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Apart from the great migrations of history following on, or associated with, the travel trails of conquerors like Genghis Khan, Julius Caesar, and Alexander the Great, and discoverers like Cabot, Columbus and Cook, the peoples of the world were of a strikingly stay-at-home disposition until the invention of railways in the first quarter of last century began to tempt them to take longer and safer land jaunts.
In the last fifty years travel has developed amazingly, partly as the result of improvements in the methods of, and facilities for, land and sea transport, and partly because the ameliorating effects of civilisation have extended over larger portions of the globe, throwing open to the curiosity of the general tourist lands that were formerly closed against foreigners.
Travel has become an important part of life. The old dangers are gone, and with them the old superstitions that for ages warred against the natural human desire to find out about new things. That desire is in everyone, and needs little stimulation, but its direction can be guided, and it is for this reason that in so many countries now are being formed tourist leagues and travel associations to attract people to specified, localities, and thus supplement the work of those whose sole business it is to stimulate travel generally and to make a living therefrom.
Fairly recently tentative plans were made for a Pacific Travel League, representative of travel interests in countries bordering the Pacific. An Australian Travel Association is actively in operation and now has one of its agents located in New Zealand. Last month the initial luncheon of the New Zealand Travel Men's League was held, and the attendance indicated the comprehensive nature of the travel and accommodation interests its operations should help to draw together for the common good. Travel is, of course, the great cure-all. A change of scene accomplishes quickly what time can only do less effectively and very gradually. When it is realised that, if everyone in the world took a fortnight's travel vacation annually, there would be a total of seventy million people on the move all the time, the colossal possibilities for further developments in travel become dimly perceptible. Given the motive and the means, the question is where shall they go?
That they bring profitable business to the countries they visit, commercial men
New Zealand lies on one of the world's principal travel routes, and has attractions of its own that cannot be duplicated in any other country. The more it comes to be known the better it will be appreciated by the rest of the world.
Fifty years ago (1st August, 1881), the first passenger train from New Plymouth arrived at Hawera. Before that date the terminus of the line was Normanby, but though the line beyond there was not ballasted, the contractors had so far advanced the construction that a special train was run on Monday, 1st Aug., 1881, to a special sale of Opunake and Manaia town and rural sections held at Hawera. The train left New Plymouth at 7 o'clock, arriving at Hawera about 11.30 a.m., and reached New Plymouth on its return journey about 8 p.m. The official opening of the line for general traffic to Hawera was on 21st October, 1881.
Interviewed by the New Zealand Herald on the return of the Railways Board from its visit to the northern district, the Chairman, Colonel J. J. Esson, said:—
“We had a very cordial reception everywhere. I hope we succeeded in establishing something like contact between the railway management and its customers, and that perhaps we removed some erroneous impressions that may have existed. We did our best to remind members of the public that they were the owners of the railways, and that no publicly-owned railway system could serve its community to the full or pay its way without the patronage and co-operation of the people.”
The importance of efficient publicity in relation to competition and the development of trade, was the theme of the following interesting message from Mr. Lloyd George, read at the Seventh Annual Advertising Convention, held recently at Glasgow:—
“To-day we certainly need all the help which the best brains and the finest energies to be found in business circles can bring to bear on our marketing problems (says Mr. Lloyd George).
“We want the shining lights of the advertising world to throw their most powerful rays on the question of competition and to light the way to more active salesmanship and wider sales development.
“Advertising, like charity should begin at home. New conditions call for most efficient publicity ideas. A prosperous home market greatly influences overseas trade. The manufacturer who develops trade in this country immediately improves our trading opportunities in foreign lands.”
The present depressed state of business has required far-reaching changes in methods and outlook throughout the whole transport world. In our own railway system, which (besides being of Dominion moment on the financial side) is an integral part of national life, much re-organisation and adjustment has been required to deal with the new conditions.
Some of these changes have necessarily been of an experimental character, and owing to other conditions being abnormal, it is difficult to decide on the evidence available from returns, etc., whether such alterations are in themselves the best possible in the circumstances.
While I expect, as in the past, that the staff shall give loyal support to decisions made upon such matters as rates, train services, and the general conditions laid down for the transport of passengers and commodities, and will do their best to make the public understand, be satisfied, and if possible, be pleased with the standard of service rendered, it is far from desirable that members, through an excess of loyalty, should be self-hypnotised into a belief that whatever decision may be given must necessarily be right, or—like the laws of the Medes and Persians—unalterable. The “man on the spot” has chances to judge of the effect of changes produced by decisions of the Department, by activities of competitors, or by any other of the constantly changing factors in the equation of transport as they affect his particular locality that are denied to the central organisation which is only placed to judge of broad effects.
Hence it is desired of every member at stations, goods sheds, etc., that he should keep a clear eye to the position at it stands, from time to time, at his own headquarters, and that he should not have any diffidence in making representation in regard to any matter which appears to him to require special attention with a view to helping the Department in its search for more traffic or in its endeavours to provide a more pleasing service for existing customers. Even should such representations, when made, not be agreed to, the member making them should not regard the decision as necessarily final, but should watch the matter further and not hesitate to report again, with any new light which he may have on the matter. When the welfare of the service is the subject, the fullest information available from every angle is desired. I have been induced to write in these terms because matters requiring attention have come to my notice which might have been dealt with sooner had “the man on the spot” made the necessary representations as soon as he knew how affairs were developing. It is far better for “the man on the spot” to take a little time to think out a report upon some matter which should have attention and then make full and accurate representation of the position than to leave it either to the chance of discovery of some visiting member or to a possibly long period of inaction and drift.
General Manager.
The long drawn out tragedy of the war debts marches from act to act. The curtain fell last month on President Hoover's proposal for a year's moratorium—a year's postponement of all war debt payments. Since then the scene has reverted from Washington to Europe, which staged in London a Seven Powers' Conference under pressure of a threat of immediate financial collapse in Germany. At the moment it seems that the Conference has devised financial machinery and credits that will both prop up Germany and enable the moratorium to be carried out. At any rate, the Conference ended amid a subdued chorus of affirmation that these safety measures are assured. “We have provided,” said U.S. Secretary Stimson, “machinery necessary to meet the situation, however it may develop.” But to outline the developments pending would require the gift of prophecy.
It may be that credits have been arranged that will prevent a major bankruptcy; but has this economic accommodation relaxed the political tension? Exchanges between the Paris and the Berlin newspapers indicated the old trouble—a France that would make financial concessions to Germany contingent on reduced German naval building, and a Germany that professed a preference for bankruptcy rather than be put in a new naval strait-jacket. Germany, it was said, would have a second “pocket” battleship even though her pocket be otherwise empty. France was challenged to choose between financial concessions to Germany or German default. The usually reliable Daily Telegraph's diplomatic correspondent even stated, on 24th July, that the British Foreign Minister told the French Premier that if Germany declared a moratorium it would be followed by one in England.
Under pressure France did, concede something, but “Paris political circles,” on 23rd July, referring to the just concluded Seven Powers' Conference, claimed that she had conceded little, that the Conference results were relatively unimportant, and that France had secured “a diplomatic triumph over Mr. Snowden.” Whether or not there is any truth in the report of the Laval-Henderson incident, appearing in the Daily Telegraph, the fact remains that London gold again began to drift to France. At first London cabled that “the city was unperturbed”
The first effect of the moratorium is found in the Treasuries. Budgets all over the world are lightened. New Zealand gains a respite to some degree, and so does Australia, whose Budgetry outlook—apart from New South Wales—is much less stormy than it was three months ago. If the immediate benefit in the Treasuries of Governments is paralleled by corresponding benefit in trade all over the world, then the case will be strengthened for a reduction of war debts. Thus the moratorium, or “year's holiday,” may be extended into a much bigger cooperative measure of mutual relief. Note that, in post-conference articles on 23rd July the Morning Post and The Times express the opinion that “a reduction in war-debt burdens is necessary. Public opinion in America is not yet ripe, but the issue must be faced sooner or later.”
Gladly one turns from the sordid story of debts to a traveller in what Keats has called the realms of gold. A little more than a hundred years ago died Lord Byron, poet and friend of Greece; and his fame has survived sufficiently to inspire an unannounced philanthropist (said to be Sir Julian Cahn) to purchase Newstead Abbey, the Byron ancestral home, and transfer it to the public care of the City of Nottingham. Newstead Abbey, according to a British Official Wireless despatch of 17th July, is “to be maintained in perpetuity” by Nottingham for the enjoyment of the people. In Byron's time, and ever since, there have been many of his own countrymen inclined to belittle his poetic merit. In his own life-time his fame stood distinctly higher on the Continent than at Home. But the great Goethe said that whatever the English might think of Byron, “this is certain: that they show no poet who is to be compared with him.”
Poets of the late 18th and early 19th centuries were apt to die young. Burns died at 37 years of age, Byron at 36, Shelley at 30, Keats at 26. But measured in terms of real poetry, the work of these men in their short lives was immense. Byron, moreover, left a political mark in the Mediterranean and the Aegean. To the Newstead Abbey ceremonies on 16th July, in honour of the young man Byron, came the Grand Old Man of Greece, Eleutherios Venizelos, who said:
Modern Greek history had been enriched with the magic of the great English poet, and nobody could think of a free Greece without thinking at the same time of Byron and his death for the freedom of Greece.
The actual vicissitudes of modern Greece and of Venizelos himself have been more strange than even a Byron could have imagined. Venezilos has been alternately Greek leader and Greek exile, even since the Great War. Yet Greece survives all attempts to break her—even the financial coup of a Minister of Finance, who in 1922, raised a forced internal loan by cutting in half all the bank notes.
