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The New Zealand Railways Magazine is on sale through the principal book-sellers, 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.
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I here by 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.
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 railwaymen and railway passengers on the greater cleanliness of travelling which it is considered this matting now makes possible.*
Swinging round the bend that carries us into the undiscovered country of the New Year, New Zealand finds itself on an easier grade and with a better head of steam than has been the case for some years past. Trade is definitely improving, many difficulties have been surmounted, and plans for overcoming others are well in hand. 1935 may not be a boom year, but it can safely be anticipated that it will be a more hopeful one for the people of the Dominion than many of its predecessors. The year just concluded has seen some railway improvements, not only in the services provided for the public, but also in the conditions of employment applying to railwaymen, particularly in the partial restoration of wage “cuts.” The records shew that improved net earnings during the current financial year to date have almost equalled the cost of this partial restoration.
A new feature has been the commencement of tourist ships by a leading shipping company carrying people from Australia for an overland tour of the North Island—an extension of this kind of travel to embrace both Islands may reasonably be anticipated in the New Year and would do much to increase the train travel tendency of the times.
It is recognised that the safety, comfort and economy of our express services in carrying people, with limited time at their disposal, between the principal ports and to the main tourist resorts, is a definite factor in the appeal which trips to New Zealand now makes amongst travel-minded people in overseas countries.
The New Year is thus bright with hope for an ever-increasing development of tourist traffic, a type of traffic particularly valuable in its bracing effect upon all travel services because of the demands it makes, and the opportunities it affords, for an ever-rising standard of service.
The presence of H.R.H. the Duke of Gloucester will give New Zealand a right Royal start with the New Year, and the fortunate impetus of this most welcome visit gives the happiest augury for better times ahead.
The figures of receipts and sales circulation clearly indicate that this Magazine has steadily gained in favour with both readers and advertisers during 1934, and with 1935 upon us, can look forward with confidence to continued support and approval.
From time to time it is hoped to touch on every feature of railway service and every notable event, place and person associated with the history, the resources, or the development of the Dominion, and to continue to present these matters in their most readable form.
We have pleasure in extending thanks to everyone associated with the Magazine, whether as printers, publishers, contributors, distributors, advertisers or readers, and all good wishes for a bright and prosperous New Year.
The ceremony at the new Railway Station at Wellington, the foundation stone of which was laid by His Royal Highness the Duke of Gloucester, on December 17th, 1934, was described by the “Dominion” as a “flawless success.” As phrased by the Prime Minister, Rt. Hon. G. W. Forbes, “the ceremony constituted a red-letter day in the history of the City of Wellington and of the railway system of the Dominion.”
The setting for an historic occasion was so perfect as to make the ceremony a pageant. In an artistic pavilion temporarily erected for the function there were many tiers occupied by representatives of the State and the community, while in front over a large area of level ground and on a mound of spoil from excavations nearly 5000 people enjoyed a “close-up” view of a picturesque and pleasant ceremony. The uniforms of the members of the Port Nicholson Silver Band lent a splash of gay colour to the brilliant scene.
There was an outburst of cheering when the Duke of Gloucester arrived in an open car. The band played the National Anthem, after which His Royal Highness inspected the Guard of Honour. Following initial formality His Royal Highness amidst cheers, was greeted by the Prime Minister, who introduced to him the Chairman of the Railways Board, Mr. H. H. Sterling, and Mrs. Sterling, Mr. Andrew Fletcher, of the Fletcher Construction Company (contractors), and the architect, Mr. W. Gray Young.
The Prime Minister addressed His Royal Highness as follows:—
“The ceremony to-day constitutes a ‘red-letter day’ in the history of the City of Wellington and of the railway system of the Dominion. We are indeed fortunate and honoured that His Royal Highness the Duke of Gloucester has graciously consented to perform the ceremony of laying the foundation stone of what will be one of the outstanding public buildings of this Dominion, outstanding not only as to its architectural features, but also as to the important part which it is destined to play in the further development of New Zealand.
“It is appropriate that there should be put on record at this juncture a brief history of the railway stations in Wellington. The first railway station built in Wellington was at Pipitea (close to the present Davis Street). It was opened on April 14th, 1874. On the same date the railway to Lower Hutt (8 miles 2 chains) was brought into use. The line was extended 47 chains south of Pipitea to Ballance Street, and a new station, known as Wellington station, was opened on November 1st, 1880, on the site of the existing Railway Head Offices fronting Featherston Street (between Whitmore Street and Bunny Street). On the same day the railway was opened to Masterton (66 miles). This Wellington station building was 150ft. long, with a platform 420ft. long. The contract price for the building was £2294. Pipitea station was retained also in the meantime. The existing railway wharf had been completed in April of the same year.
“In 1883 proposals were advanced to shift Wellington station to the site of the present Lambton station, and to close Pipitea. The Pipitea station was closed on September 30th, 1884, and the construction of Lambton station was put in hand, Bunny Street being extended to Waterloo Quay. Lambton station was opened for passengers in 1885. The construction of the Wellington and Manawatu Railway Co.'s line was commenced on May 10th, 1882. The original intention of the company was to bring its trains to the Wellington station, but no agreement was reached as to the interchange of traffic, and what was intended for a temporary station was opened on reclaimed land at Thorndon (the present site) and came into use as Thorndon station on November 3rd, 1886, when the first section of the company's line was opened. The through Manawatu line to Longburn (84 miles) was opened on November 29th, 1886.
“The work of the Wellington and Manawatu Railway Company included the first Thorndon reclamation, enabling the Wellington-Hutt line to be shifted from Thorndon Quay to the eastern side of the company's line. The Thorndon-Longburn (Manawatu) Railway continued as a private line until December 7th, 1908, when it was taken over by the Government in anticipation of the completion of the present Main Trunk line to Auckland. The Wairarapa railway was extended from Lambton to Te Aro, this extension being opened for traffic on March 29th, 1893. This section was never used for goods traffic. The arrival of electric trams rendered it superfluous for passenger traffic, and it was closed on April 26th, 1917. The Lambton-Te Aro line was finally lifted on March 27th, 1923.
“It will thus be seen that since 1886—that is, over a period of 48 years—there have been two stations at Wellington (Thorndon and Lambton).
“In 1907, in anticipation of the completion of the Wellington-Hutt duplication and of the Wellington-Auckland main line, proposals were formulated for a new station (fronting Bunny Street) at Wellington. The increased traffic to be handled at the more distant Thorndon station, on the acquisition of the Manawatu railway, added to the inconvenience of having two separate stations. A plan was prepared, therefore, for a passenger station covering the whole area of the existing Lambton yard, the goods yard being left a matter for future consideration. The following year the Wellington Harbour Board outlined a scheme for new wharves, with railway access, involving extensive reclamation to provide for both railway and harbour requirements. After years of negotiation, a contract was let for the Thorndon sea wall, a work involving the laying of large concrete blocks in 30ft. of water. On its completion the work of reclamation was begun by pumping silt dredged from the harbour into the area behind the wall. Some time elapsed before the reclamation was sufficiently consolidated to allow of the laying of sidings or the construction of buildings. In 1930, the goods shed, 500ft. long, of steel and concrete construction, was erected on the older part of the reclamation and brought into use early the following year.
“In 1929 plans were prepared by Messrs. Gray Young, Morton and Young, architects, for a new station building with head office and district office accommodation on the upper floors. Owing to financial stringency the scheme was held over for four years. Work has now been in hand for one year, the contractors being the Fletcher Construction Company, Limited.
“The building itself will not only reflect credit on the City of Wellington and be a great addition to its architecture, but will represent the most modern ideas in the matter of facilities for travellers. While all unnecessary expense has been avoided, convenience and comfort for the public and the staff who will use the building have been the keynote of its design.
“Speaking of railways generally there is no doubt of the essential part that they have played in the development of the country. It is not difficult for those who have lived in New Zealand to visualise what the country might have been without its railway system. The railways have played and are destined to play a vital part in the further progress of the Dominion. This can only be done adequately and with due satisfaction to the people of the country if facilities that will measure up to the modern standards are provided. It was the realisation of these facts that led to the erection of the building of which the foundation stone is being laid to-day. Wellington and New Zealand are looking forward to the completion of this work, and to-day marks a definite stage in not only railway development but in the history of the Dominion.
“I repeat that we are fortunate indeed that the Duke of Gloucester has consented to perform this ceremony.”
“I am very pleased to have been invited to lay the foundation stone of a new railway station for the capital city of New Zealand,” said the Duke of Gloucester. “It is in the nature of things that a growing population and the increasing demands made upon the railways by a busy port should have rendered necessary an up-to-date station with fully-equipped sidings and yards.
“After many years of service, the old station is no longer adequate for present-day requirements, but the sentimental may well sigh over the passing of such a landmark in the history of Wellington.
“The site of this station has been won from the sea by reclamation, a form of enterprise which has, besides, added much to the area available for building and has been of great value to this city.
“In these altered circumstances I imagine that the harbourmaster may now become the stationmaster and the pilots engine-drivers, while it would not have been unfitting if I had been given a bottle of champagne with which to launch this new concern. (Laughter and applause.)
“But in any case I sincerely trust that the skill and enterprise shown in the construction of this station will be rewarded by a success fulfilling the hopes and expectations of the people of Wellington.” (Applause.)
Monday, the 17th December, was an historic day in the history of the New Zealand Railways, when His Royal Highness, the Duke of Gloucester, laid the Foundation Stone of the New Wellington Station.
With our Royal visitor in particularly happy vein, and the weather all that could be desired, the conditions for the ceremony were ideal, and the function was in every way an outstanding success. At this, the most important railway event associated with the Royal visit, the Department was also honoured by the presence of a distinguished and thoroughly representative assemblage of the leaders in our national life, and by the very large attendance of the general public.
The Royal train, with its illustrious party aboard, has now commenced its journeys through the Dominion. The preparation of the train has called for a great deal of careful planning and efficient craftsmanship, and I desire to acknowledge the good work done by all concerned in that connection. The Railwaymen of New Zealand have now the opportunity of carrying through with equal efficiency and despatch the arrangements for the successful running of the Royal train. I feel sure that the Railway organisation, including every member concerned, will prove equal to the occasion, and assist to maintain the very happy relations already established between our Royal visitor and the New Zealand Railways.
Acting General Manager.
Here's Father Time—as you're alive! — to open Nineteen-thirty-Five; and we shall never, never more, see poor old Nineteen-thirty-Four, so gentlemen and ladys fayre, here's wishing you a glad New Year!
For, on the eve of every New Year, Man calls at the gate for Time to let him glimpse the promise of his new garden; it is still but a promise, for the flowers are yet only in bud, the trees are merely mottled with the soft green shoots which are a promise of the leafy canopy to come. The birds are but preparing to nest, the bees are busy sweeping out their stores to hold the harvest which will be theirs when the flowers fling open the petalled portals of their treasure troves. It is yet but a Garden of Promise, a vista of Anticipation, a place in which to dream of the treasure Time holds in store.
For is not life mainly a matter of Remembering, Participating and Anticipating—or living partly in the Past, the Present, and the Future, in proportions commensurate with each individual's capacity? And cannot the Future be as real as the Past and Present, seeing that Thought can be as real as reality? Anticipation is only Thought dressed in its best clothes and coloured with the pigment of human desire.
And so, dear reader (if any), at the gate of this New Year, Anticipation beckons you to enter. The Past has its place; the Present is the arena of Endeavour; but the Future is every man's own garden in which he can plant the flowers of fantasy that please his fancy. His hopes are his own, and nobody but he can pluck them if he guards them as he should.
Time is treasure, expended or unexpended. But it is too precious to measure in mere money. Certainly same say that “Time is Money.” But
If Time were Money, clocks would be Cash-registers for you and me, And we would ne'er be stuck (you've said it!)
For necessary cash and credit. Our clocks indeed would do the trick, By giving us unbounded “tick.” If Time were Money, you and I Would merely watch the hours roll by And, while we sat and watched the clock, it Would drop the doubloons in our pocket.
But even this were not all honey, Unless we lived alone for money.
For Time means Life, and Life is hoping—
Far more indeed than grimy groping
For what is here and gone to-morrow, And what men spend and lend and borrow.
It means an opportunity To sample all the ecstacy— The pain and pleasure, here and hence,— The gift of Life's experience.
Experience is the principal of interest, as Expectancy is the essence of Adventure. Hence the thrill of anticipation which accompanies the advent of each New Year! What does it hold? A change of fortune, a streak of luck, prosperity, tranquility, opportunity, happiness? In any case we believe it holds Happiness, because the best way to get Happiness is to make Happiness happen. This should be the most resolute of all New Year resolutions. It is one that covers all. It is a resolution with more than the triumphant transience of ice-cream and acid drops, which provide melting moments with but fleeting flavour. Such resolutions are delusions— a narcotic for keeping the Conscience comatose. They are made on the make-and-break principle.
Old years are cold years, but new years bring new yearnings. The wages of the Past are cold earnings, but the Future issues a currency coloured with Hope.
Still, there is a time for every one. Old age often lives in the Past; middle age goes fifty-fifty for Present and Future; youth prefers the Present, backing egos before echoes. There is much to be said for each tense. The Past is useful for putting the Present in proper perspective, measuring the march of Progress, and balancing the losses against the gains. There are many things in the Past best forgotten, but there are many others worth remembering.
Let's take a glance, perchance, into the Past, and shew the mould in which the Past was cast. The things we mind are horses and the joy of lounging round the stables as a boy. We shed no tear for things beyond our reach, or wish upon the distant past to preach; we know that we are growing old, of course, to wish to speak at all about the horse. To-day, horse-power is prisoned and secured, and horses grow so noticeably fewer, that we might be forgiven to intrude, without appearing pushful sirs—or rude.
So allow us to take a little gallop into the Past. To-day we possess filling stations for feeding horse-power to horseless run-abouts—a necessary accessory to the plans of Progress. Their efficiency is undoubted, and their service of the best. But, oh for the scent and somnolence of the oldtime livery stable, where horse-power wore legs in place of wheels! There we found a warmth, physical and metaphysical; there we found colour and atmosphere and individuality. In a stable there was a kind of orderly disorder, the restful restlessness of dormant vitality. There was a scent; an admixture of horse and leather and grease and hay. Voices were hearty and manners were homely. The “office” walls were resplendent with gig lamps and whips and halters, and you took a seat on a bag of chaff; and while you dozed you listened to the munching of animals, the quiet rattle of head-chains, the hollow stamp of a hoof, the rattle of a bucket, punctuated occasionally with the sound (like somebody shaking a blanket) of a horse shaking his hide. It was a somnolent symphony. It is all a memory worth remembering, not because it is almost gone for ever, but because it reminds us that, although we live in hope, Memory is always something to fall back on when reality pushes.
But who are we, in this month of January, to wring out the Old while you ring in the New? Let's forget the Past and pursue the Future before the Future, too, becomes the Past.
Wring out the Old, ring in the New!
