coming from the direction of Swales' house. He ran out then and noticed that the house was afire. Swales came to him and asked for a drink, but the witness refused to give him one.
Then Detective Harry Feast stepped into the box. He was present when Rankin's body was found. He looked for Swales for the purpose of identifying him. Swales would not stand there, but said, referring to Rankin's body, “Poor old devil.”
Constable Smith then said that on the way down to the city the prisoner had said that it was a good thing that the place had been burnt down as he was tired of it. A witness, John Hicks, was then called to say that he had heard quarrelling in the house about 9 o'clock on the night of the fire. But the next witness, one John Cass, said that about 9 p.m. he was in the house and there was no sign of quarrelling at all! Then came Thomas Raine, Jnr., who said that he was in the house as late as 10 p.m. with Cass, and that Cass and Rankin were both sober, and Swales was drunk. That the fixtures, stock-in-trade and furniture of the two
The next witness, John Lewis, came with a curious piece of evidence. He said that on the 7th, the day of the tragedy, he had let another house to Swales in the East Town Belt with the condition that if Swales proposed to leave the colony he could cancel the lease.
The medical evidence which, in some respects was very unsatisfactory, was first given by Dr. Marshall. He saw the body lying where it was found. The upper part of the skull was missing as well as the lower parts of the legs and thighs. The forearms, too, were much charred. The doctor said that the man had died from the effects of suffocation due to inhaling smoke and deleterious gases from the fire. The windpipe and the lungs were somewhat congested and discoloured by carbonaceous matter. Then the doctor made the startling remark, “I think the piece of the skull was blown off by vapours generated internally and part of the brain was gone!” The absurdity of such a conjecture has only to be stated to be appreciated. The other medical witness, Dr. Powell, agreed that death had been due to inhaling smoke. He thought that Rankin might have been rendered insensible by the smoke.
That completed the evidence relied on by the Crown to prove the alleged murder, and, as Mr. Wynn Williams said he had no evidence to offer, Mr. Duncan addressed the jury. He commented on Swales' conduct during the day. He spoke of the frequent quarrels. He relied on the inconsistent statements of the accused, as well as on the significant fact that he was fully dressed when seen immediately after the fire had been noticed. Would he have stood quietly by and watched the fire if he had not set it alight? There was evidence of intention, too, in that he was proposing to leave the colony.
Mr. Wynn Williams said that the frequent remarks of the prisoner about fires shewed that he was innocent. If he had intended to fire the house he would not have told everybody. He had clearly been surprised by the fire and had said at once how much trouble he had had to escape. His face also was to some extent burnt. The jury had to remember that they were not trying the prisoner as to whether he had been a poltroon and left his mate to die. The charge was that he had murdered him. The origin of the fire was a mystery and the inference to be drawn was against deliberate arson. Counsel relied, too, on the fact that the prisoner, if he had lit the fire, would have made himself scarce and not stood by when others came along. The onus of proof lay on the Crown and there was no evidence that Rankin had suffered any sort of violence at the hands of the prisoner.
His Honour, Mr. Justice Gresson, reminded the jury that the charges rested on presumptive evidence, and he warned them that they would have to be satisfied that the evidence was quite inconsistent with any other theory than guilt before they were entitled to convict. He went through the evidence carefully, and seemed on the whole to sum up in the prisoner's favour. At 7.30 p.m. the jury retired and returned in an hour and ten minutes. The prisoner was, they said, guilty of murder.
Swales had nothing to say when called on and he was duly sentenced to death.
On Thursday, 16th April, the first execution in the Canterbury District was carried out when Swales met his end on the scaffold. He wrote a curious statement which can hardly be called a confession. It is an admission of some wrongdoing, but giving it all the weight it is entitled to there certainly seems grave doubt that the evidence was strong enough to remove the presumption of innocence. When one remembers that he was probably very drunk and that Rankin was sober, it would not have been surprising if the jury had acquitted Swales. In any event the clemency of the Crown in respiting the death sentence might have been extended in this case. It would have been different if he had been in full possession of his senses. The previous statements of fires might easily have been discounted had the jury been a little less severe.
Swales' last statement reads as follows:—
“Tuesday, April 14th, 1868.
I confess, O Lord, before Thee and before man, that without thought or care of what I was doing I set fire to my house thereby causing the death of a poor man and endangering the lives of my poor neighbours. I sincerely ask Thy forgiveness, O God, and also that of my neighbours. I trust in Thee, O God, and sincerely pray from my heart that it may be extended to me. O my God forgive me; forgive me for the sake of blessed Jesus who died on the Cross to save poor sinners like myself.
John Dinsley Swales.”
In a longer statement that he made on the 15th April he gives some details of setting alight the wall paper, but never suggests that he intended any harm to Rankin. The whole circumstances were just as consistent with being a drunken orgy without malice on the prisoner's part as of the grave crime the jury preferred to find against him.
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“You are like the King of Babylon,” remarked Hone Heke to Sir Everard Hume, who weighed 20 stone and looked it. “You are as big as a whale!”
This remark, perhaps rather cruel, demonstrates not only that Heke had assimilated some version of the famous episode in the Old Testament, but that the question of whales (often termed in England “royal fish”), was still in his mind; and this is not surprising, since there is little doubt but that the whale fisheries played the most important part in precipitating New Zealand's first war, “Heke's War,” 1846. When by virtue of the Treaty of Waitangi Government officers intercepted revenue from whaling ships, which formerly went to Heke himself, that chief was very seriously disgruntled.
The history of New Zealand is very closely bound up with the whaling industry, and therefore a study of these huge animals, the largest known to science, is of exceptional interest to New Zealanders. Whales are mammals of the order classed scientifically as Cetacea, which in turn is divided into three suborders, the two living kinds being mystacoeti (whalebone whales) and odontoceti (toothed whales). “Whalebone” is the inaccurate name given to the baleen plates of the “right” whale. It is formed on the palate of the roof of the mouth, and is an exaggeration of the ridges found on the roof of the mouth of all mammals.
Whales are warm-blooded, breathing air from the lungs, without scales, with hands of the five-fingered variety, and with skeleton, brain, heart and blood vessels mammalian in structure. No external signs of legs are visible, but internally bones are to be found which represent the remains of the pelvis and the hind leg. They reproduce like all other mammals, and nourish their young with milk. They show inordinate affection for their young, and in the bad old days this was often taken advantage of by the whalers, who to capture the parent “made fast” to the young calf.
The exhalation of their breath, when the air is expelled with considerable force from the lungs after periods of holding breath, produces the well-known phenomenon of “spouting,” the spout being, not solid water, but a fine mist. Blubber entirely encases whales, serving as a food reserve, and to resist cold. The whale oil of commerce is extracted from the blubber, from wells in the head of the sperm whale, and also from the bones and tongue. This latter organ, which produces fine oil, frequently weighs upwards of a ton, producing ten or eleven barrels of oil.
In former years, whalebone was much more valuable than the oil, which was rather slow in finding favour. Thus, John Adams in his “Diary,” records the substance of a conversation with William Pitt, in which he remarks to the great English statesman, “The fat of the spermaceti whale gives the clearest and most beautiful flame of any substance known in Nature, and we (the whalemen) are surprised that you prefer darkness and subsequent robberies, burglaries and murders in your streets to the receiving of our spermaceti oil. The lamps round Grosvenor Square, I know, and in Downing Street too, are dim by midnight, and extinguished by 2 o'clock; whereas our oil would burn bright till 9 a.m.” Nowadays whalebone is of little value, owing to the competition of light flexible steel, and, to a far greater extent, the disuse (thank heavens 1) by our ladies of their ancient “plate armour”—stays, busks, farthingales and what not.
Ambergris, however, is still in keen demand, as a fixative for perfumes, while the “porpoise hide” of commerce is actually obtained from the Beluga or White Whale. The Norwegians, who now comprise the greater part of the whaling personnel, salt down large quantities of whale meat for home consumption. The Japanese, also, are very fond of it, and it is recently reported that many London restaurants are including whale meat in their menus. Whale meat is coarser in texture than beef, and also darker in colour, but provided that it is removed from a young whale and properly treated afterwards, it is not possible for the uninitiated even to guess at its origin.