Sport has a diplomatic importance these days, and cricket has a peculiar place in the diplomacy of the British Empire. Cricket Tests provide an arena in which old wars and present financial acrimony can be forgotten—an arena in which England, Australia, and South Africa are already prominent. Lately the West Indies, New Zealand, and India have been knocking at the door, and when the English cricket control gave the West Indies three Tests and New Zealand only one, there was, of course, some comment. Fortunately Lowry's team did so well in the one Test—a draw honourable to both
If cricket is the diplomatic game of the Empire, lawn tennis has a similar place in world diplomacy. The United States gave Europe the League of Nations, then ran away from it. But the United States also gave the world the Davis Cup, and the world, including the United States, has been “Davis Cupping” ever since, with the result that W. T. Tilden is remembered when Woodrow Wilson is almost forgotten. Even the professionalisation of Tilden has scarcely dulled the big man's lustre. But Davis Cup contests know him no more, and in mid-July in Paris, the British Davis Cup team beat the Americans for the first time for twenty-five years. This left the final to France (holder) and Britain. Borotra (the “Bounding Basque”) lost both his matches, but Cochet won both his, and France thus retained the Cup by winning the doubles. The names of Lenglen, Lacoste and Cochet place France high in tennis, and if Carnera carries the heavyweight boxing crown into the Romance world, the Blonde Races will have to look to their laurels.
The arrival of the German Zeppelin (Dr. Eckener) at Leningrad on 25th July, is said to mark the real start of the Zeppelin's projected North Polar cruise, via Russian Archangel. Wilkins' submarine suffered in cruising the Atlantic, but his faith in the under-the-ice cruise remains. Chichester, a wonderful navigator, after completing the Tasman crossing via Norfolk and Lord Howe Islands, flew to Manila, en route to Asia. Lindbergh plans a great flight from the United States via Canada, Alaska, and Siberia, to the Old World. An aerial sham fight, the attack and defence of London, has caused some publicity, but the published reports to date have not carried that problem very much farther.
The shunters are the “uncivilised” division of the whole New Zealand Public Service. They are its daredevils, whose spirit belongs to a more lawless country, a more colourful background. They are a legion of adventurers, clad in serge and set in the prosaic surroundings of a city railway yard. Their very lives depend on the nimbleness of their wits; the soundness of their limbs hangs on their mental and physical agility.
Because a city, with all the protective fabric of society that it represents, is all around them, that does not remove them from the dangers of their occupation. Actually, they are far away from the comfort of a dry, warm office, where there are doors to keep out the draught and radiators to break down the chill. Their lot is companion with biting wind and driving rain, the sleet and the darkness. Their compensation is found in the healthiness and hardihood which open-air life engenders. An office error can be righted with a second stroke of the pen, but a shunter's error might never be righted.
Mining may be as dangerous a life as shunting, but there is none more dangerous in the length and breadth of the Dominion. Statistics are wearying, and are not going to be introduced here, but their purport cannot be ignored. The shunter's life is exacting, severe in its demands. It strips the artificialities from a man if he ever had them, or nips their growth in the bud if he hadn't. It is like war—it gets a man down to realities, because, in shunting,
A shunter may never forget that he is a shunter. His mind is on his work all the time—it has to be. Perhaps that is why shunters, as a class, are a grim and silent company. Perhaps that is why they are considered “tough diamonds.”
A man who earns his living in some gentler fashion crosses a city thoroughfare with casual care, and if he is knocked down, the happening comes as a bolt from the blue. But that moment of risk is spun out for days, months, and years to the shunter, and if disaster comes it is never totally unexpected. That danger is a natural factor of the game.
They steal a march on dawn, these men, and are on the job before the earliest bird has caught its worm: 6 a.m. They relieve the all-night gang, who have worked on a shift system since 10 o'clock the previous evening. These latter are full ready for rest. If the night has been rough, their experience can be described by the same adjective. In winter, even the morning gang have to work in the dark for a couple of hours.
Outside, the blackness, the cold. Working in squelching boots, in slippery oilskins shining like moonlight on a black sea. With not a few curses and lots of grit. Maybe a southerly blowing free. Numb, chapped hands, swinging a lantern like some Diogenes in search of the truth—the truth of the night, the lay of the tracks, the safety and the danger. But with not even a barrel to creep into, like Diogenes, if the elements are too rough.
Some work can wait for fairer skies, but not the work of the shunter. A schedule of trains, clear tracks, waiting transports, the reputation of the Raildays, depend on their expedition in “breaking up” trains newly arrived, in marshalling the units of others outward bound, in getting ahead with their job.
The days of the world's prosperity are the hardest days for the shunting gangs—when loaded, endless trains come rocking down hill and countryside along the iron trail, bearing burdens of New Zealand's produce for overseas, and then go rocking back again with freights of merchandise in ultimate exchange. Heavy goods, these, adding hundreds of tons to the work of the shunter, as well as danger, because necessity decrees all speed.
Consider it: a train arriving at Thorndon yard is handed over almost in its entirety to a shunting gang at Lambton yard. Be the “rake” of passenger cars, trucks or wagons, it must be broken up and its component parts shunted off on to their respective sidings. That means first of all uncoupling—lifting the bridles and hooks that form the connections and “breaking” the Westinghouse brake links. A ticklish job at best with a moving “rake”; an unexpected jolt from a wagon, in a second of negligence, and a shunter's fingers are jambed and crushed. An engine-driver who keeps his engine steady is watching the welfare of the men out there on the tracks.
Then there is the “frog” to watch for. A “frog” is where converging lines meet and form a triangle. Catch your foot in that and the moving wagon is over you. But in avoiding the “frog” by the light of his lantern the shunter must also watch that he does not step backward into danger—or sideways or forward. Two eyes and a lantern are not too much to have.
Then there is “kicking” a wagon or a truck off the “rake” on to a siding, with the shunter riding the brake and clinging to the rungs of the projectile with strong, nerve-strung fingers.
Or “slipping” a wagon on to a siding—a hazardous proceeding, permitted only to experienced shunters. Here the wagons are uncoupled in motion, the engine draws the “slip” wagon ahead, then in a moment it is uncoupled, the engine rushes ahead, the points are switched over behind
And what of jumping on to the wet steel skirt of a cow-catcher as the engine is moving?
When the yards are filling up with rolling stock at the busy times, the wagons and trucks and cars pouring into the big yard like unwieldy cattle—trains of 400 tons maybe, to be broken up; when five or six hundred trucks of live stock have to be handled; when the wharves have constantly to be cleared of loaded trucks from the shipping and supplied with new empties; when the eternal butter-stores call for attention, along with wool consignments, coal supplies and five-thousand-gallon rail tanks of benzine; these are the times in the shunting yards when speed must be made the sister to efficiency. That is when gangs totalling up to fifty men are needed, working at top pressure on the intricate pattern of gleaming lines that form a maze of sidings—“breaking,” marshalling, “slipping,” “kicking,” riding the brake, and along with it taking all the chances that the work entails.
There is a half-hour break for a cup of tea from the big black kettle in the men's hut. This is the communal house where many a choice turn of expression or symbolic term of the craft finds favour among those who follow the life of the shunter. But most of them sit eating with poker faces if a stranger looks in, and then they go on with their job, quickly and efficiently.
The Railways Department has made the work of the shunter as safe as possible, and generally the men admit that few more safeguards can be applied. So that there remain risks that must be taken, problems to be solved, tricks to be worked. And it is these that make the shunters the dare-devils, the adventurers, the rough-riders of the Service. But, as is necessary, they keep their minds on their job every moment of the busy working day….
They have a cat in the yard which has caught rats for them for thirteen years, and not yet have they had time to think of a name for it.
The composite photographs of railwaymen's children now appearing in the Magazine are attracting much attention throughout the service, and also amongst the public who receive the Magazine.
The children are all fine representative young New Zealanders, sons and daughters of men whose calling requires that they shall be bright and alert in the performance of duties of national moment, and of women whose adventurous spirit has led to their taking the chances of railway life, including liability to transfer at any minute to almost any part of the Dominion.
It is no wonder then that the children look strong and well and fit to hold their own in any emergency, that they take their fun where they find it, and that they hold their own in any contest, whether at school or at play, in which they engage.
We shall be glad to receive for inclusion in the series any further photographs of railway children. These may be sent free, through the nearest Stationmaster, addressed to the Editor New Zealand Railways Magazine, Wellington. Such photographs will be carefully preserved, and returned if desired.
“In my opinion, the downhill ski-route in the vicinity of the Ball Hut, at Mount Cook, is the finest I have seen in the world,” said Mr. Thomas Mitchell, of Victoria, the well-known international ski expert, in an interview with a Timaru Herald reporter recently. During the course of his travels Mr. Mitchell has visited the principal snow playgrounds in the world, and studied the art at Muerren, Switzerland, for three months, under Bracken, the English champion.
The visitor likened the ski-ing grounds of Mount Cook to Switzerland, and considered there were vast possibilities of making this region a very good magnet for improving tourist traffic in New Zealand. In Australia, he said, the sport had gone ahead in a remarkable manner. It would be fine, he considered, if a team from Australia could come over and race against New Zealand, and this could be accomplished by an organised club movement throughout this country, where the scope for the extension of the sport was so great.
Mr. Mitchell was of the opinion that New Zealand had an advantage over Switzerland as far as the snowfields were concerned, in that in this country it was the people's snow. In Switzerland there were the different clubs, and the snow areas were controlled by local government bodies, with the result that it sometimes took as many as three seasons to secure improvements to different courses. Here the areas were of a very fine standard, and he was sure that the snow country could be administered by a New Zealand Council, if such were formed.
The centrally heated Hermitage, with its comfort and hospitality is the headquarters for this “finest ski run in the world.” What could be finer than returning tired from a day's Winter Sport to a good hot bath, log fires, warmth and excellent cuisine of the Hermitage?
(A special article, by Mr. James Cowan, descriptive of the unrivalled attractions which the Mount Cook region offers to the tourist and the mountaineer, is featured in this issue.—Ed.)
In this article, timely just now when many New Zealand lovers of the out-of-doors are turning their thoughts to snow sports, the writer draws upon his memories of holiday excursions about the Mt. Cook Hermitage, the attractions of easy walks and climbs and ice traverses, and the dramatic beauty of the mountain landscapes in that grand central region of our Alpine world.
There was a time, not so very long ago, when a trip to the Mt. Cook Hermitage, as a base for alpine pleasuring was a rather formidable undertaking, calling for much expenditure of time, trouble and money. It took at least three days each way from Christchurch or Dunedin, and it was only in the summer months that the visit could be made. Now the leisurely old horse-coach has given place to the comfortable and fast motor car; the ramshackle old place of stay has been replaced by a beautiful and quite luxurious hotel on a commanding site, and this holiday place is open for travellers all the year round. It is quite an easy matter now-a-days, and comparatively inexpensive, to spend a glorious week or two amidst scenes that are the completest change imaginable from the surroundings, the conditions, and the atmosphere of our working world.
