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Short stories, poetry, pen-and-ink sketches, etc., are invited from the general public upon New Zealand subjects.
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I hereby certify that the publisher's lists and other records disclose that the circulation of the “New Zealand Railways Magazine” has not been less than 20,000 copies each issue since July, 1930.
Deputy-Controller and Auditor-General.
27/9/33.
Cleaner Travelling.
For some months past the Railways have been trying out a new form of matting in several of the Main Trunk Express cars. These mats are a New Zealand product of a link design, and any dirt is caught in the interstices of the mat, making it almost impossible for it to be tramped or blown through the carriages.
The matting is soft and silent to walk upon, and in those cars where it has been tried it has been favourably commented upon by people walking through the carriages.
The Victorian Railways have used these mats for a number of years, with complete satisfaction, and it will be interesting to hear the further comments of New Zealand railwaymen and railway passengers on the greater cleanliness of travelling which it is considered this matting now makes possible.*
“The natural destiny of New Zealand is to become one of the chief playgrounds of the world.”—Sir William Barrett.
(Rly. Publicity photos.)
Some notable New Zealand scenes.—(1) The Hermitage, Mt. Cook; (2) the Otira Gorge; (3) Wairua Falls; (4) the Fox Glacier (shewing Mt. Cook reflected in Lake Matheson); (5) Lake Rotoroa (Nelson district); (6) the Sanatorium gardens at Rotorua; (7) the Franz Josef Glacier; (8) Milford Sound; (9) the Chateau, Tongariro National Park; (10) Queenstown, Lake Wakatipu.
New Zealand
Railways
Magazine
Magazine
“
For Better Service
Published by the
New Zealand Government Railways Department
Service Copy.Vol. 9. No. 1.
Wellington, New Zealand
April2, 1934.
The development of a strong national spirit is altogether admirable, provided its objects are not rooted in selfishness.
Increasingly large numbers of New Zealanders are gaining an appreciation of, and love for, their country comparable with that warm regard felt by past students of colleges for their alma mater. There is more interest in New Zealand's development, greater store set by her treasures of history and legend, fuller knowledge of her resources than ever before. But the average New Zealander still does not appreciate the singular advantages of his country. Visitors from overseas never fail to dwell upon one or other of our natural advantages. If it is not the climate, with its absence of long spells of bad weather of any kind and its remarkably high average share of “the sun that never blisters,” then it is the enviably low death-rate enjoyed, the absence of any kind of dangerous animal or poisonous plant, the outstandingly interesting native race, the great sport that may be indulged in, the agricultural, pastoral and mineral resources and developments, or the wonderful range of unique scenery which the country presents.
These panegyrics of visiting travellers serve a good purpose if they make us take a greater pride in our country. But the best faith is secured from personal knowledge of a more perfect kind than the most exact description can give, and this is still lacking amongst too many of our own people. It may perhaps be rare for a New Zealander to speak slightingly of his country, but it is not with sufficient frequency that he is heard to praise it at its true worth—largely because a kind of national modesty leads him to ascribe to other countries (which he has not seen) advantages which they do not really possess, but chiefly because he does not know the vast richness of the treasure lying at his very doors.
In order to savour the full worth of the country there must be a knowledge of the historical values, the traditions and the economic significance of each part of it. This calls for travel, research and records.
Fortunately the special facilities which the Railways of this country have placed at the disposal of travellers make travel so remarkably cheap that all can indulge in it to some extent. The opportunity for research lies open to those capable of this national work and the matter of records is in the hands of our writers and artists who could find no fairer field for their skill and talent than in an endeavour to do justice to New Zealand.
The Railways here are a national facility intended to aid in the development of the country, and the “New Zealand Railways Magazine” is a publication which extends the use of that facility by the national outlook maintained in its pages. The greater space available in the Magazine in its new form will be distinctly helpful towards extending this influence for New Zealand.
Praise for the Railways.
The following appreciative reference to the Railways Department is contained in the report of the representative of the Department of Industries and Commerce, Tourist and Publicity, who accompanied the Victorian Scottish Union Delegation on its recent tour of New Zealand:—
“There was no doubt that the Railway Department made every effort to co-operate with us, and their action in providing coupé cars wherever possible was a really good service. At Gore they kindly shunted our cars on to the Kingston train and avoided a change-over of carriages, and coupé cars had been sent down to Hangatiki to avoid a transfer at Frankton Junction. Also, the Stationmaster at Dunedin very expeditiously re-arranged the seating of the through express for our comfort. The visitors therefore left with a very good impression of our railway services, and the comfort of our trains.
The baggage system, under the very capable charge of Mr. H. A. Reeves, was entirely successful. The work could not have been in better hands, or more carefully carried out. One lady said she had never before travelled without so completely forgetting her luggage problems.”
Glimpses of Woolpack Factory at Foxton, North Island, New Zealand.
(Rly.Publicity photos.)
(1) Machine for softening the fibre; (2) carding machine; (3) spinning frames; (4) some of the looms; (5) roll and cop winding machines; (6) dressing and beaming machine.
)Leo Fanning .
The modern factory of New Zealand Woolpack and Textiles Ltd., at Foxton, which the Rt. Hon. J. G. Coates opened on 9th March, marks the beginning of a new era for “New Zealand Flax” (phormium tenax), by turning it to a new use, for which there is a wide scope in this Dominion and in Australia. Experiments have proved the truth of the new industry's slogan: “Anything that jute can do, phormium can do better.” The secret of this success lies in a new patent process which economically converts hard phormium fibre into a soft textile very suitable for spinning and weaving.
In the present difficult period of New Zealand's industrial evolution, far-seeing men have stressed the importance of finding new uses for some of the country's raw materials, and new markets as well. The purpose, of course, is to broaden the base for the people's livelihood. In his speech at the opening of the woolpack factory, Mr. Coates remarked that one of New Zealand's economic problems was that it was possibly “one of the most vulnerable countries concerned in certain classes of commodities.” That was one reason, he declared, why New Zealanders should have a particular interest in this new industry, which would help in strengthening the country's economic life. The Minister commended the example set by Mr. J. Linklater, M.P., in ordering the first 100 woolpacks from the new factory. The farmers, he said, should all come along and help the industry to establish itself, for it would need a sympathetic start-off.
Tests have emphatically proved that the flax-fibre woolpack is appreciably stronger than the jute article. Indeed, the greater textile strength of phormium allows the new pack to take 15 per cent, more wool than can be crammed into a jute pack of the same size. Other advantages of the New Zealand fabric are in its comparative freedom from loose fibres, and in the fact that such fibres of phormium will take dye readily whereas jute fibre resists dye. Here is the situation in one sentence, as spoken by the company's chairman of directors, Sir Alexander Roberts: “The new woolpacks will prove stronger, lighter, cleaner and cheaper than jute packs.”
The nominal capital of the company is £300,000, which would provide for three fully-equipped factories — one in Auckland province and one in Southland in addition to the Foxton establishment.
Up to the present the company has expended about £40,000 in land, buildings and plant at Foxton, but this sum does not represent the full development which has been planned for this locality. Even at this initial stage the mills will give direct employment to about eighty persons, but it is expected that the total will exceed 300 when this Foxton factory is developed to its full capacity.
New Zealand has spent many millions of pounds in the purchase of jute woolpacks, bags and sacks. During the past five years the expenditure has amounted to £530,000 for wool-packs and £1,580,000 for bags and sacks. The new industry will have an important national function in diverting such money to the use of New Zealand material and local labour, but it can confidently look further afield in gaining benefits for the Dominion.
Sir Alexander Roberts mentioned that the annual value of Australia's importations of jute woolpacks, bags and sacks had averaged £4 millions during recent years—a favourable market for the superior New Zealand manufactures. In this vision of big business across the Tasman Sea, Mr. R. Semple, M.P., was encouragingly optimistic. He said that he had had three interviews with Sir Walter Massy Greene (Assistant Federal Treasurer of Australia) and his private secretary (Mr. Carter), who knew Australian industries from A to Z. After they had been shown the New Zealand wool-packs, they both said they were satisfied that if New Zealand could put these packs on the Australian market at a reasonable price—even if it was a little higher than the price of jute— it would have a monopoly of the supply of wool-packs to the Commonwealth. Within two years New Zealand could capture the Australian market.
The plant known as “New Zealand flax” is really a gigantic member of the lily family.
Why did a scientist give the name phormium tenax to New Zealand's big strong-fibred lily? The word phormium is based on the Greek phormos, which means a basket, and the meaning of the Latin adjective tenax is seen in its derivative, tenacious. So phormium tenax may be translated as “material for strong baskets.” It is a compliment of old-time expert observers to the handicraft of Maori women.
It is destiny then—after the passing of more than a century and a half— that one old-time use of the fibre, the use which gave the plant its botanical name, is to be justified by a modern manufacture of “strong baskets,” known as wool-packs, from that material by a process which would seem miraculous to the Maori.
The present development of phormium fibre as a textile means good cheer for many homes whose bread-winners have been on “relief.” The new industry has opened a way to salvation from stagnation. More than a century ago the making of soft fibre from big sword-bladed leaves practically inflicted sentences of slavery on many Maoris. They were forced by their chiefs to toil long arduous hours in the production of fibre which was bartered for cannon muskets and gun-powder. In that delightful book, “Old New Zealand,” Judge Maning commented on the “hardship, overwork, exposure and semi-starvation” suffered by the flax-gangs. “When we reflect,” he wrote, “that a ton of cleaned flax was the price paid for two muskets, and at an earlier date for one musket, one can see at once the dreadful exertion necessary to obtain it. But supposing a man to get a musket for half a ton of flax, another half a ton would be required for ammunition; and, in consequence, as every man in a native hapu of, say, a hundred men was absolutely forced on pain of death to procure a musket at any cost, and at the earliest possible moment (for, if they did not procure them, extermination was their doom by the hands of those of their countrymen who had), the effect was that this small hapu or clan had to manufacture, spurred by the penalty of death, in the shortest possible time, one hundred tons of flax scraped by hand with a shell, bit by bit, morsel by morsel, half-quarter of an ounce at a time.”
The finely-wrought soft fibre was sold overseas at from £70 to £100 a ton (which would represent about £200 to £300 in New Zealand currency of to-day).
General Manager's Message
The measure of alertness constantly required on any railway system develops as the experience of the individual increases. This results in the creation of a kind of sixth sense amongst the employees in regard to factors of danger that aids in the prevention of accident, and has had much to do with the notable record of safety associated with the operations of this form of transport.
It may be interesting to the public to know just what the railway men in New Zealand do when some unusual occurrence, such as the recent earthquake, calls for special precautions to ensure the safety of travellers.
Immediately the shake of the 5th of March occurred, the Department's own telephone and telegraph system was used to discover and record the actual area along railway routes in any way affected by the disturbance. The earthquake occurred at 11.48 p.m. Within approximately two hours the Engineer in charge of the district left Wellington with a break-down train and repair gang for the spot (near Paraparaumu) where repairs were most urgently required from a traffic viewpoint. By 7.0 a.m. the track was sufficiently repaired for the slow passage of trains. Besides special inspection and patrol by all track maintenance gangs, and the issuing of instructions to engine-drivers to proceed cautiously, arrangements were made for careful inspection of all kinds of structures, especially those, such as bridges, tunnels, culverts, etc., in anyway associated with running tracks. For this purpose the new rail-car was immediately requisitioned for the Chief Engineer and his inspecting officers to travel the route through the Wairarapa, Hawke's Bay and Manawatu districts, examining, and where considered desirable, testing, everything of importance for safety en route. The greatest delay to any train running when the earthquake occurred was less than four hours, no passenger service was cancelled and, although in places tracks subsided, slips occurred and tracks got out of alignment, no accident of any kind occurred to any passenger or goods train on the railway. It is estimated that railway repairs will cost £3,000.
I wish on behalf of the Government Railways Board and myself to express to the staff appreciation of their good service on this occasion. Their handling of the whole emergency was excellent and the standard of service which is associated with our maintenance and train running staffs on occasions of grave emergency was fully maintained.
General Manager.
Perpetrated and Illustrated by)
Ken Alexander
Art is not necessarily the prescriptive prerogative of the apostles of paint, pen, or pencil. Time was when “Artists” encouraged the error that Art alternated between an attic and “uncle's”; that Art was an altitudinous bewitchment of the brain, which made mal-nutrition a magnificent gesture to genius; that starvation and inspiration, long hair and short rations, rat-holes and rhapsody, despair and debt, represented the argent of Art. But torrential Time, or “tempest fugit,” has altered the armorial aureola of Art from “a sausage sizzling over a candle dripping” to “horse-sense rampant on a field of ideas.” For it is not necessary to gloom in a garret, and paint pictures professing to portray “prunes at play” or “Eros with earache,” which look more like an accident in an eggery.
For Art is the fastidious fashioning of fact or fancy into something which solaces the soul and enchants eye or ear. Art enters into everything from loving to living. For instance, whilst many people are mere low liars, Ananias was an artist in fastidious fallacy, and Baron Munchausen was a master of mis-statement. In their hands, lies were lifted into the limbo of literature and the verities were mere material for forging their fictions. But, to the artist, all is Art, whether the material at hand is dough or dreams, pastry or platinum. Even a sausage, shaped with the subtle something which snatches the super-sausage from mystery to mysticism, is a work of art and a skin of beauty. An inartistic sausage is an omen of evil, a fiction of force-meat, a caricature of captured conjecture, a sarcophagus of sacrificed succulence and a butcher's blunder. But a sausage which reflects the soul of its sculptor is one which scintillates, one which is blandly blended, one in which artifice is concealed in art, and inspiration and mastication are equally equated.
It is safe to say that, had Michael Angelo turned his talent from the mysteries of form to the form of “mysteries,” he would have sculped the super-sausage—as pink as a cradled cray, stream-lined from coupling to cap, as dainty as a dolphin, as silky as a seraphine, groomed, bloomed, shining and shapely—in short, a sausage moulded by a master.
Of course, even to-day, there exist modern Michael Angelos of sausagery, savants of savaloysean symmetry, master-minds of minted mince; men who mould mince with the mind and savour it with the soul—men to whom sausages are not merely a sequence of cellular secrets, or highly - strung blobs of bullied beef, but sculped scallops of incarcerated complaisance, born of the alliance of heart and hand. Such men are craftsmen in bodybuilding and the rest are but murderers of mince.
But there is also art in articulation, gesticulation and mastication. Let's take articulation, which covers all brands of neckromancy from race
“Some speech is unspeakable.”
If you know what you're going to say before you begin to say it, it is possible to concentrate on the mouth-music without worrying about the score. But how many of us know what we are going to say until after we've said it? In fact most black eyes can be traced to this penchant for post-dated postulation. The art of articulation, as applied to public speaking, is peculiarly devoid of that oiliness of utterance so sought after
But public speaking is not fair tirading. The race is “readied” before it starts, and speech is hamstrung by hesitant “hums” and hoarse “haws,” joined in unholy-mutter-o-mony with collar-clutchings and air-chokes. The speaker feels as Daniel felt when he got a snap-shot of the arena on his retina. He feels that no quarter will be given and everything he says will be used as evidence against him. The silence is as soggy as ten thousand pneumatic drills boring into blancmange.
The chairman is the only purple patch in a pop-eyed panorama. He speaks with the soothing insouciance of a boozed blow-fly and the victim of the piece hopes that he will go on buzzing until the night-watchman comes to turn off the lights. The chairman certifies that the speaker has more virtues than any man could have—and still live. The victim knows he's a liar, and the audience suspect it.