Mr. A. G. Bennett, in his fine “Whaling in the Antarctic,” states that the Japanese used to catch whales in nets, and he mentions incidentally that “in New Zealand the same thing has been performed in recent periods.” But, so far as I can ascertain, the reference to New Zealand is inaccurate. Gilbert Mair states, in his “Reminiscences,” that in 1885 the Maori chief Te Pohika had a net made which measured a mile in length, and truly the fish caught in this net were varied and wonderful, but the only whales mentioned by Mair were porpoises. Even a steel torpedo net would be hard put to it to hold a sperm or Orca!
In point of fact, an efficient and safe method of capturing whales was invented in recent periods only, by a Norwegian named Svend Foyn, whose name appears in practically every work touching on whales. After prolonged and costly experiments, Foyn invented, in 1868, the modern harpoon, which revolutionised the whaling industry. This harpoon, used by New Zealand whalemen at the present time, is usually about 6ft. long, and its spear point consists of a bomb. It is fired from a gun, and, four seconds after impact, the bomb explodes inside the whale, killing or stunning it, and driving the barbs securely into the flesh.
Many people believe that whales have very small throats and so can eat nothing but the smallest of morsels. Though this is true of some species of whales, it is certainly not true of others. The fighting Orca, or “killer whale,” one of which paid an unwelcome visit to Nelson on last Boxing Day, is a flesh-eating animal, unappeasably voracious; this whale could swallow a man with the greatest of ease. In the stomach of one, mentioned in Scott's “Last Expedition,” was found
Concerning these fighting whales, E. Keble Chatterton, in “Whalers and Whaling,” mentions that “one particularly notorious fighting whale used to cruise off the New Zealand coast, and was easily recognised by his white hump. He was known universally as ‘New Zealand Tom’.” After an extensive and prolonged search for New Zealand references to this ferocious monster, I am forced to the conclusion that the author has quoted some garbled version of the exploits of a very famous, though scarcely pugnacious whale, “Pelorus Jack.” This fish for some years met vessels near Pelorus Sound, and became a well-known character to passengers. He was the only single whale ever to receive protection under special Order-in-Council, in which he was classified under the name of “Risso's Dolphin” (grampus griseus). He was the only member of the species reported from New Zealand waters.
During the war, the British Government commandeered all whale oil imported into the United Kingdom. The New Zealanders used it at Anzac, and, later, in France, to prevent “trench feet,” but the main wartime use for the oil was for food and munitions.
The whale fisheries in New Zealand began in 1794, when whaleships of the English firm of Messrs. Enderby, after whom the Enderby Islands are named, visited the New Zealand coast, principally the Bay of Islands. When they reported that the whales, driven from their familiar northern haunts, were resorting to the bays and inlets of New Zealand to breed, firms from many nations, but principally from Britain and U.S.A., established stations, in Hawke's Bay, Bay of Plenty, Queen Charlotte Sound, Kapiti, Stewart Island, Banks Peninsula, Dusky Bay, and later, from 1833, in Waikouaiti and Purakanui Bays, in Otago. The golden days of the New Zealand fisheries were between 1830 and 1840. In 1835, for instance, 116 vessels called in at the Bay of Islands alone.
The whalers frequently enlisted the aid of the Maoris, and Enderby himself is responsible for the remark that the native race “proved better seamen than the British.” Whales were then abundant in these parts. E. Jerningham Wakefield mentions having seen a venturesome party going out to attack a whale in Wellington harbour, “armed with a light porpoise spear attached to a few yards of rope. Luckily for them they could not get near enough, else they would have learned to their cost that it is no light matter to tickle these fish!”
From 1840, the whaling industry in New Zealand gradually declined in importance, until at present, in New Zealand proper, only two stations remain, at Whangamumu (North Auckland) and the Marlborough Sounds. The whales caught are mostly of the hump-back variety. At the former station, in 1931, 48 whales were taken, yielding 240 tons of oil and 44 tons of bone dust; in the same year, the Marlborough fisheries recorded 18 whales, yielding 92 tons of oil. The carrying on of whaling operations within the boundaries of the Ross Dependency, which is under the jurisdiction of the Governor-General of New Zealand, yielded, for the eight seasons ending 1931, 845,646 barrels of oil, or 33,825,840 Imperial gallons. The greatest recorded yield in this Antarctic region was in the 1930–31 season, when 272,500 barrels were obtained.
As to prices, the city editor of the London “Daily Express,” in its issue of the 2nd April last (1934) comments that some Antarctic whaling companies have sold the season's catch on the basis of £12 a ton, but the bulk of the catch remains to be sold.
Much has been written of the old-time New Zealand whaler, principally by the missionaries, who do not appear to have entertained a very high opinion of them. Yet, after reading Wakefield, Bullen, McNab, and last but not least, that great classic, Melville, one involuntarily inclines to Wakefield's opinion: “Though they have a dark side to their character, they claim gratitude for their frankness and hospitality, and admiration for their extraordinary intrepidity, their unbounded resolution, their great power of enduring hardship, and their perseverance in overcoming practical difficulties. These rough pioneers smoothed the way for a more valuable civilisation.”
They were rough, hardy and independent, and they would stand nonsense from nobody. When the redoubtable Te Rauparaha confiscated property belonging to one party, the whalemen went over to Kapiti in a body, armed with harpoons, guns and lances, and threatened to drive him from his island. On another occasion, when a rumour reached New Zealand of a war with America, the British whalers held an impromptu council, and planned immediately to capture, in the name of His Majesty, the American vessels then operating round these shores.
Practically all traces of the old whaling days are gone. At Kapiti, for instance, there remain only two huge try-pots, at “Field's End.” Nor is our literature on the subject in any way extensive; indeed, the student will find more of New Zealand's old whaling days in American publications than in our own books, since New Bedford whalemen were out here in great numbers. But even the sight of the rusty try-pots is sufficient to recall the days when the harpooner, his razor-sharp iron in his hand, stood waiting in the bow of a gaily painted whaleboat manned by a dozen hardy whalemen, urging on his men with stentorian cries of “Pull, pull, ye lubbers, till your backbones break! Pull, pull, till ye land me on the whale's back!” And the long row home to Kapiti,' over fifteen miles or more of rough sea, half-a-dozen boats lashed together with a stricken whale in tow, the rough voices pealing out that chanty so beloved of all whalemen: “A dead whale, or a stove boat!”
Aparty of Aucklanders eager for the more or less romantic life on a luxuriant green isle of the ocean, where the Robinson Crusoe life will be reproduced on a community scale, intend settling on Sunday Island, in the Kermadec group to grow crops of kumaras and fruit for the Auckland market.
There is such a fascination in the idea of an island home, all alone in the great ocean where the flying-fishes play and the spouting whales came sailing by, that the possible disadvantages are apt to be overlooked. Sunday Island has a long story of ill luck. It is fertile enough, with a beautiful subtropic climate, but previous settlers had to battle with plagues of rats which devoured their young crops, and with now and then a hurricane and once in so often a volcanic eruption. The only settlers who hung it out there for long were the Bell family, whose occupation of the place prevented the annexation of Sunday Island by the Germans, before the British and New Zealand Governments made it a part of the Empire and of this Dominion.
New Zealand may be described as two large islands with archipelagoes of little ones. Some of our pleasantest homes are on the islands of the Auckland coast. The sheltered Hauraki, with its large islands, is as desirable a place for pleasure and permanent occupation as can be found the world over. Some are sheep-farms; some of them are favoured haunts of the summer boarder; all of them give anchorage in quiet bays to the flotillas of summer cruisers, power and sail. Some are rather too close to the town for the islander who likes a secluded life. Sunday Island, on the other hand, being between six and seven hundred miles from Auckland, is a trifle far away for the settler and his family who need doctor or dentist in a hurry.