The average visitor to the Hermitage finds that the maximum of enjoyment of this wonderful region lies in just “pottering around.” The high climbs are only for the extra-vigorous few. Such easy ascents as Sealey and the Ball Pass across the lower part of the Cook Range, and the various glacier excursions are quite enough to satisfy most people. True, some who do not know anything about alpine work come here quite confident of their ability to tackle even icy Aorangi. But a day's clambering on the lower hills and ice-flows usually convinces the tyro that a ten or twelve-thousand foot peak is not for him this season. He is captured, however. Once he sets foot on the mountains, samples the peculiar joy of
The tonic of the mountains—there is no medicine like it, alike for body and brain.
You skirt the shores of Lake Takapo and Lake Pukaki on your way through the Mackenzie Country—a storyland of the sheep-raising days—to the wonderful valley where the Hermitage sits under the shoulder of a tussocky mountain. Pukaki is a kind of settling-tank on the grand scale. It receives the many-streamed Tasman River, bearing the washdown of the central part of the Aorangi glacial system, and its upper part is gradually being filled up with the gravelly silt of the mountains. From its lower end rushes the strong Waitaki River, clear, clean and blue. The lake bed receives all the debris borne down from the Alps. Pukaki means a river source, the waterhead; so the name is literally descriptive.
The lake has no beauty in itself, but it is a perfect mirror at certain times of the day and in the right weather, for the alpine glories at its head.
In the old days of coaching to the Hermitage we used to stay a night at the Pukaki Hotel, and never have I seen greater glory of crystal morning light and projection of mountain splendour on glassy water than that early vision from the Pukaki bridge crossing the blue river just where it issues from the lake.
And should you chance to be at the lake-foot in the evening, just after sunset, you will have a scene enchanting in its tender wealth of colour and its air of dreamy restfulness. The purple forms of the encircling ranges and the exquisite blue that dyes the distant alpine shoulders and the foothills are thrown far across the glimmerglass of Pukaki. High and beyond, the ice-peaks and sierras gleam in cloudlike pinnacles, all tinged a warm and rosy hue by the afterglow; a vision celestial.
At such a time, and at sunrise, you can appreciate the fine Maori fancy, the thought of a poetic people, which gave the supreme peak the name Aorangi. Frequently, but quite incorrectly, the name is said to mean “cloud-piercer.” “Ao” means “light” or “cloud,” and “rangi” is the sky. There is nothing in its name to signify piercing, or anything like it. A literal translation of Aorangi leaves one the choice of any of three equivalents— “Light of Heaven,” “World in the Sky,” or “Cloud of Heaven,” each of which is descriptively appropriate.
Of all the places of charm within easy walking distance of the Hermitage, the pleasantest for a stroll is the tussocky valley up which a track leads between the crumbling precipices of the Cook Range and the lateral moraine of the Hooker Glacier. This glen is strewn about with huge lichen-crusted rocks either fallen from the heights or borne by ice in the era when the glacier was wider and longer than it is to-day. A stream ripples through the glen, a beautiful little stream of purest, coldest water, almost as blue as the sky; it is filtered of silt by its passage underground from the glacier. It goes cascading and murmuring down in curves and half-coils, and sometimes you may see the blue mountain duck swimming on the pools, and hear their peculiar whistling call, the “whio, whio” that gives them their Maori name. It is a wild park, but without trees; small alpine shrubs cluster about the grey rocks; and in the season of flowers all the mountain blossoms are here—the golden-eyed celmisia daisy with its curious soft white furry thickness of stem and leaf; the great cupleaved
But to see the garden valley at its best you must come here in or about the month of December. Then all the flowers and the blossoming shrubs are out, and the glen of the blue stream is fragrant under the midsummer sun. The celmisia is particularly plentiful. It has a Maori name not generally known, tikumu (with the accent on the first syllable).
The Ngai-Tahu and Ngati-Mamoe people came to the upland parts of the land hunting the weka, the woodhen, when it was fat with feeding on the mikimiki berries, and they took the opportunity to gather tikumu for personal decoration. The thick gleaming leaves were worn as a head adornment, a substitute for feathers. The leaves were sometimes split—you can do it with a pocket-knife, they used thin flakes of stone—and were made up into soft waving bands which the girls wore as anklets and armlets in their dances and on other festive occasions.
It is much easier now to reach that wonderful little alpine camp, the Malte Brun Hut, than it was in the days when I first visited the Mount Cook country, nearly thirty years ago. That was in the days of the old Hermitage, a dilapidated yet comfortable hostelry built by Mr. Huddlestone, down on the plain between the present fine hotel and the Hooker River. There was no bridge across the Hooker then, and we had to cross the swift and dangerous glacier river on horseback. There was a cage there, running on wire ropes, high above the river, and it was hard work hauling oneself across, so the sure-footed horses were preferable; and there was the rough ride up the side of the Tasman Glacier to the Ball Hut. Now the river is bridged, the roads are good, new huts have been built. It is an easy walk up along the Tasman Glacier to the Malte Brun Range; no easier and more wonderful ice traverse in New Zealand. The picture from the snag little terrace on which the hut stands is more than enough to compensate for the trouble of reaching the place.
What a look-out it is there, nearly six thousand feet above the sea and five hundred feet above the level glacier, early in the day before the haze dims the bright glories of the dividing range. The great king peaks of the New Zealand Alps are all there before you, a bare two miles away, across the ice-floored valley, peaks
Those pinnacles of fire, those minarets of Tasman and De la Beche and their fellow rangatiras of the Alp world, how they throw back with redoubled radiance the strong light of morning!—how grandly their ice-mailed shoulders stand up, glacier-armoured through the ages, seemingly for ever defended against man's assault by their circumvallation of crevasses and bergschrunds, their knife-sharp aretes, their streams of avalanches. The marvel is that so many men—and women too—of clear heads and stout and limber muscles and strong lungs, have been found to scale those heaven-high shining walls.
Peaks of eternal silence, those mountain domes and pinnacles—yet not silent, for as we gaze out from the Malte Brun a mighty avalanche comes plunging down from De la Beche's ice cornices. It thunders from ledge to ledge, powdering like spray, until it comes to rest on the Tasman far below. And now and again we hear the voices of the cataracts that sparkle like living dancing silver against the black rock, their distant music rising and falling with the breeze.
Over those precipices directly opposite us, the flanks of the mountains, avalanches are constantly falling, and their size and number increase as the sun mounts the heavens. The continually accumulating masses of snow and ice sag slowly out over the black and grey battlements until they split off and crash with far-echoing roar, bearing with them the bones of the mountains to make moraine and silt and build the lower lands. So before one's eyes goes on the never-ceasing process of erosion and levelling down, the eternal miracle of Nature's navvy-work.
Two of us were up on the sharp terminal spur of the Sealey Range one day. Sealey is nearly six thousand feet high and between three and four thousand feet above the Hermitage, at the range foot. From the little mountain tarn we worked along the narrow rocky summit until we reached the extreme end of the spur overlooking the Mueller Glacier. A vertical precipice dropped at our feet. Directly opposite, across the glacier, was giant Sefton, ice-sheathed, shedding avalanches every few minutes. Glaciers and snowfields blazed all around in an intense burning whiteness.
It was warm, and there was scarcely a breath of wind when we reached the end of the range, and it quickly became close and oppressive.
“Thunderstorm's coming,” one of us said.
In a few moments the still air was heavily charged with electricity. We looked for some place of shelter. There was no cave or any shelter of that kind, so we just descended a few yards below the spur top and waited events. The steel of our ice-axes vibrated and hummed with electricity, and I suddenly snatched off my hat—it felt as if there was a bee buzzing around in it. Jack Clarke grinned; he said, “Better put it on again, or you'll have what little wool you've got singed off you.” Sure enough our hair was buzzing and tingling and standing on end, an uncomfortably eerie sensation. To be on the safe side, we left our ice-axes lying on the ground and moved away.
Presently the heat and gloom were split by a terrific burst of lightning and thundercrash. The lightning did not come in mere flashes, but in blazes that covered the whole sky, and the Alps bellowed with big-gun reverberations. The thunder culminated in a final crash that shook the mountain under us. Then
Ranunculus Lyalli were brimming with water as we picked up our ice-axes again, and clambered down towards the little lake on Sealey-side, and then descended to the Hermitage for dry clothes and something good to drink.
That was but a trifle of a mountain storm, a clearing of the air; it only lasted half-an-hour or little more. But the feature such meteorological disturbances have in common with a fierce storm such as that which overwhelmed a party of five young people on the Tasman Glacier some years ago is the suddenness with which they arise. Gales spring up with scarcely any warning on the finest of days.
Ordinarily the traverse of such a glacier is an easy matter, and travellers may not think of consulting the barometer before they set out on a few hours' walk. But in Alpland nothing should be taken for granted.
Thunderstorms have been known to start avalanches of snow and great slides of loose rock. There is a typical sharply inclined plane of shingly rock and gravel, on the side of the Cook Range above the Hooker Valley. Making for the Ball Pass from the Hooker we used to cross this with caution and in silence, knowing that careless walking and loud talking has been known to set these fans of loose mountain debris in motion.
These mountains, one cannot but observe, are in an advanced stage of disintegration. Tremendous as they are, they are wasting away before one's eyes. Those vast masses of moraine borne down by the glaciers, those huge slides of loose rock that fill the couloirs are gradually reducing the dimensions of the peaks and ranges. The process is comparatively rapid in such slatey Alps as these, so unlike the granite precipices further south. The hills are not eternal here. Still, they will do our time!
From long experience of Thermal Regions Climate, I consider Rotorua as pleasant a place in midwinter as in midsummer in many respects, in fact sometimes pleasanter. The nights are frosty, and there is sometimes ice on the pools (not the hot ones!) in the mornings, but I have known long spells of beautiful, clear, serene, sunshine days in June and July. The atmosphere is more translucent in winter, the lakes seem a deeper blue than in summer; for days a halcyon calm steeps all the landscape.