An old Wellington identity, full of years but still devoted to his pipe, when asked which smoke of the day he preferred, replied with a smile, “I have no preference. To me all smokes are equally good. Why, I often wake in the night and have a whiff! Bad habit? Ha! ha! So it is. But like some other bad habits it's very enjoyable! I used to smoke ordinary plug, but for years past I've been smoking Cut Plug No. 10 (Bullshead) and I find I not only get more enjoyment out of it but can smoke it with absolute impunity, and that makes all the difference. There are other toasted brands, but I don't want anything better than Cut Plug No. 10.” “The other toasted brands” referred to are Navy Cut No. 3 (Bulldog), Cavendish, Riverhead Gold and Desert Gold. All are of superfine quality and are quite harmless. “Toasted” is imitated, but never equalled, or even approached. It's inimitable! And year after year the demand increases. There's no finer, purer, or better tobacco manufactured. It's on sale everywhere.*
There is something about a smoking carriage that invites a feeling of contentment. Dull care is left behind the moment you enter it; and everything about the atmosphere of this travelling smoker's retreat carries a suggestion of contentment's favourite relations—contemplation, relaxation, observation, tolerance and good humour. It is here that the heartiest jokes are cracked, here the card-players have most fun, here the deepest confidences are exchanged, here the soundest forty winks are snoozed, and here the right conditions prevail for looking out with the most understanding eye, upon the moving panorama of New Zealand.
Other railway cars, mind you, have their own advantages. For instance, the ordinary car is, naturally, more of a show-case and fashion parade. In the ordinary car you sit up more, and take more notice. You are more under observation, and have to mind your “p's” and “q's” more carefully. There is more of the grace of femininity; voices with higher tones and a quicker pitter-patter of exciting chatter; and, at times, of course, more clitter-clatter of teacups and knitting needles.
Then, there is the coupe compartment. This contains usually some sort of private party—either engrossed in their own affairs or taking the chance of a train journey to discuss or put through some big business deal; while the sleeping-car, naturally enough, is more used for reading and sleeping, inconsequential chatting, dreaming, and making plans for the morrow.
So the smoker becomes the most appropriate place, either for looking out in the right frame of mind, to “size up” the country you are passing through; or for looking in, at some wayside station, to view the kind of people who travel by train, to see the conditions under which they travel, and to picture the great organisation behind the whole movement that makes such travel possible.
So, I propose to ask you to look with me, from both sides of a smoker window, in the course of a fast run through the Dominion, at the most wonderful country in the world, and at the biggest individual business in that country. The main idea of these talks is to help New Zealanders to find New Zealand—so that they, in turn, can help overseas visitors to find it. For the most surprising fact, to most visiting tourists, is that so many of the people they meet here cannot give them personal advice regarding New Zealand's principal attractions—as they have never seen them! First, we might note that many visitors have a misconception as to the size of New Zealand. They do not realise that, in area alone, its proportions, in relation to Great Britain, are as eight is to seven. Thus, merely to travel the respective countries—if you could “do” Great Britain (in the tourist sense) in seven weeks, it would take eight weeks to “do” New Zealand, travelling at the same speed. Isn't it time, then, that visitors gave up the idea of trying to see New Zealand in a week?
One overseas publication I saw recently spoke of a day ashore at New Zealand, as you might of a day ashore at Rarotonga or Suva; it might, as appropriately, have promised a New Zealand traveller a day ashore at Great Britain! So the idea to dispel is that of “Little New Zealand.” You never hear anyone speak of “Little Britain,” although the adjective would be actually more appropriate to Great Britain than to New Zealand. My own view is that, with the records in so many directions established by New Zealand, with the inclusion of outlying islands in the territorial area of the Dominion which stretches from the tropics to Antarctica, and with the wonderful future assured to this country, we should call it “Great New Zealand”—and proceed to make it greater. For, admittedly, one idea you gain from the favoured vantage point of the smoker window, is the size of New Zealand. Another is the small population to the amount of land opening out in all directions, conveying an impression of emptiness. There are, obviously, great gaps waiting to be filled, and opportunity for huge development.
In further talks, I hope to review the scenic and other attractions of the North and South Islands respectively, as spied from a smoker window. Just now, I am more concerned with telling you what impressions, of New Zealand as a whole, have been left on my mind by what I have seen, and what I have been prompted to investigate, in the course of some contemplative journeys up and down the country, between meditative puffs on a machine-made
For instance, one placid cow chewing the cud in the nearest corner of the home paddock, as the train rushes by, calls to mind the dairy-cow population of the Dominion, amounting now to nearly 2 millions, a number already bigger, and certainly increasing faster, than the total human population of this country. The product of this mooing two millions places New Zealand first amongst the world's exporters of cheese, and second amongst the world's exporters of butter. Truly, to paraphrase another doggerel—
“It is not rank or power or State, But Blossom, the cow, that makes us great.”
The cow, to set this train of thought in motion, may be seen anywhere in the typically lovely cow-country of the Waikato, the Hauraki Plains, North Auckland, Taranaki, or Manawatu.
In Taranaki, where cows are densest, though they may not be the densest cows, there is a cow for every six acres. And yet that province also supports Mt. Egmont! In cattle of all kinds, New Zealand has now over 4 millions.
In Canterbury, clear of the towns, sheep fairly hit you in the eye, as the train rolls by. They prevail both North and South. Southland, the Wairarapa and Hawke's Bay all have a sheepish appearance. But despite the reputation of Canterbury mutton, the North Island has rather more than half of the 28 million sheep that baa their lay, night and day, throughout the Dominion. New Zealand's flocks are the eighth largest in the world, but their wool production total is the fifth largest, with an annual production of over 101bs. of wool per sheep.
Travelling by train takes you through a lot of high country, and as this feature decides the course of rivers and the source of lakes, and provides much of the country's allure, the mountains mean much to New Zealand. In the matter of mountains, the South Island heads the North badly for heights. The North has only three—Ruapehu, Egmont and Ngauruhoe—over 7,500 feet high, but the South Island has well over 200 peaks that reach higher than seven and a half thousand feet. Seventeen of these are in the five-figure class, with Cook 12,349 feet presiding over all. And every single one of them can be seen, in all their glorious snowcapped radiance, at one point or another, from, a smoker window on the railways of New Zealand.
The North beats the South for hot springs and mineral waters. And the north has the longest river (the Waikato); but the South has the stream that takes most water with it; that is the Clutha, with its discharge of 2 million cubic feet a minute. The North also, has the biggest lake (Taupo), 238 square miles, but the South has the deepest lake (Manapouri) 1,458 ft. But I'm forgetting—this is not a North versus South Island controversy.
Plenty of rain, plenty of sunshine, plenty of temperateness in the temperature, plenty of flora (nearly 2,000 species of trees, shrubs, ferns, fern allies, herbaceous plants, grasses, etc.), plenty of native fauna, from keas to tuataras so distinctive that it has attracted the attention of investigators from all parts of the world—these have all been provided by Nature in her most benign mood. And all may be felt, or seen, or envisaged, from a “smoker” window, in a tour through this “land of the green-grass carpet.” Things seen in this way invite investigation further afield—glimpses of the Southern Alps tempt you to visit Mt. Cook, or any of the great glaciers; Tasman with its 18 miles of length; or the Franz Josef and the Fox drifting down nearly to sea-level.
Glimpses of Rotorua ask you to explore further into the thermal wonders of such places as Wairakei, the river glories of the Aratiatia Rapids and the Huka Falls, or the amazing energy of the weird Karapiti Blowhole. It makes you have the spirit of Kipling's Explorer with his “Something hidden, go and find it. Go and look behind the ranges. Something lost behind the ranges. Lost, and waiting for you Go!”
And then you have the result of his searching—
And so you go, away and away northward to the ninety-mile beach, the breath-taking verge of that long, thin stretch of land that ends New Zealand's northern reaches in sea and sunshine; or southwards to where the Bluff looks boldly across waters of intensest blue towards the glamorous Antarctica; and all between lies country packed with pleasurable views and natural wonders, and with productive capacity worth many kingdoms. Why, in the last ten years, this country has actually exported goods to a total value of over £450 millions. The gross capital value of all land and improvements in New Zealand is given at £662 millions. And all this for a population of only a million and a half.
But now, instead of looking out on New Zealand, with its orchards and forests, its towns with their 5,000 factories and 70,000 employees, their shops and offices, warehouses, wharves, shipping, homes and gardens, let us look into the smoker window. There we see a car full of care-free people who know that the safest place in New Zealand is on a railway train—one of the trains that have carried 200 million passengers in the last nine years without causing them one fatality. We find a system that runs over 3,000 miles of territory; keeps 15,000 employees engaged; earns
It is a national organisation such as this that is able to provide the cheapest transport in the world, when it gives anyone who can get together £10 a first-class ride in a smoker for a month over all the lines of one Island, or for another £6 odd, gives him the run of all the lines in New Zealand for seven weeks. For second-class the cost is even less.
And now for a story or two with a railway flavour, as told in the smoker between stations. If you want to hear more and better ones, all you have to do is to get aboard a smoker. The first is, naturally, about buying a ticket. This is a story of the new spur line from Petone to Waterloo. The old residents of Waterloo couldn't be bothered with a long name, so they just called it “Loo” and let it go at that. But when two old ladies called at Kaiwarra station to get tickets for “Loo” they found the ticket-window shut. There was a new clerk there and he didn't know local customs. One of the dear old ladies gently tapped at the window. The clerk threw it up. Then she murmured sweetly, “Two to ’Loo,” and the clerk, with great presence of mind, said cheerfully, “Pip, pip,” and closed the window.
The next tale shews clearly how thoroughly a railwayman's family gets wrapped up in the spirit of the railways. This is about the railwayman's son at school, who had to fill the gap in the question “When two things come together unexpectedly that is a…..” Although it was in the lesson, little Jim didn't like to write “collision,” as he knew such things didn't happen, and weren't even mentioned among good railwaymen in New Zealand, so he scratched his head and then wrote happily: “When two things come together unexpectedly, that is twins!”
Just as 2Ya, Wellington, has the best radio announcer, so Christchurch has a cherished reputation for having the best station platform announcer in the Dominion. How well deserved that is, anyone who lands off the steamer express, hungry for breakfast, in the early morning, realises. But the North Island has credit for the most original announcement. This was màde by one broken-voiced porter at Taumarunui, who was asked by the Stationmaster if he could not take the rasp out of his voice when announcing the station, to make the sound of that lovely Maori name more musical. Next day he surprised everyone on the Night “Limited” by crying “Taumarunui, Taumarunui,” and then—
“Bé a little forgiving, take me back to your heart; This trains goes to Auckland, and it's ready to start!”
And now a passenger story. The other day a typical American tourist, who had already come some croppers over freak English pronunciations such as Cholmondeley, pronounced Chumley, was struggling with the pronunciation of New Zealand railway station names. For instance, he found, he said, “Hi-qucha” and was told it was pronounced Hikutaia; Pet-one was pronounced Petone; Para-para-umu pronounced Paraparam, and Waima-uku pronounced Waimauk. But when the newsboy came aboard with the “Post” and he saw a reference to the Railways with the heading “Board Management—Pronounced Success,” he said, “Aw nuts—I'm going home!” An that's just exactly what I'm going to do!
Captain George Augustus Preece, one of the last of the gallant little band of New Zealand Cross wearers, was in his day the perfect frontier soldier, one of the native-born who knew the bush as well as any Maori and who made the most successful of leaders of Native Contingents. New Zealand will not see his like again, for the conditions which produced him and his fellow-fighters and scouts, have passed forever. He had an arduous and danger-filled part in the work of making the wild regions fit for peaceful settlement. He was diplomat and peacemaker as well as guerilla soldier, and he served his country well as magistrate. Such men as Porter, the Mair brothers, Northcroft, Gudgeon and Preece live in our history as Colonial leaders who were peculiarly fitted for the exceptional work of bush-fighting, in which methods of warfare had to be modelled on Maori tactics rather than those of the Pakeha army.
CaptainPreece saw life in many phases in his useful and well-rounded career. He came of a pioneer missionary family, his earliest memories were those of the Urewera Country and the all encompassing bush; he was clerk in a Magistrate's Court in a Pakeha-Maori district when the call for men who could handle Maoris sent him on the soldiering trail, he was a leader of native troops during the most critical era of the Hau-hau campaigns; and after a long period as Resident Magistrate on the East Coast he retired only to begin another period of activity, the business of land agent, which he carried on until his death at Palmerston North. He could have written a great book of the real adventure had he been inclined that way. As it was, he was one of the very few men who served in the thick of the Maori wars who systematically kept a diary. A typed copy of this diary he gave me a few years before his death. It is a most useful source of reference for dates and events. So many incidents that were not recorded in the scant official despatches occurred in the bush warfare of 1869–72 that such a diary as Preece's is exceedingly valuable for fixing the facts of happenings that otherwise would have had to be dredged up from failing memories.
The diary reveals the man's methodical mind, his punctilious attention to details of his military command, the cares and worries of a leader of Maoris; and many an entry reveals the little difficulties which inevitably arose when a superior officer sitting comfortably at headquarters far away failed to understand the urgent problems which confronted the soldier in the field or the bush camp.
The christian names of Preece are a reminder of the fact that the Great Bishop George Augustus Selwyn was his godfather and namegiver. Preece's father, James Preece, was the first English Missionary to establish a station in the Urewera country. It seemed a thousand miles away from the comfortable mission station at Tauranga when the pioneer Preece and his wife set up their home at Ahike-reru in the ’Forties of last century. It was the heart of savage old New Zealand, the home of the most conservative of all the Maori tribes. The people lived in their entrenched and palisaded villages on the hilltops. Preece persuaded many of them to abandon their forts and settle in the valleys and cultivate the soil. His home was among the Ngati-whare tribe who were linked up with the neighbouring Urewera. You may see the site of the Ahikereru mission station to-day if you go motoring through the Urewera country by the Rotorua-Waikaremoana bush road. It is about a mile from the wayside village of Te Whaiti; a gently rounded round of soft green acacia trees indicates the long-deserted home of “Te Pirihi.”
The boy Preece was bi-lingual almost from his birth; he had that perfect knowledge of Maori that belongs only to those who acquired it in childhood.
As a young man, he was given an official position by reason of that knowledge. He was clerk and interpreter to the Magistrate, Mr. Deighton, at Wairoa, Hawke's Bay, which was in those days of the mid-'sixties an important trading place with a large Maori population.
Then in 1865, came the first of the Hauhau fanatic propaganda on the East Coast, and war ruined this peaceful tenor of life along the beautiful Wairoa. Preece was speedily on the war-path, with his rifle, raising contingents of friendly Maoris, riding in desperate haste to rouse the settlements, and presently potting away at the Hauhau raiders. He served in one skirmish and pa-storming after another, from Wairoa to the East Cape, back to Wairoa and the shores
An interval of rest and the Court Clerk's duties again; then in 1868, Tc Kooti came on the scene. Preece was one of those who followed him up with a fighting party, and shared in the hard warfare of the winter of 1868. Then after the Poverty Bay massacre he was with a contingent of the Ngati-Kahungunu tribe in the force that drove the warriors out of their trenches at Makaretu, with heavy loss to the rebels.