Now and again one sees an island advertised for. Someone not so long ago wanted an island of about twenty-five or thirty acres, for a home. Our northern coasts might have provided the needed selection, different from mere mainland sections because it can be defined as entirely surrounded by water instead of by other mere sections or selections. There is a special and peculiar sense of satisfaction in possessing an island all your own, far away from the dust and noise and trespassing and burglaries of the mainland. Your time is your own; no trains or trams to catch; no whistles and roaring of motor-horns to spoil your slumbers; no hawkers knocking imperatively at the back door. You can eat oysters off your own rocks and defy the inspector. You may miss the bright lights and the cinema and the bridge-parties of the town, but if you are devoted to those attractions you will not be one of the islanders.
There are, of course, some islands one would not have as a gift. Down in Dusky Sound there are forty islets within the radius of about a mile, besides Resolution Island and other large ones. The only man who ever lived there for long of his own free choice was that enthusiastic naturalist, Richard Henry, who was Government custodian of Resolution, and afterwards of Kapiti Island bird sanctuary. He was so interested in the native bird life that he quite ignored the sandfly and mosquito plagues. He, like Donald Sutherland, the pioneer of Milford Sound, was quite happy in his tremendous solitudes, and was quite content to wait six months for his mailbag and his boxes of groceries from civilisation.
But the far South has less solitary islands than those of Fiordland. One of the prettiest little water-girt homes I have seen is that of a Shetland Islander who had settled on Ulva Island, in Patterson Inlet, the islet-strewn gulf of Stewart Island. There was the cleanest little half-moon of sandy shelly beach, with the owner's boathouse at the head, then there was a walk through native bush to the Crusoe's cottage, with its garden and its collection of plants and shrubs from many foreign lands, a botanical museum of a quality one never expected to see in so remote a place. The old-timer had a little store by the beach, and on Saturday, the Inlet habitants' shopping day, there would be white and brown sails flecking the gulf, all making for Ulva's Isle, from the half-caste Maori settlement at The Neck. It was their most convenient place for replenishing their stocks of tea and sugar and flour and tobacco. There is no place quite like Ulva in all New Zealand in its blended atmosphere of bush life and gardenland, sailoring and trading, a bit of each.
That missing sword of Major Von Tempsky has been the object of vain searches and delusive clues. Anyone who came into possession of a sword, source unknown, appears to have imagined it might be that precious relic of the roving soldier who fell at Te Ngutu-o-te-manu in 1868. Much that is incorrect has been written about the weapon that “Manurau,” as the Maoris called him, took into action, leaving the scabbard in camp. The facts about Von Tempsky's last fight and his sword are given in the official history of the Maori campaigns, “The New Zealand Wars and the Pioneering Period,” published by the Government, and in “The Adventures of Kimble Bent.” From the narratives given there, obtained at first hand from those who fought against the troops at Te Ngutu-o-te-manu, it will be seen that the Taranaki Maoris have always retained possession of the sword, that it was treasured as a tapu thing, and that it was buried in the grave of its last owner in the village of Parihaka.
There is a much abused Latin expression, cacoethes scribendi—an itch for writing. When discreetly controlled and directed, this itch for writing might be encouraged; but an uncontrolled literary itch is apt to become a serious and very distressing malady. Unfortunately there is a severe literary itch epidemic in New Zealand just now. It is finding expression in distressing rash-like “literary journals” that are springing up all over the land. Many of these publications are badly typed cyclostyled sheets carrying the literary efforts of young and old aspiring writers. While I can sympathise with the keen ambitions of these enthusiasts to force their way, at all costs, “into print,” the trouble is that in some cases the sponsor or sponsors of the cyclostyled sheets are ill-fitted to judge whether such efforts should ever reach an even very limited public. Many such sheets have come my way lately and I can only feel sorry for those concerned that they have not kept to the legitimate well-established sources of publication. I am referring to no “literary organ” in particular (there is one at least, that apart from a few occasional paragraph absurdities, is doing excellent work) and do not wish to decry their well meant enthusiasm. I would suggest, though, that such a virulent epidemic of cacoethes scribendi should be grappled with intelligently by responsible members of the several literary organisations in existence, and directed into one sensible and well controlled fever ward. With liberal application of the antiseptic blue pencil, the patients should emerge completely cured.
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There is a fine collaboration of New Zealand talent in a new serial which commenced publication in the “Australian Woman's Mirror” recently. Entitled “Magic Notes,” and set in New Zealand, the novel is the work of two New Zealand collaborators, Ena Eden and John Patrick. The illustrations are by G. K. Townshend, formerly of Auckland.
Kealy's Ltd., the well known Auckland booksellers, recently published Catalogue No. 7 of their secondhand department. There are books here to suit all tastes, collectors' requirements being well catered for. Modern first editions are well represented. In the New Zealand section are a number of interesting and valuable items. The whole catalogue is well annotated and the prices are reasonable. The catalogue is sent free on request to book-lovers.
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That keen literary and musical enthusiast, James J. Stroud, who lives down Gore way, has written the music of a successful song number “A Blue Lagoon, A Silver Moon and You.” The song has been published by the Australian Publishing Service.
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In course of preparation is a limited signed edition of the poems of R. A. K. Mason, the Auckland poet. The book, which is to be artistically produced, is to sell at half a guinea a copy.
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Remarkable development in the art of lino cut is shown by G. S. McAuslan, of Dunedin. McAuslan has cut a number of striking book-plates, one of which is reproduced on this page. Occasionally he publishes a small three-penny sheet entitled “Cartoonist.” Some of the work in the latest issue is very clever, particularly the coloured Shavian cover.
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The “Spilt Ink Anthology of Verse” has reached me. Some of it is verse and some of it is worse. I must confess though that I read each issue of ‘Spilt Ink” itself with interest. It is a bright little publication, full of news, but might be improved with an occasional use of that antiseptic blue pencil to which I have referred.
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“The New Zealand Mercury,” the August number of which has just reached me, is doing useful work in encouraging the development of local verse. The latest number did not appeal to me as much as the previous one. R. B. Castle and Eileen Service deservedly won the prizes for the best poems of the issue. Peter Middleton pays a well meant though uninspiring tribute to Mary Webb; Douglas Stewart, that clever young Hawera poet, plays on well worn keys, but sufficiently interestingly to be heard; C. R. Allen confesses to weaving “wistful platitudes” but weaves them well; and several other poets contribute to the month's programme.
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I have had a letter from Stuart Peterson, formerly cartoonist of the “Free Lance.” He tells me that he has more work than he can cope with, and is making more than twice the money he made in this country. Most of his drawing is being done for the Australian “Woman's Weekly.” Australia was always a happy hunting ground for the New Zealand black and white artist, though of late the reduced number of dailies and monthlies has made the field harder. Peterson's work, however, is of such a standard that he quickly found editors over there keen to avail themselves of his services.
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Ettie A. Hornibrook (Ettie Rout) is a determined and courageous woman who has done much for physical and mental well being. At all times she has written with disarming candour and real sincerity. Her latest work (sixth
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“Lamb In His Bosom,” by Caroline Miller (Angus and Robertson, Sydney), was selected by the Pulitzer Prize Committee as the best novel published during the year by an American author. While I must confess that I have no great regard for American fiction I will say that Mrs. Miller's novel is an outstanding piece of work. She suffers though, from a prevailing complaint of modern novelists who appear to weigh up, smell and feel the human carcase as though they were in a butcher's shop with many varieties of humanity hung up for inspection. This description is rather harsh, but I hold that it is positively indecent the manner in which our writers “weigh up” the human form in this way. Mrs. Miller does her work with such a powerful and original realism though that the offence is not so serious. This story of a pioneer family in Georgia before the civil war, of their great love and devotion to themselves and their family, their fight with rugged Nature and more rugged passions, is a strangely thrilling one.