True the shorter and cooler days do not encourage lake cruises, but land travel is more invigorating than in the often blistering days when most people visit Geyserland. For another thing, the geysers are usually more active in winter, the volume of steam in such places as Whakarewarewa seems greater. When it rains at Rotorua it rains; and when the marangai, the north-east wind, sets in strongly, it usually brings rain on its wings. And on a freezing night—unless you are one of those incredibly hardy souls—you will be glad of a hot-water bottle. But the bright days compensate for all that.
The native dairy-farmer and sheepfarmer is certainly “getting a move on” these days. The excellent news one hears about land development enterprise in various parts of the North Island is pleasing to all who wish to see the Maori pursuing the agricultural and pastoral life on level terms with his pakeha neighbours. Sir Apirana Ngata and his Native Department staff have put thirty farm schemes going in the principal Maori districts during the last two years, schemes which ensure a life of settled industry and consequent comfort and prosperity for many hundreds of native people.
The look-out on life is being quite transformed for these New Zealanders of the young generation. Waste land is being cleared, fenced, grassed, and arrangements are made for stocking all the farms and providing machinery. Many miles of new fences have been made, good cottages are being built, there are sheep and cattle where only the wild pig roamed a year or two ago. Another few years will see a big increase in the productivity of Maori land, especially in
Writing of our native friends somehow automatically brought up a thought or two about the menu of the Maori at home, which has been enlarged considerably by the embarkation of many tribes on regular farming industry after the modern manner. Nevertheless, for all the pleasing table items introduced by the pakeha, the son of the soil prefers often the kai of his ancestors, and one of these stable items is fish, and one of the most acceptable fish to the Maori palate is shark.
A shark-catching excursion is just as popular among the coastwise tribes as a swordfishing campaign is among the Zane Greys of the world.
Up Auckland way in the good summer time, sailing about the Hauraki Gulf, we used to see a Maori party returing from the fishing grounds in a cutter or a scow, a little shipload of them, and if shark had been caught in any quantity we would see the rigging hung with them, delicately perfuming the sea-breeze. But the beach was the place where you'd get the full strength of Mr. Shark, the beach where a few hundred of them were hung on stages to sun-dry for the populace. One of my Waikato Heads native acquaintances once confided to me that dried shark was a noble and satisfying diet, it made a man strong and brave, and it was withal a food that he could taste for three days afterwards.
But shark can be made a quite passable dish for the pakeha—if you call it something else, as I am told they do in fish restaurants occasionally. Here is a tale that comes to mind told me once by a man who served as an apprentice in one of the old C. W. Turner fleet of sailing vessels trading out of Lyttelton. It was in the barque Cingalese, commanded by Captain Raddon; the barque was returning to New Zealand from a voyage to India.
One day, off the North Auckland coast in a calm spell the sailors caught a shark. Food was running rather short, and the mate suggested to the captain that possibly a portion of the shark might go down well enough by way of a change from the too salt-horse. There was one passenger on board, a missionary on furlough, and the mate thought his reverence could do with a bit of fish.
The captain allowed the mate to have his way, and next morning a savoury fish breakfast was set out in the cabin. “You serve it, mister,” said the captain, before the passenger came in. “I won't have it on my conscience, you understand.”
“Will you try a little dolphin, sir?” asked the mate when the reverend man sat down.
“Certainly,” said the passenger, “it will be quite a novelty to me. I have never tasted dolphin yet.”
“Excellent,” he said, when he had eaten his portion. “I never imagined dolphin would be so palatable, and so tender, too. May I trouble you for a little more?”
The second helping was just as acceptable, and the parson would probably have passed his plate for a third. Only, when the mate asked him, “Now, won't you try another little bit of shar—. I mean dolphin, sir?” His reverence cried, startled,
“Did you say shark, Mister Blank? Is it shark?”
And then the shark was out of the bag Amid roars of laughter, the poor man was told the truth by the hard-bitten and hard-biting sailors. All he said was, feebly,
“It was really very nice, you know, but I don't think I will have any more.” A few moments later he was up on deck.
The Maori tastes his shark for three days afterwards, as I have said. The Cingalese's passenger probably tasted his in imagination for a month. But let us leave the table and consider other things.
The greedy slaughter of whales on a truly colossal scale in the Antarctic by the Norwegian and other gun-armed killing
The news comes now that the Norse hunters have decided to lay up their huge fleets for next summer, about time! But it is not out of consideration for the whales—not much! The huge over-production of oil has glutted the market, that's why.
This tremendous flood of whale-oil is, moreover, swamping the South Sea copra business, which is all-important to New Zealand's tropic possessions and the mandated region of Samoa. Copra is being ousted by cheap oil in certain manufactures abroad. Clearly something must be done to protect our staple Island industry.
Noted that the ships of our little New Zealand naval division are off on their regular winter cruise—not to the Far South. Like sensible fellows, and lucky withal, they are away to the summer isles of Eden and all that, where eternal sunshine reigns and where hurricanes are only born in the Christmas to March season. Who wouldn't be a naval man—say a Rear-Admiral for choice, or even a chaplain—for three months this midyear? Little wonder that service on our station is said to be extremely popular. Like the far-flying shining cuckoo our cruisers and sloops know no winter. More power to them, too. The crews will come home all the better for their tropic-seas jaunt showing the flag.
The hour was late and he had walked for almost thirty minutes in the blinding rain. The damp was beginning to filter through his clothes and his feet were wet, but at last his goal was reached.
Consequent to the thoughts of personal gain, the desire to accomplish which had keyed his mind to constant pitch, his physical discomfit troubled him little.
Sheltering himself under the eaves of the small building wherein lay his night-hour task, he opened his bag, and with the aid of an electric torch produced a bunch of skeleton keys, and then with care covered his hands with a pair of rubber gloves.
On approaching the door he noticed that the lock was an unusual one, and several keys were used before it responded. He opened the door with a satisfied look, and after a cautious glance around quietly entered the room, at the same time playing his torch here and there in order to acquaint himself with his dark surroundings.
He found the switch, lit up the room, and listened for a moment. He appeared satisfied that all was well, and was soon engaged removing his wet coat and hat.
From his bag he produced a spanner, a handy sized pitch-bar, screw-driver, blowlamp, and various other tools, and while examining his work, primed the blowlamp ready for use.
“It's a ticklish job,” he muttered. “I've got to get out of this by 4 o'clock somehow, and its after 3 a.m. now.”
The bold manner in which he tackled his task indicated that the man was no amateur, but a professional, at the game.
He was in a sitting posture, and on occasions half-turned his body in order to get a glance at his watch, which was placed in a convenient spot on the floor. He appeared to be working against time, and his face had a set look that indicated determination.
Once he stood up, erect, like a deer startled. What was that noise? He again looked at his watch; “3.35,” he muttered. Surely no mistake could have been made.
He settled down to work again. The noise may have been that of a distant motor horn, or perhaps only fancy. I will have to pull myself together, he thought. Surely I am not losing my nerve on a job like this.
At 3.50 a.m., his aim accomplished, he gathered up his tools, and with bag in hand switched out the light as he let himself out into the night.
The rain had by this time ceased, and a watery-looking moon shone clear. His figure could have been clearly seen as he made quickly away.
Several minutes later two sharp reports rent the air, followed by a fearful shriek and the noise of vehicles rushing by.
At 4 a.m. in the Train Running Room of the Railway District Head Office a telephone rang.
The official appeared to expect the call, and received the following message:—
“Automatic Lineman No. 10 speaking from South End—yard; called out on special repair duty at—signal cabin. I have located and repaired the fault. ‘O.K.’ detonating signals placed on track as instructed. H 10 special passed through safely, on time.”
The official replied: “Good business; good night.”
The following is the concluding instalment of the text of a little booklet, explanatory of the services and facilities of the New Zealand Railways, recently issued by the Railways Publicity Branch and distributed to all schools throughout the Dominion.
The “Through Booking” system of the Railways Department makes transport easy for passengers, parcels, or bulky goods from any station of one Island to any station of the other. For example,
if you live at Wanganui and wish to visit Dunedin, the Stationmaster at Wanganui will be pleased to make arrangements for the whole of your journey. He will reserve a seat on the express train from Wanganui to Wellington, secure a berth for you on the ferry steamer, and reserve a seat on the express train from Christchurch to Dunedin. Similar reservations for the return journey will be made for you by the Station-master at Dunedin.
Your railways give the same smooth through service for any kind of goods (including animals). If you wish to send a parcel, a dog, a case of furniture, or anything else from Auckland to Bluff the railways will “see it through.” The Goods Agent at Auckland will accept, whatever you wish to send, and on it will go by rail and sea and rail again, all the way to the Bluff. You are relieved from all bother or worry about any stage of the transport. You will not need any agent at all other than the railways.
(Continued.)
The Lyttelton-Christchurch Railway was built to the British standard of construction, the rails being laid in iron chairs fastened to the sleepers and held in position in the chairs by wooden wedges known as “keys.” The rails were 18ft. long, and have been variously stated as weighing 75lb., 72lb. and 70lb. to the yard, but were referred to officially as 70lb. rails.
The first locomotive arrived at Ferry-mead on 6th May, 1863, and a second of the same class on 18th April, 1864. These were tank engines weighing approximately 30 tons each. They had four coupled and two leading wheels (type 2–4–0). The driving wheels were 5ft 6in. in diameter. (When the contract for the Great South Line was let, two more engines of the same description were ordered).
At the time the line to Ferrymead was approaching completion, the Provincial Council passed a resolution recommending that tenders be invited for the lease of the line and wharf for three years, by which time it was expected that the tunnel would be completed. The Superintendent, however, considered that it was preferable for the contractors to retain possession while the tunnel work was in progress. He, therefore, made an agreement with Messrs. Holmes & Co. to lease and work the railway between Christ-church and Ferrymead for the three years, the lessees to pay 6 per cent, on the cost of construction for the first year, 8 per cent. for the second year, and 10 per cent. for the third year, in return for the revenue. There were no sidings at the intermediate stations, Opawa and Hills-borough (now Woolston), and these stations were not officered. Passengers joining there obtained tickets from a travelling booking clerk.