But the speaker becomes so soothed by the chairman's chin-churning that he can scarcely believe it when he hears that sinister sentence: “And now I can do no better than allow Mr. Fourflush to tell us what he is about to tell us.” With the dull impact of a flung tomato the truth connects with his cerebrum, and he finds himself more or less on his feet. Then a voice somewhat like that which called the infant Samuel's bluff, oozes out of the atmosphere. The alleged speaker hears it saying all the things he would never have thought of saying. Then the head disappears and all thought goes with it. This is where he claws his cravat and tries to get a flying tackle on his Adam's apple as it plays dickory dickory-dock up and down his conjunctional plumbing; he gives his notes a glance and finds that they have turned to Hindustani or Siberian shorthand, and are as indecipherable as a doctor's prescription for barley water. There may be artists in public speaking, but they must be too
“When soup is snuffled.”
Silence.
And thus we aim to prove that, if the tongue is sometimes silver, silence is often golden.
Of course gesticulation is an ally of articulation—and is also known as fizzycal jerks. But, if it is Art, it is unconscious art, being more anaesthetic than aesthetic.
But mastication is a lost art, like asking for an increase in salary—and getting away with it. At one time— before Time became money (and vicey vertigo)—eating was one of the finer arts, and “still-life” received respect from plate to palate. It was dressed with distinction, received at the board with suitable ceremony and given a fair trial before being sentenced to digestive detention. It was quietly questioned by the palate before meeting the molars and cavorting with the cuspids, and the full flavour of its innermost meaning was extracted from its essence. Finally, it was kissed long and lingeringly by the palate and introduced into the interior. But those were the days when mastication was a primary industry rather than a secondary consideration; when soup was not snuffled but inhaled, and lunch was not a snatch-as-snatch-can but a leisurely gesture to the digestion.
There's Art in everything, From soup to bread? Oh, death, where is they sting, If Art is dead?
Trisanna Viaduct, Arlberg Railway, Austria.
Co-Operation In Britain's Railway Industry.
In recent years one of the most conspicuous features in the Home railway industry has been the increasing growth of pooling policies and co-operative working among the different systems serving the country. At the moment there is considerable speculation regarding the future of the four big group undertakings, and in some quarters it is suggested as likely that ultimately the fusion of these lines will be accomplished, the resultant nation-wide railway system being run as a Government concern with management free from all political interference.
Broadly speaking, there is a great deal to be said for the amalgamation of all the Home lines into one big undertaking. Such a move, indeed, would appear to be the logical sequence to the elaborate grouping programme already carried through. As yet, the time is hardly ripe for a big adventure of this sort, and it is probable that for some years the existing group arrangement will continue. Eventually, however, Britain will have, in all probability, a very similar railway policy to that of New Zealand. There is no suggestion, of course, that the grouping scheme already operative has failed, or that any of the railways concerned have in any way neglected their opportunities. Complete railway unification is inevitable ultimately—a fact to which leading railwaymen like Mr. William Whitelaw, the Chairman of the L. & N.E. line, have frankly given publicity.
In the new era, the Home railways will be much more than railways in the strict sense of the term. They will be comprehensive “transport-ways” engaging in every form of movement by land, sea and air. Already the group railways engage in road, sea and air movement to a considerable degree, and the co-ordination of transport systems thus effected is proving of the greatest value to one and all.
In the field of rail-road co-ordination the most interesting and important of recent developments is the taking over by the four group railways of the two famous and old-established road transport undertakings of Carter, Paterson and Co., and Pickfords Ltd. The cost of purchase of these two firms runs into seven figures, and it has been shared equally by the four railway groups. Carter, Patersons specialised in the conveyance of parcels traffic, while Pickfords handled heavier and bulkier transits, furniture removals, and the like. The firm of Pickfords had its origin more than three hundred years ago. In the reign of Charles I. a Mr. Pickford commenced to carry goods from Manchester to nearby towns. Pack-trains were by degrees introduced in other parts of the country, and as more up-to-date forms of transport were devised Pickfords extended their ramifications accordingly. More than 7,000 men are employed by
Sleeping-car comfort on the L. & N.E. Railway.
One of the most interesting anniversaries recently celebrated in Britain was the diamond jubilee of the sleeping car on the West Coast route between Euston Station, London, and Scotland, into which service the pioneer car was introduced in October, 1873. Britain's first “sleeper” was constructed in the former London and North Western workshops at Wolverton (where, incidentally, the present-day Royal train of King George and Queen Mary is housed). The vehicle was only 33 feet in length, compared with the 65ft. of the latest L.M. and S. standard sleeping-cars. Sixty years ago the sleeping-car service between Euston and Glasgow was a tri-weekly experiment. To-day, more than 220 luxurious sleeping cars are operated nightly by the L.M. and S. between London and the principal northern centres.
Night travel is on the increase at Home, and to meet the changing demands of passengers, large numbers of new sleeping cars are being introduced on both the L.M. and S. and L. and N.E. systems, these being the two big lines operating long-distance services between London and Scotland. Among the new vehicles are a considerable proportion of third-class cars, the third-class “sleeper” ranking as one of the most important of post-war innovations on the Home lines.
Railway employees may help their managements very materially in the march towards prosperity by bringing to the notice of their superior officers any ideas they may have for the
On the Southern Railway added interest has just been given the suggestions scheme by the offer of special awards for the best ideas submitted by members of the staff. For the best suggestion made throughout the year the railway offers an award to the value of £25, in the form of a free holiday for two in any European country, including passage to and from England. Leave without loss of pay is to be granted the lucky winner. The second prize takes the form of a £10 holiday for two in any part of Britain. To the six runners-up there is to be presented a crisp £5 note.
Coaling steam locomotives by electricity sounds something of a novelty, yet this is the accomplishment of the L. and N.E. Railway at their big locomotive sheds at Boston, Lincolnshire, and elsewhere. When the L. and N.E. Company was formed, in 1923, there were only two mechanical coaling plants on the system, practically all coaling being done by hand. To-day there are thirty-three electrical coaling plants in operation, and engines may now be coaled in three minutes instead of the thirty minutes required by the old method.
Ostende, Belgium's most popular sea-side resort.
The electrical coaling plants are of three types—the small skip hoist, the large skip hoist, and the wagon hoist. In the first case, wagons of coal are emptied into half-ton skips which run on miniature rails alongside the standard track; the skips are then pushed on to a hoist which lifts them and tips the coal into the engine tender. With the large skip hoist type, wagons of coal are tipped bodily into a hopper at ground level and the coal is then raised in large skips and tipped into a bunker above the rails holding 100 or 150 tons; engines are then run beneath the bunker and the tenders filled. The third, and most used, method is to hoist entire wagon loads of coal to the top of a bunker holding up to 500 tons, and tip the coal in at the top; engines then run beneath and the driver releases the coal he requires. At each release the amount of coal taken is automatically weighed and registered.
That “new brooms sweep clean” appears to be fully realised by the Home railways. Every year, it is recorded, the four group lines spend over £30,000 on sweeping brooms. The railways are among the nation's biggest purchasers of cleaning materials and general stores. One group line recently spent in one year £44,000 on linen. Another paid £55,000 for sponge-cloths and cotton waste in twelve months. The bill for a year's soap supplies for one line worked out at £10,000. Another spent £38,000 on crockery and glassware.
In providing for the uniform clothing of their employees the Home railways buy something like 3,600,000 yards of cloth annually; 520,000 pairs of trousers; 451,000 jackets; 173,000 overcoats; 250,000 caps; and 90,000 pairs of gloves. Other items in the railway housekeeping bill are £37,000 for carriage upholstery; £35,000 for rope; and £ 19,000 for calico and canvas.
While no great activity is being recorded in Britain in the field of railway electrification, on the mainland of Europe great progress is being made in this direction in Sweden and Belgium. Recently the Swedish State Railways have completed the electrification of the Stockholm-Malmo mainline, thereby effecting a passenger train journey saving of two hours on the throughout run. On completion of the works in active progress, the Swedish State Railways will operate about 1,700 miles of electrified track, or roughly forty per cent, of the entire railway system.
In Belgium, the State Railways are pushing rapidly ahead with the electrification of the Brussels-Antwerp mainline. Trains composed of four coaches, with a total seating capacity of 350 will make the 21 1/2 miles Brussels-Antwerp trip in thirty minutes.
byE. P.
Bunny
(Rly. Publicity photo.)
Road, Rail and Sea. A scene on the Wellington-Hutt Road during the eight-oar race for the New Zealand Rowing Championship.
I have a distinct recollection of arriving with my brother, the late Charles Edward Bunny, at Lower Hutt in 1874. My father had just completed the residence on the banks of the Hutt River, for a long time known as “Ferngrove,” and now the property of the Sisters of the Mission. The business which I have carried on since 1889 was established in 1887 by my brother Charles, who died following an attack of typhoid fever contracted when he was defending Chemis, in 1889. (This man was tried for the murder of an old settler named Hawkins who resided in the hills above Kaiwarra.) I had driven with him over the hill from Fernside, which was then my father's station, and we were able to catch the train at Lower Hutt for Wellington.
I have travelled by train almost continuously since 1874, with the exception of some years spent at Nelson, Wellington and Canterbury Colleges, and have been a season ticket holder since 1889. Among the earlier passengers into Wellington I remember, were Sir William Fitzherbert, Sir Patrick Buckley, Messrs. W. A. and H. S. Fitzherbert and my father. At that time Sir William Fitzherbert and my father were both members of Parliament, and of the Wellington Provincial Council, representing the Hutt and Wairarapa respectively. Mr. H. S. Fitzherbert was subsequently member for the Hutt and Mr. W. A. Fitzherbert was the first Mayor when the Lower Hutt was made a Borough in 1892.
Other regular travellers by train in those early days, whose names I recall were: Mr. Robert Stevens (who was afterwards a member of the Borough Council and Chairman of the River Board), and Mr. Robert Orr (who was for many years associated with the legal firm of Messrs. Hart and Buckley), Messrs. Travers, Ollivier, Hadfield, Peacock, and Captain Robert Johnston, who arrived in the Hutt in 1868. Mr. C. H. Treadwell, now President of the New Zealand Law Society, has been a constant traveller for about fifty years.
I also frequently met in the course of railway travel, Messrs. G. F. Pearce, George Scales, Orton Stevens, Mowbray, O. S. Watkins, Harry Manning and Ernest Barthorp—Mrs. Barthorp (formerly Miss K. Mowbray) presented the Hutt with a very handsome fence surrounding the Recreation Ground and Memorial Gates in Riddi-ford Park in memory of her husband.
In the early days the journey from Wellington to Lower Hutt occupied about half an hour. There was no railway station at Petone nor any established settlement there, until after the completion of the railway workshops and the works of the Gear Meat Company on the shores of the harbour. Both these events led to a rapid development of Petone as an industrial town and, until recently, it was the most populous centre along the route to the Hutt. Kaiwarra and Ngahauranga were established as village communities and had railway stations before Petone possessed one.
It must be remembered, however, that Petone enjoys the distinction of being the earliest settlement on the shores of Wellington Harbour, under the name of Britannia. Owing to a disastrous fire and numerous floods the settlers moved into Wellington and founded that City. Among the important chiefs who protected the early settlers were Te Puni, Whare Pouri, and Witako Ngatata. In the development of Petone the late Mr. R. C. Kirk and Mr. J. W. McEwan took a most important part.
In the year 1874, when the railway was opened, the Hutt had long since passed the pioneering stage. The forest along the banks of the Hutt River had been cut down. The main road through the valley was quite a good macadam road, and the Hutt itself was the home of many of the old settlers who had been associated with the development not only of the Hutt, but with the growth of Wellington.
In addition to the names of early settlers in the Hutt Valley that have
The most famous of our representatives, however, was probably Mr. Edward Gibbon Wakefield, who included the Hutt in his constituency. Sir Thomas Wilford represented the District from 1899 until his appointment as High Commissioner, a period of over 30 years. Mr. Walter Nash succeeds him as Member for the District. I must not forget to mention Mr. George Judd, who has been in the District since 1840. Despite his 98 years of life, he still retains remarkable mental and physical activity.
Amongst the prominent families who had settled in the Hutt were those of Mr. John Cudby (who was engaged in carrying supplies to the troops at the time of the raid of Rangihaeata on Boulcott's Farm in 1858), Mr. Pringle, Mr. T. P. Allen and the Hon. Mr. Ludlam (whose gardens were amongst the most famous in New Zealand). Mr. George Cudby, who is still residing in the Hutt, was present with his father, Mr. John Cudby, at the turning of the first sod of the railway and also
(Photo, courtesy C. G. Forcman, Railways, Auckland.)
Group of Guards and Porters photographed at Auckland, November, 1890. Back row (from left): Messrs. W. Williamson, W. Webster, C. Beamish, J. Beere, G. Burns, F. Pope and G. Frost. Middle row: W. Saunders, B. Hampton, T. Manning, S. Moulden, J. Lowe, G. Greenland, R. Mcllroy, W. Stanton and W. Kelly. Front row: F. Auger, A. Auger, H. Pearce and H. McVeagh.
To understand the development of railway facilities in the Hutt Valley one must take into consideration the important part played by the Hutt River Board which was established in 1898. Until that year the Hutt had been subjected to a number of very severe floods in which a very large amount of damage had been done to private property and in some cases to the railway skirting the Valley. Since 1898 there has not been, as far as the Lower Hutt and Petone are concerned, one flood of any consequence. This is the result of most important construction works initiated by the Hutt River Board of 1899 and carried out in accordance with the plans and under the supervision of Mr. Laing-Meason, who died in 1924. His work has been continued successfully by Mr. Hubert Sladden. The first members of the Board were Messrs. W. A. Fitzherbert, Dilnot Sladden, W. G. Foster, E. J. Riddiford and Dr. J. R. Purdy. These men were all closely connected with the development of the Hutt District. Riddiford Park, one of the most beautiful in the District, contains large fresh water baths, the gift of members of the Riddiford family. In the lay-out of the park and many of the reserves in the District Mr. G. A. Chapman rendered most valuable assistance.
The river works have made the Lower Hutt and Petone safe as a residential area and it is not too much to say that if it had not been for their construction it would have been impossible for the Government to have carried out the Hutt Valley Development Scheme in 1925, a scheme which included the extension of the railway to the Eastern Hutt.
In the growth of the District and the expansion of the railway two most important developments were the straightening of the line during Sir Joseph Ward's administration and the diversion of the railway to Waterloo in connection with the Government's Hutt Valley Development Scheme. The late Mayor, Mr. W. T. Strand, took a leading part in bringing about the development of the Eastern Hutt and was closely associated with the Government in connection with the carrying out of various projects relating to this more recent work.
Among the many important railway officials with whom I have come in contact since 1874 I may mention Mr. Payne (who was for many years stationmaster at the Lower Hutt), Guard Gough, and the late Mr. Harte. These men struck me as being models as far as faithfulness to their duties was concerned and extreme courtesy to the travelling public—especially the regular travellers.
During the whole period of sixty years over which I have travelled at all hours and in all weathers I cannot call to mind a single occasion on which there was any serious mishap. This remarkable record of safety is indeed a great tribute to the efficiency of the railways and the great care exercised by those numerous officials who have had control of the traffic.
The above, of course, is but a brief sketch, in which it is impossible to refer to every incident of importance in the District, No doubt I have omitted names of pioneer settlers who are entitled to recognition in a complete history of the settlement. Messrs. Baldwin and Rishworth, closely connected with the establishment of educational facilities, especially the High School, are worthy of mention in this connection. Nor have I made reference to many men more recently and at the present time engaged in important social and municipal services who are carrying on the good work of the early pioneers and making history.
Written for the “New Zealand Railways Magazine” by)
James Cowan
Mr. Edward Tregear, I.S.O. (1846–1931).