“Vulnerable,” by Dale Collins (The Macquarie Head Press, Sydney), has been published in an attractive Australian edition at 4/6. Dale Collins is one of Australia's greatest novelists. He always tells a fine story, and tells it well. He has that rare quality of holding his reader with the unbroken interest of his keen story-telling power.
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With wonderful craftsmanship he plays a human drama with cards. He is like a master fortune-teller dealing his fateful pieces of pasteboard to the various players and finally like a conjurer he pieces together the vast intricate pattern and deals the winning hand that brings happiness to two only in that big table. A great story.
“Happy Dispatches,” by A. B. Paterson (Angus and Robertson, Sydney), contains a series of recollections of famous people met during the crowded life of the author of “The Man From Snowy River.” We all know “Banjo's” faci'ity as a bush balladist and now we have him as a writer of reminiscences. He knows how to pitch a tale, does “Banjo,” and so you will turn over the pages of this book with eager interest to hear new stories of such famous people as Rudyard Kipling, Winston Churchill, Phil May, Marie Lloyd, and many other notabilities. Because he was a war correspondent in the Boer campaign and also played his part in the Great War, the author was very close to several military notabilities.
“The Peacock Feather,” by Leslie Moore (Angus and Robertson, Sydney) is a clean, delightful love story. Aptly described as “a neglected classic,” it was published in book form overseas some years ago, and is now available to New Zealand and Australian readers in a neat and cheap 4/6 edition. And— the author does not go prying into butchers' shops.
“Green Grey Homestead,” by Steele Rudd, has been published in a cheap, attractive paper-back edition by the Macquarie Head Press, Sydney. The well known Australian author has remained faithful to his old literary patch, and his style seems to have improved with the years. It is another rare story of country life in Australia with a glimpse into the hearts and minds of many interesting people.
“The Manchurian Arena,” by F. M. Cutlack (Angus and Robertson, Sydney), is an Australian view of the Far Eastern conflict. The author was recently special correspondent of the A.P.A. in the Far East, and has written other military books of note. It is a most interesting document on a subject of world wide, particularly Australian and New Zealand interest.
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Stan East, the well known journalist, formerly of New Zealand, is back in Australia after his triumphal tour following on the winning of his £20,000 art union.
“I am a commercial traveller,” writes a correspondent, “and due to endless travelling by train, I find that I become constipated if I do not keep myself well purged. Kruschen Salts is the only thing that will do this effectively and not interfere with my work. I take a large dose of Kruschen every Saturday night and on Sunday, when I have no work to do, the Salts act on me. On week-days I take a small dose the first thing on rising. It is necessary that I be ‘on my toes’ all through the day, and this is the only way that it possibly can be done. I have tried other laxatives and they have proven to be either unreliable or harsh in their action.”—V.L.
Half of the ills which afflict humanity can be traced to one root cause. That cause is internal sluggishness: failure to keep the inside free from poisonous waste matter. Auto-toxemia, or self-poisoning, is the inevitable penalty.
Kruschen Salts is Nature's recipe for maintaining a condition of internal cleanliness. The six salts in Kruschen stimulate your internal organs to smooth, regular action. Your inside is thus kept clear of those impurities which, allowed to accumulate, lower the whole tone of the system.
But Kruschen has more than this necessary aperient effect upon you: it works directly upon your blood-stream, too, invigorating it so that it floods every fibre of you with tingling energy.
Kruschen Salts is obtainable at all Chemists and Stores at 2/6 per bottle.
There are twenty-nine members of the New Zealand centre of the P.E.N.
Miss Iris Wilkinson (“Robin Hyde”) has written her journalistic reminiscences. They are to be published in book form shortly by an Auckland firm, under the title of “Journalese.”
Mr. Ken Alexander's cartoons in the “Free Lance” show another side of his splendid versatility.
In quoting from Newbold's secondhand book catalogue last issue I mentioned one item, a copy of Thomas Bracken's “Flowers of the Free Lands,” which I said contained an inscription by the author to “Thorpe Talbot,” the pen-name of the wife of Judge J. S. Williams. Unfortunately, although the item was described as stated, I failed to observe an erratum announcement in the catalogue which pointed out that “Judge J. S. Williams” should read “Judge C. D. R. Ward.”
In last month's number of the Magazine I recorded a number of examples of Maori place nomenclature of interest alike for their musical quality and for their meaning and the memories of the past that they embodied. I continue here the Wellington section; limiting it to a few names in and about the city and harbour, names which are not well known but which should be on record. Some of them recall the era when forest covered much of Wellington's shores and hills.
There were many names of places on the Thorndon flat and slopes at the north end of Wellington town. One of these, Pae-kaka, is a reminder, like Wai-koko, of the abundance of native birds and the snaring craft of the olden Maori. Paekaka means a tree-perch used in the catching of the parrots, whose screams once made lively the dense bush here. Rangi te Puni told me the tree of this particular perch was at or near Murphy Street. Another name is Rau-rimu (“Red-pine Leaves,” or “Abundant Redpines”), that part of Thorndon around Fitzherbert Terrace; there were Ngatitama tribal cultivations here in a clearing.
The site of Parliament House has its name, Waipiro. Rangi te Puni said that there was at the beach-side at the foot of Bowen Street—before, of course, Bowen Street was—a large pool of stagnant water, and this in the old days the Maoris called Waipiro, meaning strong-smelling water. The name became applied to the slopes above, and to the site of Government House and Parliament House. The old dame thought it was a not unfitting name for those parts. She had a touch of sly humour. “Strong Waters,” she said—” well, there's a good deal of that about Poneke to-day.”
Nothing poetical about that place-name. Wai-titi is better. That is the original name of the part of the beach—the line is marked by Lambton Quay—extending from about the foot of Bowen Street and the entrance to Parliament House grounds to the site of the Hotel Cecil and Pipitea Point. One meaning is “Shining Water.”
Just a few other examples taken at random from my notebooks. Mere Ngamai said that Ngakumikumi was the name of a place in Nairn Street, the home of the late Tamati Wera, about where the road leads up to Brooklyn from Upper Willis Street. Ngakumikumi refers to the “pahau” or “beard” of the korau fern tree (mamaku), the withered leaves hanging down like a grey beard beneath the fresh green fronds. There was an olden mahinga-kai or cultivation there.
Turangarere is the name of the hills where Brooklyn suburb stands. It may be translated as “The Waving Plumes of the War-party.” When the warriors rose to dance before marching against an enemy (turanga—the standing-up), all their feather head-ornaments would wave to and fro (rere, to wave or dance).
One day Rangi te Puni took me to the sandy beach-side at Pito-one to point out some of the old-time homes and fishing places of the Atiawa and their kin. “The place you call Lowry Bay,” she said, “was called by us Whio-rau, because of the abundance of the whio or blue mountain duck, in the little streams that came down from the hills about there. Ngau-matau (“Bite the Fish-hook”) is the northern point of Whio-rau. “Beyond again”—and the old dame pointed to Day's Bay—she called it “Daisy Bay” —“we had a small settlement named Te Aewa. The north end of the Bay was Te Wharangi. The cliff there was one of our olden fishing marks. When the men went out in their canoes to draw the long seine net for moki or rock cod in the early morning, they used to paddle out in a line from the mouth of the Korokoro Creek, on the west there, across the harbour towards Te Wharangi.”
Another coastwise name, a good descriptive one, and terse withal, applied to Pencarrow Head. It was known as Rae-akiaki, “The Headland where the Sea Dashes Up.”