It is interesting to recall here that Messrs. Holmes and Co. obtained the nucleus of the operating staff from Victoria, Australia, the staff including Mr. Joseph Jones, Stationmaster at Christ-church, and Mr. George Fitzmorris, Stationmaster at Ferrymead. Other members brought over by Messrs. Holmes and Co. included Messrs. A. Beverley (engine driver), J. Dickenson (fireman), G. Bentley (guard), A. Sedcole and R. Knuckey (crane-drivers, Ferrymead), W. Hasloch and J. Currie (porters, Ferrymead), W. Syms (head porter), W. Pleasance and G. Duffy (porters), and Joseph Irving, shunter at Christchurch.
T. M. Fowke, for many years guard on the Canterbury Railways, joined the service at Christchurch soon after the Ferry-mead line opened, and after a few months at Christchurch was transferred to Ferrymead as porter. Harry Smith, timekeeper, storekeeper, paymaster, and general factotum on the tunnel contract, came from Victoria with the contractors; W. Bourke was also employed as a timekeeper on the contract, and P. Gilmore, who had had previous railway experience in Ireland, was appointed clerk at Ferry-mead. These three last-mentioned officers were subsequently in charge of various stations in Canterbury. Early tradesmen employed in the erection and maintenance of plant and rolling stock were: Messrs. J. Hyde (fitter), W. Woodward and P. Pope (blacksmiths), E. Round (striker), W. Anderson (carpenter), and J. S. Lane (painter). Mr. A. McKenzie,
The goods business at Christchurch was in charge of a Goods Manager, and was afterwards divided into two sections, viz:—Inside Goods, including the management of the sheds, or warehouses; and Outside Goods, dealing with such traffic as was delivered and received in the yard. Mr. E. W. Tippetts was Inside Goods Manager, and Mr. H. Hesketh Outside Goods Manager. Messrs. E. W. Tippetts and Edwin Silk had been associated in Victoria with Mr. J. M. Heywood, founder of the Christchurch firm of J. M. Heywood and Co. Mr. Heywood was Secretary and Manager of the Canterbury Steam Navigation Co., and Mr. Tippetts was in charge of the company's wharf (steam wharf) on the Heathcote River. When the Railway was opened, a great deal of the business was diverted to Ferrymead, and the steamer company leased its wharf. Mr. Tippetts, with his clerk, Mr. W. Packard, joined the Railway service, and Mr. Silk also was in that service for some time.
Mr. Hesketh had been a gunner in the Royal Navy, and when he joined the Railway service he brought with him a battery of two guns with which he fired salutes on suitable occasions. The guns were also used at times for starting and winning signals in connection with regattas, then a popular form of amusement. Although generally referred to as “the railway battery,” the possession and use of the guns was entirely Mr. Hes-keth's affair, and when he left the railway service his battery also left. The care of the guns was entrusted to an ex-sailor named Louis, who was also employed by the railway in looking after tarpaulins, ropes, and bolsters and in doing other handyman jobs. He took great pride in the guns and kept them in first-class condition. When they were in action he handled the sponge and rammer like an expert.
The traffic on the Christchurch-Ferrymead Railway for the first two and a half years after opening was as under:—
The recommendation of the Harbour Commission that the advice of an English expert be obtained regarding the proposed harbour works at Lyttelton having been approved, Mr. W. B. Bray, the Chairman of the Canterbury Commission, went to London and, in conjunction with Mr. G. R. Stephenson, Consulting Engineer for the Province, obtained the advice of Mr. J. R. McClean who at that time was probably the most eminent authority on harbour works. Mr. McClean, in 1864 and 1865, was President of the British Institution of Civil Engineers and an engineer of international repute. He was a member of the International Commission on the Suez Canal, and had designed and carried out works of the Birmingham Canal Navigation, Bute Docks, Cardiff Docks, Alexandra Docks, Newport, and other important works. Messrs. McClean, Stephenson and Bray were appointed a Commission to report as to Lyttelton Harbour, and they recommended what is the basis of the present harbour works. In laying the report of this Commission before the Provincial Council the Superintendent stated (in part):— “It may be assumed that the character of the works ultimately required are determined by this report. Though the cost of the undertaking is so large that I cannot hope to see it completed, it is desirable that the work be commenced without delay and proceeded with as speedily as the resources of the Province permit.”
In order to provide a settled finance for the major works contemplated, the Railway and Harbour Works Fund Ordinance, 1864, was passed directing the Provincial Treasurer to open an account
And to pay out of it:—
A plan for the arrangement of Lyttelton station, prepared by Mr. Edward Dobson, the Engineer for the Lyttelton and Christchurch Railway, showed a reclamation of nine acres—obtained by building a breastwork and filling in between the breastwork and the shore. Abutting on this reclamation three wharves were indicated, viz.: 1. A Railway pier; 2. the existing town jetty, extended; 3. the Queen's pier for Home ships under the shelter of Officers' Point.
The railway pier was to be 1,200 feet long by 10 feet wide, with a depth of water of 12ft. 6in.
To give the necessary shelter for ships lying at the Queen's Pier (No. 3) a mole was to be run out from Officers' Point.
When the twenty-third session of the Provincial Council was opened on 30th May, 1865, the Superintendent referred to the financial depression existing in the colony, and the difficulty, owing to various circumstances, in negotiating the Provincial debentures on the London market.
After voting supply the Council adjourned till 21st November, 1865, when the Superintendent stated that contracts had been let for such portion of the Harbour Works at Lyttelton as were immediately required, and, by utilisation of prison labour, a commencement had been made with the larger works which the Council had authorised.
(To be continued.)
“Your railway, when you come to understand it,” says Ruskin, “is only a device for making the world smaller.” When one visualises the isolation of peoples in the prerailway era and contrasts the transport difficulties of that period with the rapid contacts made possible to-day along the steel ways of the world, Ruskin's observation needs no elaboration. But though the railway has been the chief means of transport for more than a century, there is room for still better understanding of its facilities and functions, and of its general capacity to serve the every day transport requirements of the people. The following article upon parcels traffic is intended as an aid to such understanding.
The New Zealand Railways parcels revenue for March, 1931, increased to the extent of £4,000 over that for February, 1931, and the inter-island parcels traffic for March-April, 1931 showed an increase of £1,000 in revenue over that for the corresponding period of last year. Behind these figures there lies an interesting story of transportation service on the part of our railways—the carrying of parcels from, and to any station from Opua, in the far North, to Bluff, in the extreme South. Parcels of all descriptions “from a needle to an anchor,” are given economical, safe and speedy transit by the railways. In the railway interpretation of the term and under certain conditions “a parcel” is practically any article that is transportable by rail—passengers' luggage, groceries, wearing apparel, bicycles, perambulators, sewing machines, motor goods, canoes and canaries, cats and dogs, and so on throughout the animate and inanimate creation.
For the purpose of assessing the charges on parcels consigned by rail it has been found expedient to arrange a tabular scale of weights and charges on a graduated mileage basis (on a continuous line of railway), as follows:—
Careful study of the table appended demonstrates what the railway “when you come to understand it,” can do when it comes to a question of giving economical service to the people. Nor is this the whole story. Rapidity in the transit of parcels is a no less important aspect of this service. For example, a parcel railed at 7 p.m. in Wellington is delivered at Auckland, 426 miles distant, the following morning, or if Invercargill (about 550 miles from Wellington) be the destination, the parcel (railed at 7 p.m.) reaches the southern city the following evening.
This aspect of the parcels service, however, applies only in cases where the consignor desires the speediest possible transit, in which case, for a slightly increased charge, the parcel is given express transit, i.e., forwarded by express or fast passenger train.
Another interesting branch of the Department's activities in this connection is the parcels delivery service in operation in various parts of New Zealand. This system has been established at Auckland, Frankton Junction, Hamilton, New Plymouth, Hawera, Wanganui, and Palmers-ton North, in the North Island, and at Christchurch, Dunedin, and Invercargill in the South Island. By way of illustrating the advantages of this system it may be mentioned that on a telephonic request from, say Palmerston North to a business house in Wellington, for a particular article, with instructions that the article be given the patronage of the rail, the article, if it weighs up to 112lb. will be delivered by the railways to the door of the purchaser for the modest sum of 6d—this, of course, within specified limits of the railway.
A feature of the service is the mode of handling all classes of parcels. No matter what the nature of the package, the utmost care is exercised in the process of handling, particular attention being paid to packages of a fragile nature. Goods such as X-Ray apparatus, for instance, extremely fragile, are conveyed with ease and diligently cared for by the railways until safely delivered at their destination. Special provision is made, also, whereby parcels of a perishable nature are not loaded with packages giving off an odour which might be likely to cause tainting.
A fairly recent innovation is the introduction of a “cash on delivery system,” by which the Department will, if required, and provided the amount does not exceed £25, collect the invoice cost of goods from the consignee. This practice, as it becomes more widely known, is becoming an accepted custom with warehouses. The rate charged for collection, viz. 1/- in the first £1 and 6d. in each succeeding £1 or fraction thereof, enables the Department to transact this business with mutual advantage as between itself and its clients.
What might be called an off-shoot from the parcels traffic, is the conveyance of periodicals, newspapers, and stereotype casts. Some hundreds of tons of these are carried each week to all parts of New Zealand. The special and favourable scale of charges which operates for this class of traffic goes a long way towards keeping the cost of our reading matter down to a minimum.
Various systems of rail and road parcels services are also fostered by the Department.
It is perhaps opportune at this stage to offer words of advice to consignors (senders) of parcels.
First and foremost is the question of careful and secure packing. It is not infrequently found that most instances of damage are the outcome of faulty packing. Secondly, a complete and legible address is a very important factor in the prompt despatch and final distribution of all parcels. Haphazard methods of addressing are a serious drawback to efficient despatch and delivery.
To the uninitiated it would seem that the tendering of a consignment note with each package is a mere matter of form. It is not so, however. A properly filled in consignment note, giving, together, the
Another important stipulation is to rail parcels early in the day. The last moment rush frequently causes confusion and leaves an avenue for error, no matter how efficient the railway staff may be.
In Wellington the Department has introduced a system of free collection of parcels for rail transportation. This service embraces principally the industrial area, three motor lorries being engaged in the service. An average of 3,500 parcels a month is collected and railed to the respective destinations throughout New Zealand. One service makes a clearance about mid-day, while the other two effect a clearance during the late afternoon. All parcels, whether for the North or South Island, are accepted on these lorries, and senders are assured of the same urgency and accuracy of despatch as in the case of parcels delivered personally at the railway station.