“He does not die who can bequeath Some influence to the land he knows, Or dares, persistent, interwreathe Love permanent with the wild hedgerows; He does not die, but still remains Substantiate with his darling plains.”
—Hilaire Belloc.
It is given to comparatively few men, and women, to make conspicuous and enduring impress for the better on the world around them, to leave a name and a reputation, and some memorial more useful than a tombstone. Edward Tregear was one of those who in his lifetime, in a quiet unspectacular way, was a force and an inspiration in the causes on which his heart was set. He left his country something the better, and something the wiser, for his presence in it. He was a man of many experiences, of many adventures and experiments, and from all he gained a knowledge and a sympathetic insight into the life of his fellowmen that qualified him for the administrative post in which he initiated social and industrial reforms. He was a pioneer in the days when strange hazards were many; he was a man of culture whose studious mind and vast industry set an example of tireless research; he was a man whose earnestness and disinterestedness won attention and respect when he spoke or wrote on national questions. He never was a politician, but his outlook was statesmanlike. Those of us who were fortunate enough to know him in his days of activity remember him as a kindly gentleman and scholar, a chivalrous Englishman whose natural love of fair play was broadened and deepened by his experience of all classes of men and all conditions of life. His social sympathies lay in the direction of which Mr. John Masefield wrote in his “Consecration”:
“Not the ruler for me, but the ranker, the tramp of the road, … The man with too weighty a burden, too heavy a load.”
Edward Tregear's enduring fame among us rests on two great activities in his busy life—his industry and achievements as a Maori-Polynesian student and writer, and his service to the State as a builder and law-framer in the domain of labour, the amelioration of the conditions of life of the working man and woman. In the first field, no worker in the Pacific-wide area of enquiry into language and tradition has attained world fame outrivalling Tregear's. Honours came to him unsought from the sources he valued most, the world of scholarship and science. In the field of labour reform the name of Tregear carried high mana at a period when the legislation that he initiated, now a commonplace of our national life, was in many quarters considered daring and revolutionary. He was a prophet, a poet, an enthusiast for knowledge, a crusader for the rights of man. His was the perennially youthful heart. He used to say that he was never too old to learn; he was a student in his chosen avenues of research to the last; he never posed as an authority, but was always ready to consider a new viewpoint on his particular lines of study and discovery.
Edward Tregear came of a Cornish family, as is indicated by his name. In the land of “Tre, Pol and Pen” his forbears had dwelt over many generations; his pedigree went back to the dim faery days of Britain. When he was just over seventeen he landed in New Zealand. The Waikato War was then beginning (1863), and in South Auckland young Tregear had his first schooling in the military life and the hazards of the bush and frontier. He took up surveying as his life calling, and there was peril enough in that profession in the Sixties to satisfy the most adventurous of young colonial hands. By the time he was nineteen he was assisting in the survey of the land confiscated from the Maoris of the Tauranga district for their rebellion against the Government. This land, on the hills in the rear of Tauranga, in the direction of the forest which covered all the ranges separating the seaward slants from the Rotorua region was partly owned by the Ngai-te-Rangi tribe, the defenders of the Gate Pa in 1864, and the bush-dwelling tribe called the Piri-Rakau, the “people who cling to the forest.” Outlying settlers were attacked, and survey parties had their instruments seized. The Government sent out armed forces, and there was a bush campaign in 1867 in which many fights took place, at Whakamarama and other places occupied by the Piri-Rakau and their allies the Ngati-Raukawa from inland. The Ngai-te-
Later on, in the beginning of the Seventies, we find Mr. Tregear, now holding a commission as captain in the New Zealand Militia, engaged in pioneer work as surveyor and military roadmaker, in the Upper Waikato, on the border of the King Country. His headquarters were at Orakau, where he stayed with the furthest out settler, Mr. Andrew Kay. He had a contingent of friendly Maoris under him, men of the Ngati-Naho and Ngati-Tipa, two lower Waikato tribes; they were encamped on the north bank of the Puniu, the frontier river. That was an anxious period on the Waikato border; there were alarms of coming raids; it was known that some of the Kingite Maoris were planning descents on the frontier townships and farms. Te Kooti, too, lived only a few hours' ride away, an outlaw chieftain; and although he had had enough of war, his name and reputation inspired nervousness along the border. So the presence of Tregear's armed Maoris, opponents of the Kingite party, helped to restore confidence among the settlers. They were auxiliaries to the Armed Constabulary in the redoubts and blockhouses, and the Waikato Cavalry, a competent body of settler volunteers, in two troops, one at Te Awamutu, under Major William Jackson, and the other at Cambridge under Captain James Runciman.
Tregear used to say that those adventurous times along the frontier were the best days of his life. He laid out the Frontier Road, a patrol route along the Puniu north bank; he made scouting expeditions with one or two of his Maoris. But it never came to actual fighting though there was more than one stray killing along the border. The last affair of the kind was the murder of Timothy Sullivan, a farm-worker near Roto-o-Rangi, by a Maori with a grievance over nonpayment for land leased by settlers, just across the frontier.
Edward Tregear was a bit of a dandy in those days, as one who knew him at Orakau in the early Seventies told me. He had a weakness for a crimson sash and a brightly-coloured waist shawl. Many a frontiersman and bushman of those times took to the kilt costume of the Maori, a rapaki or waist-shawl or bit of blanket, for campaigning and rough-country travel. He came to know the Maori people intimately on this military and road-making duty, and those years of his young vigorous life gave him much practical knowledge and wisdom that influenced his after career and his writings.
At one time, following on this frontier experience, Mr. Tregear was interested in a sawmill venture on the Waikato River, and carried on the timber work with native labour, but it did not turn out a financial success. He had not the money-making bent. He practised his profession as surveyor for many years in the Government employ, in Waikato, on the Coromandel Peninsula; and in Taranaki, and he continued in the service of the Survey Department in Wellington, until the creation of the Department of Labour by the Ballance Government. That was in the year 1891. Then opened his new field of effort, one into which he threw his whole soul, and in which he initiated much of the humanitarian legislation which attracted to New Zealand the attention of social reformers the world over.
Tregear's early war-time experience, when many parts of the North Island were frontiers and when military duty devolved on most of the able-bodied male population in the Auckland and Taranaki provinces, gave him an interest and pride in soldierly service which remained with him long after the Maori campaigns had ended. When he was engaged in survey work in South Taranaki in 1879 he held a commission as Captain of the Patea Rifles, and at a later period in Wellington he was Captain of one of the Wellington volunteer companies, the Civil Service Rifles.
The interests that are usually styled hobbies often become the things by which a man is chiefly remembered. It was so with Edward Tregear. Apart from his professional and official work, he found time for a vast amount of research. His special enthusiasm was the study of Maori-Polynesian subjects, and in particular language, the dialects of the Pacific. He loved, too, the bush and all its life; he knew New Zealand in the wild unspoiled state, and he delighted to speak and write of it. His early-days' close contact with the Maori gave him a knowledge of the life and customs and the special culture of the native race, and he began then a study of the language which he continued to the end of his days. His poetic mind appreciated the songs and chants and oratory of the Maori, and the endless store of legendry and tradition. He saw the people in war and in peace, and when opportunities came for confidential talk in camp and kainga he strove to penetrate the secrets of the Maori soul. He gathered much data, which he published in his later days in a book on “The Maori Race.” But he did not long confine his studies to the New Zealand Maori alone. From these islands his range of enquiry passed on to the tropic north, to embrace the whole of the Pacific groups which are included in the term Polynesia, and on again to the lands of Indonesia, tracing back to remote origins the words of the Maori, and linking up in philology the New Zealander, the natives of Tahiti, and the Tuamotus, and Rarotonga and other South Sea isles and groups with the Malay tribes, and further on carrying the connection to the plains of India. The fruit of his long and enormous labours in the study of words was that great work the “Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary.”
This is without exception the most notable contribution yet made to our knowledge of the Maori tongue and its allied languages or dialects of the Pacific Islands. It represents many years of enquiry, an immense amount of correspondence and delving into vocabularies of peoples from the Eastern Pacific to the Malays and the shores of Asia. Its special value to a student of Maori lies in the comparative lists which follow the New Zealand word; the Polynesian and other equivalents are given after each word, and its meaning. In this way we are shown at a glance the exact relation between our Maori words and the South Sea tongues, and the ancient meanings of words whose significance has somewhat changed, and of many South Sea words now obsolete here. Archaic expressions in Maori poetry and sacred ritual are sometimes
The late Mr. S. Percy Smith (Surveyor-General) co-worker with Mr. Edward Tregear in Maori-Polynesian research.
Besides the “Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary” a number of smaller dictionaries and vocabularies engaged Tregear's patient brain. The publication of these, which included a dictionary of the Mangareva Islands (the Gambier group) in the Eastern Pacific, crowned the efforts displayed in the Comparative Dictionary and attracted a great deal of attention from philogists all over the world. The French Government took official cognisance of the great amount of work devoted to the dialects of the Pacific Islands under the control of France, and he received the high honour of Officer of the Academie Francaise.
Another work was a compilation of Maori-Polynesian folk-stories under the title of “Fairy Tales of New Zealand and the South Seas.” Another, and one which attracted a good deal of criticism, was “The Aryan Maori.” This book was raked fore and aft by one or two erudite New Zealand critics, who disagreed with Tregear's enthusiastic linking-up of the Maori with the peoples of India, offshoots of the Ayran race, and questioned his linguistic derivations and comparisons. Nevertheless, Tregear's theories were in the main soundly based. There were some also who questioned certain matters in the Comparative Dictionary. But that work remains unequalled. He put his life and soul into it, and it is by it that the value of his services to Polynesian research will chiefly be estimated.
Tregear's reputation as an ethnologist and philologist was worldwide. He became a member of several great learned associations—the Anthropological Society, the Historical Society, the French Society for the Study of Polynesian Lore, the Polynesian Society of Hawaii, the Royal Society of Italy, and he was also for many years a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. The Imperial Institute, too, elected him to membership. The names of these bodies sufficiently indicate the wide range of our busy New Zealander's interests and activities.
The Polynesian Society of New Zealand, which for more than forty years has been engaged in the gathering and publishing of anthropological and linguistic knowledge in this country and the Pacific Islands, was established by Mr. Tregear and his great friend and fellow-worker, the late Mr. S. Percy Smith (Surveyor-General), and a few other like-minded students of matters Maori. Smith and Tregear were the chief pillars of the Society for many a year, and they initiated the collecting of material about the races of this ocean which presently assumed great proportions. Through their efforts a very large amount of lore touching the traditions and origins of the Maori-Polynesians was placed on record, forming a solid foundation and
Mr. Tregear's first office under the State when he was transferred from his professional duties in the Survey Department to the world of newly-organised labour was Secretary of the Bureau of Industries. Then he was Chief Inspector of Factories, and in 1898 Mr. Seddon appointed him the first Secretary of the new Department of Labour. This position he held until his retirement from the Government service on superannuation in 1912. His inborn sympathy with the under-dog, his intense humanitarian sentiments, and his progressive views on industrial matters commended him at once to Mr. Seddon; the two men had a great deal in common in their broad-based hatred of anything like oppression of the weak and the suffering. Seddon had the driving force, the bullock-like strength, and the dogged tenacity needful for pressing through reform legislation.
Tregear had the ideals, the brains, and the insight and education necessary in the initiation and framing of the new laws, some of which were, in those days, considered quite revolutionary. He devised and framed much of the early labour legislation. Mr. F. W. Rowley, who was Secretary for Labour at a later period, and who has written a book on “The Industrial Situation in New Zealand” (1931), says of the pioneer of the Department that probably Mr. Tregear's only disappointments were that the legislation was not
Mr. Rowley recollects, also, what was at the time a famous memorandum issued by Mr. Tregear to the Premier, Mr. Seddon. “In this memorandum attention was called to the then surprising fact that when the first new awards of the Court of Arbitration had been brought into operation the employers had in many cases added the costs of the increased wages to their prices instead of paying it out of their own pockets. Such a movement on the part of the employers had been quite unexpected, and it was thought called for drastic action. The memorandum was considered by the Premier to be of sufficient importance to be printed and laid before Parliament.”
Another note from Mr. Rowley: “Mr. Tregear was always exceedingly busy with an enormous amount of literature and correspondence on labour and other social questions arriving by every mail from various other countries as well as New Zealand, and although he had an unusually large table in his room it was so constantly piled to overflowing that he never had any clear space on which to write. At last he suggested that if we could let him have
The Hapuawhenua viaduct, Main Trunk Line, North Island, New Zealand. This viaduct is built with a ten chain curve, is 932ft. long, and 147ft. above the centre of the gully.
All manner of social and industrial reforms, the amelioration of workers' conditions of labour, life and pay, came under Mr. Tregear's sympathetic care in his official career. He chiefly shaped much of the legislation in the Seddon and Ward regimes on such subjects as industrial conciliation and arbitration, shops and factories, workers' compensation, advances to workers, shearers' accommodation, and the abolition of the truck system on large contract works.
At the conclusion of his long and useful official career Mr. Tregear was awarded the honour of the Imperial Service Order by way of appreciation of his labours for the State. Perhaps he valued even more than that decoration the memory of certain words from the great Liberal Premier's lips. Mr. Seddon, it is recorded, once referred to Mr. Tregear as a man whose name was revered throughout the world in the cause of Labour reforms. No doubt, had he been inclined that way, there was a promising field in politics for the Secretary of Labour when he retired from his official post. But his tastes were otherwise. He had seen enough of the wrangles of the political world; he had had enough of noise and stir and strife. His books and his Maori-Polynesian studies engrossed him for the rest of his days. He lived a very quiet life in Picton, where he died in 1931, at the age of eighty-six years. A serenely peaceful fading-out of life. Edward Tregear could have soliloquised with the ancient Colla in Ossian's warrior pages, philosophically viewing the many-coloured past:
“Friends of my youth … the darkness of age comes like the mist of the desert. My shield is worn with years! My sword is fixed in its place. I said to my soul, Thy evening shall be calm, Thy departure like a fading light!”
“When a total stranger accosts me in the street and tells me he objects to my smoking (as a man did yesterday) I consider he is guilty of gross impertinence,” wrote an indignant correspondent of a London daily, adding “I might just as justifiably tell him I object to the cut of the suit he is wearing. If people had always minded their own business and refrained from meddling with other people's the pages of the historian would make pleasanter reading.” Hear, hear! Although tobacco cranks are growing scarcer every day there are still those who would gladly see smoking made a criminal offence. Yet tobacco can be as harmless as fresh air, provided it's good. If you find smoking is affecting heart or nerves your tobacco is at fault, and contains too much nicotine. The toasted New Zealand is the best. Almost free from nicotine—eliminated by the toasting—all four brands, (Navy Cut No. 3 (Bulldog), Cavendish, Riverhead Gold, and Cut Plug No. 10 (Bullshead) are not only delightful smoking but absolutely innocuous.*
Specially written byElsie K. Morton , for the “N.Z. Railways Magazine.” Photographs by the author.)
The following article describes a trip taken recently from Lake Manapouri to Deep Cove, at the head of Doubtful Sound.
Hall's Arm, Doubtful Sound.
Down the Lake of a Hundred Isles puffed the “Manurere,” “Flying Bird,” the little steamer that runs between View House, Manapouri, and the Western arm, from which starts the eleven-mile track over Wilmot Pass down to Deep Cove, on Doubtful Sound. This track forms part of a magnificent round trip of 110 miles, opened up recently by Leslie Murrell, the well-known Fiordland guide, a trip which is said to rival the Milford Track itself for interest and beauty.