It was in December, 1869, at the first attack on Te Kooti's stronghold Ngatapa, inland from Poverty Bay, that Captain Preece won his New Zealand Cross, that most rare of military decorations, awarded only for acts of exceptional bravery. Ngatapa was the most formidable and also the most picturesque fortification ever defended by the Maoris against a British force. It was a true mountain fortress, a very strong system of trenches and parapets on the crest of a narrow and precipitous range. The present survey trigonometrical station on the highest part of the pa, is 2288 ft. above sea-level. The place was very difficult of approach; it was compassed about with gorges and cliffs and dense forest. Te Kooti's garrison numbered about three hundred fighting men. The Ngati-Porou and other Maoris serving on the Government side were commanded by Major Ropata, Captain Porter and Captain Preece. Ropata and Preece, leaving their main body in the deep valley below the fortress, climbed the steep cliff with about thirty men. With the greatest gallantry the two officers and their best men gained the end of the trench on the left front of the pa, immediately in rear of the front wall. There was no flanking bastion here and Ropata was able to enfilade the trench for some distance, firing away, with Preece passing loaded rifles on to him. There they remained for some hours, the Hauhaus making desperate efforts to dislodge them. The firing was almost muzzle to muzzle. Part of the outer works was captured by the officers and their few men. One of the Ngati-Porou, Ruka Aratapu, kept up an accurate fire on the Hauhaus from the branches of a tree close to the parapets.
Presently ammunition ran short, and it was necessary to withdraw at dawn next morning, in the absence of support from the column in the valley below. The Ngati-Porou lost five men killed.
On the recommendation of Colonel Whitmore both Ropata and Preece were awarded the New Zealand Cross for their personal bravery and the splendid example they had shown their men.
Ngatapa was not taken that time. It remained for a second attack in strong force, some weeks later, to reduce it, but Te Kooti, with his usual skill and astuteness, escaped into the great forests of the Urewera.
Those operations were conducted by Colonel Whitmore in regular army style. But later work against the elusive foe was carried on in a very different way, at any rate in the bush expeditions of 1870–72. That was the most arduous and exacting period of the wars. The white troops, consisting chiefly of Armed Constabulary, were detailed to garrison the many frontier redoubts, stockades and blockhouses; and the campaign against Te Kooti and Kereopa and their hard-fighting bands was left to those best fitted for bush work, the Maori contingents. Captain Preece commanded No. 2 Company of Arawa Armed Constabulary, and in conjunction with his gallant comrade Captain Gilbert Mair, (Commanding No. 1 Company) made one expedition after another into the Urewera Coun try. The Ngati-Porou captured Kereopa, but Te Kooti had marvellous luck. Again and again he eluded his pursuers.
In Mair's and Preece's combined force there were only four white men besides themselves. Two were buglers. Preece's trusty Sergeant-major was a good soldier named Bluett, who afterwards attained a captaincy.
He had originally been an officer in the Gold Coast Force; when he came to New Zealand he enlisted in the Armed Constabulary.
The scenes in which Preece and his comrades searched for their enemies now and again surprising a camp and fighting a skirmish, were wild and rugged in the extreme—a seemingly endless succession of forested ranges and peaks, like mountainous waves of green, intersected by profound ravines and dark wooded valleys, through which rocky-bedded streams came down in noisy twistings. Range after range rising to cloudy heights, some scarped in wall-sided precipices of grey rock, framed in bush and ferns. In the forest there was a tangle of coiling aka lianas, ropelike vines and supple-jacks, with vast gardens of ferns, especially that soft feathery glory of the bush the todea superba. The jungly bush was beautiful to the eye of a peaceful traveller, but an inferno of impediments to the swag-laden soldier and the explorer. No roads, scarcely a track, the beds of the mountain streams were usually the best highways. This Urewera highland region, extending from the Rangitaiki River to Lake Waikaremoana and beyond was the formidable country in which Te Kooti evaded the Government expeditions for nearly three years, and except for two or three roads and the clearing of some forest valleys it is still in much the same condition in essentials. But the Urewera people have changed; they have schools and there are European-built dwellings, and there are a store or two and a couple of post offices; and the tribesfolk are no longer the bushy-headed warriors and scouts they were in Te Kooti's day.
Those bush-fighters were super-men, in their particular field. They endured storm and cold, they were often more than half-starved, they climbed mountains and braved flooded rivers; they held persistently on the war-path for week after week. They set out from their base camps loaded like pack-horses; the only consolation was that the longer they marched the lighter the swags became; when the rations they carried were exhausted they still kept on, climbing, scouting, ever hunting for traces of the Hauhau leader.
Sometimes they rushed a camp, killing a few men, but Te Kooti ever was just one jump ahead of them.
In 1870–72, Te Teko, now a little township on the Rotorua-Whakatane main road, was Preece's military headquarters. That was long before there was any road for wheels and even for horses, between those parts and Rotorua.
On the Rangitaiki riverbank at Te Teko—using the site of the Maori entrenchment of 1865, the Hauhau Pa which surrendered to Major William Mair—Captain Preece had his redoubt with its little magazine and its guardhouse and the raupo-thatched huts that formed the barracks of his Arawa Contingent. He and Captain Gilbert Mair each led a company of active young Maoris, and it was these two Arawa companies that did most of the rough bush work in the Urewera campaigns from the western side. Mair's headquarters were at Kaiteriria, on the southern shore of Rotokakahi. The old Maori track between Rotorua and the Urewera country went that way.
A frontier officer, especially an officer commanding native constabulary had a curious variety of duties and responsibilities. Preece and Mair formed roads, built bridges, planted crops, and organised boat and canoe transport service, in addition to the work of feeding their troops, keeping discipline in the Maori camps—always a difficult task—obtaining sufficient rations for expeditions, and painfully extracting from the Government the cash and equipment necessary for the maintenance of the force. The actual marching and fighting were the least of the leaders' troubles; a brush with Te Kooti came as a huge relief and pleasure.
One of Preece's peace-time jobs was the construction of roads towards Whakatane and to Fort Galatea, on the Rangitaiki, the frontier post guarding the way to the Urewera country. Captain Turner, of Tauranga, afterwards a well-known resident of Rotorua, laid out the road lines, and Preece did the rest. At any rate a good deal of it. Just beyond Te Teko, as you motor towards Whakatane, the road crosses a long level, which was evidently once waterlogged swamp country. A stretch of this is known to this day among the Maoris as “Te Tina Roa,” otherwise “Long Tea Dinner” Road. Some of Preece's old soldiers explained to me that one day the Arawa navvies working half-way across the swamp found to their huge annoyance that the cook had forgotten to send their mid-day meal supplies along and they had nothing but a billy of tea to sustain them till they returned to camp. Camp cooks had a way of getting drunk then, as now, and getting their heads punched when the hungry toilers reached home at night.
In December, 1870, H.R.H. The Duke of Edinburgh visited Rotorua, and the famous Terraces of Rotoma-hana, and Preece received an invitation to go to Rotomahana to meet him. He rode through to Lake Tarawera and went up to the hot lake and found the whole party at dinner. “After dinner we had a lot of songs and finished up with two hours in the bath. Next day: The whole party left in canoes. The Prince is quite a good fellow. He made himself quite at home in the rapaki (waist shawl) and billycock hat and paddled away in the canoe like a brick.”
The soldier's cry is ever for the most modern weapons. In 1870 the best procurable rifle was the Snider which was superseding the long Enfield. Most of the white armed constabulary, who had no fighting after 1869, and who garrisoned the frontier posts, were supplied with Sniders, which had replaced the Terry carbines they had used in their '68-'69 expeditions. But the Maori contingents which carried out the actual campaigning of 1870–72 were still armed with the obsolete Terrys and some of them with the cumbrous long En-fields. Repeatedly Preece applied to the Government for Sniders, but it was not until after the last skirmish with Te Kooti that he got them. That skirmish ended in the Hauhaus getting away scathless, due to the fact that the Government men's Terry ammunition was nearly all spoiled by wet weather.
“Only a few of our guns would fire.” Preece wrote in his diary concerning this skirmish at Mangaone, to the south of Lake Waikaremoana (Feb. 14, 1872). It was the last chance the Government men had of firing at Te Kooti's warriors. “The ammunition was wet or bruised through being carried about so long. I got my cartridge jammed and had to take it out; I could hear curses on each side of me for the same reason. We had a running fight for about two miles across ridges, but with no result. If we had been armed with Sniders we should undoubtedly have had good results, as we had a fair chance at them when climbing up a cliff. Both Mair and I have been trying to impress on the authorities the absolute necessity for having our men armed with Snider rifles or carbines, but to no effect. We have pointed out that the A.C. force, who had done very little field work for nearly two years, are well armed with effective weapons, whereas we who are constantly in the field, marching through the roughest country, without roads of any kind, are armed with obsolete weapons.”
That soldierly malediction held good until the beginning of April of that year, 1872. Then the active little captain recorded with great satisfaction, that the wanted arms had come at last, per coaster to Matata and up the Rangitaiki to Te Teko. It was a glad day at the redoubt when the Sniders, also Armed Constabulary jumpers, were issued to the Maori soldiers.
Diary Entry, April 5th.—“Had firing drill to-day. Sergeant-Major Bluett is a good man; he is thoroughly up in his drill. I wish I knew half as much. I must try and go through a regular course when I get back from the expedition.”
So it was then, as in more recent wars; the soldier was often so busy doing the actual fighting that he had no time to learn the textbook drill.
That sudden and substantial advance in wool values of last year, coming as it did in the depths of an unprecedented depression, served as an arresting reminder of what this industry means to our country's progress and prosperity. Throughout long years of steady advancement, dating back almost to the beginning of things, wool production and its related industries have been largely taken for granted. The clothes we wear, from the heaviest of tweeds to the cosiest of nether garments, the warm blankets and the comfortable rugs, finished products of the wool industry, we have accepted as a rightful inheritance, with little thought and less conception of the genesis of such things. Yet nothing more colourful or absorbing could be written of industry and enterprise, with the exception, perhaps, of gold production and whaling, than that surrounding the history of wool in New Zealand. It is a story of the back-blocks, which, for the purpose of this article, centres in the shearing shed. Advances of time and science have brought their changes, chiefly in improved quality of sheep and wool; means of transit and access to markets have been revolutionised, and machinery has displaced hand labour in many directions; but in all essentials shearing time remains shearing time. Australian writers have found a never failing source of inspiration in the shearing sheds of that country, and heroes of the blade and long-blow have been enshrined in their literature. “McClusky” and “Scotty Mack” were the heroes of fiction, “Jacky Howe” the hero of real life. The reader will doubtless be familiar with those exhibitions at spring shows, where a man in denims, on an elevated platform, leisurely and methodically strips a submissive sheep of its clothing, to demonstrate the advantages of some particular brand of shearing machine. If you have formed a mental picture of the shearing shed from that spectacle, so far removed from its natural setting, it may well be forgotten.
Take leave of your city life for a brief period. Board the mail train on a bright morning early in November, and rail and motor will land you at Silverbourne Downs boundary, one hundred and thirty miles away, in the evening. Over four miles of hills and perilous looking cliffs and across a final two miles of undulating country by a station wagon, and your journey ends at the homestead road, a broad straight stretch of half a mile. On the right, running away towards the hills, is a shelter-belt of tall pines; on the left, some distance away, stands the woolshed, a low wide-spreading structure in a setting of sheepyards and pens. A substantial bridge spans a clear running stream, and immediately across this, on both sides of the homestead road, are situated the station buildings, and at various points and adequately distanced, are shepherds' and station-hands' cottages. At the end of the road a large garage bars the way, and veering to the right a short drive ends at the station homestead, a spacious and attractive looking bungalow. On an elevation some distance to the left is a neat little school, a tiny model of its more imposing brother of the city, standing silently eloquent of their common purpose. A few station-hands are still moving around in completion of their day's task. A pleasant and satisfying picture the whole scene makes, yet a sense of remoteness about it all, a remoteness not spanned by the miles we have travelled, but of a new environment, and somehow accentuated by the gathering darkness. Shearing commences on the 16th, and preparations are already under way. Loads of stores have arrived, and benzine, oil, tar, and woolpacks are stacked in handy places ready for use. There are groceries in abundance for the cook-house, for there are forty extra men to be fed for three weeks, perhaps much longer; machinery parts to replace worn out ones, and sheep pens and yards to be repaired and strengthened. Station activities quicken appreciably in the intervening week before the commencement. Extra shepherds and musterers, with their dogs, arrive, and later, with pack horses laden with supplies, make for the outposts. The shearers' but, empty for the year, is thrown open, cleaned and aired, and newly equipped.
Old “Sandy” Grant, the wool-classer, and the “expert” are the first of the shed staff to arrive. The expert proceeds to get the machinery into working order. The engine is tuned up, belts adjusted, and shafts and handpieces oiled and set. “Sandy,” veteran of twenty consecutive seasons at Silver-bourne, with the assistance of a couple of rouseabouts, is clearing up oddments accumulated during the off season, and setting up tables and bins ready for the wool. The next to arrive are the cook and his “off-sider,” a pair as strangely assorted as ever ran in double harness. The shearing is to commence on the Wednesday. The influx of shearers, shed hands, pressers, and rouseabouts, commences on the Monday and is complete by Tuesday evening. And what a widely diverse company are the followers of the sheds! Old campaigners, veterans of the old blade days, long passed their hey-day, who bloom again each season like the flowers of spring; strapping men whose only romance is that written in the shearing cheque;
When am I gettin' my engine, boss?” Big Bill Adams, the yard-foreman, spun round on his high stool and coughed as a cloud of coal-smoke was wafted in through the open door.
“Don't you worry about that engine, laddie,” said Adams kindly. “I'm just writin' away about it now.”
The figure in the doorway blinked. His large, expressive eyes clouded. He shook his head wistfully.
“They're takin' a long, long time. Shake ‘em up, will you, Mr. Adams, please?”
Adams stroked his grey moustache.
“It'll be comin' along any time now, Johnny.”
Johnny closed the door. How many times had he uttered those same words? thought Adams sadly. Through the smoke-blackened window, he watched the pathetic-looking figure picking his way across the maze of rails in the grimy yard; a figure with an unruly mop of soft, gold hair. The shiny-peaked railway cap, two sizes two small for him, perched incongruously on his abnormally large head. His long arms—strangely out of proportion from the rest of his body—hung from thin shoulders.
An engine whistle squealed, and a big black locomotive clanked past with lazily-swinging drivers. Johnny stopped and watched it raptly until it had disappeared.
Adams turned to his desk. He thought of his own sturdy son, at school in Adelaide, and sighed: “Poor Johnny.”
Where Johnny had hailed from, no one seemed to know. Nearly fifteen years before, he had drifted into Jurra-gundi Junction. The locos, fascinated him, so he stayed. The little, squat engines of the Opal run, or the giant locos, that thundered through, southbound and north-bound, they were all the same to him. He loved them, one and all.