Changing the venue of our place-names discussion to the South Island, some localities on the alpine railway route to the West Coast come under review. The meaning of the name Otira is often the subject of enquiry. It is never advisable for those seeking translation of a place-name to go to the Maori dictionary and worry out an interpretation of a sort by process of dissection. Local enquiry, if possible, is desirable wherever the meaning is not obvious. When I investigated this branch of native lore on the West Coast many years ago, I found two or three of the old Maoris of Ngai-Tahu at the Arahura village well-informed as to the origin of many place-names, and they quoted legends and songs in support or explanation thereof. Otira means, in brief, food for a journey. “O” is a term for food, but has a specific application in this case, signifying a portion or ration prepared for a “tira” or travelling party. The name originally was applied to the lower part of the Otira stream, not the alpine gorge where it goes plunging down to the bush and the plain. Parties of travellers about to make their way over the mountains to the eastern side of the island would often camp there in order to make provision for their high crossing by catching birds in the bush and eels and the little fish upokororo in the creeks. Their usual route from there was over the Hurunui saddle to the north of the Otira, but it is possible that some venturesome explorers also found the Otira pass. The other route chiefly used was the pass discovered by Raureka (Browning's Pass), reached usually from Lake Kanieri.
The Maori name of Lake Brunner is Te Kotuku-whakaoka, which means “The Darting White Heron.” It refers to the fishing habit of that beautiful and now very rare bird, as it stood on the rushy margin of the lake, waiting to transfix an eel with its sharp beak. “Whakaoka” literally means to stab.
“When I heard they were growing and manufacturing tobacco in New Zealand,” writes Mr. Jas. Scatter-good, a retired wholesale tobacco dealer, in a London trade journal, “I was not keenly interested, concluding that probably the stuff wasn't worth smoking. But last year, when I visited New Zealand to see my married daughter, I found to my surprise that the New Zealand toasted tobacco had actually become a serious rival to the imported article!—and that it is not only of superfine quality but that thanks to the small amount of nicotine in it, it may be smoked ad, lib, without a particle of harm resulting to the smoker. After 50 years in the trade I can say unhesitatingly that I know of no other tobacco like this.” Well, Mr. Scatter-good there is no other tobacco like it! It is unique. And the four toasted brands, Riverhead Gold, Navy Cut No. 3 (Bulldog), Cavendish, and Cut Plug No. 10 (Bullshead), are as well-known as Mount Cook. The comparative absence of nicotine in them (eliminated by toasting) is the secret of their harmlessness.*
One of the most striking characteristics of the Maori is his carvings— handsome and intricate in design. Handsome is used advisedly, yet it may be that that description is only understood after some careful and sympathetic study of carving technique. The so-called decorative woodwork on many of our pakeha dwellings is far less interesting, and lacks those evidences of art which are found in Maori carvings.
The Maori who lived close to Nature had an imagination which had to find some form of expression. He had no written language whereby to transfer his thoughts to books. Thus he used the wood of the bush, suitably embellished with carved scroll-work, as a medium to express his thoughts. The Maori is very conservative and the designs seen in ancient carvings have, in the main, been followed by successive generations of carvers. Augustus Earle, who was draughtsman on H.M.S. “Beagle,” visited New Zealand in 1827. From an artist's point of view he found much to praise, in the Maori carvings he inspected. The symmetry of design, and accuracy of the curvilinear details, excited his admiration.
In the old days the art of carving was looked upon with sacred awe. Only persons of good birth and breeding were initiated into the carvers' cult, and taught the intricacies of the art. A karakia, or incantation, would be recited at the felling of the tree. Further karakias were necessary at the commencement of the work, and during its progress. Mistakes were regarded as unlucky, both for the artisan and the owner of the work. If a hara (false stroke) were made ill fortune would inevitably ensue. It was equally disastrous to blow the chips from the work. They could only be removed by the hand, or by turning the work over. The carver and his tools would be tapu during working hours. Even the chips from his stone chisels and gouges were highly tapu. When members of the Ngati-Awa tribe came from Whakatane to carve the Hoturoa house at Thames, a serious sickness befell them while the work was under way. Inquiry revealed the fact that some of the women had used chips from the carvers' work-place, wherewith to cook food. It was Mereana Mokomoko, wife of the chief Apanui, who, by reason of her mana, was able to carry through the necessary ceremony, which overcame the infringement of the tapu, and so stayed the pestilence. (This house, when completed, was a splendid example of the art of the Maori carver, and it is now housed in the Auckland Museum.)
When we consider that the old time carvers had only stone tools to achieve the results we so much admire to-day, we must credit them with an art sense above the average, coupled with a surprising facility in the use of their prehistoric tools. The tohunga carver had no patterns to guide him in his carvings. His fertile brain would imagine the design. Once conceived, the idea would be mentally projected on the object to be carved, the outline, traced with charcoal or other medium, and then the actual carving would commence.
It is interesting to note here, that the human figure, with wide variations, predominates in Maori carving. A koruru, the huge figurehead seen on the gable of tribal meeting-houses, seems to be the outcome of the carver to express the features of a toa, or warrior, whose grimaces were calculated to instil fear into the hearts of his enemies.
Another point of interest is that the ancient tohunga scorned straight lines. On the oldest carvings the incisions were of rather a shallow cut, with notches, and lines between. Later methods were to cut deeper. The beautiful curved ground was introduced, turning itself round and round like a comma. It is marvellous how the expert carver would cut the double spiral with its attendant intricate curves without any geometrical aid.
A peculiarity to be noted in old carvings of the human figure are the hands, with only three fingers. In quest of information regarding this custom in old carvings, the writer sought the opinion of the late Mr. E. Best. His reply was that the meaning or reason of such was lost. Explanations have from time to time been advanced by others, but an opinion from such an authority cannot be lightly ignored.
The most elaborate designs in carving will be found in the tribal meeting-house. The possession of such a building gave increased social standing to the tribe, or sub-tribe, owning it. Former ancestors of the tribe would be represented by the carver in a form relating to some incidents in the ancestor's career. Such an easily read carving graces one of the side slabs of the interior of the Tama-te-kapua house at Ohinemutu, Rotorua. Here is seen the tribal ancestor, after whom the house was named, mounted upon pou turu, or stilts. This has a reference to an incident which happened in far off Hawaiki, prior to the heke of 1350.
It is really a very difficult matter these days to find a Maori who can explain satisfactorily the various patterns and designs. Those who had that knowledge have passed away without handing it down to others.
War canoes were profusely carved on prow, stern and sides. The Dominion Museum houses some beautifully carved stern ornaments, and it is fortunate these have been preserved. Implements, weapons, and objects for social use were also made to illustrate the art of the carver. Many private collections, besides those in the different museums, contain articles shewing the artistic temperament of the old-time carver.
Our Governor-General has sounded a wise note when he recommends the Maori of to-day to try and recapture the art of carving, along with other customs, which shewed a tendency to die out. The Government has instituted a Maori “Arts and Crafts” workshop at Ohinemutu. Under the able guidance and fostering care of Mr. McDonald, serious efforts are being made to encourage a desire among latter day Maoris to attain to the artisanship of former times. Already some very fine expositions of the carver's art have been turned out, a notable example being the work done for the “Te-Hono-ki-Rara-tonga” meeting-house at Tokomaru Bay.
Mr. Heberley, of the Dominion Museum, is carving better than he knows, for in years to come the work he is now doing in rehabilitating old and valuable carvings, will reveal to later generations the work of the Maori carver at its best.
AT the beginning of the eighteenth century Britain's “manufactures” were negligible. A little linen was made, chiefly in Scotland and the North of Ireland; wool was converted into cloth in many cottages throughout the country; no true cottons were made, as the cotton yarn spun by British cotton-spinners was not strong enough for use as warp. The hand-wheel and hand-loom held pride of place in many a humble home.
About the middle of the century, men who had been striving for years to improve the mechanism for spinning and weaving attained success. The inventions of Hargreaves, Arkwright and Crompton led to the production of an abundance of cotton-yarn strong enough for use as warp, Cartwright made the first power-loom, and soon the hand-loom was being abandoned. A new method of bleaching by chlorine speeded up the process of manufacture, as also did the use of a revolving cylinder instead of a small hand-block for colour printing. So Britain's gigantic cotton industry began.