Nobody hurries in Fiordland; our trip up the lake was in the accepted tradition, and we had ample time in which to view all the beauty and calm, majestic splendour of the Cathedral Peaks, Kepler Range and Hunter Mountains, raising their impregnable walls of rock and sky-piercing peaks in the western sky. It was two o'clock when we sprang ashore, and made our way to the little hut where trampers pause for lunch before setting out on the trail.
The first few miles of the track lies through splendid forest, a track softly carpeted with the small golden-brown leaves of the giant birch trees, with tall ferns and exquisite mosses fringing our pathway. This is one of the most picturesque and beautiful forest tracks in New Zealand, its charms equalling those of the Milford track, and the woodland glory of the Franz Josef and Fox Glacier forest walks. Close on our left is the Spey River, its swift waters running over a bed of shining white pebbles, pausing sometimes in pools shading from pale jade to the tint of dark greenstone.
Three miles from the head of the lake the track turns inland, and soon we are on the mountain side, climbing ever upward through a rare and lovely Alpine garden blooming sweetly in that woodland paradise of ferns and moss and little mountain rills. Here are Alpine lilies, clusters of snow-white gentian, gold and buff and white senecio, ourisia, celmesia, and others of that rare and lovely company of the wild.
The track is well made, and quite easy going, but fairly steep in grade here and there, so that it is with a feeling of relief that we come in sight of Mid Camp, or Halfway Hut, somewhere about four o'clock in the afternoon. It is mid-summer, and very hot; boiling the billy makes a very pleasant break in the tramp, and the pause gives us opportunity to look around and take leisurely survey of this picturesque and wildly beautiful region of forest and mountain. The hut is built in a clearing on the rim of a deep ravine that stretches a thousand feet into the forest-filled valley. Right opposite is a typical Fiordland cataract, the Cleve Garth Fall, descending in three zig-zag leaps down fifteen hundred feet of almost perpendicular rock wall.
We are still a couple of miles below the Pass itself, and this portion of the walk is of unique beauty, lying through groves of flowering ribbonwood (Gaya Lyalli), lovely as a Japanese cherry grove in spring. The pass itself is a deep, narrow cleft between Mounts Wilmot and Mainwaring, and the drop on the other side to sea-level is much steeper than the ascent from the shores of the lake. We descend by a route fitly known as The Devil's Stair-case, and a rough scramble it is, over moss-grown boulders, mountain streams, slippery stepping stones and fallen tree trunks. But this portion of the track soon smoothes out to a well-worn trail, and while rather rougher than the bushland portions of the Milford track, it can be easily traversed by anyone used to forest tramps.
Through an opening in the wall of the forest, we presently glimpse the winding waterway of Deep Cove far below, golden in the sunset, shadowed by immense walls of rock, studded with little wooded islets.
It is almost dark by the time we reach journey's end at the comfortable Government hut on Lyvia River, and the moreporks are calling mournfully as we trudge onward through the gathering shadows of the long Fiordland twilight.
We spent two days at Deep Cove, launching on the Sound, exploring the magnificent waterways of Hall's Arm, Smith and Thompson Sound, and beautiful little Dea's Cove, not far from the outer ocean.
This wonderful trip is as yet comparatively unknown to New Zealand holiday-makers, and it is only the lesser half of a scenic route that will surely make Southland famous when its beauties become more widely known. The complete tour, from the North Arm of Manapouri to the Gaer Arm of Bradshaw Sound, thence by launch to Deep Cove, and back to Manapouri via Wilmot Pass, occupies a week, and carries the tramper into the very heart of Fiordland.
Wilmot Pass (3,400ft.) from Deep Cove.
ByC. A. L. Treadwell , O.B.E.
When Banquo asked Macbeth “Were such things here as we do speak about? Or have we eaten of the insane root that takes the reason prisoner?” he asked two questions that will arise in our minds touching the mentality of Clements as we contemplate the deed for which he stood his trial.
Madness may be feigned for the purpose of escaping the full measure of punishment, but artificial madness will assuredly break down when doom is pronounced and appears inevitable. For such madness being simulated for a particular purpose will inevitably collapse when the purpose utterly fails. In this strange case the actions of Clements before, during, and indeed, after the trial, all supply leads by which his mental quality may be measured, and no matter what the law ordained, there yet remains the interesting speculation for all to make as to whether, when Charles Clements murdered his wife, he was or was not insane.
The deed was discovered by Peter Ross who, at the request of his wife, called at the Clements' and, not being able to make himself heard, broke in. He went to the bedroom. The blinds were drawn, and although it was bright morning the room was too dark for him to see. He I't a match. The scene lit by that match was gruesome and frightful. Clements sat or half reclined on his bed. At the other side of the bed, at the extreme edge, was a bundle which gradually revealed itself as the dead body of his wife. Blood was profusely spilt over the white counterpane. At the end of the bed lay Clements' two children, silent, awake and untouched. Could ever man have entered into a more eerie scene? “What have you been doing?” cried Ross in horror. “I have done it at last,” said Clements, and then added: “I've had great provocation!” He seemed to think with Pericles, “One sin, I know, another doth provoke; murder's as near to lust as flame to smoke.”
The tragedy was enacted on the 15th November, 1897, in the cottage which the family occupied in a place called Lethaby's Right-of-way, which was off George Street, in the heart of the City of Dunedin. For hours, probably for more than twelve, Clements had lain alongside the body of his wife. His children, aged five and a half and four years, lay at the other end of the bed, probably too terrified even to move. What, one may well ask, was the quality of the mind of a man who could act in such a way, no matter how provoked he had been?
In due course of time Clements stood his trial before a Judge and twelve of his fellow men. The Judge was Mr, Justice Denniston. The Crown was represented by Mr. F. R. Chapman. The prisoner had at first the advantage of the services of Mr. A. Hanlon, who is, and has been for many years, the leading counsel at the criminal bar in New Zealand.
Strange things were to happen, however, when the prisoner was charged. Asked by the Registrar to plead to the charge of murdering his wife, to the utter astonishment of all he pleaded guilty. This declaration was sensational. Then the Judge leant forward, and addressing Clements, said: “You are aware of the consequences of your present plea. You know what your present plea means? It means that there is only one possible sentence that can be passed upon you, and it involves, of course, the admission on your part that you have done what the law defines murder to be, that is, that you intentionally and without legal excuse murdered your wife. You realise all that, I suppose?” Clements at once replied: “Oh, no, sir, I deny that.” At this stage Mr. Hanlon stood up and told the Judge that he understood that the accused intended to plead not guilty. Whereat Judge Denniston remarked: “Well, he deliberately pleaded guilty. But the fact that he has in some way or other been misunderstood, or misunderstood his own conduct, relieves me of a very great responsibility. There is no reason why such a plea should not be recorded, but I should accept it with the greatest hesitation.”
Then the prisoner pleaded not guilty. Another sensation then swept acrosss the Courtroom. Mr. Hanlon stood up and told the Court that the prisoner desired to defend himself. The Judge then took the matter up with the prisoner and the
The jury finally empanelled consisted of Messrs. Siah Morley (foreman), George McMillan, John New, William
“She had herself seen Clements tear his wife's clothes off her, and then rip them to pieces.”
In his opening address to the jury, Mr. Chapman told them that the case was very clear. He reminded them it was not necessary for the Crown to provemotive. There was no doubt that the act had been a deliberate one. The deceased woman, who was twenty-seven years old, had been married a few years. She was physically a strong woman and well built. By occupation she cleaned out offices. The prisoner was a labourer. They had not been happily married; there were frequent quarrels and, at times, the two did not live together. Sometimes, too, the prisoner had violently assaulted the woman. On the 15th November a man named Ross went to the prisoner's house. It was shut up. He tried to get in, and to do so ultimately broke in the kitchen door. He went into the bedroom, where the blinds were drawn. Counsel then told the jury of the scene that was presented to Ross when he lit a match. Ross then ran out and brought in a policeman. The police searched the house, and one of them asked the prisoner: “Have you killed her?” Clements replied “I had plenty of cause to do so.” After his arrest the prisoner was taken to the police station. Mr. Chapman recounted the remainder of the essential details in a speech which took one hour to deliver. He then called the first witness, who proved to be Peter Ross, who told how, at 5.45 a.m. he went to the house because his wife had asked him to do so. Mrs. Clements was his wife's sister. He found it necessary to break in the door, and then the witness told the jury what a fearful sight lay in store for him in the bedroom. To his question: “What have you been doing?” Clements had replied: “I have done it at last. I've had great provocation.” Ross then said he went for the police. He was too shocked to take much notice of the details of the tragedy. He said that Clements had always nagged at his wife. In the month of May or June of the previous year Mrs. Clements had left her husband and had gone to stay with witness and his wife. On one occasion Clements came to see his wife and quarrelled with her all night. Clements cross-examined the witness, who denied that he was always drunk when he visited Clements. To a suggestion that witness always illtreated his wife he retorted: “If you had been as good to your wife as I am to mine you would do.” Clements had, the witness admitted, spoken to him about a woman called Mrs. Ashton who, he said, was partly the cause of the trouble. Clements was always making state ments against Mrs. Ashton.
Then Constable Timothy Hickey was called. He said that he was present when Ross said to the prisoner: “What have you been doing Charlie? Have you killed her?” The prisoner had replied: “I had plenty of cause to do so.” Later Clements told the witness that the deceased had killed herself, though a little later he said he had done it with a knife and a tomahawk. He had used the tomahawk, to said, to drive the knife home into her neck. He also said that he was sorry that the knife had not been longer for then he would have killed himself. When Dr. Roberts came, the witness said that Clements told him that this, meaning the deed, was committed because of his wife's going through so many illegal operations at the hands of Mrs. Ashton. In reply to Dr. Roberts' question, “There must have been a row here?” the witness had replied inconsequently: “It all happened on Saturday.”
Medical evidence was then given by Dr. Fulton, who said that the woman was dead when he arrived at the house. He also examined the prisoner, who had a wound in his throat. It was about half an inch deep. There was a good deal of blood on his face and body. There was a scratch on his wrist, which he said his wife had inflicted. The doctor said he asked Clements why, while he was at it, he had not finished himself as well. Clements replied that if the knife had been longer he would have done so. A little later he asked Clements “How did all this come about?” and Clements then replied: “She did it,” and he repeated this several times. The disorder that the witness noticed in the room suggested to him there had been a row. Clements, however, told him there had been no row at all. “It all happened,” he added, “on Saturday.”
Mary Jane Ross, the wife of the first witness and the deceased's sister, told the jury that Clements and his wife lived unhappily. Clements was unjustifiably jealous. At times in front of the deceased
At this stage, and as the witness left the witness box, Mr. Chapman called the child, Maggie Clements, who was only five and a half years old. The Judge had her placed on the Bench beside him and he had a talk with her. He said that he thought that the child ought not to be examined unless it were absolutely necessary. The little child promised to speak the truth. She was far too young to be sworn in. She told a few facts quite irrelevant to the issue and the Judge ordered her evidence to be removed from the notes.
Dr. Roberts then told how he had conducted the post mortem on the body of Mrs. Clements. It seemed to him she had at first been struck down with the tomahawk and then killed with the knife. She would have died within three minutes of the wounding. In answer to the Judge, he said that he had noticed no sign of mental disease in the prisoner.
Catherine Ashton was then called, but the Judge said that it was not necessary in this case to rebut the allegations against this witness. The prisoner, however, took the opportunity of cross-examining her. She denied that she had administered drugs to Mrs. Clements. She denied that she had been out to a party with her and had come home at midnight. She said she had never told the prisoner otherwise. The prisoner then asked several more irrelevant and improper questions, despite remonstrances from the Bench. At length the Judge ordered the witness to leave the box, and so put an end to the matter.
Then came Margaret Williams, who said that she was one of the deceased's sisters. On the Saturday night she saw her sister. Clements and his wife often quarrelled. Between 7.30 p.m. and 8 p.m. on that Saturday she had gone to her sister's. In the bedroom she saw broken picture frames and crockery. The deceased's clothing was torn and lay scattered about the room. That afternoon Clements and his family had been to witness's house. As they were leaving Clements said to his daughter, “Kiss daddy, you won't see him in the morning!” He had then given his wife some paper money that he had previously taken from her. On the Sunday she called on the deceased, who told her she had packed up and she was going to leave next morning. Clements told her that what he was going to do himself, was his own business.
Annie Cremer was the next witness. She said she lived at Lethaby's Right-of-way. On Saturday, 1st November, she had herself seen Clements tear his wife's clothes off her and then rip them to pieces. But next day they seemed good friends again. On the Sunday there was no sound from them, and on the Monday morning she noticed that the blinds in the bedroom were still drawn down. About 11 a.m. she went to the house, but could hear nothing.
Constable Aldridge had been placed in charge of Clements while he was in hospital under treatment for his injuries. Clements had told him that his wife was always jawing him. He said: “She took a tomahawk to me and cut me across the hand. I took it from her and used it to knock the knife into her throat.” Later Clements had told him that he did not touch her, but that she had done it herself! Of that fact, Clements said he could get plenty of proof.
That was the evidence called for the Crown to prove the charge.
Then the prisoner said that he would call his witnesses first and then give evidence himself. He began by calling Jane Pratt. He told the witness that he wanted her to prove what his wife had told her and she had told him. The Judge told Clements that would not help him, and urged him to consult. Mr. Hanlon. Clements refused to do so. The Judge reminded prisoner that they were not trying his wife's fidelity, but whether he killed her. Then came three more witnesses. After a few words, the Judge dismissed them from the box as their evidence was irrelevant. Anne Hughes was then called, but she told Clements that she did not remember the deceased hitting the prisoner though she recollected seeing him hit her! The futility of the defence was also shewn by the next witness, Dinah Pine, who said, in answer to the prisoner, that she remembered seeing him once strike his wife, and on another occasion he had lifted a dinner knife up and had threatened to kill her.
Still Clements persisted in calling further witnesses whom Mr. Hanlon had refused to call, and they added nothing but irrelevant and immaterial matters. There were about seven such witnesses, and then the prisoner left the dock and walked into the witness box. This is what he swore: “We were quarrelling, and she said she would take these drugs as long as she liked. I said: ‘You are very foolish. I have told you often and often about taking them.’ She replied: ‘If you don't stop your growling I'll knock you down.’ Then she stooped to pick up the tomahawk, but I stopped her. She then picked up a knife and cut me across the hand. When she had done that I hit her on the head and lifted her on the bed and cut her throat. I did not use the tomahawk on her, but on myself. The children were sleeping at the time. It was about 11.30 p.m. The next day the children asked for a drink and it took me all my time to walk into the next room for it.” Mr. Chapman did not trouble to cross-examine the prisoner, who then returned to the dock, after telling the Judge, in answer to a question from him, that that was all he had to say, and then he repeated his allegations about his wife taking drugs for a certain purpose.
There were no addresses, either by Mr. Chapman or the prisoner. Mr. Justice Denniston, in his summing up, told the jury that never before had he had a case with such painful and peculiar features. Though it was a very painful case it was a simple one. It was highly regrettable that prisoner had refused to employ counsel, but that he thought could not have affected the prisoner's chances. The Crown's case had been presented with great moderation. He then traversed all the facts, and pointed out to the jury that the killing was not justified, and he could see no reason for reducing the act to manslaughter.
The jury retired at 5.57 p.m. and returned with a verdict in half an hour. The verdict was one of guilty, and as the defence was presented it could not have been otherwise. Clements said that the only thing he desired to say was that he had cause to do what he did. If she had not picked up the tomahawk he would not have done it. As the sentence of death was passed upon him he shewed not the slightest emotion, and steadily left the dock as the warder gave him the sign to do so.