One day, many years before, a kindly driver had taken the lad into the cab. For the first time, he thrilled at the feel of a throttle. He had been allowed to toss his first shovelfull of coal into the glowing firebox. From that moment, he lived for railways and engines alone. And so, Johnny became a familiar figure to every driver, fireman and guard, two hundred miles north and south of Jurragundi. He helped in the shed, ran errands—sometimes foolish ones—and assisted in the yard. But he received no salary. His was a labour of love.
The little township of Jurragundi lay sweltering in the hottest summer the residents had ever known. Month in, month out, each morning, a glaring sun arose over the rim of the saltbush plains and travelled its fiery circuit. A sun that turned the rails in the yard, as hot as fire-bars. So hot, that when the shunters stepped on them, they could smell the scorching leather.
In Opal, twenty miles east, it was said to be even hotter. Along almost the entire run to Opal, the track ran through a hardwood forest, so dense that never a breeze penetrated through. Engine-crews, on making the run, pulled into Jurragundi, stumbled from their footplates and swore it was the hottest ever. Lucky for them it was only a twice-a-week service to Opal.
Far up the main line, Johnny heard the shriek of a whistle. He waited expectantly. The engine, followed by a long string of cars, flashed round the bend, pulled into Jurragundi, and stood panting in the sun-blaze. The driver waved to the lone figure that regarded the train so intently. Johnny waved back. A shrill blast, the hiss of steam, the drivers spun and steadied. The train gathered speed and thundered on its way to Adelaide, nearly four hundred miles away.
Johnny crossed the yard, paused beside a stationary loco., and glanced into the cab. There was no one there. He climbed inside and caressed the throttle. The lever felt warm and alive in his hand.
Driver Donovan heard a sound. He laid down his blue enamel flask and stood up. “Hi, you! What are you doin' in there?”
Johnny started back guiltily.
“N-nothin', he stammered.
‘Well, then! Get out! Hop it!”
“I was doin' no harm,” said Johnny. “The other drivers lets me. Besides, I'm gettin' an engine, myself. Mr. Adams told me. He's writin' away.” Donovan laughed harshly.
“G'arn, son, they're kiddin' you. They don't give locos. to half-wits.”
As though struck, Johnny cowered back. He blinked stupidly and his face whitened. Then, turning slowly, he stumbled away towards his tin hut at the far end of the yard.
“Hi, son—'
Unheeding, Johnny trudged on. Inside his hut he sat down dazedly. What had Donovan meant? Surely he didn't think … He laughed mirthlessly. Yes, that's what he meant. But, hadn't Mr. Adams promised him an engine? And Bill Adams wouldn't lie. Still, it was strange. He'd been waiting for years for that engine. He was aware that drivers sat for tickets. Then why hadn't he been asked to do the same? And no word about his first becoming a fireman. Why … ?
Why did he not line-up with the other men, on pay-night? A thought left him cold and trembling. Why had he never realised it until this minute? Yes, he should have starved, had it not been for the kindness of the railway-men.
He took off the cap that bore the insignia of the railway and listlessly tossed it into the corner. Arising, he packed his few belongings into a battered suitcase. He picked up the cap, stared at it for a moment, then thrust it into his pocket.
Twilight found him miles away from Jurragundi and close to the deserted sawmill. Engines still held their sway. He remembered the loco, that the saw-milling company had used to haul the timber-laden wagons back to the Opal line.
When he arrived at the mill, he gazed at the engine—a cold, lifeless thing. Climbing into the cab, he observed the tarnished brasswork and rusted controls. A bird had built its nest in one corner of the cab. He shuddered. To his simple mind, it seemed like sacrilege. He glanced back at the heaped coal. Why, he could drive it, if …
He dismissed the thought and stepped down on to the dead leaves beside the track. The stars came out. The bush brooded silently, except for the faintest rustle in the gum-leaves. He lay on his back and gazed at the velvet sky. His thoughts were disordered, inexplicable. His little world had collapsed entirely. He sat up.
A shadowy figure darted from the bush and clutched his arm. The whites of two eyes gleamed in an ebony face.
“You coma longa Jurragundi, eh?” stuttered a voice from the gloom.
“Yes,” said Johnny tonelessly.
“Then big debbil fire coma longa, too. Burn Opal up. Me see um, ten mile back. Makum that way to Opal.”
Johnny pondered the aboriginal's statement. No use running the morning train to Opal, if Opal had gone. He had visited the place on several occasions. He had a picture of it in his mind. A small cluster of wooden houses ringed around by a great expanse of forest. He thought about the big wooden bridge over the Clearwater. It would be destroyed if the fire swept that way.
He jumped to his feet as something flashed into his mind. What had the railwaymen been talking about in the yard? He recalled their words. Only women and children in Opal. All the men were away fighting the fire in the north. But Opal was quite safe—they had said so.
He stood undecided.
But, had another fire broken out closer to Opal? Those women and children! What would happen to them, unless they were brought out? Who could bring them out? There was no engine in Opal. Who, then … ?
His heart beat suffocatingly as he gazed at the black mass of the engine.
Only one man could bring them out, and that man . . the thought seared his brain … why, himself.
“You stay longa me,” he snapped at the aboriginal.
He raked the dead ashes from the fire-box and thrust in an armful of dry leaves and wood. When the fire leapt up, he seized the shovel and spread a thin layer of coal on top. Then he attended to the filling of the tank.
He stopped suddenly. He'd forgotten that Opal was linked with Jurragundi by telephone. In the event of Jurragundi sending through an engine, there would be danger of a collision. The thought left him cold. No, he daren't risk it.
The mill was situated about two miles back from the line. So far, he'd heard no engine on its way through. Had they heard about the fire. If so, why hadn't they sent help? Perhaps they hadn't heard. What should he do?
He waited, in an agony of suspense, while the engine warmed. It became a living, glowing thing. He strained his ears for a sound that would indicate that another engine was on its way.
He made up his mind suddenly. Springing to the footplate, he glanced up at the gauge.
“You stay alonga me an' shovel coal,” he said to the blackfellow.
He showed him how to spread the coal evenly over the fire. He'd have to make the run in reverse. And he'd have to remember about those points. They would be locked, but there was a heavy rasp in the ditty-box, so he'd soon cut through the chain.
Johnny jammed the uniform-cap on his head and linked motion.
“Mad!” he yelled exultantly. “Doncvan says so.”
* * *
Back in the station at Jurragundi, the ’phone rang sharply. Chalmers, the night-clerk, glanced up from his sheaf of way-bills.
“Opal calling,” he muttered. “Who the devil can that be? There's no one on duty in Opal.”
He jerked the receiver from the hook.
“Hullo! Hul-lo!”
No answer came back. He turned the handle, but still no reply. Slamming the receiver back angrily, he turned to his desk.
An hour later, Adams stepped into the office.
“Come outside, Fred,” he said to Chalmers. “I want you to look at something.”
Adams pointed an arm towards the east.
“What do you make o' that?”
They studied the red glow that seemed to die and fiare up again periodically.
“Fire,” said Chalmers. “Over Opal way.” He sniffed. “Fire, all right, I can smell it.”
“They would have ’phoned, if they were in any danger,” remarked Adams.
Chalmers told about the call from Opal.
“Good God, man, they might have been ringing for help!”
“But they never answered.”
“Maybe the fire swept the line before they had a chance.”
“Better rouse Donovan,” said Chalmers. “We'll send an engine through. No. 35'll be still hot.”
As they drew near Opal, Johnny reached up and tugged hard on the whistle-lanyard. Opal seemed to leap out of the darkness. He saw a small group of white faces in the reflected glow from the firebox.
Angus McPherson, the aged storekeeper in Opal, and the only man who was not away fighting the fire in the north, clutched Johnny's arm as he stepped from the engine.
“Thank God, you've come, mon. We gave up all hope, when we didna get an answer from Jurragundi.”
Johnny sighed with relief. He now knew he would have a clear run back.
“There's a car in the sidin',” said McPherson. “We'll . . ”
“Wooden car … useless,” gasped Johnny. “Wouldn't last five minutes. A steel wagon an' wet tarpaulins—that's what I want. There's covers in the shed. Get ’em, while I couple-up.”
They splashed water from the tanks into the wagon, hustled the women and children aboard and soaked the covering tarpaulins.
Johnny sprang to the footplate. The aboriginal attempted to dive from the cab. Johnny jerked him back and kicked open the firebox door.
“Get busy!” he yelled.
On a full head of steam, they raced out of Opal. The trees on each side of the track echoed the thud of the exhaust; the engine rocked to the thrust of the pistons.
At the back of the trees, the fire glowed red. They rattled past rocky faces; flashed across viaducts as the wooden sides wove fantastic patterns in the night. Johnny clung to the throttle, while the steel floor rocked beneath him. The heat sapped the blood in his veins.
The aboriginal staggered back; his black body glistened with sweat; his eyes rolled. Johnny tore the shovel from his hands. As he laboured, the engine gained momentum and raced away on a down-grade. He dropped the shovel and steadied the throttle.
“No use racin' her wheels off on a down-grade,” he muttered. “But we've got to get over the Clearwater before the bridge goes.”
He saw a tongue of fire leap from the trees, but they had passed in a flash. They roared round the bend. Ahead, was a solid wall of fire.
The black-fellow dropped the shovel, raised his hands to his face, and shrieked. Johnny gritted his teeth and pulled the throttle wide. The fire swirled into the cub. The heat blistered him; he couldn't breathe. Something had him by the throat. He sobbed; he cried aloud in agony.
Thank God! They were through.
On—on—on, they tore into the red night. As if by a miracle, the engine held the rails. He knew he was driving far over the safety margin, but he had to get over the Clearwater before the bridge went. He changed his right hand to the throttle, for the left had gone dead. Through blistered lips, he tried to shout encouragement to his fireman.
The smoke thickened; it choked him. He was fainting. He prayed for strength to carry on.
Oh … let him get over the Clear-water before he roasted, and his job was done!
* * *
Donovan sprang from the cab of No. 35 and pointed towards the bridge that was a mass of leaping flame.
“We can do nothing more,” said Adams dully. “God grant that the fire has missed Opal.”
Suddenly from the back of the fire, came the wild wail of a whistle. Loud and piercing, it sounded above the crackle of the flames.
“Great God!” yelled Donovan. “There's someone on the line.”
He dived into the cab and flung the lever into reverse.
As the engine approached, Adams heard the terrific pounding of the wheels as they hammered the rail-joints.
“Good God! He's comin' through,” gasped Adams to his companions. “But who is it?”
They stared, fascinated.
The black front of a locomotive burst out from that hell of flame. The wheels flew sparks like a shower of gold as the engine gradually slowed. Two hundred yards past them, it stopped. They raced towards it.
A shadowy shape dived from the cab, and, chattering excitedly, pointed towards the engine. Some of the men tore the smouldering tarpaulins from the wagon. Adams climbed into the cab. A figure lay crumpled on the steel floor. Adams turned him over.
“Johnny,” he said huskily as he lifted him down.
Someone flashed a light on the figure that lay so still on the gravel beside the track. A cry of horror burst from half a dozen throats.
“His hand! Oh … look at his hand!”
All this happened a good many years ago, but Johnny is still in Jurragundi. He hasn't got his engine yet; he never shall. As Bill Adams very gently pointed out to him, when he came out of hospital, a man with only one hand, couldn't very well pass a driver's test. But he has a job in the shed, and each pay-night, he lines-up with the other men and is solemnly handed an envelope which is inscribed simply: “Johnny.”
The Locomotive Publishing Co. Ltd. has produced two colour plates of recently built British locomotives, viz., “The Princess Royal” of the L.M.S. and “Merchant Taylor's” of the Southern railway. These plates (which are for sale at 1/- each) are excellent works of art and they will be treasured as such by the large and growing class of Locomotive lovers.
college students seeking to turn to account a few weeks' vacation; and nondescripts, flotsam and jetsam of many callings, and some of none. There is Bill Gamble who first knew, Silverbourne forty years ago, when it took a week to get there; Jim Hanlon, last year's ringer; Charlie Downs, runner-up, local product and pride of the district; and little Jimmy Kelly, the diminutive seventeen year old fleecy, back for his second season. For days now sheep have been on the move; the furthest and most inaccessible corners of the run have been combed, and the sheep worked to the lower levels. To-day brings the climax to preparatory activities, for everything must be in readiness for to-morrow. From early morning flocks of sheep, like rolling white clouds, have been converging on the yards. Through drafting pens and races to the urge of shouting and the barking of tireless dogs, two thousand sheep are under cover of that big shed by nightfall, and preparations are complete.
Roll call at eight-thirty. Although perhaps commonplace and matter-of-fact to the regulars, the roll call is, to the uninitiated, rather a novel and interesting little ceremony, if such it could be designated. It marks the first official appearance of the “boss” (owner of Silverbourne), who briefly and informally addresses the assembled company, greets old hands, and welcomes new ones—just a little overture of goodwill preliminary to the more practical business, but not without effect in smoothing the running of that human machine. Roll call reveals a few vacancies, which are filled from the waiting list. The representative of the men confers with the “boss,” and a few details governing conditions of work are agreed upon. The engine is running smoothly, as Sandy Grant, official timekeeper, hangs up his big watch. A glance at the expert, an approving nod in reply, the bell clangs, and shearing has commenced. Rather ruggedly do those shearers move to work, some leisurely, others briskly, anxious to take the lead if only on sufferance. That first day is more or less a pipe-opener, just a preliminary canter, and finishes at 4 p.m. The regular shearing hours are 5.30 a.m. to 5.30 p.m., with breaks for meals and smoke-ohs, eight hours twenty minutes actual work for the day. The Silver-bourne shed, square in shape with the exception of a large wing built into the centre of the front, is built on approved lines for the expeditious, convenient, and economical handling of the clip. In this wing, classing, handling and baling are done. Along the front of the shed, on each side of the wing, is the shearing board, six stands on each side. Within a stride are the catching pens, two shearers sharing a pen, and directly in front of each stand is a port-hole waiting to receive the shorn sheep. A half derisive cheer signals the first down; then another and another, each into its allotted pen, for individual tallies must be strictly kept. Each fleece, freed from its wearer, is pounced upon by the waiting fleecy and whisked away to the classing table, there to be trimmed and skirted, and classified under Sandy's expert eye, and stored in the bins ready for the pressers. Matheson, the board-walker, in supreme command of operations, strolls along the board with critical eye on that first day. Silverbourne has a reputation, built up over a lengthy period, for the quality of its product, not to be damaged by careless or incompetent shearing or handling. A measure of indulgence is exercised at the outset, but gross incompetence or carelessness are rigidly dealt with. The clanging of the bell indicates smoke-oh, the end of the first run. Sheep already on the board must be finished, but, by strict rule, none are taken from the pens after the bell.