Another interesting phase of the parcels service may be mentioned. New Zealand and Cook Island fresh grown fruit and vegetables consigned for domestic use enjoy a special cheap rate in transit by rail. The charge of 8d. for each 56 lbs. covers any distance on the railway. Similarly, dead game and fresh fish are also charged for at a reduced rate, viz., 7 lbs. (8d.), 14 lbs. (¼), 28 lbs. (2/-).
The popularity of the Department's parcels service is indicated by the fact that at one station, Thorndon (Wellington), the traffic amounts to some 10,000 to 12,000 parcels of all descriptions received and forwarded each month. The organisation, in the charge of an efficient staff, works with clock-like regularity, and this, coupled with speed and cheapness is leading to an ever-increasing patronage.
The world-wide attention which today is being bevoted to the selling side of the railway business, is one of the most striking features of the industry. In his present Letter our special London Correspondent tells what some of the leading Home railways are doing in the sphere of salesmanship, and gives his usual interesting review of current railway developments overseas.
Railways all over the world realise that, in order to secure new business and retain existing traffic, it is just as necessary for them to exert untiring zeal and persuasive effort as it is, say, for the dealer in soap, motor cars or patent medicines, to embark upon ambitious selling campaigns. Transport is a commodity which railways have to sell in face of keen competition. To dispose of transport to the best advantage, therefore, railways must devote much attention to the training of their staffs in traffic canvassing, public relations, and the many varied arts that go to make a successful salesman and a satisfied patron.
It is somewhat singular to find, even nowadays, that some of the largest railways in the world conduct the most elaborate educational campaigns for the benefit of their employees in such subjects as traffic operation, signalling, accountancy, railway law, and so on, leaving quite untouched the most important topic of salesmanship. This is an omission that is being rapidly righted, and in Europe educational campaigns devoted to the subject of railway salesmanship are being inaugurated on several leading systems.
Since its formation from the old London and South Western, South Eastern and Chatham, and London, Brighton and South Coast Railways, the Southern Railway of England has shown itself one of the world's most progressive transportation concerns; and this go-ahead line has now entirely reorganised the selling side of its activities. Not long ago, the whole of the operating and commercial business of the Southern was placed under the supervision of one chief officer, styled a Traffic Manager, thereby enabling the railway to give more attractive service to its patrons and to secure a much more intimate contact with commercial leaders and the general public.
Following this move, the canvassing and development departments of the Southern Railways have been completely overhauled to meet present-day requirements. The system served by the line has been divided into a number of convenient areas, in each of which a staff of specially-trained traffic canvassers are responsible for securing new business and retaining existing connections on both the passenger and goods sides. In the words of a leading Southern official, the intention is that “in time the traffic canvassers will come to be regarded as railway advisers to the trading public, and will be able to help them in all phases of their rail, road and sea transport problems as they
To meet the needs of increasing business, the Southern Railway is busy on a vast improvement scheme at Southampton Docks with the object of providing 15,500 feet of additional quayage space. The site of this extension is to the west of the present docks, and some 400 acres of foreshore are being reclaimed and a quay wall 7,000 feet long constructed. This will enable an additional pier to be provided 5,000 feet long and 400 feet wide, with berths on both sides, for the accommodation of the largest ocean liners. The quays will be furnished with up-to-date equipment and large passenger and freight sheds, rail communication with the main-line system being provided at both the western and eastern ends.
Between Southampton and London the boat train traffic has until recently been worked by fast trains composed of side corridor carriages with restaurant cars attached. In future this business will be handled by luxurious Pullman trains-de-luxe on the lines of the famous “Golden Arrow” service between London and the continent. The shells of the new Pullman cars are built entirely of steel, the underframe being an integral part of the body. The floor is of dovetail corrugated steel. On this rests a
Trade depression and falling traffics have resulted in the holding-up of many Home railway improvement works. Electrification of several important Home railway routes is, however, proceeding steadily, notably on the Southern tracks in the London area, and in the Manchester district.
In the Manchester area the biggest job in hand is the conversion to electrical operation of the Manchester, South Junction and Altrincham Railway, an important line nine miles in length owned jointly by the L.M. & S. and L. & N.E. Railways, serving a rapidly-growing suburban territory. For some years there have been operated over this line a half-hourly service of steam passenger trains in each direction, and a specially supplemented “rush hour” service night and morning. Now steam operation is to be replaced by electric working, the electrification being on the 1,500 volt direct current principle, with overhead conductors. Electric working will enable three or four minutes to be saved on the nine mile through run between Manchester and Altrincham, and five or six minutes in the case of stopping trains. For passenger working there are being acquired 24 motor cars, 22 nondriving trailer cars, and 22 driving trailer-cars. Each motor car has six third-class compartments, seating 72 passengers. The non-driving trailers have five first-class compartments seating 40 passengers, and four third-class compartments seating 48 passengers. Nine third-class compartments, seating 108 passengers, comprise the accommodation in the driving trailers. Normally, trains will be composed of three cars, one of each type. At rush periods, six-car trains will be the rule. Eventually the Manchester-Altrincham electrified tracks will become an integral part of an extensive electric railway system serving the whole of the South Lancashire area.
Increased passenger comfort can do a great deal to retain passengers to the rail
From time to time many clever devices have been installed at railway stations to furnish train departure indications, but few of these arrangements have been so ingenious as the new train time indicator just installed at Charing Cross Station, London, by the Southern Railway. Built on the lines of a reading desk, the indicator, which stands in the centre of the concourse, is a handsome four-sided structure of wood. The upper part of each side slopes slightly inwards, forming a convenient base for the “pages,” which take the form of aluminium leaves, with specially-printed time-table sheets pasted on. An ingenious arrangement of hinges enables the leaves to be turned with the greatest ease and keeps them in their proper position. Each page has the hours of the day marked upon it, and of the four sides of the indicator, two are devoted to “Mondays to Fridays,” one to “Saturdays,” and one to “Sundays.” Each side is numbered and bears a reference to the other sides.
The structure of this novel indicator measures 6ft. square, and its height is 8ft. It is lettered in gold leaf and illuminated at each corner. Altogether, it forms a most elegant and useful piece of equipment, much appreciated by the travelling public and saves endless verbal enquiries as to train departures.
The new London Underground Railways school, which was opened recently, is divided into two sections, one a signalling department and the other a train equpment section. Both the York and London establishments are equipped with lengths of model track and complete signalling installations to illustrate the lectures. At York the operating course consists of twenty lectures by skilled instructors, and the school has a seating capacity of sixty students. Through the London Underground Railways school there will annually pass something like 5000 men, the courses covering not only instruction to new entrants to the various grades, but also refresher courses for signalmen, linesmen, drivers, and others engaged in train operation. It was a one-time L. and N.E. Railway official who defined education as the art of producing “broad men sharpened to a point.” At the new schools at York and London the L. and N.E.R. and the Underground Railways are performing wonders in this direction.
Human culture has cultivated schemes for providing consolation prizes for those who hit the cinders in the human race. For cash in advance, a citizen can insure himself against bodily blights, perils of the seize, benighted motors, ignited metres, banana skins, pillow-slips, sleep-walking, land-slides, gravel rash, dog-bite, catsnip, mat-slip, broken promises, fractured relations, and the unnatural force of natural forces. But actuarily, no plausible scheme has been evolved for insuring man against the accident of birth. In fact, it is equal odds whether a reputable rate-payer will enter the ring as a ring-worm or a contagious disease. Nature gives no guarantee that the vital spark intended for the latest addition to the O'Hades (both doing well), is not sparking round the jungles of Siam decorated with monkey glands and nut-crackers, and versus vices.
Perusing the fallacious fauna at the Zoo, I shudder to think how easily I might have been precipitated into this hyphenated world, wearing all-over whiskers, four-handed feet, an incurable spinal promontory on the southern seaboard, an appetite for vitamin A straight; a weakness for mud-rolls, taking an upside down view of life, expressing myself bronchially, keeping my hair on, and taking life as it comes without fear of flavour.
Brooding over our caged cousins, who sacrifice outer appearances for inner disappearances, it seems to me that, taken with a drop of eau-de-Cologne, they are not any more unpleasant to the naked eye than some of the later and more vertical models. Whatever they are they are what they are, and if happiness means ignorance of what happiness means, they must all be happy. In any case the basis of happiness seems to be as elastic as the plython of a python or the average conscience.
Man is not happy, because he has appointed himself the judge of all things except himself, and he floats in an atmosphere of his own vapouring in a balloon blown up with his own air, and his landing-ground is his own dust. It is a question whether he is the big pea in the horticultural holocaust or a victim of his own vicariousness.
If contentment is the purse for Life's Handicap, then the pig flies in, and the pug misses by a short nose; the boaconstrictor's content is cubic content, and the leopard is happy in spots. Speaking zoo-logically, I confess that:
Civilisation is a man-ifestation that happiness is more a matter of absence of thought than presence of mind. The beast of the field is happy because he hasn't got the thought to think that he is miserable even when he is. In his case ignorance is bliss and brains would be blisters. Lepidoptera leap before they look, and seem to buzz through life with-getting stung. The truth is that Man has risen so sky-high that he gasps for breath in the rarified atmosphere of refinement and cannot get down to earth for a roll in the daisies, or go gay with the March Hare, without shattering his superiority, wounding his dignity, and soiling his collar.
Man's collar is his badge of serfdom. It is the choker in the pack that euchres all his tricks in the game of life, and causes him to shuffle off without a point in his favour. If he could unstarch his natural instincts and unleash the joy-hounds, he might be able to enjoy life as much as a bull-ant, the bull's aunt, the bullock's uncle, the moth's mother, and the rabbit's foreign relations. But the homo-globule is so impressed by himself that he can seldom forget himself long enough to remember to forget to remember himself.
The law of gravity insists that the higher you go the harder you go to keep going, and when you stop you drop; but the law of levity is lawless, which is why—
But doubtless, everything in this world has its role to play, and Man has the advantage that one of his roles is to roll on rails. Without wishing to be a roller-skite I must say that the railway is the one way in which man gets his way over the furred and feathered fauna.
After all the engine is traction's greatest attraction, and when it comes to “pull” it is the prize pullet, a bird of passage, and a Great Lark.