On Tuesday, the 13th April, he was executed. On the fateful morning he did not seem to realise thoroughly the position. He appeared indifferent as to what was going on. On the scaffold, and as the minister was reading a prayer, he interrupted with, “God bless Maggie and Willie.” These words were immediately followed by imprecations. Then he changed his voice to a quieter tone and said: “A policeman said I told him I killed my wife. I deny using those words.” The last words he uttered were “God bless Maggie and Willie. God bless William and his family.”
The painful scene was brought to an end by the hangman completing his gruesome task.
In the Arthur Pass National Park
Mr. R. S. Odell, in a treatise on the well-known Arthur Pass National Park in the Southern Alps, has done some very creditable research work in tracing the names of many of the features to their sources. Here is a selection from the very interesting chronicle:—
The Torlesse Range as seen from Springfield, South Island, New Zealand.
(Photo, J. D. Pascoe.)
When the gold rush to the West Coast began in 1863, and the need became apparent for better communication across the mountain range than the Teramakau Saddle offered, the Canterbury Provincial Government set its surveyors to find the passes which led from the Canterbury valleys to those of the West Coast. The valleys of the Waimakariri tributaries promised best, but Mr. T. Cass, Chief Surveyor, writing to the Provincial Secretary on 27th March, 1863, said:—“I have personally very little doubt on the subject as I have frequently questioned Maoris, and they have invariably answered that there was no pass in that direction. Had such been known to their ancestors when the country was more thickly populated the fact would have been handed down to the present generation among their other traditions.”
This letter is surprising, for the pass at the head of the Otira was certainly known to the Maoris. The chief, Tarapuhi, who was paramount on the West Coast, made several trips across the island (via the Teramakau Saddle) and he knew about this pass, for he told Leonard Harper about it in 1857, and that gentleman was only prevented from exploring it by bad weather and lack of food. Tarapuhi also described the pass to Arthur Dobson, for when the latter discovered it, in 1864, he recognised it as the one described by Tarapuhi.
Even before this, in 1848, the West Coast Maoris told Thomas Brunner about a pass into the Waimakariri, and from this information Brunner indicated it on his map. But it was a long time since any Maoris had crossed this pass, the way over the Teramakau Saddle was so much easier. Tarapuhi told Leonard Harper that not during his lifetime had the pass been crossed.
In 1928 the Honorary Geographic Advisory Board determined that the name for the National Park should be Arthur Pass National Park. This was in pursuance of a policy of refraining from using possessive endings in place names. The action met with some criticism from the people of Canterbury, who felt that the honour due to Sir Arthur was being in some way lessened, and perhaps some resentment that existing names could be changed so arbitarily. This latter sentiment, however, is due to a misapprehension, for no existing name was changed. A territory was given a name for the first time. The Pass, the Township, and the Railway Station, are still Arthur's.
This is the name given to the largest creek entering the Mingha on the west side, by the Mountaineering Club party which explored the region during Christmas, 1929. The name was given because of the gymnastics needed for crossing the creek and gorge, but it suggests also the active, leaping waters of the mountain stream.
This creek enters the Otira River from the east, just below the traffic bridge. It was so named because police barracks were erected there at the time of the gold escort fiasco. When access was made to the West Coast by the construction of the road over Arthur's Pass, the Police Commissioner in Christchurch took elaborate precautions for the safe carriage of gold from the diggings to Christchurch. A bullet-proof wagon was constructed at much expense, barracks were built at Bealey and Barrack Creek, on either side of the range, and equipped with blocks and chains for prospective criminals, and squads of police were given some weeks special training in the art of catching bushrangers. Altogether more than £4,000 was spent.
The gold escort travelled only once, and then with about one ounce of gold. All the gold left Westland by boat.
In the first excitement that followed the construction of the road over Arthur's Pass, a town of the mushroom variety sprang up on the flat in the fork between the Bealey and Waimakariri
Von Haast, in “Geology of Canterbury and Westland,” says—“On 6th October, 1865, we reached the newly founded township of Bealey, situated in a large shingle fan which the tributary of the same name has advanced to a considerable distance into the bed of the river. Several houses had been built, either constructed of logs or covered with zinc or weatherboards which, together with a good array of tents, indicated that a number of people had already congregated there. In fact there were more than a hundred inhabitants who intended to settle in that locality, whilst a considerable number of diggers and navvies passing to and fro made it their usual resting place. At the same time several parties of surveyors were at work preparing timber for a number of buildings to be erected.” In June, 1865, Mr. Triphook surveyed the Town of Bealey, of 208 sections. Streets were named Albion, Caledonia, Erin, Cambria, running east and west; and running north and south were St. David, St. Patrick, St. Andrew and St. George.
Some of the sections were purchased, though the titles were not uplifted. Nor have they been uplifted since, so complete was the desertion of the township. When Von Haast revisited the site eighteen months later he found the place was “now almost deserted, everybody except the telegraphist and the sergeant of police having left.”
Nothing now remains to show where the township once existed except a few graves. The place now known as Bealey is on the other side of the Waimakariri, where the Bealey Hotel stands.
A Scene in the Southern Alps looking north-east from Mt. Oates, shewing (left) Mt. Franklin, (centre) Otehake Valley (and right) the Falling Mountain.
A scene from Mt. Rolleston, 7,453ft., shewing the peaks of Philistine and Alexander.
This is one of the peaks on the east side of the Bealey which has been named after early identities of the district. It is a peak at the gable end of the spur from the Blimit, and overlooks Arthur's Pass. This is the peak which was for long called the Blimit.
In 1863 Mr. Cassidy took four horses over the Teramakau Saddle, and started a coach venture from Grey-mouth to Hokitika, using the beach for a road. This venture ended in disaster. The coach was washed out to sea near the mouth of the Teramakau, but Cassidy made other efforts until, in 1874, he secured the contract for carrying the Canterbury-West Coast mail. From then until 1923, when the tunnel was opened, the firm of Cassidy and a series of partners, drove coaches on the West Coast Road. Cassidy himself died in 1921.
A spectacular waterfall, which is one of the chief glories of that place of glorious sights, was named the Devil's Punchbowl by Sir Arthur Dudley Dobson, when he made his first traverse of the Bealey River at the time of discovering the pass. Mrs. Robert Wilson, writing in the “Land of the Tui” (1894), remarks that, “judging from the frequency of this designation in many countries, His Satanic Majesty is everywhere supposed to have an almost human predilection for this form of beverage.”
The river flows from Goat Pass to join the Otira. It once used to be called Goat Creek. About 1900, Mr. G. J. Roberts, Chief Surveyor at Hokitika, sent a party to reconnoitre this river and the pass at the head of it, to see if it would provide an alternative route for the railway. Mr. A. N. Harrop and Mr. M. Shaffrey went up the river, and Mr. Harrop was responsible for the simple little names borne by the tributary creeks—Slip Creek, Gorge Creek, etc.
The name Deception was first used when he returned from his expedition and warned the railway engineers who were building the line up the side of the Otira Valley to watch the water from this river, for it was very deceiving. They had no idea of the quantity that could come down it. Within three months the Deception water rose to such an extent that it crossed the Otira Valley and did several thousand pounds worth of damage to the railway. The name Deception appeared on the maps after that.
In the earliest days of the West Coast Road, a Mr. Kelly kept a store
Falling into the White Valley from the cliffs of Mt. Davie is the water of the Kilmarnock Fall. The stream has sprung from a glaciated basin on the mountain, from which it makes a five hundred foot leap, an unbroken column of living white marble. In the winter and the spring there is always an accumulation of ice at its foot, brought down from the glacier basin above.
Mr. Jas. O'Malley, of the Bealey Glacier Hotel, who once used to take parties up the White River to see the glaciers, hid a bottle of brandy at the foot of the fall to meet cases of emergency. He referred to the fall thereupon as Kilmarnock after the brand of the liquor. This was about 1900. Many people have looked for the bottle since, for it is adding years and quality to its contents, but it is feared the secret of its hiding place was lost when Mr. O'Malley died in 1930.
This hut was built on the Bealey Flat, and the flat itself is now often called Klondyke. When the Bealey Hostel was shifted from the north side of the Waimakariri to the south the hut was built for the benefit of tramps and others who might be benighted on the north side or held up by bad weather in a flood. The hut was well equipped with blankets and utensils, but was not kept stocked with food. One man who reached it expecting to find a meal was so chagrined that he took some chalk and wrote the word “Starvation” across the hut. This was about the time of the Klondyke gold rush, when “Klondyke” was synonymous with “Starvation.” Hence a man who happened to be that way with a paint brush was inspired to paint the word “Klondyke” across the word “Starvation” in big letters. It was very obviously the Klondyke Hut.
A gruesome story is told of it concerning a dead Chinaman. He was drowned in the Bealey, and was put in the single bunk of the Klondyke Hut while the police went off to collect a jury for the inquest. It was a very stormy night, and a man who was, well, not quite drunk, decided to risk crossing the river, and so turned in beside the sleeping figure. In the morning he awoke late, and the sun was shining high; so he thought he would arouse his companion, too. He left the hut in a hurry!
This creek flows into the Otira from the eastern side, just below the summit of the Pass.
A certain Pegleg Charlie once had a hut there, and the story goes that he was supposed to be fossicking for gold, though in fact this was just a blind for his real occupation of slygrog selling to travellers over the Pass. He had a wooden leg; hence Pegleg.
Just above the top bridge in the Otira Gorge are two bluffs round which the road makes sharp turns. The upper of these bluffs is known as Starvation, for here the coaches used to stop to collect fares, and anyone who could not pay was left at this, the bleakest and windiest stop on the road. It is also known as Windy Point.
“Canterbury's Big River,” and its tentacled tributaries, drain the whole of the National Park, on the Canterbury side. Its name was early learnt by Canterbury settlers, even if they were weak on its spelling. Mr.
(Photo, courtesy Auckland “Star.”)
All but one of these six children had never ridden in a train until recently, when they travelled to Auckland from Te Kuiti. They are pupils of a small isolated school in the King Country and none of them had ever seen the sea.
In the general attack on Maori names in the early days, Courtenay could not overcome Waimakariri, just as Rakaia, fortunately, survived Cholomondeley. Waimakariri means “Cold Water.”
This peak stands on the Polar Range at the east boundary of the National Park. It is one of the group of peaks named by members of the Mountaineering Club after members of Captain Scott's Polar Expedition.
The peak is of remarkable shape, for which reason it can be recognised from almost any direction. Two perpendicular precipices flanking a level ridge gave it a sqaure appearance. This peak has the distinction of being the only one in the National Park that can be seen from the Canterbury Plains. From Halkett and other places in line with the depression through which the Waimakariri Gorge is cut, the peak is plainly visible, and can be identified by its peculiar shape.
The
Romantic
The following story, by Isabel Andrews, was awarded first prize in the New Zealand Women Writers' and Artists' Society's senior detective story competition for 1933.
“I didn't mean to kill him,” he said, gaspingly, with a pause between each word.
The tinkly little bell over the sweet shop door rang sharply, and Miss Mitford laid down her book with a sigh. Trade was bad, and a customer was a customer, but she wished that she could have read at least to the end of the chapter before going to the counter. Before the bell rang she had been deep in a tale of Elizabethan adventure, and when she went out of her sitting-room into the ordered and comfortless atmosphere of the shop it seemed for a moment that a figure from her book had come to life. Clad in a brave scarlet and gold doublet, with swinging cloak, he leant against her counter, golden head held high, and smiled at her. Her look of astonishment brought a ready laugh to his lips and his words broke the spell.
“Sorry to startle you,” he said, “but the truth is I've lost my way. I'm looking for Newbury Hall. There's a party there to-night—fancy dress—hence the garb.”
Miss Mitford gave him the required directions, and with a word of thanks he was making his way towards the door, when he paused.
“I say, you're quite a way from town aren't you?”
“Yes,” was the reply; “the town proper starts half a mile up the road.”
“Don't you feel nervous at night?”
“Not very often. At least, I haven't felt nervous until recently; but an old man was strangled in the woods behind here a few days ago and since then I haven't felt—quite—so easy.”
“I heard about that,” he admitted.
“It doesn't seem possible that anyone could just kill for the sheer lust of killing. It was a madman, of course. It's terrible to think that it may be someone I know quite well. Someone as sane as you or I—except at times.”
“What a ghastly thought,” he answered. “Please don't fill me with the horrors. I'm going to a dance, remember. Well, goodbye, and thanks for telling me where the Hall is,” and with a flourish of his scarlet cloak, he was gone.
Miss Mitford waited until the sound of his car died away in the distance and then she went back to her book, but somehow the tale was less interesting than before. The young man had effectively roused thoughts which she had been striving to banish for days past. Ever since poor Job Marshall had been found gasping and dying in the Newly Woods, she had thought of her isolated position right at the edge of the town. Job's last words had been of someone with “Hands like Claws!” She shuddered and drew nearer to the fire, while all unknown to her a pair of deep-set dark eyes were gazing at her over the sill of her carelessly curtained window. “Hands like claws!” The words beat upon her brain until she rose, abruptly, striving to quell the rapidly rising tide of panic, with movement, and as she did so the bell rang again. The thought that it might be the young Elizabethan gallant returned on some slight errand heartened her, and she went. In the place of that young presence, however, stood another man—older, far less picturesque. A man with deep set eyes and a grim lipped mouth. She went forward bravely, masking her increasing fear.
His voice was harsh, and his words seemed to justify her terror.
“Could I stay here for a few minutes? My car has broken down and I have had to walk for miles. It's quite a way to a garage, I believe, and I'm just about all in for the moment.”
Something within Miss Mitford was shrieking out, “No! No! Can't you see I'm alone. Go away! Go away!” But she answered calmly enough, “Certainly. Stay if you wish.”
“Thank you,” and the man sank into a chair beside the counter. Miss Mitford looked at him. Yes, he certainly did look tired—perhaps his story was true. After all, cars do break down on lonely country roads. Then
“Perhaps,” she said evenly, “you might like to go into the other room. There is a fire there and an easy chair.”
He opened his eyes at that, astonished, and then rose to his feet slowly.
“It's very kind of you. I must admit I am very tired.”
On the threshold of the room he paused.
“Are you all alone here?” he asked.
For a moment she hesitated, thinking that a lie might help, but it was so very obvious that she was alone that the thought was discarded, and she answered:
“Yes;” and added, “though of course there are always people coming in.”
He stood looking at her for a moment, and then …
“Customers?” he repeated. “Oh, yes. Of course there are. But not so many at night as in the daytime, eh?” and he looked at her strangely.
“Oh, indeed you would be surprised at the number I have at night. You are the second caller I have had already.”
“So,” he said, “the second?” He paused for a moment, and then, nodding, went into the room, leaving the door open.
“You can shut the door,” she said, “I have some accounts to attend to.”
He did so, and she was left alone. What a fool she had been to let him in. And what an arrant idiot to admit that there had been only one other caller that night. She looked round the familiar shelves with their rows of tidy colourful bottles and jars. Automatically she rearranged a pile of “penny things.” Her fears were no longer indefinite, muddled things. Somehow she knew that she had cause to fear. Suddenly poor Job Marshall came before her eyes. Job had died, his words before he died had been “hands like claws.” The man in the other room had not taken his gloves off, and she felt she knew why. Well, she had still a chance. She must creep out of the shop before he knew she was gone. She turned. How lucky! She had left a coat in the shop that morning. She stretched out her hand to take it from its peg when a sound behind her paralysed all movement.