Shearers straighten up and adjust their machines for the next run; fleecies snap up the remaining fleeces, and the broomy sweeps the board clean of litter; pens are filled up and refreshments partaken of. By general custom odds and ends and small lines of sheep are shorn first, and nothing in the way of big tallies is looked for at the beginning. Most of the shearers have been off the board for a year, and must get their hands in. Mid-day, with an hour for dinner and rest, is not unwelcome after three hours of work, and two short runs in the afternoon concludes the first day. Fair tallies have been made, machinery running smoothly, workmanship, with certain reservations, satisfactory (and scanning the sky) no sign of rain. Every prospect of a successful shearing. These were the dominant thoughts in the mind of Matheson as he rode his pony up to the homestead that night.
The scene in the precincts of the shearers' hut that evening was just a reflex of what was to be daily enacted for the next month. Soap and water played the leading part, for shearing is a dirty job; then a hearty meal, leisurely partaken of, while a general review of the day's work and the season's prospects monopolised the conversation. Down at the yards preparations for the next day proceeded apace. Shepherds and yard hands, with the dogs, hustle and bustle the sheep through the drafting pens to the music of incessant bleating, the music of shearing time subduing all other sound, and a little disturbing at first. The shed is again filled to capacity; the expert is making a few necessary adjustments; Sandy Grant and his assistants take stock and record the day's output; and all is ready for another day. Midday Saturday marks the finish for the week. With the exception of a couple of defections, which are usual at the beginning, all hands have settled down smoothly to the job. Saturday afternoon is occupied for the most part in attending to domestic arrangements, washing dirty clothes, and perfecting the little details which make for comfort in a shearing camp. Sunday is devoted to relaxation and rest, and provides the opportunity for that close acquaintance and friendly intercourse with one's fellows, only possible under such conditions.
The all-important factor in a successful shearing is fine weather, and work is resumed on Monday in glorious sunshine and a cloudless sky. The vacancy on the board had been filled at the week-end, and each succeeding day records an increase in the rate of output, as the bigger and more even lines come in. Well conditioned and clean pointed sheep make for big tallies, and shearers' earnings are assessed on tallies. The board-walker quickens his vigilance, and with a word or a gesture indicates that quality must not be sacrificed for quantity. One “chip” is usually sufficient to correct a tendency in this direction. But the urge of the tally is irresistible; the fever is infectious, and fleecies and shed hands respond to the call; must, in fact, or be submerged in a deluge of wool. At the end of each day the tally board is
The glorious uncertainty of the weather was strikingly demonstrated on the Friday evening. After a perfect summer's day, and the shed barely half filled, rain set in steadily and continued unabated for twenty-four hours. Thoroughly dry sheep or no shearing was a cardinal point at Silverbourne, and the prospects of work before Tuesday looked remote. Sunday, with a strong breeze and warm sunshine, did its best, but more rain at night undid the work of restoration. What can men do with time on their hands in this remote outpost? Resign themselves to boredom? A few will take a rest cure; but the truth is, that a let-up, if not too extended, is welcome. If the weather continued wet, the big dining room is besieged, and the hours spent in card-playing, draughts and chess; while the musically inclined make their presence felt if not always appreciated. Many good stories, in fact and fancy, are told on these reminiscent occasions. For the most, goodwill and good temper prevail, but not always. With such a variety of human elements in close contact, the discordant and provocative note is rarely altogether absent, and, with virile men, quick on the uptake, hostilities develop quickly. From out of apparent serenity challenges are hurled and find acceptance, and the fight is on. In most cases it is as quickly over, either by clear-cut victory or by the intervention of the peacemaker. Rarely does bitterness or resentment long survive such encounters. With the return of fine weather 30,000 acres of hills and downs and bush are waiting to be explored, with outdoor diversion in plenty. You can play cricket or golf within the precincts of the homestead, or hunt for turkeys' eggs, or shoot rabbits, or fish in the river three miles away, for a change of diet. Make a day of it, and explore the electric power station and the falls, six miles away, set in native bush as beautiful as any on the best tourist routes. Lastly, you may climb Dawn Mountain on a clear day for a view of the Cathedral City 100 miles away. In short, if you cannot avoid boredom during a few days lay off, your case is hopeless.
The wool table may fittingly be termed the pulse of the shearing shed, and any variation of movement is immediately reflected there, and registered with the wool classer, his finger on the pulse. Since resumption on Wednesday a distinct upward tendency has been maintained. On the Thursday evening, Sandy Grant, after checking up and recording the day's output, looked over the 2,000 sheep housed for the next day's operations, and, of knowledge gained in a lifetime's experience, predicted peak figures for to-morrow. Now, Sandy was something of an oracle, and not lightly did he express an opinion. That the going was both good and willing was early evident on Friday. At the breakfast adjournment tallies showed an all-round advance, and calculations on this basis indicated record-breaking. Now, there is a fascination in record-breaking, even in such unromantic things as sheep. Things fairly hummed after breakfast. Jim and Curly were on level terms at smoke-oh, several sheep in advance of previous efforts. Would Curly actually beat the redoubtable Jim? Now, Sandy Grant will contend that shearing either rose to the realm of art or descended to
slavery. For the art he will refer you to Jim Hanlon's stand. Watch Jim slip into that pen for a catch and glide out again with the step of a well trained dancer, a 1001b. sheep for a partner. Once in position, a few quick thrusts suffice for the preliminary opening up, then with unerring accuracy that machine is plied straight along the full length of that outstretched body, deeper and longer each succeeding blow, the comb filled to the last tooth. A slight pressure on the head, a turn of the operator's body, or a straightening of the knee, and the subject seems to come automatically into position. Over that last shoulder, and down the “whipping” side, that comb fairly whirred through the wool, just a matter of seconds, and another quivering, pink animal, clean to the toes, went scuttling out of the port-hole. There seemed something almost of the magical in the smooth precision of it all. All that day, at intervals of less than two minutes, Jim Hanlon sent another one down the chute. There were art and effort in supreme combination, for only by a consummate art could that unfaltering speed be maintained. On the other side of the board Charlie Downs slaved as no galley slave ever slaved. If grit and determination had their just reward Charlie would be a ringer of Silverbourne; but there is a limit to what sheer physical effort can accomplish. At the extreme end of the board Curly Parke's forged steadily along. A perfect stylist, this young Australian, but impetuous and lacking a little in the calm concentration of his more experienced rival; nevertheless an artist in the making. The board-walker hovered
Early in the afternoon, at intervals, three shearers passed the 200 mark. Late in the day Jim Hanlon reach 250 for the third time in his career, and kept steadily on. Young Australia lost ground steadily in the first afternoon run, and the prospects of a thrilling race for the day's honours faded out. He recovered sufficiently to top the 250 mark, and joined the select band of 2min. shearers. Jim Hanlon ran his total to 265, beating his own previous best by four, but still short of the shed record by six. A hearty round of applause, led by Sandy Grant, greeted the end of a memorable day. The complete figures showed a record day's aggregate, both in sheep and weight of wool shorn. And what a day's work those shed hands did! None needed rocking to sleep that night. High tallies were the order, as the shed ran its prescribed course to the cut out, but no fresh figures were set, and one hour's work on the following Thursday saw the last sheep through the port-hole. Following established precedent, the whole shearing personnel gathered in the vicinity of the wool table, and in convivial spirit to the hospitality provided and presided over by the “boss” in person, celebrated the cut-out. Rivalry and unattained ambition were forgotten in that brief half-hour of leave-taking and good fellowship. The scene at the hut was an animated one, as swags were packed, and final preparations made for departure for other fields; to other sheds ’ere the brief season ended; others back to the city; college boys to their books. Then there came the final and all-important item of paying out cheques, and early in the afternoon the big station wagon, with its human freight, left the homestead road on its twenty-five mile journey to the rail-head. Next day the yards and pens were almost deserted. That ceaseless bleat, bleat, bleat, which we had come to accept as the natural accompaniment of shearing time, had died away, and Silverbourne resumed its normal life for another year.
Though few people are aware of the fact, timber ranks next in importance to food in the requirements of Man. It is obvious that in a few short years, the world will be practically “starving” for this necessity. This will be most apparent where softwoods are concerned for the reason that the demand for softwoods comprises approximately 90 per cent. of the total demand for timber.
As the following extract from the “Times,” London, dated May 24th, 1934, indicates, the consumption of timber was even maintained during the most severe period of the depression. “Timber consumption in the United Kingdom even at the worst point in the trade depression did not fall off appreciably, and now there are definite signs of revival in demand. Timber imports have attained their pre-War level, and, in consequence of activity in the building trade, a substantial further increase may be anticipated. Statistics show that in spite of the employment of numerous subsitutes there is still no diminution in the amount of timber used. Last year, nearly 10,000,000 tons of unmanufactured timber, valued at £30,000,000, were imported.”
Blessed with a climate and soil renowned for the growing of softwoods, New Zealand will play a most important part in the world's softwood timber markets of to-morrow. For, in New Zealand, commercial afforestation has been so highly organised and so keenly supported that this country can now boast the largest and soundest afforestation company in the world. A company that now has over 156,000 acres of softwood timber under cultivation. On this area over one hundred million trees are thriving lustily.
In the very near future the value of these New Zealand forests will be realised and Forest Owners in N.Z. Perpetual Forests will reap a rich reward, as will future investors in this sound commercial venture.*
NewYear is here again, bringing with it new hope and new inspiration for railways and railwaymen the world over. In Britain, the worst of the depression has passed: real progress towards prosperity was made in 1934, and during the New Year there seems every prospect of the continuance of better days and steady employment for railwaymen of every grade.
Looking backward, probably the outstanding features of European railway working during the past year were the remarkable increases in passenger train speeds recorded on many lines; and the marked betterment of railway salesmanship in its varied branches. Selling rail transport nowadays is just as highly scientific a business as marketing, say, motorcars or toilet soap. Advertising and salesmanship of the highest standard are resorted to to-day by all the progressive European railways, and the greatest success has attended the new scientific selling campaigns.
Records of fast passenger train running always have a fascination, alike for the railwayman and our old friend the “man in the street.” Study of the 1934 speed tables, reveals the fact that to the Great Western line goes the honour of operating Britain's fastest passenger train. This is the “Cheltenham Flyer,” which covers the 77.3 miles between Swindon and Paddington Station, London, in 65 minutes, an average speed of 71.4 m.p.h. Britain's second speediest passenger train run is found on the London, Midland and Scottish system, in a flight of 142 minutes for the 152.7 miles separating Crewe and Willesden Junction, an average speed of 64.5 m.p.h. On the London and North Eastern line, the speed table is headed by a Grantham-King's Cross run (105.5 miles in 100 minutes, equivalent to 63.3 m.p.h.).
Across the Channel, Germany, Italy and Belgium made noteworthy improvements in passenger train running during the past year. It is in France, however, that the most striking advancement of passenger train speeds is registered. On the Nord Railway (always a noteworthy highspeed line) there is a daily run of 136 minutes for the 147.7 miles Paris-Jeumont journey, equivalent to a throughout speed of 65.2 m.p.h. The Paris-Orleans-Midi system establishes a fine record with the “Sud Express” timing 60 minutes over the 70 mile section Poitiers-Angouleme, actually equivalent to 70 m.p.h. On the Paris-Lyons-Mediterranean line a Diesel railcar daily covers the 99 miles between Dijon and Laroche in 80 minutes, equivalent to the very high throughout speed of 74.3 m.p.h. Railcars on the Etat (State) system travel daily over the Paris-Trouville 136.2 mile route in exactly 120 minutes, or at an average throughout speed of 68.1 m.p.h.
Given sound track, rolling-stock and signalling equipment, high-speed running does not in any way lessen travel safety. The European railways have for long enjoyed singular freedom from serious mishaps, and at Home the recently published official report on railway accidents for 1933 typifies the safety of modern railway movement. During the year only six passengers and eleven employees were killed in train accidents, while passengers injured in train accidents numbered 619—many of these injuries being of a minor nature.
How different a picture is presented by road travel, where death and injury lurk around every bend, and where the casualty roll in a single week greatly exceeds that of the railways over a period of years! It is a fact that in one year road accidents in Britain are responsible for more deaths than have been recorded on the railways since the days of George Stephenson. New Zealand railwaymen are rightly proud of their splendid safety achievements. The fine results achieved through “Safety First” by their colleagues at Home will hearten them in their effort to prevent loss of life and limb.
Fast and frequent passenger train services such as Europe enjoys are a tribute to the enterprise of the various railway undertakings, and to the sane co-operation existing between the railways of the different countries that enables crack international trains to cross the continent with a minimum of delay at the different frontiers. There is another organisation, however, that plays a big part in European long-distance travel, and this is the International Sleeping Car Company.
Founded in 1873, the International Sleeping Car Company provides rolling-stock for some of Europe's most famous trains, this stock including luxurious dining, sleeping and Pullman cars. Among outstanding trains for which the undertaking is responsible are the “Nord Express” (Paris-Berlin-Warsaw), the “Orient Express” (Paris-Munich-Salzburg-Budapest), the “Simplon-Orient Express” (Paris - Milan - Trieste - Belgrade-Constantinople), and the “Sud Express” (Paris-Madrid). In addition to furnishing De Luxe rolling-stock for long-distance trains such as these, the International Sleeping Car Company provides all the necessary train staffs, such as train attendants, cooks, waiters and interpreters. On the majority of the Company's trains a small extra charge over and above the ordinary passenger fare is levied for the use of the De Luxe accommodation provided, but compensation in abundance for this surcharge lies in the additional comfort afforded the traveller.
Apart from the luxury services that serve Europe, the increased attention now being paid by the railways to the comfort of the “low-class” traveller, is enabling many who have hitherto fought shy of “third-class” to take advantage of the cheap fares quoted under this head. Austria, Germany and Switzerland, all may be covered to-day in real comfort in third-class cars; while in Sweden third-class is rightly so popular that few trains carry first-class carriages, and one-class trains will shortly be the order of the day.
In Denmark, upholstery has been introduced in the trim blue and green third-class stock of the State Railways. Italy, too, has put into traffic many new and more comfortable third-class vehicles. For short-distance journeys, the French lines employ somewhat antiquated third-class wooden stock. When travelling, however, between Paris and Calais, Paris and Brussels, or on similar mainlines, there need be no hesitation in making use of the splendid all-steel third-class carriages now in regular use. In Britain, the comparative luxury of the third-class car is universally recognised. The wonder is that first-class is patronised as it is. Second-class, of course, is to-day practically non-existent on the Home lines.
The announcement that the Great Western Railway of England has just ordered 396 motor vehicles for the development of its road collection and delivery services is indicative of the important part road transport plays in the activities of the modern railway. The Home railways at the present time actually own 6,442 goods road motor vehicles of varying types, from tiny “mechanical horses” to enormous heavy lorries for special work. The “mechanical horses” total about four hundred, and they are found to be of the greatest service in busy areas. Formerly, horses were employed exclusively for city collection and delivery work, and, as a matter of fact, some 14,600 horses are still owned by the four group lines. While, however, in 1927, the Home railways owned only two motor vehicles for every fifteen horses, there is to-day almost one motor vehicle for every two horses.