The tremendous start in the manufacturing race which these inventions gave us, has been diminished during later years, but Britain is still in the lead as far as cotton is concerned. There has been a big revival in the industry just recently. Manchester still deserves its nickname, “Cottonopolis,” and thrifty housewives still buy British Manchester goods. We have the word of the British Trade Commissioner that as far as high-class cottons are concerned, Britain leads the world. Our rivals, owing to lower wage levels and standard of living, are competing strongly as regards low-priced cotton goods; but for quality and quantity England is queen of cotton.
It is impossible for pen to describe the wealth of materials on show in New Zealand. You must see for yourselves, and admire and rejoice at this tangible proof of Britain's preeminence. By the way, do you realise that “old man slump” has lost his pride of place in the British press? The headline now is “Confidence and Prosperity,” as forecasted by the British “prosperity” budget.
We walk through avenues of cottons of all descriptions—new fabrics, new colourings, new designs. Our old friend Tobralco is so smartly new that one hardly recognises her. Zephyrs, prints, organdies, voiles, muslins, lace—they are all here, and many of them uncrushable.
In the showroom we study frocks. They are slim-fitting, with skirts gored or pleated, the pleats in many cases consisting of two inverted ones at front and back. Sleeves may be long, elbow-length or short, and are less fussy than they have been. Collars and large bows of organdie and its relatives are everywhere; puritan collar and cuff sets are demure and smart; jabots and frills of accordion pleated organdie are dressy.
Blouses are charming in various cotton materials. They may be tailored and worn with a tie, or fluffy with pleatings and bows or coloured organdie posies. Jumper and waist-coat blouses are ready to be worn with suits.
Hats have flat crowns and brims, some very wide. Straws are fine or transparent, and are trimmed with flat bows or flowers. Fabric hats to match or tone with frocks are popular, especially checks and plaids in cotton or silk.
Stockings are a delight. They appear in light colourings in the sheerest of
Gloves are in the same light shades as the stockings. Most of those in leather and kid can be washed with soap and water.
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The shoe question is an interesting one. The true economy of shoes is to have the right shoes for the right costume and occasion. This season's styles are simple and well cut—one might almost say “stream-lined.” Heels are definitely lower and broader, mostly of the Cuban variety.
Walking and street shoes are smartly cut, combining elegance with comfort. They are cut low, resembling the Court style, but are briefly laced.
There are many varieties of materials used in the new season's shoes, also combinations of materials—glace, calf, suede, patent leather, canvas, and other fabrics are combined with leather and strike an elegant and new note. Skin shoes are not as popular as they were a season or two ago.
The colours most seen are navy, various shades of brown, and the neutral shades. Bright colours are on the wane. For sports shoes the neutral shades are popular. Many of them are composed of a combination of fabric and leather in two tones of one colour.
A combination of materials rather than a combination of colours is a feature of the new season's shoe styles.
For evening wear, plain silver Court shoes or sandals, or satins, dyed to match the frock, are the most popular.
Place leather and suede shoes on trees, or stuff the toes with paper after wearing, to keep them in shape. This is especially essential if the shoes have been wet.
Do not leave shoes with rubber soles near the fire or in the sun, as this will cause the rubber to melt and become sticky.
It is an excellent idea to varnish the soles of walking shoes in order to harden and preserve the leather. It is well to give at least three coats of the varnish.
The best way to preserve patent leather shoes and to keep them from cracking, is to smear them with vaseline. Rub the vaseline well in with a soft cloth and leave for a few hours, then polish with a silk pad. If not wearing the shoes for a time, smear them with a little vaseline and wrap them up in soft paper.
Suede shoes are cleaned with a wire brush, sold for the purpose. Care must be taken to rub with the nap of the suede.
It is most essential to use clean brushes and pads for all shoes. Good shoe pads may be economically made from discarded silk stockings.
Use white shoe cream in preference to black or coloured, as it does not rub off and stain the stockings.
If at all possible it is a good plan to have several pairs of shoes and change them frequently. The shoes last longer and changing them will help to give foot comfort.
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It is warm here in the sun. I turn my back to the verandah post and the faint, fresh breeze from the sea, and try to concentrate on my notes. I wish I knew more about birds—dozens of them are whistling and twittering in the dark macrocarpas, and I would love to recognise them by name. Their songs, also, are definitely individual. I listen attentively, then try to imitate a phrase or two. Disgusted with my rasping effort, I set myself to listen again. The sea supplies a sullen bass to their clear treble, and now and again the bleat of sheep punctuates the rhythm.
A few minutes since, I strolled across the weed-grown drive to inspect some flowering shrubs which grow bravely where a large garden once was. I greeted japonica and flowering currant, and applauded the gay show of rhododendron and camellia. All pink, you see—these remains of a proud past. Bulbs lift their green spears beside the drive-way, and I found violets sheltering near a hedge. My fingers are still scented with crushed rosemary— “that's for remembrance,” and, suddenly saddened, I think of other old homes I have known, and wonder about the past of this one.
Who planned this garden, lying to the sun, bounded by its curve of drive-way, backed by shelter trees and the plumes of bamboo? Who studied seedsmen's catalogues and sent away for shrubs and plants? Who dug and hoed and weeded? And now some perversity of fate has left this beloved garden uncared for. Perhaps hard times and pressing creditors forced the giving up of the old homestead; children who were to inherit and “carry on” may have gone away or died; illness may have stricken the pair of hands which loved to tend flowers. Whatever the cause, it must have been a sad one.
Old homes are miserable, skulking things, with their blind eyes of windows through which the curious gaze on peeling wall-papers and dusty floors, their rotting woodwork and crumbling stone; but old gardens are sweet with an ancient beauty, and soft with the dew of glimmering tears. The stranger walks pitifully there, and the seasons, each in turn, clothe them with aspects of their former loveliness.
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It is always best to gather cut-flowers, which are to be sent by post, in the early morning. Choose flowers that are not quite in full bloom, and they should be cut with a sharp knife
The choice of a box for packing the flowers is important. A light wooden box is most suitable, but a strong cardboard may be used if it is reinforced and well packed. Line a cardboard box with oiled or grease-proof paper, then place several thicknesses of stout brown paper, damped, at the bottom of the box. Neatly pack a layer of flowers and cover with damp tissue paper. Continue with layers of flowers and damp paper until the flowers are all packed. The top layer should be well covered with the tissue paper. Pack all the spare corners with slightly damped cotton-wool and use a good layer of the cotton-wool on the top before putting on the lid. The flowers must be packed firmly to avoid crushing.
The box should be covered with stout brown paper and tied securely. Label clearly “Flowers with Care.”
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If in spite of good and sensible home treatment, the temperature still rises, the pulse remains fast, or the pain does not subside, then it is necessary to send for the doctor.
There are many ways of helping the doctor during his visit, so it is wise to make a few simple preparations beforehand.
Have a record of the temperature, excretions (bowels, bladder and skin). Note any details of sleeplessness, sickness, pain, headache, or any other indications of illness.
The first temperature should be taken before the early morning drink is given, and the evening one before the bedtime “sponge.”
Try to have the patient sponged and the room tidy before the doctor's visit.
Have ready a bowl of water, soap and a soft towel for the doctor's hands. Get ready a supply of boiled water (hot and cold) in case it is needed.
When the doctor wishes to make an examination, close the windows and stand by quietly, ready to help if required. Make a note of any instructions—do not rely on your memory.
If the patient is a child, endeavour to interest him in the prospect of the doctor's visit, as fear and self-consciousness make children tiresome at these times.
Care should be taken not to polish the floor underneath rugs and mats as sliding rugs are very dangerous. Many a serious accident has been caused by the rug slipping from under the feet.
Slightly faded or wilted flowers will revive wonderfully if an aspirin tablet, or a little Epsom Salts, has been added to the water. Hard-stemmed flowers, such as some of the flowering shrubs and hydrangeas, last longer if a little alum is added to the water.
Flowers will last much longer if the vases are cleaned and the water changed daily.
If acid has been accidentally spilt it should be covered immediately with soda water or spirits of ammonia. This neutralises the acid.
Use vegetable water for making gravies and adding to soup. This water contains valuable minerals and salts, and should not be wasted.