A door was opening—slowly. Often, recently, she had heard that sound and had heard the stealthy footsteps that had accompanied it, but always before they had been imaginary. However, this sound was different. This was no figment of a frightened mind, but an awful, tangible fact. Somewhere behind her a door was opening slowly, and there were real footsteps this time, though just as secret as those fancied ones. She almost fainted. She could not turn or speak. Then all at once the dreadful numbness was banished and she screamed as two hands, grasping and clawlike, fastened on her throat. She struggled as a rat struggles in the grip of a terrier, but the pressure on her throat still held. The thought that old Job Marshall had died just like this, together with a spasm of pity for him flashed through her mind. Then, suddenly, there was another presence in the room. The grip on her throat relaxed. She heard a snarl, half animal, half human, and then, freed, she stood huddled against the wall, trembling hand on bruised throat, watching the two men who were fighting in the restricted space before the counter. She recognised her rescuer. It was the young Elizabethan gallant. She felt suddenly calm again—and safe. It seemed so right that he should come at that moment. He had seemed in the short time she had seen him to be the embodiment of all the heroes of all her romances, and now he had justified her, and the glamour with which she had surrounded him did not seem at all ridiculous.
The struggle on the floor was nearing an end. The strength and youth of the one was too much for his opponent, and it was easy enough to see the issue. The dark lean man was obviously weakening. It was surely a matter of seconds before he would be overpowered completely. What happened next, therefore, seemed inexplicable. The grip of the man in the bright doublet suddenly relaxed, and all at once he was lying on his back, his fair hair soiled with the dust of the shop, while a dark pool of blood was slowly forming on the floor.
“You've killed him.” A voice, hoarse and unnatural sounded in the room, and Miss Mitford realised with surprise that it was her own. Then, suddenly, the little room seemed filled with men. Men in strange garb. There was Mephistopheles, Charles the First, Henry the Eighth, and a troubador. Silently they gazed at the beautiful still figure on the floor, at Miss Mitford, and at the dark man who had painfully risen to his feet.
“I didn't mean to kill him,” he said, gaspingly, with a pause between each word. “He had a dagger hidden in those clothes. While we fought it must have slipped. Anyway, he's dead.”
Dead! Ah, the pity of it! Miss Mitford started to sob.
The man dressed as Mephistopheles spoke. Dimly she heard what he was saying.
“I am sorry we were so long in coming. I misjudged things very badly I'm afraid.”
“You knew then that he was here?” she cried.
“Yes. We waited because we wanted proof. But I am afraid we waited too long.” (Continued on page 34).
(By
)Arthur Chorlton .
(W. W. Stewart collection.)
A typical night scene at the Auckland station yard.
I Sometimes think that in their wholly admirable policy of popularising the railways the authorities in New Zealand might very well consider a very simple and cheap device which for generations in the Old Country has had a cumulative, if indirect, effect in that direction—I mean naming the passenger locomotive. This was the practice in England almost from the days of George Stephenson and the “Rocket.” Several companies, notably the London and North-Western, carried on the tradition until the great post-war amalgamation, since when the naming of leading locomotives has become more widespread than ever. Even America is said to be falling into line.
As with many other old British customs there is more in this than meets the eye. What's in a name? Almost everything. Give a man a mere number and he loses his identity in the mass of other numbers. So it is with engines. Who remembers, for instance, the number of the locomotive that drew him so sturdily and faithfully on the Limited or the Express out of Auckland or Wellington, though he might have gone forward to look at it, as good railway lovers do, if they have time, before the start or later, strolling along the platform at one of the stops? In England people will tell you years after about the great run they had on such and such a train behind such and such a famous engine and how at the end they were among those who went up to shake hands with the driver. It begins with them as boys and lasts with them through life and you will find them sharing with their own sons the “Meccano” or any other magazine that tells about locomotives, old and new, and publishes their pictures. Such popularity is an asset to a railway in these days.
Financially and otherwise, English railways were in their very heyday in the last decade of last century—the Gay ‘Nineties, as they say now, truthfully enough, no doubt. In the ‘nineties the railways were supreme in the transport of the people over land, peerless and without rival, unless it were the modest bicycle, then, too, at the height of its vogue. There were many companies, big and little, but the greatest of all was the old London and North-Western, an institution in the land like the Bank of England, and as profitable, for it never paid less than 7 per cent, and its shares were over the double century mark. This was in the happy days—for railwaymen—when motors were just a curious, almost ridiculous, sort of toy, and road transport negligible, except with traction engines on the granite sets of Lancashire highways.
I was born among railways in the very heart of the North-Western system just outside Manchester. From the top of a high, square tower, which made the house a landmark for miles around, it was possible on a rare clear day with the aid of a telescope swinging round the points of the compass, to see over twenty different lines of railway, five of them distinct main lines, linking Manchester with London and also with its neighbouring cities in the populous industrial North. So busy was the traffic in that region that hardly a minute passed without its train visible somewhere, near at hand in vivid action or faintly in the far distance with slow moving plume of steam or smoke. Incidentally, it may be added, this commanding strategic position was utilised in the Great War by the military authorities to mount searchlights on the tower with an antiaircraft battery to guard the vital main lines against attack from the sky. I saw the whole equipment in 1919 after the War before it was removed. The house itself was demolished in 1930 to make room for suburban growth.
Of all the English railways, those in our neighbourhood and those we came across travelling, the North-Western was easily our favourite, for its spick and span passenger engines were named, and it was the hobby of the boys in our family for years to collect names and numbers of L. & N-W locos, and keep them neatly recorded in note-books with all the red-ink embellishment that boys love. We were never without our note-books, for there was a rivalry between us to get the best collection, like birds' eggs or stamps, and anywhere at any time a gorgeous stranger engine might glide into our ken and give us a fresh entry of name and number to be shown gloatingly to a brother, envious of our luck. The essence of the code was that no details of any engine might be entered, unless the bearer of name and number were actually seen. This kept us all on the alert for something new and strange. Thus it was indeed a red-letter day when alone I came across No. 1 of the vast North-Western loco. army. Its name I have remembered clearly across the mist of years—“Saracen.”
While I am as sure as it is humanly possible to be that No. 1 engine on the North-Western of the ‘nineties was “Saracen,” I vary in my visual image of its type. Was it one of the old original single-driver, outside-cylinders, 2-2-2, greyhounds of the plains, surely the most graceful locomotive of all time, the perfect embodiment of lightness and speed, or was it not rather one of Ramsbottom's next series, an inside cylinder, coupled engine, 2-4-2, 6ft. 3in. driving wheels, and an exceedingly long funnel, of the class we boys nicknamed “long spouts”? I cannot be certain and must leave the issue in doubt, but I should like to think it was an “outy,” like old Cornwall, rather than a “long spout,” which even forty years ago we were apt to regard as something too superannuated for the dignity of the L. & N-W. to retain on
Not that any of the North-Western locomotives were ugly. In an age and a country where and when designers of any class of machinery had an eye to beauty, or at least to appearances, and the different companies had locomotives of individual characteristics and distinctive colours, none surpassed the L. and N-W. in the sheer artistry of their engines. It is true that the company was conservative, not to say, old-fashioned. The North-Western must have been almost the last of the great railway lines of the world to adopt the bogie for their rolling stock. So far as my recollection goes, they had not a single bogie engine in their service when the twentieth century dawned, unless it were some side-tankers then recently introduced. And, personally again, I think, the L. and N-W. were right. Theirs was in the main a splendidly engineered line with few sharp curves and it was not until trains became far heavier and locos, had to follow suit that the bogie really came to fit in with the design of longer and bigger boilers and a weight that had to be distributed over more wheels.
Take the typical L. and N-W. locos, of the “nineties. The single-driver out-side-cylinder light-weights, already mentioned, the “Charles Dickens” class, 2-4-2, with 6ft. 6in. driving wheels—the “Charles Dickens” already famous for its million-mile record, mostly on the London-Manchester run—and the Webb compounds, notably the “Teutonic” series. Could anything have been more perfectly lined and proportioned to suggest power and speed, with the peculiar forward overhang in front of the setback leading wheels, giving at rest an instant and ineffaceable impression of an athlete set in his marks and waiting for the pistol, and in motion the same runner in full career? To put a leading bogie under such a slim, trim, athletic-looking figure, as we now deem it, would be to make it look flat-footed and clumsy and destroy at once the illusion. A study of a photograph of any of these old engines will reveal the truth of what I mean, better than any description.
Those Webb compounds, a marked departure from L. and N-W. conservatism in mechanical principles and arrangement, if not in externals, were our prime favourites. No doubt the way in which their name and fame were noised abroad had something to do with it, for they were to be seen at the great exhibitions not only in Britain but in foreign countries also, and the papers were full of them. But they had other peculiarities that made them specially attractive to us boys. First, they had three cylinders, which was odd, and then two pairs of driving wheels not coupled, which was odder still. The two high-pressure cylinders were outside well back, hung below the frame, driving the rear pair of wheels, and the single low-pressure cylinder forward under the smoke box, driving the front pair of driving wheels. The exhaust came from the single big low-pressure cylinder, so that there were only two puffs to a revolution, instead of the usual four, and this slow thud … thud used to herald their advent long before they swept into view with their distinguishing mark—the big cylinder cover of polished steel in front between the buffers.
It was mostly on the main West Coast line to Scotland, between Lan-caster and Carnforth, that we used to see these compounds. Here at a place named Hest Bank, the one spot on the whole line from London to Edinburgh where it touches the sea, we used to spend our summer holidays on an uncle's seaside farm through which the railway ran. It was a dead level stretch of a few miles, dead level and dead straight, and along a part of it lay the troughs from which passing expresses picked up water at full speed by means of scoops let down from the engine cab. To see one of the Webb compounds carry out this feat at anything up to a mile-a-minute speed, with the spray blowing back over the train, like the crest of a breaker whipped by an offshore wind, never failed to thrill, but there was always the chance the name and number of the engine, especially if it was the second of a “double-header,” might be obscured and that would be annoying and spoil the fun.
It was on this line that, in 1888, I think, and in 1895 the special expresses tore along in the mad East Coast v. West Coast railway races from London to Scotland when an average speed of over sixty miles an hour was attained over a longer distance than between Wellington and Auckland. I wish I could say that I witnessed this race, but I was very young then and I fancy this part of the route was covered in the early hours of the morning. But I do remember lying awake on a soft summer night in the attic of the old farm house and hearing the familiar thud … thud of the compound miles away and, peeping out of the window later, seeing the lighted train with fiery dragon of an engine, lunge round the curve into the straight and gathering speed, fly past into the distance.
This is the enchantment of the railway for youth and it may be that the children of our own central Main Trunk country, for whom the Limited and the Express are always like resounding torchbearers, running their race through the darkness, feel it more than their sophisticated compeers in the daylight sections who see but a nameless engine pulling a familiar train, and never gain to the high romance of the mysterious messenger of the night. But give the engine a name—and we have many worthy names in the history of New Zealand— and you give life and make friends of the railway among the young whom to-morrow you may need. And, perhaps, some day you will have, as in the Old Land, a goodly companionship of lovers of the locomotive, men who will be proud to shake the hand of the driver of their train and congratulate him upon the very fine run made by the “Governor Hobson” shall we say? or “Te Rauparaha,” or the “Sir George Grey,” the “Richard John Sed-don,” or whatsoever else the name may be.
(Continued from page 31.)
“Oh, yes. Far too long. Far too long.” And she was down on her knees beside the dead boy.
“I don't think you understand,” Mephistopheles began, but she waved him into silence and gazed down on the young dead face so close to her own. It seemed such a waste. Such a dreadful, cruel waste. All this death—because of her. With gentle fingers she smoothed the waving hair, closed the staring eyes, and straightened the sprawling limbs. Then she went to cross the dead hands on the dead breast, and not till then did she realise how blind she had been, for the hands told their own tale. The long, tapering fingers, already stiffening in death, were all turned inwards, grasping, like the claws of a bird of prey.
Police-Inspector Brady rose from his chair beside the counter. Fatigue had accentuated the lines on his face, and his deep-set eyes were very tired.
“We'd better get him out of here as quickly as we can,” he said, and he assisted Miss Mitford to rise.
When, long afterwards, she returned to her sitting room, she found that the book she had been reading, with its cover depicting an Elizabethan Gallant, sword in hand, had fallen into the fire. Slowly the leaves had curled up, burst into flame, and then crumbled away, leaving only a shapeless, blackened mass to remind her of the tale.
New Zealand Erse
I did not know—how could I know?— My own dear land, I'd loved you so, Until through English woods I went And vexed my heart with discontent, At seeing English bluebells blow; At seeing primrose stars appear Along the hedge-rows far and near, And lime-trees filling all the street With airs bewilderingly sweet, And blue flags blowing by the mere.
* * *
Then loitering in an English lane Dreaming my wistful dreams again; I saw as I had never seen, The bronze and green and richer green Of dark old forests” deeps and shades With sun-shot, shadowy colonnades, Where high above the feathering fern, The crimson crowns of rata burn, And climbing upward to the light With far-flung trails of green and white,
The clematis breaks through the bars, And floods the glades with streams of stars.
While o'er the blue seas' foamy drifts Old King Pohutukawa lifts His flaming torches to the light Like beacon fires along the height, And wind-swept ti-tree's sturdy maze Is white with myriad starry sprays. I saw the flax-spires' red-brown blooms,
The koromiko's purple plumes, And spilling incense to the breeze, Palm-lily heads in clouds of bees, And shy hoheria's ringlets pale, Trembling so exquisitely frail, And kowhai hung with tasselled gold, And ferns and mosses manifold, And lovely tendrilled, nameless weeds Gemmed all their length with coral beads.
Then gazing on those drifts of blue, At last I knew—too well I knew— (I had come far and far for this) The alien's pang of pain and bliss— That all my yearning heart should know My own dear land I love you so. —Isabel M. Peacocke.
Egmont flung athwart the plain Impassive in the blue-black night. Gleaming-white in the dusk Towering supreme in magnificent height. Monument of peace brooding Silent sentinel of the ages; One of Nature's mightiest seers Inscrutable as the ancient sages. Egmont—where the fire-demons battled When Maoriland was very young; Witness of a thousand Maori battles And the triumphs of tribes unsung.
—N. F. Hoggard.
* * *
—Mae Bushell (aged 15 years).
* * *
G. W. R. Watson.
Written for the “N.Z. Railways Magazine” by)
Tom L. Mills
Henry Lawson.
Henry Lawson visited New Zealand on two occasions, both in the ‘nineties. He was not married on his first trip over; he brought his bride with him on his second voyage of discovery, and their first-born, Jim, was born in Wellington.
Long before I had met Henry I had been interested in his prose and verse, for I also was a contributor to the Sydney “Bulletin,” in which most of Henry's best work was originally published. I had a Lawson lecture in my repertoire given in those days of the ‘nineties to the literary and debating societies of Wellington and suburbs, and had written him up in the “Otago Witness.”
It can be easily realised how interested I was, therefore, when a fellow worker on the “New Zealand Times” told me one afternoon that Henry Lawson was in Wellington. What was he doing here on this side of the Tasman Sea? I asked. “He's stranded!” was the reply.
On learning that Lawson was spending his nights on “the Rec.” (Waterloo Quay to-day), I asked my informant to bring Henry along so that something could be done for him.
On our first meeting I arranged with the Sydneysider that he was to stay with me for a fortnight. (The tale is told in “Henry Lawson, by His Mates,” pp. 51 to 55, published in 1931 by Angus and Robertson for a fund for the indigent writers of Australia. It is a splendid compilation of Law-sonia.)
Henry Lawson was wonderfully well treated by Wellington folk. He was not lionised, for this rather taciturn and gawky Australian genius was very shy of the limelight in those days and his deafness when in a room was a handicap. Strange to say, his hearing was good —even sharp and sensitive—in the open and on the crowded thoroughfare. Often he pulled me up sharply as we walked down Cuba Street into town with the remark: “You needn't shout, Tom—I'm not deaf, you know!”