The door-to-door service that is the ideal of the progressive railway can only be achieved through the utilisation of up-to-date road-carrying equipment as a subsidiary to the fast freight train. To be a “transport-way” in the widest sense of the term must be the aim of every go-ahead railway undertaking.
“Don't you smoke?” queried the affable stranger (who was smoking like a factory-chimney himself) of the young fellow alongside as the Rotorua express sped on its way. “Wish I could” came the reply, “but” (with a laugh), “it always turns me up!” “It's easy enough to learn,” said the affable one, “get a tin of Riverhead Gold, and roll your own. That won't turn you up! Been trying to learn with a pipe, hav'nt you?” The other nodded. “That's no good, my dear chap! You take my tip and you'll soon be a smoker!” Three months later they met again—in Queen Street, Auckland. The young fellow pointed with pride to his pipe. “Took your tip,” he said, “it worked like a charm! I'm smoking Navy Cut No. 3 now. It's glorious!” “Nothing like toasted, my boy! Next to no nicotine in it. I don't know its equal. It is matchless! Only five brands, remember!—Cut Plug No. 10 (Bullshead), Navy Cut No. 3 (Bulldog), Cavendish, Riverhead Gold and Desert Gold.*
NO one else among the Canadian schoolboys, attracted half the attention directed to Sammy Richardson who, at the age of fifteen, had won the broad jump at the Empire Games with a leap of 23ft. 8in. Dressed, he looks no more than a boy well grown for his age. Stripped, his magnificent build drew gasps of admiration from the crowd. He is the negro in excelsis in build, beautifully proportioned, loosely coupled, and muscling that is an artist's delight.
There are all the makings of another world's champion in this boy, another cause for wonder what it is in the build of the negro that makes him in two branches of track and field, stand out as the Finns do in long distance track running.
There has never been an outstanding negro distance runner. Very occasionally there has been a fine half-miler—the Canadian crack Phil Edwards being the best of all—and almost as rarely the negroes have produced a quarter-miler. But in sprinting they have produced some of the fastest runners the world has seen. Howard Drew, away back in 1912, would have won the 100 metres at Stockholm but for breaking down. Two years ago, at Los Angeles, Tolan and Metcalfe were first and second in the hundred and first and third in the 200 metres. Since then Metcalfe has gone from victory to victory, and Tolan is now in Australia to contest the world's professional championship. England, too, has had her great negro sprinters, H. F. V. Edward and J. E. London (both West Indians). Edward had a remarkable record in the English championships, winning the hundred and furlong three years in succession (1920–22), and in the last year won the quarter as well. In New Zealand, a negro, H. Martis, was Dominion sprint champion in 1914, and one of the best professionals I have seen here was C. J. Morris. Beautifully proportioned and modelled, with a very fine action, Morris was formerly a jockey—like George Smith, the famous All Black of 1905.
In field events the strength and limitations of the negro are just as marked. Not only is his success limited to jumping, but (apart from a very occasional high jumper, falling short of the highest class), in that field he is a broad jumper pure and simple.
Returned men who saw the Inter-Allied Games at Paris in 1919, will vividly remember the magnificently built Sol Butler, who won with a jump of 24ft. 9in. The first man to reach 25 feet was E. Gourdin, the Harvard negro. Contemporary with him was an even greater black, De Hart Hubbard, who was first, with Gourdin second, at Paris in 1924. Two years ago, at Los Angeles, the Olympic winner was another negro, E. L. Gordon. The first to jump 26ft. was yet another negro, Cator (of Haiti). For the moment, the world's record (26ft. 2 1/in.) is held by a Jap, Chuhei Nambu (who also holds the hop, step and jump record of 51ft. 7in.), but by and large the negroes are in a class by themselves.
What is it that makes the negro such a wonderful broad jumper? Nobody has explained that yet in a satisfactory manner, but there is a noticeable difference in the feet of negroes that must have something to do with it. Long and seemingly (but only seemingly) flat, with the heel held by an Achillis tendon that from the very walk of the race seems more tightly stretched than in the white man, the negro undoubtedly gets a tremendous kick off from the board. This, with his sprinting speed (and that is of more help in broad jumping than in any other field event) has made him the freak he is. Young Richardson gave us a sample of the kick off. The slap of his heel on the board could be heard all over the ground.
The strange part of it all is that this tremendous power in the heel is of such a specialised kind. The heel, of course, gives all the spring in all kinds of jumping, and yet for all his tremendous springiness of heel the negro has never made his name in high jumping, pole vaulting, or the hop, step and jump.
With nothing but congratulations to the young men themselves, it is nevertheless a pity that our latest batch of Rhodes Scholars have relatively poor athletic qualifications. There was wisdom in Rhodes when he aimed at the all-round man. He wanted high intellect directed not wholly to scholastic and professional ends. He was after men who in after life would become public figures—not necessarily politicians, but men who would take a prominent part in the life of their communities if not in Empire affairs. His benefactions are intended to fit them for that.
Now, athletic excellence in a Rhodes scholar gives him opportunities to fit himself for a public career in a way that is denied to the brain worker pure and simple. And this is more true of excellence in track or field events than of any other sport, simply because of their greater opportunities for international contacts.
Take Arthur Porritt for instance. By reason first of his prowess on the track he held successively the offices of Secretary and then President of the Oxford University Athletic Club, but he was fitted to hold them down by his sterling qualities of mind and character. The experiences of such offices, with their responsibilities, led to his becoming one of the biggest figures in the organisation of University sport in the Empire. Further than that, the English Universities have become a very big influence in setting international standards of sportsmanship and goodwill. And Porritt's standing in this direction is now evidenced by his attaining the high honour of becoming a member of the International Olympic Committee, which is perhaps the one body to-day really achieving anything in the matter of international goodwill.
Just what influence sport can bring to bear will be pretty clearly shown in the near future. The fear of America, Canada and other countries not competing at the Olympic Games at Berlin in 1936 has already drawn promises of Nazi fair dealing with German Jews.
To come nearer home, Porritt, and, still more, his greater athletic successor Lovelock, have by their prowess on the track in many different countries, and their fine sportsmanship, done more to make New Zealand well and
The visits of American golfers and Canadian schoolboy athletes have opened our eyes to the reasons why New Zealand is lagging behind in those sports of individual achievement.
Golf is now revealed to us as something as exacting as billiards or bridge in the demands it makes on its devotees. Here in New Zealand for many years the golfer has been almost a man apart (even the most amateurish of him) in his desire to fathom the theoretical mysteries of his remarkable game. Remarkable is truly the word for to the non-golfer the club and the ball can never appeal as anything but unnecessary complications of walking exercise, tending to destroy all the benefits of strolling by their effect on the temper of the stroller. The golfer will devote to unravelling the mysteries of grip and swing and to discussions of the mechanics of both, time which, when given by anyone else to any other sport, he is the first to deplore.
And yet with it all, our standard is so low. The Americans have shown that golf is a matter of deeds, not words. And by deeds they mean practice, practice, practice of individual shots, or with individual clubs till the whole world is just a whirling weariness of wood and iron with white spots dancing before the eyes. The reward of it all, as witnessed in the ease and achievement of a Sarazen is something to behold. There was truth in a cryptic remark I heard the day Sarazen played at Miramar. “Sarazen is the most ill-mannered player I have ever seen. He does not even say ‘Good Day’ to the ball.” The painfully prolonged address of such a good player as Drake made the meaning clear.
The desire is here not accompanied by the fierce will to achieve that makes the Americans what they are. If our amateurs had that will they could be among the world's best for their achievement in the absence of it is excellent, as Sarazen emphatically bears witness.
There is one other condition, however, that is an even greater handicap than the lack of practice—opportunity for continuous competition in first-class company. Our professionals are the great sufferers from this. There is no doubt that Sarazen was sincere in his expressed opinion that given the opportunities for match play enjoyed by professionals in America, Andy Shaw would be a world figure in golf.
The Canadian schoolboys read us much the same lesson. It is not that by nature they have been better equipped for athletic success than our own. Very few who saw young Limon, for instance, run his great quarter in 50 2-5 secs. on the Basin Reserve, Wellington, were aware that in New Zealand we have a boy between whom and Limon the only difference is knowledge of how to run a race. Young Sayers, of Auckland, who was such a close second to Limon in Melbourne, would on Limon's own admission have run the Canadian into the ground if he had only known anything at all about running a quarter. And Sayers is not by himself, for two other boys finished between Limon and he at Auckland.
The Canadian boys apart from Richardson and, perhaps, Jansen are not outstanding, by word of standards, for humans of their age. But to us they are outstanding as an example of what proper coaching and, by the boys themselves, desire to excel and intelligent effort to that end can achieve. Young Jansen, the high jumper, is wonderful evidence of what the individual himself can do. He has never had real coaching. Dissatisfied with the 5ft. 2in. (which was the best he could do using the natural scissors style) he, with the aid of books and photographs, made a study of high jumping. His present record of 6ft. 1 in. is the result of his own efforts—the intelligent practice of what he read and saw.
[No sooner had this been written than Arthur Duncan went round Here-taunga in 67. So far, however, from that effort being a reply to all my criticism it is but confirmation. No one more than Mr. Duncan has taken seriously in all its phases the game in which he excels. The world over he has but one peer, the Hon. Michael Scott, and these two are the grand counter by mature age to the cry that modern golf is a preserve of flaming youth.]
“Cigarettes are superseding cigars in this country,” remarks the New York Times. It's the same story in New Zealand, where the sale of cigars, even the cheaper qualities, is steadily dwindling. Like the Yanks, we smoke prodigious quantities of cigarettes (in proportion to population). Nevertheless and notwithstanding, the pipe, with us, is more than holding its own. It's true that the coarser brands of tobacco are not nearly so much in request as formerly. The demand now is for brands of a better—but not necessarily a more expensive grade, with less nicotine in them. In a word smokers are at last waking up to the fact that nicotine is a menace and must be cut out. Hence the overwhelming success of “New Zealand Toasted,” which, quite moderate in price, combines flavour and bouquet with practically complete immunity from risk. The effect of toasting is magical!—it gets rid of the nicotine! The genuine toasted brands are five in number: Cut Plug No. 1 (Bullhead), Navy Cut No. 3 (Bulldog), Cavendish, Desert Gold and Riverhead Gold.*
One of the most discussed books in this country during the past month has been “Robin Hyde's” “Journalese.” There has been some criticism and resentment over a few of her observations, but the author could not expect otherwise. She appears to have invited it. It must be admitted, however, that her book is an outstanding piece of work. She has covered the years since 1924 very thoroughly. If she was not on the spot, at least she has the inside story of everything of interest that has happened over those dozen interesting years. Her Auckland “Sun” chapter is interesting, but with her capacity for news-getting, I thought she would have given us more of the real story of the crash. Too dangerous possibly, yet “Robin” has been very daring in other revelations in this book. By the way, like other New Zealanders, “Robin” is unkind to Hector Bolitho. Also, I consider there is no foundation in her allegation of disloyalty to Dolores on the part of Margaret Macpherson. Mrs. Macpherson's articles about Dolores were the natural retaliation and self-protection of a woman who considered she had been an innocent party to an alleged fraud. Surely “Robin” would not deny her the right of self-defence.
Nevertheless, we forget these little criticisms when we read the many kind and generous compliments showered on a host of New Zealand writers.
* * *
Imagine anyone being so mercenary as to measure out the reading value of a history of art in terms of £ s. d. I must plead guilty. Recently I purchased William Moore's “Story of Australian Art,” the published price of which is two guineas. Being a poor journalist I became alarmed at my extravagance. Gradually, though, as I passed several evenings of rare pleasure in the perusal of a great and glorious record, peace descended upon me. Here were two quarto volumes of 250 pages, each enriched with many wonderful illustrations. I can continue drawing gratification and information from these volumes as long as I live. Had I purchased an ordinary 250 page novel it would have cost me seven or eight shillings, and when finished I may have been pleased or disappointed. At any rate the novel would have been done with. How so Moore's great work? I am satisfied that it is one of the most pleasant literary investments I have made. It is a joy to handle, a fascination to read, and a rapture to dwell on the many wonderful plates. I feel, therefore, I have justified my apparently most mercenary analysis.
* * *
Although an Australian history of art, New Zealand plays no small part in its pages. We meet and learn many interesting facts of famous New Zealand artists, and they are well represented in the comprehensive dictionary of artists with which the work concludes. It would take pages of this magazine to review adequately this magnificent work, suffice to say that Australia has reason to feel proud of its glorious record in the realms of art, proud also of William Moore for his great undertaking now so worthily completed. The publishers, Messrs. Angus and Robertson must share in the general chorus of acclamation.
One stormy night, when I had finished a hard fourteen hours of news gathering on the “N.Z. Times,” I was about to run to catch my last tram for the suburbs, when, through the pandemonium of the elements, came across the harbour to Wellington “Times” office the weird ‘wail of a ship's siren. In a moment I was pelting through the wind and rain to the watch-house on the Queen's wharf. There I found three anxious Harbour Board men, in oilskins, peering through the darkness, their speculations as wild and as murky as the storm itself. Inside the watch-house a telephone was ringing insistently, and I heard talk of the Terawhiti putting to sea to the rescue. I pulled my cap down well over my face and prepared for the worst. As we waited, a figure came flying through the storm from the direction of the King's wharf.
“It's from down there,” shouted the stranger; “close in by the wharf.”
An hour later, drenched to the skin and chattering with cold, we solved the mystery. The release rope of a small coastal tub's siren had, through some extraordinary chance, become jammed, and it was left to the combined efforts of our own party of searchers to unshackle it, and so to silence one of the most nerve-racking sounds of any black storm I have ever faced.
* * *
Some New Zealand newspapers have a way all their own of dealing with contributed matter. A lady writer was made familiar with this little peculiarity. She had contributed an article to a certain weekly, and when it appeared in print watched daily for the cheque for about two months. Then she wrote to the editor and asked him (politely) “w'affor the little hiatus?” “Dear Madame,” wrote the editor in reply, “as your contribution was a voluntary one it is our rule never to make payment for articles contributed under such circumstances. In appreciation of your effort, however, we are breaking our rule and forwarding you by this mail, under separate cover, a free copy of the issue in which your article appeared.”
(Continued on page 41.)
IT is really an excellent thing to have a national volcano on tap, so to say, likely to give a kind of snap to sightseeing life in our greatest National Park. Ngauruhoe cone, which was in eruption last in 1926, was fully due for another ebullition, one of those periodical little explosions of temperamental Ruwai-moko, the god of the underworld, who does not like to be forgotten entirely, but who at the same time doesn't want to hurt anybody. Really we owe a lot to old Ruwaimoko. He has done a vast amount in his time to make our island a place of interest and beauty. To him we owe Egmont, Ruapehu and scores of other lofty and shapely mountains, and hundreds of the lesser cones. And so far from being a place of dread as it was in earlier days, the volcano park is all the more attractive for the dramatic phase of activity of which Ngauruhoe is the cupola and chimney. Up to the moment of writing no human life has ever been lost on Ngauruhoe or around it. There are few other great mountains in New Zealand of which that can be said. Some of us have experienced lively hours on its slopes. But it is essentially a sightseer's safe mountain. It may make a big noise every few years, but really it doesn't mean all it thunders, and most of its occasional vigorous output of rock and ash only goes to build up its own cone.