At the annual meeting of the Canterbury Horticultural Society on June 29th the prizes won in the competition between the Railway Station gardens of Canterbury were presented.
Fourteen gardens were judged, there being two divisions, classed according to the time they had been established.
Two challenge cups were presented, one donated by Mr. L. B. Hart to the senior division, and the other to the junior division by the Canterbury Horticultural Society.
The members of the Christchurch Traffic Department also donated four cups to the station officers who were instrumental in carrying off the prizes.
Mr. L. B. Hart, in handing over the challenge trophies to the successful competitors, complimented them on their excellent work, and assured them that their efforts to improve the railway station surroundings were much appreciated by the public.
Mr. O. W. B. Anderson in presenting the miniature cups to the various successful station officers, expressed the pleasure of the Society in controlling such a competition, and speaking from a personal inspection while the gardens were being judged, was convinced that quite a substantial advance had been made during the past season. He felt sure that even more improvement would be made during the coming year.
The District Traffic Manager thanked the Society for its co-operation in the good work of railway station advancement, and assured the Society that he would do everything in his power to give the movement further encouragement.
The winners were as follows:—
Class A—Heathcote Railway Station 1, Rakaia 2.
Class B—Little River Railway Station 1, Ric-carton 2.—(From “The City Beautiful.”)
“I was spending my holidays in the country and went to the Show,” says a well-known Works Manager on the N.Z.R. “There were competitions of all kinds, but nothing in which I could compete till the ‘Ugly Man’ contest was announced, and I stood up ‘with the bells on.’ The judge walked down the line, and stopping in front of me for a moment, said: ‘You are making it a bit too hot, aren't you?’ ‘Why, what do you mean?’ ‘Well,’ said he, ‘this is not the World's International Championship; this is only a friendly local competition!’ He evidently looked on me as a professional ‘pot hunter’.”
* * *
Clergyman (to father who has just had his baby christened “Homer”): “I suppose Homer is your favourite poet?”
Father: “Poet! Lor’, no sir! I keep pigeons.”
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A kind-hearted gentleman saw a little boy trying to reach the doorbell. He rang the bell for him, then said: “What now, my little man?”
“Run—,” said the little boy; “that's what I'm going to do.”
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Amateur Photographer: “Have my films developed all right?”
Chemist: “The answer is in the negative.”
One of the brightest examples of schoolboy howlers was chronicled during the interrogation of an upper standard in a Gisborne school recently. The interrogator, one of the Education Board's Inspectors, asked the pupils to write down the feminine of a series of nouns which he would give them. Among the nouns was “buck,” and one bright young scholar without the slightest hesitation wrote as its feminine the word “buckshee.”
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“How did you get that black eye, Mrs. Higgins?”
“Well, sir, me ‘usband came out of prison on ‘is birthday.”
“Yes.”
“And I wished ‘im many ‘Happy returns.”
The above is the title of a two-colour folder (with striking cover design) now being sent out by the General Manager to all members of the New Zealand Railway service.
Those homely proverbs “Waste not, want not” and “Wilful waste makes woeful want,” demand everybody's best attention in these days of stress. Stoppage of waste makes for security of employment and family welfare.
Waste is always a hindrance to individual and national welfare, but under present conditions it is a deadly enemy against which the most determined war must be waged. Waste does no one any good and gives no worthy person any pleasure. Stopping waste has the same effect as getting more business, and it has the advantage that it costs nothing except thought and care, and can be practised successfully at times when new business is hard to get and possibly expensive to handle.
In this personal message to each member of the railway staff I desire to enlist the interest and help of each individual among our 17,500 members in a campaign for the elimination of waste and for studied economy in the use of all kinds of stores and supplies. It should be obvious to all that the instinct of self-preservation must command their active support of this principle.
Launched, as we are, on a much more real business basis than ever before, self-interest and self-help are very definitely involved for all in a drive for waste-elimination within the Department. More than ever before will we be judged by results, and as Departmental earnings have to pay for the cost of materials and supplies wasted as well as the cost of materials and supplies used, before salaries or wages can be met or properly apportioned, the ultimate effect of waste in all its forms on rates of remuneration for personal services is a very vital factor.
An active attitude against waste gives the pleasant sense of work well done. This constant carefulness, day by day, increases individual efficiency. The multiplication of these personal efficiencies assures the future of the railways.
General Manager.
Head Office,
Railways,
Wellington,
15th July, 1931.
If the cost of careless waste in an individual case automatically reduced wages by the amount wasted, this truth would become impressively clear.
When you think of waste, think in terms of the multiplication table. An average waste of only a penny a day for each employee of the Railways would amount to £22,000 a year.
Water. A leaking tap, dripping at the rate of a pint a minute, wastes 5,000 gallons in a four-weekly period, or 65,000 gallons in a year. Effort to turn off a tap costs nothing, and if a tap is defective it costs nothing to report the matter. If there is an average of only one such leaking tap at each of 300 stations, workshops, good-sheds, or other railway centres, then the waste from this cause alone is 19,500,000 gallons. Much water in New Zealand is sold at 1s. per 1,000 gallons (in some places it costs more), so that, on this basis and at the rate mentioned, leakage of water throughout the system may cause water waste to the value of £1,000 per annum.
But 300 penny washers to stop such waste costs only 25s.
Electric Light. The cost of electricity used in a 100–watt light in Wellington is one-third of a penny per hour. One of the large flood lights in shunting-yards costs 4 1/2d. per hour.
Heating. A one-kilowatt electric heater, or a six-element gas heater, costs from 2d. to 3d. per hour. A gas-ring costs 2 1/2 per hour.
The above are approximate costs, and I quote them to show the money value, in relation to time, of some of those things which are liable to misuse through want of care or neglect to check.
The total number of electric bulbs and gas-heating and lighting-elements employed throughout New Zealand railways approximates 25,000.
An average of one hour's waste per day for each of them, or the cutting down of their use by one hour per day, would mean, at the low average of 1/2d. per hour, 6s. 3d. for each per year, or a Dominion total for the Department of £15,000 in the whole bill of costs. This excludes the additional cost for replacement of bulbs because of unnecessary use.
During the year ended 31st March, 1931, the Department spent the following sums:—
This is equivalent to 48 per cent, of the total wages bill.
In the use and conservation of stores of all kinds watchfulness and initiative should make a substantial decrease in the total cost.
Even a 1 per cent, saving on the use of supplies means £23,000 per annum.
In addition to stopping waste of stores and supplies, every wage-earner can do something appreciable towards economy in preventing breakages, pilferage, and the damage to goods.
Finally, in making this appeal, I would point out that it is not a matter of pleasing the management that comes into question—every employee is a manager within the province of his own job—but that it is a matter of vital personal moment to each at this critical stage in the Department's development.
The less the waste the stronger becomes the financial position of the railways and the better become the prospects of employees.
No doubt comparatively few workers would be guilty of deliberate waste; but, whatever may be the cause, waste is still waste, checking the recovery of prosperity.
From the President, the South Island Fruit and Produce Brokers' Association, to the Station master, Bluff:—
Mr. McIndoe, the Government Orchardist Instructor, who inspected a consignment of bananas on behalf of the Government and the Brokers' Association, advised the writer yourself and staff did absolutely everything possible to facilitate the handling of the fruit, and to protect the merchants against any probable loss by delay and deterioration.
On behalf of the South Island Fruit Brokers' Association, and the members interested, I wish most sincerely to thank you for the very efficient manner, the kind courtesy, and the very capable services that each and everyone, from your good self to the humblest porter, rendered our Association. It is such service as this that will eventually enable the Railway to overcome its difficulties.
* * *
From Miss Alice Chappell, Transport Officer W.D.P.Y.W.B.C., Wellington, to the General Manager of Railways, Wellington:—
I have been instructed by the District Committee of the Wellington Presbyterian Young Women's Bible Classes to write and thank you for the assistance given to some eighty members who travelled to and from Otaki recently.
The arrangements made for us at Thorndon were quite satisfactory, and at Otaki they were equally so.
Unfortunately the flood at Otaki forced us to abandon our camp, and we wish to state that the Station-master and staff at Otaki did everything in their power to assist us to get away, even to the extent of sending down a motor lorry to get the girls to the station. We could not avail ourselves of this offer, but appreciated very much his thoughtfulness. We sent about seventy girls to Te Horo, and they were brought to Wellington without mishap or loss of luggage. In addition to this there were many courtesies shown to individual members to say nothing of the numerous telephone calls.
In view of the fact that the Stationmaster and his staff were working under great difficulties owing to the flood we wish to make special mention of the attention given to us.
* * *
From Messrs. E. W. Mills and Co., Ltd., Wellington, to the Goods Agent, Wellington.
We recently consigned some goods per rail to very old customers of ours, who, in writing, state:
We desire to express our pleasure at the quickness by which goods ordered by us have arrived. We doubt if motor transport could be quicker….
You will no doubt be pleased to know that the efforts made by your Department to facilitate deliveries to clients are appreciated.
Siemen's Neophone.
The Neophone is an instrument of the microtelephone type in which all the disadvantages of previous varieties of that type have been overcome. It is adapted for both automatic and, by the substitution of a dial dummy for the dial, for manual exchanges. Normally it is arranged as a table set, either with a combined or separately mounted bell-box, and it is as a table set that it is described in this article. It is also made in several forms suitable for use as wall sets, of which particulars will be supplied upon request. The form arranged for use with a separate bell-box can be employed with existing bell sets of the normal C.B. type without alteration in apparatus or wiring. In construction, materials, and finish it is insensitive to temperature changes and humidity and is suitable for widely varying climatic conditions. It is easily installed, durable and reliable in service, and all parts are simply and easily replaceable in maintenance or repair.
No one needs to be convinced of the superior convenience of the microtelephone over the fixed transmitter type of instrument. The Neophone can be used with ease among drawings, papers, books, etc., without disturbing them; it leaves one hand free for turning over pages or making notes and it does not restrict the bodily position of the user in any way. Yet it is superior in transmission efficiency to the fixed transmitter instrument, even allowing that with the latter the speaker is expected to bring his lips close up to the mouthpiece; it maintains uniform resistance and transmission efficiency no matter in which position the telephone is held; howling and frying, so often experienced with microtelephones, are not possible even on the shortest lines; breaking circuit, sparking and burning of the electrode faces of the transmitter are entirely eliminated. In addition, articulation is greatly improved, while side tone and the effects of local noise on reception are very much reduced, so that in use under ordinary conditions, the practical improvement in efficiency is very much greater than that shown by measurements of transmission volume made in the laboratory.