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Boil as many eggs as required, hard. Shell, and divide in two lengthways, then take out the yolks and mix with 1/2oz. of butter and enough anchovy sauce to taste. Fill the whites with the mixture.
If to be served hot, place on round of fried bread and garnish with parsley. If cold, place on cup-shaped lettuce leaves, or with any green salad, and serve with mayonaisse dressing.
Hard boil and peel required number of eggs; one onion, chopped very fine. Put a tablespoon of butter in hot frying pan, brown onion on it. Make a sauce of one heaped tablespoon of flour, and one tablespoon butter. Melt over fire, and add gradually one teaspoon curry powder, 1 1/2 cups milk, browned onion and butter, salt and pepper to taste. Stir until thickened, add halved or sliced eggs. Serve very hot.
Three eggs, two tomatoes, 1oz. butter, pepper and salt, parsley.
Cook tomatoes and pass through a sieve. Put the butter into a saucepan, and when hot, put in the tomatoes; beat up the eggs and add to mixture, with pepper and salt, and keep stirring till nearly dry. Do not allow to boil. Serve very hot on rounds of buttered toast or fried bread.
Put a cupful of grated cheese in half a cup of milk. Stir over the fire until it is melted. Have three eggs well beaten, add butter, salt, pepper, and cayenne to taste. Pour in the eggs and stir rapidly for a few minutes. Remove form the fire, spread over slices of toast or fried bread. Serve very hot.
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Although we are in the Spring months, colds are still fairly prevalent, and there have been a good many cases of influenza. It is at this time of the year that lemons and oranges are particularly essential to bodily well-being. In all citrus fruits there is an abundance of those wonderfully potent substances called vitamins, including one which helps the body cells to resist the attacks of disease germs. Then, too, there are certain acids, of which citric acid is the most important. These are most valuable in the vital activities of the body cells and in the removal of the waste products in the nutritive processes. The acids in citrus fruits form a compound in the body, which increases the alkalinity of the blood, and the diminution of this alkalinity results in many types of ill-health.
Lemons also contain matters of direct food value, carbon compounds, and various necessary salts: phosphates, potash, iron, lime, dosium, sulphur, etc. A very important point is that all these salts, vitamins, etc., are present in lemons in a form which is easily made use of in the body.
Crude chemical salts may be taken into the stomach, but be merely wasted, not being in a form which can be absorbed by the body cells, but this is not the case when our essential chemicals are taken in a natural form. Moreover, they are so cunningly dispensed by Nature that the taking of them is a pleasure. Let us, therefore, seek our spring tonic from Nature's dispensary —the citrus tree.
An Early Morning Drink.—Place the juice of a lemon in a tumbler, add 9 or 10 raisins, and fill up with cold water. Leave this overnight, all ready to drink first thing in the morning. This is an excellent gentle laxative.
A hot lemon drink may be improved by adding honey for sweetening instead of sugar.
Lemon juice purifies the blood stream—dissolves acid which causes aches and pains—clears the skin of blemish—tones up the whole system.
A good wash for the teeth is made with two tablespoons of lemon juice in eight ounces of water.
Add the juice of a lemon to the last water when shampooing the hair. The acid removes all soap and makes the hair soft and fluffy.
After peeling vegetables, use lemon juice to remove the stain from the hands.
For added flavour and tenderness rub beef with the juice of a lemon before cooking. The result is particularly pleasing. Aged poultry treated likewise becomes quite tender.
If you use dripping for pastry, add the juice of a lemon—the flavour will be greatly improved.
The cleaning of brassware often presents a problem. Here follows a good way: Rub brassware with lemon rinds, then rinse in warm water and finish off with a soft cloth. The brassware will retain a rich lustre and there will be no sediment common to ordinary polishes in the grooves, and inlaid ware will have no chalky appearance.
Use old lemon rinds on your sink boards. Just give them a rub and leave to dry.
For an uncommon scent in the drawing-room try a lemon with dozens of cloves stuck in it. Pop it in an unseen corner and you and your guests will enjoy the pleasant result.
Hints to smokers: “A pipe burns through or cracks simply owing to carelessness,” says a London expert, “a new pipe should not be subjected to intense heat until the interior of the bowl is protected by a layer of carbon, although too great an accumulation of carbon must be avoided. So must the rough scraping of the bowl. And the knocking of the pipe against hard objects, also ‘lighting up’ from the flame of a candle, may easily crack the wood.” Quite. But how about the tobacco? If full of nicotine, (as it so often is), the pipe rapidly fouls and becomes clogged, necessitating continual scraping out, so that the bowl soon becomes a mere shell. Impure tobacco is bad for the pipe and worse for the smoker. You can buy a new pipe for a shilling. Health impaired by bad tobacco may cost you more than that. The purest tobacco of all is the toasted New Zealand. Hardly any nicotine in it. The toasting does it! Four brands only. Riverhead Gold. Navy Cut No. 3 (Bulldog), Cavendish, and Cut Plug No. 10 (Bullshead).*
Lemon juice and salt will remove rust stains from white materials.
Never mix a lemon drink in an enamel utensil on account of the risk of antimony poisoning.
For Chapped Hands—so common during wintry days—the juice of two lemons and 6d. worth of glycerine, mixed well. Bottle up and use whenever required.
Lemon Honey.—Two lemons, 8ozs. honey, 3 eggs, 4ozs. butter. Method: Grate lemon rind and squeeze juice. from lemons. Melt butter, add honey and lemon juice. Cool slightly and add the beaten eggs. Cook in double boiler, stirring until it thickens. Add lemon rind. Heat directly over flame for a few minutes and bottle while hot.
Lemon Pudding.—Take 1 cup of chopped bread without crust, the grated rind of a lemon, the yolk of 1 egg, 1/2 cup of sugar, and 1 pint of milk. Bake for half an hour in a good oven. Take the white of the egg and beat till stiff, adding 1 1/4 cups of sugar. Beat again till the sugar is quite dissolved, then add the juice of the lemon. Spread this over the pudding, and brown lightly. This is very nice hot or cold.
Moonshine Pudding.—Three breakfast cups water, 1/2 breakfast cup sugar, whites of 3 eggs, 2 ozs. cornflour, juice of 2 lemons. Boil sugar and water and lemon juice. Mix cornflour with some of the water cold, and then add to mixture and boil. Take off the fire and mix in stiffly beaten whites of eggs. Leave to set, then serve with custard made from yolks of eggs.
Lemon Tart.—Crumbled stale sponge cake, grated rind and juice of one lemon, three tablespoons sugar. To this stir in 2ozs. melted butter, then two well beaten eggs. Cook for four minutes over low fire. Bake in a pastry-lined tart tin. Decorate with white of egg.
Lemon Sauce.—One lemon, 2ozs. sugar, 1 1/2 teaspoons cornflour, 1/2 pint water. Put sugar, lemon rind and water into pan and cook for ten minminutes. Mix cornflour smooth with lemon juice and stir in till it thickens. Serve hot.
For some months past the Railways have been trying out a new form of matting in several of the Main Trunk Express cars. These mats are a New Zealand product of a link design, and any dirt is caught in the interstices of the mat, making it almost impossible for it to be tramped or blown through the carriages.
The matting is soft and silent to walk upon, and in those cars where it has been tried it has been favourably commented upon by people walking through the carriages.