The old South Taupo Maoris used to say that volcanic rumblings or explosions in their parts of the land often signalled the approach of some great chief, a visitor of high mana. We may take it therefore that Mr. Ruwaimoko received the news of the Duke's coming per earth radio, and so, being a loyal New Zealander, got off his royal salute early.
Writing of old-timers sets one's thoughts back on the trail that is most fascinating, and often elusive, of all pursuits, the search for the veteran who could tell a story. But really in one's own experience it was not a search; the best stories of strange and dramatic happenings came unsought, unexpected.
There was a man who was a particular friend of mine in the Rotorua country, where he anchored after long years of roving, who had in his time seen a vast amount of wild hard life, before he used his theodolite in the New Zealand hills. The son of a professor of mathematics in a Swedish University, he went to sea and before he was eighteen he had endured enough to last most people a lifetime.
Somehow he drifted into a Brazilian slaving schooner, which was captured by a British brig-of-war when carrying a load of negro slaves from the West Coast of Africa. The slaver was taken to St. Helena, condemned and sold, and the crew were turned adrift. The youngster was marooned there with nothing whatever beyond his shirt and trousers and an old straw hat; he was barefooted. Presently he found his way, in one craft and another, round Africa to Zanzibar; there he took a job navigating an Arab dhow, a slaver again, to the South Coast of Arabia. He was as near as anything being captured again, in the Red Sea this time.
That was enough of slaving for Carl. He served in whaleships and traded with the Kanakas in the Pacific; when he came to New Zealand he was wrecked in a brigantine on the Kaipara bar. Then began his life in these parts. He was a mathematician and an expert navigator. He soon obtained a position as Government surveyor. He had a natural gift for languages; he lived with the Maoris to acquire the tongue, and he became the most learned Maori scholar I have ever known. He had learned Arabic and Hebrew besides the principal European languages, and he acquired several Polynesian dialects.
What didn't he tackle, that many-tongued (and musical withal) adventurer? He built a vessel; he was for many years Maori land purchase agent for the Government, a trusted and successful official; he managed a geyser-land publichouse; he died on his little farm on Pukekohe Hill.
In my many talks with this grand old rover, scientist and philosopher, all this, a bookful of it, was gradually unfolded. But the strangest happening of all was an incident which occurred when I chanced to be staying at his hotel in 1894 or 1895. One of the guests who arrived from Auckland about the same time was a veteran naval officer, Captain Lang, of H.M.S. Tauranga (he was afterwards drowned, on the China Station). The two old sailors soon were deep in yarns of the rolling sea and the ships and men of other days. Lang mentioned that he had seen something of slaver-chasing when he was a midshipman on the West African Station, sometime before 1860.
“Why,” said my friend, cocking that keen blue gaze of his on the naval man, “I saw a bit of slave-chasing too, but I was the chased. I was one of the crew, shipped at Bahia, of a big Brazilian schooner that an English brig captured with a full hold of slaves. We were fast, but she was faster; our Spaniola skipper hove-to when she put a shot over us.”
“What was the name of your vessel?' asked Captain Lang.
“The ‘Tris,’” said the other. “The British brig that caught us and took us to St. Helena was called the ‘Cygnet,’”
“By Christmas—the ‘Cygnet’!” the Captain exclaimed. “Why, that was my ship—that was the old brig! And the ‘Iris’ was one of the slavers we nabbed. I was a youngster in the ‘Cygnet’ when we captured you. You must have been just about my age; and we turned you, adrift on the old rock. Good Lord, to think of it!”
“Old sailors are apt to meet again,” said “Taare,” in his dry way. “I had better luck on the East Coast, and I learned Arabic and Swahili there. Well, here's to our old shipmates.”
On the eastern corner of the partly-erected building was the stone, suspended above its bed in the traditional manner. After preparation of the bed the official touch of the Royal trowel was given, and the stone was lowered to its bed with the customary formula from the Duke, “I declare this stone to be well and truly laid.” During the brief wait, His Highness conversed with the Prime Minister and the contractor.
A shining copper canister was inserted in the recess cut for the purpose in the top of the stone. In this were deposited the following railway documents:—Signatures of the Rt. Hon. Minister of Railways and Chairman and Members of the Government Railways Board; a brief history of Wellington stations; the report of the Government Railways Board, 1934; general scale of charges on the New Zealand Government Railways; the scale of charges for goods on the Government Railways; a list of the persons employed in the Railway Department on April 1st, 1934; “The State Railways of New Zealand”; “The New Zealand Railways Magazine,” December, 1934; the railway time-table, and list of guest houses as at December 2nd, 1934; the schedule of rates of pay on the railways as at December 17th, 1934. In addition to the railway documents there was also deposited in the canister other records likely to be of interest to future generations.
At the conclusion of this interesting ceremony His Royal Highness chatted with Mr. Sterling, showing the greatest interest in the beautiful workmanship of the memento presented to him by the Government. This consisted of a golden railway engine, containing no fewer than 600 parts, mounted on a greenstone slab, set upon a block of polished inlaid woods, the whole forming a highly-ornamental inkstand.
The singing of the National Anthem brought a very interesting and successful ceremony to a close.
“Strolling Through Scotland,” by W. S. Percy (Collins), should have a big public in this country. Percy is kindly remembered here by a host of admirers from his old J. C. Williamson days. He was one of the best comedians we have had out here. In this book we meet him as a literary rambler, telling us of the beauties, the history and the anecdotes of Scotland, and illustrating his journeys in his own colour and line work. He shows himself to be the best of travelling companions, not over-wearying us with descriptions of the country, but artful enough to sandwich in a host of stories and personalities. Incidentally, this book should be a great advertisement for New Zealand, which the author refers to on numerous occasions with many graceful compliments.
“The Swayne Family,” by Vance Palmer (Angus and Robertson, Sydney), is, from a literary viewpoint, one of the most interesting novels ever written by an Australian about Australia. The author leaves aside the well worn path of stock and station life, and gives us the intimate story of a wealthy Victorian family. Digby Swayne, the central figure, is a dignified, if pathetic, city gentleman, whose great ambition is to leave to his country a legacy in the culture and achievement of his family. Two terrible doubts cloud the peace of his declining years, the fear that his failing health will rob him of the joy of witnessing the achievements, and the dawning realisation that his family is afflicted with “the smear of the second rate.” The pathetic fading out of the health and hopes of poor old Digby, around which is wrapped the grappling with life's destiny, the loves, the disappointments of his children, complete a story one may not quickly forget.
* * *
Will Lawson has completed a novel. He may return on a visit to New Zealand shortly.
In future “Spilt Ink” will be published bi-monthly instead of monthly.
Ready almost for publication is the life of Alfred Warbrick, until recently chief Government guide at Rotorua.
Mr. W. S. Percy, whose travel book is reviewed in this issue, has designed some outstanding book-plates. He has presented several valuable plates to the New Zealand Ex Libris Society.
“Robin Hyde” (Miss Iris Wilkinson), whose “Journalese” was reviewed last month, is already busy on another book dealing with an important phase in New Zealand history.
AS I leaned on the railing of the sea-wall, the sun's beneficence soothed my spirit. My eyes rested on the intense blue of the ocean, and the tiny stings of the week were erased as by a blue-bag. Half-shutting my lazy eyes, I still saw the green-and-black-ness of the island slashing the cerulean of sea and sky. The iron railing was warm under my hands.
* * *
Below me on the sands, a young girl, a slim bud of a thing in a wisp of scarlet costume, was solemnly turning cartwheels. Oblivious of watching eyes, she tipped herself over, waveringly at first, but with growing confidence. Blood coursed under the tan of her cheeks. Breathless at last she flung herself on the warm sands and seemed to sleep, spread-eagled, hat tilted over nose.
* * *
I straightened, standing there, and took myself to task. That was the way to tackle life—breathe deep, be “one with Nature,” attack the business of the moment with zest, surmount obstacles by continued effort. When healthily tired, desist and relax with complete abandon. When working, work, when resting, rest.
* * *
So I have come back to my task of the moment. All this glorious day has instilled its essence in my veins, and I glow with superb confidence in my ability to tackle anything. When I retire to-night I will relax as did the young girl on the warm sand, and perhaps to-morrow, if the gods be kind, my well-being will have mounted again to the perfect pitch of to-day.
* * *
Since the advent of sound films and the installation of “Talkie” equipment from Burma to Bolivia, Kenya to the Cocos Islands, Paraguay to the Philippines, and any other alphabetic juxtaposition the keen geographical student may suggest, we have smiled slightly to ourselves at the thought of the oily Eskimo, the turbaned Turk, the friendly Filipino, spending as many evenings as possible absorbing the sob and sex stuff of Hollywood enlivened by the croon of the crooner and the tap of the tap-dancer backed by all the resources of these million-dollar studios as described in any magazine for movie-fans.
* * *
Our slightly supercilious smile at the untutored savage is jerked from our faces at the thought that we, too, are dragged at the wheel of this greatest of American industries. Our very soul shivers with the sigh of Grabba Garta, and we wheeze at the antics of Sorrell and Lardy.
Perhaps it is good to “emote” (hideous neologism!) at the sight of others, but why not try to raise a crop of glycerine tears and side-splitting antics ourselves?
* * *
Why be always a “fan,” an onlooker at life? It's far more fun wallowing after the ball in some “Z” grade football game than to be one of the critics in the stand at a Rep. match; far more interesting attempting to write an essay or a poem of your own than studying Bacon or Pope; far more exciting paddling your own fourteen-foot canoe than paying your way on a pleasure cruise; far more worth-while attempting to improve your own playing or singing ability than attending all the celebrity concerts—and so on through the range of human activities. In other words, attempt always to live life at first hand, rather than secondhand.
* * *
Our devotion to the silver screen may be exorcised in part by encouraging the art of play-reading. The diminution in the number of good professional companies due to the world furore created by Hollywood, Elstree, U.F.A., has assisted the amateur stage. The repertory movement is flourishing. Even in New Zealand, repertory society productions are staged with such finish that the public has no hesitation in flocking to them. The British Drama League has recently gained firm footing in New Zealand. Amateur playwrights are being encouraged in their artistic labours. Play-reading circles all over the country are skipping in and out of parts with astonishing facility.
* * *
People fond of acting (and who isn't?) should take immediate steps to join a dramatic club. If play-reading has not yet claimed its votaries in your district, it will be very easy to form a club. Perhaps the local Women's Institute would form a play-reading circle; perhaps this activity can be added to those of a W.E.A. group.
Should a group of friends desire to form a play-reading circle, the matter is simply arranged. Meetings can, if necessary, be held in alternation at homes of members. I would suggest fortnightly meetings, and the imposition of a small subscription for the purpose of hiring sets of plays. (Later the circle may see its way to purchasing useful sets, such as books of one-act plays.)
Endeavour to include in each circle at least one person who has had some experience in play production, and allow that person every opportunity for constructive criticism. As soon as possible, prepare a play for performance, even if it be only a private affair in front of friends. Learn from your mistakes.
Think the matter over, discuss it with friends, and keep it in view as a winter activity.
* * *
* * *
During the Summer season we find that the hair often becomes dry and brittle, principally owing to the action of the salt water on the hair. It is absolutely necessary to wash the hair thoroughly with fresh water to get rid of the salt. It cannot be too forcibly emphasised that it is nothing short of disastrous for anyone who has been sheltered from the weather to spend days on the beach, hatless, in the sun and wind. Such exposure dries the scalp and takes more than a toll of natural oil from it. If we are careless about taking precautions about sun and wind-burning, we must look round for a remedy to see what can be done to get our appearance back to normal. We must do away with the appearance of our hair looking like tufts of dried, dyed hay, which it certainly does in its dry, brittle and bleached condition. Our thoughts at this stage naturally turn to the oil shampoos, and if the following directions are faithfully carried out, the hair will have the well-groomed look which is the pride of the womenfolk.
Warm the oil and apply to the scalp with a piece of absorbent cotton wool. Then massage the scalp thoroughly for at least ten minutes. Then take a towel and wring it out again in hot water and apply once more. Renew several times. This treatment opens the pores of the scalp and allows the oil to be absorbed. Shampoo as usual and rinse again. Shampoo the hair again at the end of the week, and continue to do so until the hair has regained its former appearance.
Regular massage is essential to keep the scalp healthy and the hair glossy and luxuriant, by stimulating the circulation through the scalp and the roots of the hair.
To massage, first part the hair in the centre, then press the tips of the fingers firmly on the scalp on the line of parting, and moving them in a rotary motion, at the same time pressing the sides of the head with the heels of the hands, so that the scalp moves with the action of the hands. Repeat this process until the whole of the head has been massaged, which should take at least five minutes.
Perfect cleanliness is necessary to keep the hair from becoming lustreless and dull in colour. Of course, the brushes and combs must be kept scrupulously clean.
A simple shampoo which can easily be made and will keep for some time is as follows:—
Dissolve as much Castile soap as is required—approximately half a cake to one pint of water. When the soap is thoroughly dissolved put it aside to cool, then beat well, adding the yolk of an egg. Lavender Water or Eau de Cologne, or any special perfume, can be added to give the shampoo a professional touch.
One cannot stress too strongly the necessity for thoroughly rinsing the hair during the washing process, as this is an essential part of the performance.
* * *
We have broken well away from the root vegetables which we were glad to eat during the Winter. We have had our swedes, parsnips, turnips, and the other varieties natural to the Winter season, but now we are revelling in the generous supply of green vegetables which we see displayed by the green-grocer. Green peas, beans, lettuce, etc., seem to be grown in abundance, and the housewife, who is now quite learned in connection with the necessity for providing green vegetables for her household, finds shopping in this direction quite a simple matter. She knows that the green vegetables are rich in alkaline salts which neutralise acids. These salts perform very important functions which render them absolutely necessary for the health. Upon anyone suffering from high blood pressure, “nerves” and rheumatism, a diet of green vegetables will often achieve remarkably beneficial effects.
Green vegetables contain Vitamin A which increases our resistance to germ infections, Vitamin B, which is so valuable in maintaining the digestive and nervous systems in a healthy state, and Vitamin C, which keeps the blood in good working order.
“Green Salads for Health” is a slogan which every housewife should appreciate.
* * *
During the summer season it is important to plan a change in the children's daily diet. Cut out the mushy foods such as porridge, frequent milk puddings, etc., and substitute crisp cereals, fruit, such as prunes, figs or raisins, and crisp toast with honey.
When picnic meals are taken, whole-meal bread and butter, eggs and cheese,
Picnicking often leads to bad habits with regard to meal times. Feeling hungry from the exercise and fresh air, the children ask for something to eat. The mother too often yields to these requests, feeling that a little indulgence in the holidays will make the children happier. This is a great mistake, as too frequent meals are harmful, quickly upsetting the digestion, and instead of the children being better for their holiday, they are not so well.