The men who put their hands into their pockets and helped Henry otherwise, included the late Gresley Lukin (editor of the “Post”), the late Charles Wilson (editor of the “New Zealand Mail”—later Parliamentary Librarian), Edward Tregear (first Secretary of the Labour Dept), Herbert Baillie (then in partnership with his late brother John, the artist, in a bookshop in Cuba Street. The photograph reproduced with this article has not previously been published. It was taken by John Baillie in the back room of their shop one afternoon when Henry and I were visiting the Baillie's.)
Jack Louisson, now living in retirement in Palmerston North, then in the Telegraph Dept. in Wellington, was another good pal. Henry got a job with Jack's brother pioneering a telegraph line through Marlborough, and the poet thoroughly enjoyed that adventure. I'm writing of nearly forty years ago.
When on his second visit Henry brought a wife to Wellington, Mrs. Grace Neill, organiser of the Women's Bureau of the Labour Dept., under Ed. Tregear, proved a staunch friend. Lawson wrote quite a quantity of both prose and verse during his first visit. Some of it I placed with that kindly-natured editor of the “Otago Witness,” the late Wm. Fenwick. Charles Wilson accepted much of it— and paid for some of it out of his own pocket, as the “Mail” could not afford to pay for contributions.
On his second visit, when he and his wife got charge of the native school near Kaikoura (North Canterbury), Henry wrote me that he was inspired to write the book of his life. He would immortalise the South Island Maori in this magnum opus. It was to be a book that would make more than the billy boil. He wrote me later in great glee that he had completed the first chapter of his book on the Maori. But, alas, he could not keep that chapter in hand and add other chapters to it. Sustained effort had always been against Henry's nature. He rounded that chapter off into an article and sent it as such to the “Bulletin.” Later he sent another article. That was all the contribution he made to the big work he dreamed about. But that was Henry Lawson—he dreamed dreams. Yet, after all, when his disabilities are remembered—he had no education, as such, and writing was hard physical labour, a very slow process—he had a remarkable output of good-quality writing that was published. He destroyed many MSS., for he was his own most severe critic. I got an order for him from a southern editor for a column article. Henry was very hard up. He needed that guinea. It took him eight hours to write it. I approved of it. He read it over again—and then put it into the fire! He just didn't like it. “It's not up to standard, Tom,” was his only comment. And he didn't fulfil that order. Yet he was neither a moody nor a perverse man. He was extremely good-natured. His eyes were large and brown; his voice soft.
His mind was that of the versifier. He was absorbed in verse of all kinds —blank, poetic or jingling. His memory for verse was remarkable. Once read, a poem was his for always and he could repeat his own verse by the hour. Often as we sat o' nights yarning or talking of writers and I quoted a line from current versifiers or poets, Henry would complete the whole verse, whether it was Kipling's or his special bete noir, “Banjo” Paterson. Rudyard he admired, but he thought there were no poets in the whole wide
I have mentioned that Henry had some experience in Marlborough's outback. While in the telegraph camp behind Blenheim “or further on,” he wrote me apropos of Tom Bracken's complaint about the ingratitude of New Zealanders generally, and editors particularly, in not supporting local industry in poets. As this bit of Lawsonia has not been published before nor have I seen any of Henry's MS. reproduced even in Australia, it will make a fitting rounding off and tailpiece to my rambling thoughts and memories of a typical out-back Australian who told me one night that he was describing himself when he wrote in “Middleton's Rouseabout” (page 97, “In the Days When the World was Wide”):
“Tall and freckled and sandy, Face of a country lout; This is the picture of Andy, Middleton's Rouseabout.”
“Priestly, who wrote ‘The Good Companions,’ can enthuse about his latika, and J. M. Barrie rave about his wonderful ‘mixture,’” said an old smoker at a little social gathering (men only) at Auckland the other night, “but give me Navy Cut No. 3 (Bulldog)! Yes, it's New Zealand, and Toasted New Zealand at that! Been smoking it for a dozen years, and never smoke anything else. It's unique! The flavour fascinates, the aroma captivates! It's as soothing as the recovery of a bad debt! Joking apart, when you start a pipe of Navy Cut No. 3 (Bulldog) (a blend of extra choice leaf and of medium strength), you don't want to put your pipe down! There's pleasure in every whiff!” This enthusiast didn't mention the other toasted brands: Riverhead Gold, Cavendish, and Cut Plug No. 10 (Bulls-head) but they are equally good. They are all toasted, and all comparatively free of nicotine. That makes them safe to smoke, even if you smoke them to excess. You can't buy any other toasted tobaccos, because no others are manufactured.*
(By.
)Christine Comber .Whenever I spend a couple of weeks in any of the more outlying suburbs, and whenever location of the house allows of it, I travel into the City by train, and the truth is that I frequently derive as much fun from the journeys to the City in the morning, and home again in the afternoon, as I do from my entire stay. For to me there is just the same spirit of excitement, and adventure, and romance connected with catching a train to, say, New Lynn, or Henderson, or even Mt. Albert, as there is in settling into the reserved corner seat on the Limited.
And the rigid subjection to schedule that catching a train involves is unparalleled for combatting that little demon of procrastination that is in most of us, and that eats up our lives, minutely and insidiously, in seconds and five and ten minute intervals.
There are several trains for me to choose from. Early workers' trains before seven o'clock, used more by men than women. Trains for workers in shops, and tradesmen, and all whose starting-hour is near eight o'clock. And trains for office workers that reach the City before nine.
There are heavy-booted watersiders on these trains, and servant girls, and factory girls, and men without collars and ties, and sometimes unshaven men. And they carry their lunches in little bags or wrapped in brown paper. And there are serious students on the train, who read during the whole journey, as often as not making pencilled jottings in note-books or on the margins of the text as they go along. And matrons with kits and baskets going in to market travel by these trains. And typists and barristers, and hawkers, and message boys.
The men, for the most part, spend the half-hour in scanning the morning paper, or chatting with friends, or sitting alone in gloomy silence or smiling meditation.
The women frequently delve into small kits and bring out a magazine or a novel or some form of fancy-work. And if one is oneself disengaged one may overhear interesting details about Emily's fiance being far too good for her, or what the boss said to Flo yesterday, or “where Sis and Lulu and I went for the holidays.”
How kindly trains are towards day-dreamers! How they lend themselves to that ancient, fascinating game of make-believe! The waiting-room, the signals, and the shining lines stretching on and on into the distance to left and right. How easy it is to delude oneself that the journey is for a thousand miles into an enchanted country and to the fair, spreading Cities of the heart's desire. “Nonsense!” you say. Oh, very likely. But what would become of a world without it? How would we live our lives from day to day were it not for that glamorous, colourful chimera, the dream of what might be around the corner? And for me there are three things than I can rely on never to fail me in calling up this cherished dream—a ship casting off her last hawser and pulling gradually away from the wharf, the chatter and excitement and piling of luggage incidental to a departing train, and the straightness of a long, white road.
And at every station when the bell rings and the guard blows his whistle and we roll forward again to an accompaniment of powerful grunts and puffs from the engine, and new passengers settle down into their seats, the absence of crush and bustle, the confident, unflustered action of the guards, and the rhythmic beating of the wheels, all give an air of permanency to the journey such as aids and strengthens my game of make-believe.
At night my suburban train is a long dark prehistoric panther, swinging round corners, darting in and out of tunnels, pounding along the straight, and roaring for signals and crossings and tunnels. And always at night it seems in a hurry, sending houses, factories, farms and telegraph poles reeling behind us, as if it fed on space and would compete with Time itself.
“Good gracious! How late you are!” my friends say when I arrive at my destination. “Why ever didn't you get on a tram when you knew you were too late for the 8.30? Or Bob could have run you out in no time.”
But even as I mumble an apology I feel no remorse. Let it be trams and cars when expediency demands it, but trains when my soul cries out for the bright half-hour of adventure at the end of a busy day.
By)
Tohunga
Every old Maori whose life has been spent wholly or chiefly in a purely native environment is a mind-store of folk-lore and poetry, tradition and mythology, and every one on his departure from this world takes with him into the shadowy land much that the younger generation will never know. I heard with regret the news of the death lately of Tutanekai Haerehuka, who was the last of the old men of the tohunga class in the Arawa tribes. I knew well that with his passing hence, at the age of over eighty, a vast amount of priestly knowledge, the ancient wisdom, perished with him.
Many years ago it was my fortune to see a good deal of Tutanekai—excellent name, his forefather's of romantic fame twelve generations ago—and to be admitted by him to some of the secrets of the tohunga craft. We had many days together, out in the open where we could talk freely apart from the others. (Mokoia Island and Rotoiti were two of the places where I gathered these stories and chants of the past.) The old man was a philosophical soul. He used to say that he believed the Maori would have been wise to have adhered to the olden religion of the race and to the old and simple life that best suited him. “As for me,” he said once, “I do not know much about the new ways; I only know the old things, the karakia Maori, and my work is the tilling of the soil.”
Tutanekai was a farmer, he worked quietly and industriously with his family on his small farm on the Wai-o-whiro stream, which flows from the celebrated Fairy Spring into Lake Rotorua. Between his food-growing toil and the practice of his tohunga craft his activities were divided. His knowledge of the ritual of old in such ceremonies as those attendant on the opening of new carved houses brought him many requests to perform those rites, known as the whai-kawa, or taingakawa whare. Very, very few, indeed, of the Maori race living to-day possess anything like Tutanekai's knowledge of legendary and ritual. Much as I heard from him, and noted down at his dictation, it was only fragments from his mental treasury.
One of the Franconia tourists who visited Rotorua and other show-places on the recent visit of the Cunard luxury liner to New Zealand, was delighted with most of the things she saw and heard, but there was one little complaint, or rather not so much a complaint as a polite hint. She said she and her friends would have preferred to hear the Maori women entertainers at Rotorua sing their own songs and use their own music rather than that of the pakeha. Her remarks are, in effect, those which have been made by many visitors. They come to New Zealand for the features which they cannot get in other countries, and they are always pleased with the purely Maori side. They don't want to listen to “Home Sweet Home” and “Sally Horner” from Maori singers. That sort of thing can be done much better by English or Americans. “We want something thoroughly Maori.”
That, too, is the burden of the views expressed by many New Zealanders as well as passing visitors. The charm and novelty of Maori singing and dancing should not be spoiled by the introduction of the pakeha element.
There are several tribes, or sections of tribes, which still preserve fragments of the old-time customs relating to the fertility of the soil and the fishing waters. A few of the old people in certain districts observe the ancient practices of offering the first-fruits to the spirits of soil or sea. Certain emblems called mouri, or mauri, are treasured at the mouth of the Motu River, beyond Opotiki, where they are supposed to ensure an abundance of kahawai and other fish; and a few years ago offerings of fish to the deity of the sea-harvest were hung up on the lowest branch of a great pohutukawa tree there. Such traces of those customs as still persist are of particular interest because they are part of the ancient worship of the powers of Nature. Tangaroa, the god of the sea and of the fish, was invoked by all fishermen in old Maoridom, and it is well that this respect for bountiful Nature should be retained in an age which is too forgetful of its debt to the all-providing spirit of life and plenty.
In South Taranaki some years ago I noted an instance of these survivals of old-time custom. Tu-patea te Rongo, the chief of the Pakakohi tribe, of Patea, a veteran of the Hauhau wars, discussed with me sundry customs of his people in war and peace, and our talk turned on the mouri (or mauri) ika, which concentrated and preserved the fishing of his river, the Patea. I mentioned that I had seen at Hawera a sacred stone, of heavy quartz-like flinty substance, such as were formerly used as mouri.
Tu-patea said that near his home he kept in a secret place a relic of that kind, a whatu-kura or sacred stone, circular in shape, with a hollow in the centre. Its special mana was shown when the season came for catching the piharau (lampreys) in the Patea River. He took it down and placed it in the river at the fishing place, and there was a large catch of piharau every season. Its virtue never failed.
A great many Maori names of places on our New Zealand coast are of peculiar interest because, like many introduced English names, they have come a long way from their original homes. They link up this country with ancient Hawaiki, the tropic homes from which the Polynesian ancestors, of the Maori came to New Zealand; such islands as Tahiti, Raiatea, Raro-tonga, Mangaia, and other coral and volcanic lands in the Great South Sea.
Some of the names of this kind I have previously noted in these pages. Down at Kaikoura I obtained two names, not previously recorded, and not given on any map, which date back at least six hundred years. One is Te Rae-o-Tawhiti (The Headland of Tahiti), the high cliff which bounds Kaikoura South bay on the east, with a remarkable pinnacle at its base shaped like a gigantic shark's tooth. The other is Atiu, the name of one of the Cook Islands; this is a headland to the north-east of the one first mentioned and not far from the Kaikoura wharf.
As for Kaikoura itself, its full and ancient name is Te Ahi Kai-koura-a-Tama-ki-te-rangi, which commemorates the arrival here of a Polynesian navigator and explorer, Tama-of-the-Sky, whose crew kindled a fire (ahi) on the South Bay beach to cook a meal of the crayfish (koura) which they found abounding here. And from Tama's day to the present Kaikoura has been a wonderful place for crayfish.
By)
Tangiwai
It is a good, descriptive adventurous word, pathfinder, a title that takes one back to the romantic pages of Fenimore Cooper. We have had many splendid pioneers of wild New Zealand, but none better deserved to be termed pathfinder and discoverer than the late Sir Arthur Dudley Dobson, of Christ-church, whose useful life ended at over ninety. He was the frontiersman at his best, and the story of his life, which was told in the “New Zealand Railways Magazine” a few years ago, is in its way an inspiration to the young man to be up and doing. Dob-son was only twenty-two when he struct out as a leader of men, to survey the great unknown coast of West-land, meeting with many perils by sea and shore, but cheerfully conquering them all, and crowning his first professional undertaking by discovering the now famous Otira Gorge route across the Southern Alps. The name of Arthur's Pass imperishably commemorates his successful effort to search out a practicable route between east and west.
Sir Arthur Dudley Dobson was one of those men who preserve to the last the cheery and enthusiastic manner, the heart of a boy. He began a self-reliant career early, he was still actively interested in his profession at ninety. He knew the real New Zealand as few know it, he loved the ancient mountains and the fragrant glories of the bush; he was an intimate of Nature, a man full of camplore, wise in all the ways of the snow country, the dangerous rivers, the forest where one had to rely in emergency on the wilds for food. In his profession he was highly skilled. He knew many of the notable scientific men of three generations ago. No New Zealand pioneer did more to make the country fit for traffic and settlement. He played his part well, in his own way, on the New Zealand stage of life, in the great story that we may call the “The Breaking-in.”
I had just been reading Sheila Kaye-Smith's latest novel of English country life, “Ploughman's Progress.” Co-incidentally, there comes to me from a friend in the Waikato a note on a relative's pioneering adventures on the Old Frontier, a very different kind of life from rural England's. The old-timer with whom he talked on the subject was a hardy lad of eighty-two, who had just straightened up from a game of bowls. In his young days on the land he was an expert ploughman.
The veteran, then a youngster of barely twenty-one, had taken a contract to plough an area of unbroken land on Grice and Walker's estate at Roto-o-Rangi and Puahue and on towards the Maunga-tautari ranges. Part of this large stock run lay on the Maori side of the Confiscation boundary and was held on leasehold from some of the Maori owners. One day he drove his team afield, to begin his ploughing, when a party of armed natives suddenly appeared from the fern and manuka. They pointed their guns at him; they ordered him to go back. “This is our land,” they told him; “off with you or you will be killed.”