The Victorian Railways have used these mats for a number of years, with complete satisfaction, and it will be interesting to hear the further comments of New Zealand rail-waymen and railway passengers on the greater cleanliness of travelling which it is considered this matting now makes possible.*
Travel by sea, air or land is always an absorbing interest. Here is a true and romantic travelogue of the sea. A screw-top bottle containing a man's photo and an addressed card was thrown overboard from R.M.S. Athenic into the Indian Ocean on February 4th, 1909. Now, here is the astounding part: Thirty-four days later, that bottle was picked up on the beach at Waikawa Bay, near the French Pass, New Zealand. All the evidence is before me as I write. The finder sent the card to the inscribed address and received in reply an interesting letter setting out the circumstances of the bottle's initiation to its journey, and this letter is dated New Zealand, 17th March, 1909. Records show that the R.M.S. Athenic left London on January 8th, 1909, and berthed at Wellington on February 23rd, 1909. The mystery as to how the bottle drifted from the Indian Ocean to Waikawa Bay in five weeks (it came ashore in a storm and did not lie long before it was found) can be explained in part only by the possibility that it became caught in the wake of the ship and was drawn in this manner part or most of the way across the thousands of miles of the Indian Ocean. Obviously it had left “the wake of my ship” before Albany or the first Australian port was reached and had thence drifted across to and down the western coast of our D'Urville Island, somehow clearing the treacherous Paddock rocks and entering the land-locked Waikawa Bay.
Even twenty-five years later, the glass of this romantic bottle is polished bright as crystal. I have no doubt but that some nautically or mathematically minded reader will attempt to explain the bottle's course and the time of this long journey, but I must warn all aspirants to the solution of this “mystery of the sea” that several Naval officers, very interested in the case, have argued and argued and argued … “about it and about …” Did it catch the wake of still another ship Did it …? —“Pumice.”
The town of Eltham, in Taranaki, which recently celebrated its jubilee, has probably the unique distinction of having a Chinaman who earned the proud title of “the father of the village.” Mr. Chew Chong was a very progressive gentleman, who erected the first store in Eltham, and who was the most prominent personality in the business world of South Taranaki. For a time his store was the sole market for the settlers, and he would buy anything they had to sell. Hides, tallow, cocksfoot, butter, fungus, were not only bought by him but were accepted as payment for other goods which he supplied. He was not only the storekeeper but also the financial backer of the district, and many a man owed his prosperity to the start given him by Chew Chong. He was often known to back a man for £50 without any security or prospects of repayment in sight. To Chew Chong also belongs the distinction of exporting the first consignment of butter from New Zealand to England. The struggling settlers used to buy their stores with butter for which Chong allowed them fourpence a pound. So much butter came into his store, however, that he was faced with the burden of an over supply, and so he decided to send two casks of butter to England. He sent instructions that the consignment was to be returned to him at Eltham, and several months afterwards it was received back in perfect condition. He repacked it in new cloths and brine, and again sent it forward to England, where it was placed on the market and sold. Encouraged by this success, Chew Chong built what was probably the first butter factory in New Zealand on the banks of the Waingongoro River, at Eltham. The dairy farmers were allowed twopence halfpenny for every gallon of milk, and had to pay a halfpenny a gallon for the skimmed milk returned. This venture proved so successful that he extended his business and erected branch factories at Te Roti, Rawhitiroa and Hunter Road. Later on, in 1892, his chain of factories was taken over by the Eltham Cooperative Dairy Company.—“Rotia.”
“Congratulations, Sirs, producing such a fine publications as ‘Tui's annual.’” So writes an overseas reader of last year's edition of “Tui's Annual.” In return the publishers must hand the congratulations over to the hundreds of New Zealand writers, artists and photographers who have contributed each year to make “Tui's Annual” such and outstanding success.
England (Sussex): “In very few countries have I seen a publication which so picturesquely and realistically portrays the life of its people. Send me six of the 1934 edition.”
England (London): “To a New Zealander away from his native land, “Tui's Annual” is the very best Christmas gift he can receive.”
Scotland (Glasgow): “It's the best thing we have seen from New Zealand.”
The 1934 issue of “Tui's Annual” is the brightest and best yet published. All oerginal work selecred from thousands of entries from New Zealand's best writers, artists, photographers.
Obtainable at 2/- copy from Booksellers and Agents, or from Secretary, Box 1001, Wellington.
Last year hundreds and hundreds of enthusiastic letters were received from New Zealand readers of “Tui's Annual.” Here are but a few extracts from letters received:-
Whangarei: “A great 2/- worth.”
Wanganui: “Splendid paper to read, then send Home.”
Palmerston: ’Everyone reads and enjoys it. The cooking section alone is worth the price.
Masterton: “It's getting better each year.”
Timaru: “Mother buys it for the recipes, but I think the stories are wonderful.”
Nelson: “The children love it, and have re-read it several times.”
It was about the year 1890—before the railway was completed into Rotorua. In the month of February of that year, my younger brother and I walked from Paeroa (near the Thames) to Rotorua, taking about a week to do the journey. On arriving at our destination we both obtained employment with a tradesman of the town (a Mr. McAuley), who was an all-round handy man. Opposite McAuley's place of business was a patch of tall ti-tree scrub, and about fifty feet in from the road was a patch of sand (some thirty yards across) which, because of the excessive heat of the ground, was bare of vegetation. In the centre of this area was a small box embedded in the sand, and into this we used to put our raw food, and in the course of an hour or so it would be nicely cooked.
“I think we had better try and improve our cooking hole,” said McAuley to me one day. “I think if we could dig down a bit, especially if we could strike the fissure where the hot water is, it would be much better for our cooking arrangements.” He pointed out to me what he thought was the best spot to commence digging. Acting on McAuley's instructions I dug a hole about 3ft. by 2ft. and about 5ft. deep. At this depth the hole was uncomfortably hot.
“You should get down into the hole and dig,” said McAuley when he came to inspect my work. I replied “it is too hot down here.” “Very well,” he said, “we shall get some other means of working it.” This we did. We obtained a post-hole borer, lengthened the shaft of it, and with this I commenced to increase the depth of the hole, working from the surface. By this means (after further extensions to the shaft of the borer) the hole was made about twelve feet deep. During the boring operations the hole was getting hotter and hotter, the temperature of the iron borer being such that it was difficult to hold with comfort. When I put the borer down for the final effort it suddenly burst through an obstruction and immediately a great volume of hot steam and boiling water shot upward. I was enveloped in steam, and my first thought was to let the borer go and run! However, I hung on to it and hauled it up as quickly as I could. I informed McAuley that the fissure had been struck and that there was a great volume of steam coming out of the hole. He was naturally very pleased with the result. When McAuley was inspecting the steaming water hole, the Borough Engineer, Malfroy, who lived on the hill overlooking the area, having noticed the steam, came down to see what was the cause of it. Malfroy declared it to be “the real thing,” 212 deg. Fahrenheit. After this McAuley said to me: “You must make a box that will cover the top of the hole and we will have a fine cooking place.” The box was made accordingly, about 3ft. by 2ft., with a grating bottom so that the hot steam could easily get through. It had a hinged lid, and was imbedded to about half its depth in the sand, which was banked up around it.
This hole subsequently became famous, and people living a hundred yards away used to bring their food there to be cooked, and everyone who used it declared it to be the best cooking hole in Rotorua.
Shortly after this my brother and I left Rotorua, and I did not re-visit the town for sixteen years. Of course I was interested to know what had become of the cooking hole. It was with some difficulty that I found it, at the back of some shops. The hole was now bricked round, the brickwork standing up about two feet above the ground, with some sort of a grating placed down below the surface—but still in use! As I have not visited Rotorua since 1906, I cannot say what the state of the cooking hole is to-day.
The first smoke of the day! Can you beat it? “Sweet when the morn is grey,” as the poet puts it. It doesn't matter a button whetehr you are camped in the bush and roll out of your “bluey” at cockcrow; wake up at dawn on the farm; or jump out of bed in your town “diggings” bright and early—you want your whiff before breakfast! With what delight you scrape out the old briar, fill up, light up, and puff away, at peace with all the world! Perhaps you are a veteran smoker, in which case it's a sovereign to a gooseberry that you smoke New Zealand Cut Plug No. 10 (Bullshead)! Nothing as soothing and so much appreciated by the seasoned smoker! It burns away cool, sweet and delicious to the last shred! Should you prefer something milder try Navy Cut No. 3 (Bulldog), or Cavendish, and if you want something still milder there's Riverhead Gold. They are all delightful smoking and as harmless as they can be—they are toasted—and the toasting does the trick.*