(Concluded.)
I Wonder if it is human nature to look with a certain amount of scorn upon what belongs to us; to know very little about the things we hold most dear; to long always for that which we have not; and to hold of small account what we regard as the commonplace, the ordinary, and the inevitable. Is it necessary for the stranger within our gates to open our eyes and to make us suddenly aware of our possessions, so that we feel a warm glow of ownership, a thrill of love, an intense appreciation?
The other day, for the first time, I despised my countrymen—my fellow New Zealanders. This is an appalling confession, but an honest one, forced upon me from without—upon me, accustomed to regard all things New Zealand with a tolerant, benevolent affection and a somewhat complacent pride.
It was late one afternoon. The train was slipping across the plains in Hawke's Bay; across mile upon mile of soft, undulating velvet; shadowy, sweet scented; a rich, glorious land of colours, of infinite possibilities. I leaned back lazily in my seat, idly listening to the conversation of two men behind me. At first not at all interested, because the dark, snow-tipped Ruahine's against an evening sky claimed all my consciousness, and the motion of the train had soothed me into a state of semi-coma, a delightful feeling of drowsy contemplation and idle receptivity.
“What a marvellous country!” came a characteristically expressionless English voice. “By jove, just look at that!”
Here I metaphorically drew myself up, much as a fond parent who overhears admiration of her young hopeful from a stranger.
“Land's not bad!” came the laconic reply from my countryman, in the rear. “But that's about all. No money in it these times.”
Outside, a soft darkness was falling upon the scene; gates gleamed whitely, cattle stood silhouetted against the skyline, a night wind shuddered through the
We slid into a tiny station, an oasis of reality in a vast world of fantastic shadows; then on through a typical little New Zealand settlement, nestling in a hollow, giving the appearance of having been flung together at a moment's notice to meet a demand for food and shelter. No planning, no order, no “neatness,” but tin roofs, wide verandahs, a few shops, yet possessing a very tangible charm—something unexpected and half-humorous.
The Englishman was intensely interested; enthusiastic over the liquid Maori name, the wide main street, the little centre of activity in the heart of the aching vastness of those shadowy plains.
But his New Zealand fellow traveller was doing his utmost to extinguish any spark of admiration in the stranger.
“Curious,” I thought. “How he seems to loathe it all. Nothing to do there, nothing to see.”
It was then that I hated him intensely. How dare he speak thus of this land of his—of ours! While a stranger from a country of hedges, neat fields, tenements, smoke, fog, could realise the indescribable wonder of it—the youth, the fertility, the sheer exultant strength of it.
Gradually my anger died away, and when we rushed into Wellington, to the dear familiar city crouched there on the hills, I contented myself with turning to the appreciative stranger and demonstrating, very assertively and somewhat defiantly, the perfection of our harbour, white under the moon, fit resting place for the Empire's ships. Surely my countryman would support me in this. But no; he turned his back upon the magic of it, and remarked to the carriage in general:
“Well, back to the filthy wind and the Slump!”
—can Spring be far behind? And this year she is early—giving all sorts of hints that her arrival is to be spectacular and dashing. Suddenly we feel a revived interest in our clothes—a desire to emerge from furs, leathers and wools and to don something lighter, softer—suggestive of daffodils and clear skies. And this capricious lady, like all her sex, has a habit of seizing us unawares—springing upon us when we are quite unprepared for her visit. A gorgeous, almost hot day—you are going out to lunch in town and you simply haven't a thing to wear. Your winter clothes suddenly seem repulsive and extremely ancient. It is not at all too early to begin your “schemes,” to think out colour arrangements etc., for no woman, however favoured by nature can look attractive unless she gives some serious attention to her clothes so that they will be a little out-of-the-ordinary and slightly unusual—part of herself.
Here is a cake the kiddies will love for their lunches.
Sultana Cake.—Six ounces butter, 8 ounces sugar, 2 cups flour, 3/4 cup milk, whites 3 eggs, 3 teaspoonsful baking powder.
Method: Cream, butter and sugar, add whites beaten stiff; put one-half in cake tin and mix sultanas with the other; bake half-hour.
Filling: Make cornflour with half-cup milk and 1 dessertspoon cornflour; leave till cold and mix in 2 tablespoonsful sugar and loz. butter; beat well, and if desired add 1 tablespoon cocoanut.
Few people realise that it is not work, but neglect which roughens and ruins the hands. Before and after housework a little Sydal, the wonderful hand emollient, should be rubbed into the hands. It cleanses and heals the skin and makes it soft and velvety. Sydal is sold everywhere.
Many housewives are apt to look on Ovaltine as a beverage pure and simple, forgetting that it can be used in other ways.
For instance, a very good fudge recipe is: Take 2lb. brown sugar, 4oz. butter, 1/4 pint water, 4 level tablespoons Ovaltine. Boil sugar and water together for five minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the butter, and boil for two or three minutes until it starts to thicken. Then add the Ovaltine (stirring lightly) just before pouring into a buttered dish. As it cools cut into squares with a knife.
The squares should then be wrapped in waxed paper and stored in a tin with a good lid and kept in a cool place. It makes a delightful gift for an invalid at the “getting-rapidly-better” stage.
The Glow-worm of New Zealand (Bolitophila Luminosa), generally known as a “worm,” is, in the “imago” or “perfect” stage, really a “fly” of the order Diptera, family Tipulidae, and closely related to the Sandfly and Daddy Longlegs. This little insect has become enshrined in our fancy on account of the gleaming phosphorescent torch displayed during the last three stages of its existence as larva, pupa and imago.
Mr. G. V. Hudson, F.E.S., in his charming treatise on our “Living Torch,” when describing the larval web, says:
“From the lower side of the central thread numerous small threads hang down, and are always covered with little globules of water …. an unimportant part of the web.”
May not this mean—I mention “en passant”—these “globuled threads” are in reality “lures” that enable the “Glowworm” to prey upon animalcula, as does the larva of the Sandfly (Simulia Australiensis) and other of the outside world's “Living Torches.”
It is my intention to briefly instance a few “Living Torches” of the class Lampydridæ as quite distinct from Elateridæ or “Skip-jack” Beetles.
The “torch” of the Lampyridæ is placed, not at the tail tip, but under the last three rings of the abdomen, nor can it be switched “on” and “off” at will. The “flare” is produced by a slow combustion process of a secretion generated through muscular contraction. This “flare,” if subjected to oxygen, will turn from phosphorescent green to an intensive white glow.
“Lampyridæ Noctiluca” is, in the larval stage, of carnivorous habits; as an “imago,” a “flower-feeder.”
“Drilus Flavescens” has most singular habits. The male “imago,” a quarter of an inch in size, is winged; the female, from three to four inches long, retains a caterpillar form, and goes through life wingless.
The strangest part about the larva is, being parasitic to the common snail. Attaching to the snail's shell by means of a disc sucker, on getting an opening, it works its way in between the mollusc and the shell; finally devouring the “host” completely before the pupal form is entered.
Often there is a long wait before entrance is achieved by the larva. The snail, in no doubt as to the deadly menace outside, hoping against hope, postpones the fatal moment till compelled by hunger or almost suffocated, it throws open its door. The larva, grasping the opportunity, glides in, severs the tendons of the snail's foot, and enters into occupancy. On reaching the pupal state the mouth of the shell is tightly closed with the cast of larval skin, and kept sealed till the emergence of the perfect insect.
The Lampyridæ are found in most regions of the globe, and, as with our own “Glow-worm,” are objects of delight owing to the fantastic beauty effect of their lights, which blaze through the gloom of night, stabbing the darkness with fairy shafts of radiance.
There are members of this widely spread family, indigenous to the tropics, entirely devoid of light production; to them, Nature has given—shall we say, by way of compensation—brilliant colouration. In some groups the females never become “winged,” and remain in a caterpillar form through life. Here the females, by way of attraction towards the winged but torchless males, are endowed with the organs of light giving. Again, there are other groups where both sexes attain to a winged form, and are endowed with the power of light emission in an equal intensity.
The Elateridæ are the Beetle Torchbearers. They are much larger, generally, than Lampyridæ, and bear brighter “lamps,” the light from which is more of “golden” flame than of a pale green phosphorescence.
The name “Elateridæ”—derived from the same Greek root as the word elastic—has been bestowed on this family—more commonly known as “skip-jack”—owing to an ability to spring up into the air; a loud and distinct “click” accompanying the performance. The “spring” is only made should the insect chance to turn over by accident, or become placed on its back. In such a case, the legs being too short to reach the ground, the insect bends the body outwards till supported on the points of the head and tail; then, straightening out sharply, and with a distinct click, the body is projected upwards in a somersault. Should failure to right itself happen the action is repeated till success is achieved.
Pyrophari, an American variety, is named by the Spanish-Americans “Cucayos.” So powerful is the “torch” of this species that a book may be easily read under the luminance. There are many tales in connection with the intensity of its lumination; two of which may be quoted, not only as illustrative, but of interest.
In the early days of the Spanish conquest of America a night assault had been planned. All had gone well till, approaching their objective, the attacking party entered the forest. Here, to their utter dismay they were surrounded by bright and moving torches; concluding they were fallen into an ambuscade, the attacking soldiery—ignorant of Pyropharian lights—fled incontinently, throwing away their arquebuses in deep panic.
A native saying goes:—
“Carry away that Firefly, but fail not to return it whence thou got it.”
This has emanated from a native custom of attaching these “living torches” to the feet before passing through the dark forest undergrowth. The flares alarm and cause snakes to move out of the traveller's route.
The Creole women utilise “Cucayos” for personal ornaments; such as headdresses, armlets, ear-rings, and the like. The fireflies are attached to elaborate frame designs by means of soft wax. The most exquisite results are obtained by combining Cucayos with humming birds and diamonds.
The insects, which are very plentiful, are caught and kept in tiny cages and fed upon sugarcane. When the fete is over the “Cucayos” are taken home, freed from the frames, given a bath—which completely refreshes them—and recaged for use as a softly glowing “night light.”