Give water and fruit drinks between meals—not during a meal.
On the subject of picnics, it does not appear to be out of place here to stress the importance that hats should be worn, when the sun's rays are strongest—from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.—with brims large enough to protect the eyes and the nape of the neck, the brims to be lined with green or red to give full protection against sunstroke.
Five and half pints cold water. Bring to the boil in an enamelled pan, or a tin lined copper pan. As soon as it is boiling, put in 6 lbs. of good white sugar. Stir well while boiling for 2 or 3 minutes, when the sugar will be completely dissolved. Allow to partly cool, and strain through fine muslin.
These quantities will produce approximately one gallon of syrup. In making fruit syrups, part of the water is replaced by fruit juices. The addition of citric acid to the water, using 1/2 oz. citric acid for each gallon of finished syrup, will prevent the finished syrup from depositing crystals of sugar.
In making artificial syrups, the flavouring essence is added to the warm syrup after it has been strained.
The proportion of flavouring to syrup is 1 tablespoonful to 5 1/2 pints of water.
Take a good juicy pineapple, chop it finely, and put pulp and juice in a large jug. Add the strained juice of 4 lemons. Pour over this 2 quarts of boiling water, and sweeten with white sugar. Cover closely for three hours, then strain.
Stalk 4 quarts of raspberries, put them in a deep bowl with just enough white vinegar to cover them, and allow to stand for 24 hours. Boil this mixture in the preserving pan, then strain and measure the liquid. To each pint add 1 lb. sugar, boil for 20 minutes, cool, then bottle.
* * *
Salads may be composed of practically any large fresh fruits and vegetables. The art of salad making lies in simplicity and combination and the avoidance of much handling. They should be cold, crisp, tender, well-seasoned, and daintily served. The value of salads in the diet lies largely in their ability to stimulate the flow of digestive secretions by means of their taste, colour and attractive appearance. Salad plants, such as lettuce and celery, after being washed, should be wrapped in a clean, wet cloth and laid away in a cool place until needed. They will keep fresh for several days if the cloth is kept dampened and cool. Salads should be eaten the year round. Get the salad habit!
Half teaspoonful salt, 1 teaspoonful mustard, cayenne pepper, 2 teaspoonsful sugar, 1/4 cup vinegar (or juice of lemon), 1/2 tablespoonful flour, 1 egg, 1 1/2 tablespoonsful melted butter, 3/4 cup milk. Mix dry ingredients together and add to the vinegar. Beat the egg slightly and combine with the above. Place in a double boiler over hot water to cook at a low temperature, and add the milk gradually, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens. Add the butter and then stand the dressing in cold water to cool.
Soften two tablespoonsful of granulated gelatine or 1/2 oz. of sheet gelatine in 1/2 cup of water. Dissolve with 1/2 cup of hot water or clear stock. Add 1 pint of tomato puree (cooked, seasoned, and strained tomato pulp and juice) to the dissolved gelatine and place in chilled moulds. If desired, the mixture may be combined, with an equal bulk of cold meat cut into very small cubes, or with cooked vegetables. When set, serve on lettuce leaf, with mayonnaise dressing.
Remove skins from bananas, and cut into thirds crosswise. Roll each piece in finely-chopped nuts. Arrange with slices of orange on a bed of lettuce leaves and serve with salad dressing.
* * *
5 cups fresh milk.
1/4 cup sugar.
3 eggs.
Essence lemon or vanilla.
3 dessertspoons Davis gelatine.
Place the well beaten yolk of the eggs, milk, sugar and essence in saucepan. Let all just come to the boil, stirring constantly, remove from fire, and allow to cool, then stir in the, gelatine that has been dissolved in a little hot water. When nearly cold stir in the stiffly beaten whites of the eggs, and put in a mould to set.
Life's race well run, Life's work well done, Life's crown well won—now comes rest.”
FrankThomson lived in his work and his work lived in him—and lives after him. He loved his work, and in it he was loved by many hundreds of folk, in and out of the State Service. It was big work for New Zealand, big work for the Empire, done with cheerful, tireless efficiency through many difficult years.
How many people felt that they had lost a real friend when they read the sad news of that sudden end of a remarkable career of public usefulness! For it was the way of Frank Thomson to win friends rather than to make acquaintances. He was kindness personified. He found happiness in giving the best of service to others, not with any thought of gaining any advantage for himself, but wholly in a generous spirit of helpfulness.
Frank Thomson was more than an important officer of State; he was an institution, a type apart, changeless—always animated by an intense devotion to duty, which dominated his life.
That oft-heard definition of genius—“an infinite capacity for taking pains”—could be well applied to Frank Thomson. No mass of detail ever dismayed him or worried him. He went into it with the sweeping, clean-cutting efficiency of a modern reaping-machine in a harvest field. He really enjoyed hard tasks. It was that innate sense of mastery which he knew would triumph over all difficulties. He did not stand long gazing at a high hurdle. Quickly, carefully, he gauged the height, and over he went in an agile easy spring.
He had so many things to do accurately and well, so many people to remember, each at the proper time and place, that one wondered how his nervous system could hold through the long-sustained strain. He was a power-station with a far-spread reticulation; but he did not break down. His working motto was: “Thorough”; nothing must be left half-done or poorly done.
Thought flies back to a typical crowded day in the busiest period of the Massey regime. Picture the Prime Minister's chief of staff at his desk under the outstretched wings of a big albatross. In front of him is a telephone switch-board with many buttons. Frank Thomson is keeping two stenographers going at full speed between the numerous telephone calls, the summons of Mr. Massey's bell in the adjoining room, and the many interruptions of Members of Parliament, departmental heads and other visitors who wish to see the Prime Minister. Indeed, the Secretary's room is practically a corridor, full of traffic which should have been extremely distracting, exasperating, but it did not ruffle Frank Thomson, who had a monumental calmness in the swirl. No frown of irritation or vexation came upon his broad brow. He evidently regarded the frequent interruptions as part of the day's work, and he carried on smoothly from one task to another, hour after hour.
Many people saw that working demonstration of imperturbable efficiency. Individually they have a debt of gratitude to an inspiring worker—and they know that New Zealand as a whole owes him much more, for he did truly and gladly give his powerful life to his country.
The modern Maori only reverts to the
The olden Maori has been called a savage by those who only saw one side of him, but if so-called savagery consists in a condition unlike modern civilisation then the Maori of the past represents a superior state of society. The defence of poison gas in warfare publicly uttered by an English scientist—it was recorded in the cablegrams lately—prompts one to turn with relief to the tales of old New Zealand and the South Seas before the “savages” were civilised. The scientist declared that poison gas was the most humane way of laying out an enemy. I wonder what my old Arawa acquaintance, Te Araki te Pohu, would have said about such things as mustard gas had be encountered them in the course of his war-path activities! The Maori tongue would have failed to express the abhorrence with which a straight-out gun or tomahawk fighter would have regarded such a diabolical torture.
I must describe Te Araki; he lives in my memory as a perfect type of the warrior who was born in the stone age of New Zealand, and who lived to see almost every vestige of the pre-pakeha, or say pre-Waitangi Treaty times, overlaid by European ways of life and by the machines that displaced man-power. He was, I should judge, five or six years short of the century when he died peacefully soaking in a warm spring, his beloved puia bath, at Owhatiura, on the shore of Lake Rotorua. He lived into this twentieth century; he was born, I estimated, about 1813, before the first coming of the apostle Marsden to the Bay of Islands. That Rongo-pai gospel of the missionary did not reach his part of the country until he was a grown man, and indeed already a veteran of the warpath. I wish our overseas guests who come to New Zealand hoping to see a tattooed Maori of the warrior brand could only set eyes on Te Araki as I knew him. He was a perfect product of the age when every Maori was a trained soldier and athlete. His features were strongly cut, with a true Jewish nose—the fine “ihu-kaka,” like an eagle's beak, that so curiously persists in some Arawa families of aristocratic lineage.
He had the keen shrewd gaze of the vastly experienced, the wise eye of the sage and the mystic. His face was closely and deeply carved with tattoo lines; the moko was so pigmented that his face seemed almost black. I have never, indeed, seen a Maori face more artistically and carefully and deeply moko'd than that patriarch of Owhatiura. His hair was white and long; he wore a long but thin straggly white beard. Yet for all his years that the snowy hair indicated, his tall square-shouldered body was still erect. He looked the old soldier, without a pound of needless flesh.
When I first met him he was working away quietly and alone in his potato garden; when he straightened up for a talk he told me all the younger ones were away at a football match. He lived in the past. He had long outlived all his old comrades. He told me of great chiefs of the past under whom he had fought in the cannibal wars. He had fought against the celebrated Te Waharoa, when that famed and feared warrior invaded Rotorua with his army from Matamata and Waikato. That was in 1835.
But long before that, even, Te Araki had seen fierce battle. He was a boy of nine or ten when Hongi Hika and his Ngapuhi musketeers descended on Rotorua from the North, bringing their canoes up from the coast with ferocious determination and tremendous toil. That was when Mokoia Island was captured, in 1823. Boys went on their first war-path at twelve or thirteen in Maoridom; and Te Araki's fighting expeditions ranged from the South Taupo country to the Bay of Plenty coast.
The good old man had a curious pagan philosophy of his own, and his stories shed for me some new light on the ethics of the primitive polity.
His most dramatic tale of all was a thriller, as he told it, the fire of old-time glittering in his eyes. Indeed, his eyes blazed; his muscle-knotted lean old hands clenched, and out poured a flood of narrative. It was the attack by sixteen hundred warriors, the full fighting strength of the Arawa, against Te Tumu pa, the Ngai-te-Rangi stronghold on the coast sandhills between Tauranga and Maketu. The patriarch was sitting with a blanket about his shoulders; he threw it off and gave it a twist round his waist for freer arm action. He described the war-dance when the army gathered at Ohinemutu from all the country round. What a terrific spectacle it was—sixteen hundred naked men of arms, black-tattooed on body as well as face, leaping as one man, and shouting their battle-song! “We were filled with the fury of war; our song was like thunder!” He described the assault of the pa. “The defenders fought desperately. They shot down many of us. But at last we broke through and over the palisade. There I was, hacking away with my long-handled tomahawk—like this!” The victory and the pursuit—the chase for miles along the shining sands of the Bay, and then the great war-dance in the conquered pa.
That dance of jubilation—the Old Man of Owhatiura forgot his years, and went through it all again, and chanted the peruperu words as he showed how the warriors held their guns and long tomahawks and taiahas before them horizontally, with both hands, and quickly raised them at arms' length above their heads, and down again in exact time to the roaring song.
The Auckland wharves present a scene of hustle and activity. Puffing engines draw long lines of trucks to the sides of the great ocean liners, there to have the produce they have carried from towns and stations all over the Province, transferred to the holds of the ships. At one wharf the “Remuera” is loading 2000 tons of butter in half-hundredweight cases from a long line of special butter carrying trucks. Already she has taken on hundreds of tons and the work proceeds apace. A second train is due this afternoon with a consignment of tinned and carcase meat for the London markets. The observer on the wharf cannot help but notice the speed and efficiency of the train and wharf gangs.
Near to the “Remuera” is the tiny “Te Rapunga,” the German-owned yacht which has sailed thousands of miles and finds a pleasant berth in the Antipodes.
At another wharf a double railway van has been shunted off. These vans contain flour, sugar and general stores for towns and settlements all along our Northern coasts. Further along still, a small coastal boat loads coal from a span of railway trucks. The catch from many fishing boats, cleaned and packed, is being sent by rail to inland country towns, hundreds of miles away.
To every industry great and small, we see the railway giving a service which certainly lives up to its slogan, Safety and Economy.—F.W.
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There used to be a little train which went from Timaru to the Point. One very sultry day I was sitting in the only 1st Class carriage when an old man got in and insisted on having all the windows hermetically sealed. In vain I protested but he was adamant. “Needs must etc.”
So very sweetly I said to him, “You would not I hope be alarmed if I had a fit.” He gave me one agonised glance and fled to a second-class carriage. I returned to perfect health—and to open windows.—L.W.
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Not many of the towns of the Dominion can boast a bird sanctuary at their back doors, so to speak. Just off the beach of Tomahawk, nearly five miles from Dunedin, rises an ungainly mass known as Bird Island. About the beginning of December each year begins an invasion of terns which use this island for nesting purposes.
It is comparatively easy to wade onto the island at dead low tide, and look around. Thousands of birds rise and wheel screaming overhead, presenting a remarkable picture. Terns, with their gray bodies, and black-tipped wings, are extremely pretty in flight, and to see such numbers in the air at once is a sight worth going miles to see. They are harmless and I have never heard of any attacking invaders, though they have had provocation enough on many occasions.
Last season from the time the parent birds began to appear to the time they departed, we crossed to the island every week-end the tide permitted, just to study conditions.
The birds lay their eggs anywhere at all, in the grass, tussock, and in ice-plant. Care must be exercised in moving about or the dark green, speckled eggs will be trodden on. About Christmas the eggs begin to hatch, and tiny furry balls with hard black beaks are the forerunners of another generation of terns. How they snuggle under ice-plant, tussock and rock, so they won't be seen! At first they are easily picked up, but later on, as strength and size develop, they are very hard to catch, and will set up a plaintive crying should they be caught. The parent birds view this manhandling of their progeny with, apparently, toleration. They circle overhead, screaming a noisy protest, but they make no move to attack.
The young birds grow quickly, and it isn't long before they are making unsteady flights, which usually end by their crashing against some unrelenting rock.
The treatment which put this man right must surely be worth trying in every case of indigestion. Read what he says:—
“Two years ago I suffered very much from indigestion, loss of appetite, and a most severe pain in my back. Food soured in my stomach. I felt most miserable after meals, and had no desire or appetite for them. A friend advised me to try Kruschen Salts. I did so, and I am most happy to testify that after a short time I felt the greatest relief. I continued taking Kruschen till I felt myself quite better and a new man. I feel as light-hearted as I did twenty years ago.”—W.B.
You know how badly an engine runs when it gets clogged up. It's the same with your body when your gastric—or digestive—juices fail to flow. Your food, instead of being assimilated by your system, simply collects and stagnates inside you, producing harmful acid poisons. What you need is a tonic—Nature's own tonic—Nature's six mineral salts.
You get all these six salts in Kruschen and each one of them has an action of its own. Together, they stimulate and tune up the bodily functions from a number of different angles. The first effect of these salts is to promote the flow of the saliva and so awaken the appetite. The next action occurs in the stomach, where the digestive juices are encouraged to pour out and act upon the food. Again, in the intestinal tract certain of these salts promote a further flow of these vital juices which deal with partly digested food and prepare it finally for absorption into the system.
Kruschen Salts is obtainable at all Chemists and Stores at 2/6 per bottle.
Last year the island was declared a sanctuary, and as if they knew this, there were more birds than ever before. So great were their numbers they literally darkened the sky when they arose at our approach.—C.H.F.