The young ploughman did not argue the point. He turned his team about, and presently reported to the manager of the station. The Maoris, or their leader, had a legitimate grievance; all the owners of the property had not been included or consulted in the deal. The warnings were repeated. Our ploughman did not return to the attack on the disputed soil; but other station hands were sent out on various jobs across the frontier line; and at last the Maoris struck. They shot and tomahawked one Timothy Sullivan, chopped off his head and cut out his heart, and carried those trophies through the King Country like a fiery cross.
It was a fearfully anxious time on the frontier farms. All thought it was the prelude to another war. Settlers and all were armed; but happily it did not go beyond military preparations; in a few months all was quiet again. That was in 1873. “Ah,” said the old-timer, “the farmer on the outskirts had something more to worry about then than a drop in the prices of his produce. His head didn't always feel quite secure on his shoulders.”
One of the attractive things about our volcanic peaks in the Tongariro National Park is the knowledge that changes are always possible there, that dramatic happenings may come along at any moment. That feeling should not make people nervous; on the contrary, such a place as Ngauruhoe crater should be regarded as a great safety yent, and a periodical little blowout or blow-off is in the nature of relief to a volcano's pent-up inner self. A good head of steam issuing from the great crater or from such a hot shop as Ketetahi is really something to welcome.
The Red Crater, on Tongariro Mountain, has had trouble lately with its pipes, and according to a report from a party of climbers, has coughed out a mass of rocky obstruction, and has altered its contour and surroundings somewhat in the process. The Tongariro craters have always seemed to “
In the other mountainous direction, our Southern Alps, it was pleasing indeed to read Dr. Walter Williams recent eulogy of Aorangi's majesty and beauty. Dr. Williams, of Missouri, President of the World's Press Congress, is a much-travelled man, and he places our Mt. Cook region ahead of Switzerland, the Andes and the American Rockies for mountain glory. We should think all the more of Aorangi for that compliment from a competent authority. Surely we may describe it now as the Peerless Peak of Alpland.
By
Helen
Our Autumn tonings for street wear are mainly dark except for jumper suits, which swagger abroad in brilliant guise. Favourite colours are brown, through the tawny shades to mahogany, burgandy, raisin, prune, blackberry and other berry shades; blues, especially a light navy known as marine blue, and one a few shades paler; greens (almond and olive); mushroom (a pinky beige).
Dress woollens, which become more interesting year by year, are showing in innumerable weaves, including crinkled, corded, chevron, diagonal and honeycomb. Other favourite finishes are angora and hair-cloth. Loose weaves are popular for dress fabrics. Plaid and checked woollen material is smart for scarf, collars, etc., on a plain colour.
The new coating materials are fascinating. Novelty finishes are new in velours—we find pique cord, Bedford cord, diagonal cord, basket weave and angora. Also showing, are diagonal and plain cord boucle, coating in new mottled effects and caracal and beaver finishes. Charming mixtures are to be seen in Harris and Donegal tweed effects. Diagonal tweeds are new.
Colours in coats are mainly deep blues, wine shades, browns and greens. The cut is slim, with semi-fitting panel back, worn with or without a belt. Shoulders are wide and sleeves intricate; the latter narrow from just below the elbow to the wrist. Face cloths and velours are adorned with fur collars. A model in almond green has a black fur collar which may be worn open or buttoned cosily across; one in a rust shade is collared in two tones of brown fur. Both fur collars have the head on the right side—a new fashion this season.
Tweed coats have scarf collars or else button across.
The jumper suit is chic and also a utility garment. I saw one striking suit in almond green, the skirt being plain and the jumper in a small green and beige check with Peter Pan collar, cuffs and belt in plain green. This jumper was made to fasten on one side with buttons the size of a two-shilling piece.
Hand-knitted jumpers are usually warmer than the bought variety. Many charming designs are showing in the knitting books. The waist-line is more definite this season, necks are high, shoulders wide and sleeves above the elbow full. One smart model had a scarf tie and waist-band knitted in a tufted stitch which gave an astrakhan effect.
Rough and smooth felts with brims are worn tilted to the right side; many dip at front and back with a roll-up at the sides. The beret has developed amazingly since last winter; it now lops over in any direction in a seemingly simple fashion, and when worn at the correct angle adds an air of jauntiness to any outfit. These new berets are carried out in velvets or soft felts and velours. Variants of the toque have beautifully swathed crowns; the Afghan cap rises to a peak; the square crown vies with the high crown. In fact, there are hats to suit every type of face.
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Home Dressmaking.
In these days of severe economy and hard-upness, it is necessary for most of us to learn to make at least some of our clothes. With patience and particular attention to detail you can make the most charming and successful garments.
First of all it is well to have some knowledge of dressmaking and be able
The next step is to provide yourself with needles, good pins, cotton, a pair of cutting-out scissors, and, if possible, a heavy iron and an ironing board.
Now about the patterns, most important, of course, is suitability of design. Choose your styles to bring out your best points. Follow to the letter the instructions given with the paper pattern. Amateurs frequently ignore the instructions given on the envelope and wonder why their garment does not look like the design they have chosen. Paper patterns are scientifically cut by experts and fitted on models, so you can see that the instructions are worth studying and following. When the cutting of your garment is successful, it has a good chance of fitting and looking right.
Tacking a garment together before sewing it is well worth the extra trouble involved. Then a critical survey of yourself in the tacked garment, making any alteration that may be necessary before the sewing, which must be very carefully done. Stretched or puckered seams will spoil the most carefully cut garment.
Be sure that the materials are suitable for the style of the garment. Do not commence by trying to make up a very thin or “stretchy” material.
Pressing is most important. It goes on all the time. Seams must be pressed as they occur, and must on no account be left until the garment is complete.
Buttonholes must be perfectly made or they will give your garment an amateurish and home-made look. Unless you are absolutely sure of yourself, give them to a tailor or dressmaker to do for you.
Children and Colds.
As the autumn and winter months draw nearer, the subject of coughs, colds and chills cannot be entirely dismissed. Especially where children are concerned, the fight against the cold germ cannot be relaxed. In children colds turn so frequently to bronchitis and more serious illnesses, and are often the direct cause of ill-health in later life.
An open-air life is the enemy of germs of all descriptions. Fresh air helps to keep the body fit to withstand the invasion of enemy bacteria. Moving and changing air carries away the microbes. Cleanliness is another essential, and freedom from constipation. A clean body makes a poor breeding place for microbes.
Diet is an important factor. In the winter there is an inclination to increase the starchy ration. Try to include as much fresh green stuff and fruit (especially apples and oranges) as possible in the daily diet.
Clothing is also important. Do not coddle in the cold weather by dressing the child in layers of thick underclothing. Have a lightly woven porous garment next the skin. Two, or at the most three layers of clothing are all that are necessary. On a cold day an extra cardigan or jersey can be worn out of doors. A child keeps warm with exercise.
If a child complains of an unusually chilly feeling the best thing is to give a warm bath, taking care to prevent chilling afterwards, and put him into a warm bed with a hot water bottle. Let him breathe cool, moving air. Have the bed away from draughts and keep the window open. If necessary give him a laxative.
Summed up, the best way to check a cold is a warm bath, warm bed, and plenty of fluids—water, barley water, orange and other fruit drinks. Withhold solid food for a day or two.
Home Notes.
Tomatoes.
Now that tomatoes are in season you will find that the most delicious and inexpensive dishes may be made from them. It is seldom that we find anyone who, liking tomatoes, wearies of them before the season is over. Out-of-season, too, we can have the same delicious and inexpensive dishes made from the tomatoes which we have preserved at so little trouble and cost. In this connection it would not be out of place to include a recipe for tomato soup which will keep all the year. Here it is:
Put 41b. of tomatoes, 2 onions, 1 teaspoon salt, peppercorns and sugar, and a little thyme into a saucepan with two quarts of water and boil rapidly for half an hour, and then rub through a colander. Bottle and seal while hot.
When needed, heat the desired quantity, add the necessary quantity of milk, a little butter, and thicken with flour.
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The Dominion Mark Fruit Book.
The Dominion Mark Fruit Book, which has just been published by the N.Z. Fruitgrowers' Federation, offers New Zealand housewives some interesting and helpful information and suggestions concerning the many nourishing ways in which this valuable food may be prepared for the table. Additional recipes are included in this 1934 booklet.
There is a section on lemons and grapefruit. For those desiring reliable information on the bottling and preserving of fruits, there are complete and dependable instructions.
Last year New Zealand growers marketed over 100,000 packages bearing the Dominion Mark label with its Guarantee of Export Quality. Still greater quantities will be distributed during 1934, and Dominion Mark Fruit should be readily procurable from all reliable retailers.
Variety In Brife
Train passengers travelling distances frequently see, in lonely country regions, a family lining the doorstep of the old homestead waving in a friendly fashion to them. How many of those comfortably-seated travellers turn their heads away or shrug their shoulders impatiently? They have no time to waste returning the salutation. Yet such an act, which can occupy only a second, may bring hours of pleasure to those remote dwellers. I was in a country home when the express was due. Out on to the verandah the family trooped. As the train roared by, each one waved a hand. One or two passengers waved back, but many more saw the greeting and ignored it. When the express was only a memory, I asked if they derived any satisfaction from their act. “Rather,” was the firm reply, “we're so lonely here as a rule that to receive a return wave makes us think we are, after all, not forgotten, and are one with the people of the towns. It makes our day seem so much brighter.” So—isn't an easy reciprocative wave worth while?—C.H.F.
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As one who was present as a press reporter at both the Thorne trials I might mention one fact of importance in addition to the others brought out by Mr. Treadwell in his recent interesting article. I refer to the fact that experts gave evidence that Mr. Eyre's body was lying in such a position that the shot could have been fired only by a left-handed man, and it was proved that Thorne was an exceptionally good left-handed shot. Then, in regard to the hoof prints of Mickey, the horse, one of these was reproduced in a cast and exhibited in Court. I forget the exact number of horses examined by the police in connection with the case, but it ran into four figures. It was proved that the horse that left the prints had a habit of bearing to the off-side of the road, and this was shown to be one of Mickey's habits. Another point of interest is that one of the witnesses for the Crown committed suicide between the first and the second trials. The incident caused a sensation, but had no bearing on the case.—F.H.R.
Although the Treaty of Waitangi is zealously guarded by the Department in charge of the precious document (the Department of Internal Affairs, Government Buildings), it is possible for the earnest student to view it, and I had this pleasure recently. On my expressing some surprise at the extremely battered appearance of the Treaty, I was told of its romantic history, which, incidentally, does not appear to have come under the notice of any other New Zealand writer. In 1841, when the Government offices at Auckland were burned down, the Treaty narrowly escaped destruction, and was rescued in the nick of time by the then Record Clerk, George Eliott, who then took the eight copies, together with the Seal of the Colony, to the house of Felton Mathew, afterwards the residence of Colonel Wynyard. From there, they were taken, some time after, to the Colonial Secretary's Office, where, it is stated, they remained till 1865. About that time they were lost, and in 1869 the Legislative Council was informed to that effect. The story goes that, a few years later, they were found by Dr. Hocken, in the basement of the Government Buildings, in Wellington. In 1908, the copies were sent to the Dominion Museum. At the present moment the Treaty reposes in a very strong metal box, which is always kept locked, and which in turn is housed in a fire-proof strongroom.—M.S.N.
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In the January issue of the “New Zealand Railways Magazine,”
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A humorous paragraph in Dr. Marais' “Colonisation of New Zealand” is that dealing with the departure of the first Scottish colony from the Clyde. A Colonisation Dinner was held, and this was attended by many important functionaries, one of whom ended his speech in poetic, if not too cheerful strain:
(Published in the “Glasgow Constitutional,” 26/10/1839.)—“Rauparaha.”
Unable To Attend Meeting.
“Is that —–'s office? I'm speaking for Mr. —–. He will be unable to attend the meeting this evening…. Yes, a cold…. Baxter's Lung Preserver….. I will….
An important meeting, an absentee, and advice from someone who knew that “Baxter's” would soon fix that cold. A cold can upset a business engagement, but “Baxter's” soon upsets a cold.
Be sure you get “Baxter's.” 1/6, 2/6 and 4/6 everywhere.*
By)
“Shibli Bagarag
.”Interest in book-plates is growing rapidly in this country. In the most artistic brochure (No. 2) recently produced by the New Zealand Ex Libris Society no less than 200 New Zealand plates were listed. And the number is growing. Now, before I go any further, what is a book-plate? William Moore, the Australian art critic gives an effectively simple definition as follows: “A book-plate is a badge or label fastened securely within a book giving a polite and artistic indication of the rightful owner.” Here are some other definitions:—
The late Sir Edmond Gosse: “The outward and visible mark of the citizenship of the book lover is his bookplate.” Eden Phillpotts expresses himself thus: “emphatically the ideal bookplate should not be a picture of the master's crest, or his coat, his house, or his library, but a line between his own personality and the treasure it adorns—a sign for other eyes, by which the possessor holds for ever a sort of spiritual right in his volume, that owners to come should recognise and respect … there should be close identity with him only, for whose sake the work of art was created.”
Having arrived at a point where we understand just what a book-plate is, it is interesting to know that book-plate or ex libris societies exist all over the world, even in Japan and China. New Zealand is issuing a strong challenge to Australia in the numerical and artistic force of its plates. So that readers of this page may gather some idea of the type of book plate being designed in New Zealand, I propose to reproduce each issue one of the more interesting designs. The first of these appropriately is that of the late Alex. H. Turnbull who left us the magnificent Turnbull Library. The design is by Praetorius.
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That indefatigable young Wellington journalist Mr. N. F. Hoggard who has run successfully, “Spilt Ink” for the last few years proposes to issue a new monthly paper entitled “New Zealand Amateur Theatre” which will be devoted exclusively to the criticism of plays produced by amateur groups, jottings of plays produced overseas, and to current theatrical topics, including the work of New Zealand dramatists. The yearly subscription will be 2/6.
* * *
G. B. Lancaster's “Pageant” has, considering the bad times, achieved something of a sales record in New Zealand, nearly 2000 copies having been disposed of to date. The Australian and New Zealand rights were bought by the Endeavour Press which company produced an edition which has been much more popular than the smaller English edition. G. B. Lancaster, or Miss Edith Lyttelton as we know her, is still in the Dominion and is writing a novel with a New Zealand setting. Meanwhile her last novel “The World is Yours” is being published by Unwins. The Australian and New Zealand rights will probably again be held by the Endeavour Press.
* * *
Miss Pamela Travers whose bright pen sparkled in the pages of the Christchurch “Sun” some years ago, has been selected for special mention by some reviewers of “Recent Poetry 1923–33,” an anthology edited by Mrs. Harold Munro. When in the Dominion Miss Travers also did some bright work in prose and verse for the now defunct “Triad.”
The bookplate designed for the late Alex. H. Turnbull.
* * *
Among the galaxy of writers coming to this country this year is Elinor Mordaunt, the popular English novelist who won applause from the reviewers with her novel “Full Circle,” reputed to be a reply to Somerset Maugham's alleged attack on Hardy's “Cakes and Ale.”
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Some Maori proverbs that I culled recently from an old book on Maori lore:—
Women and land are the causes which destroy men.
Let him go on asking, his strength lies in asking idle questions.
Good books are like true friends: they will never fail us, never cease to instruct —never cloy.
The fame of a warrior is precarious, while that of a man strong to cultivate food is lasting.
* * *
Nelson folk hug to their breasts a fond memory of the description given of their little township by Max O'Rell, way back in the last century, when he spoke of it as being “an idyll, a gem, a miniature Arcady.” No writer has lavished such ecstatic praise on any other part of New Zealand.
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For the benefit of all interested (and those who ought to be interested), and in order to make this page as comprehensive as possible concerning the activities of publishers in New Zealand, they are invited to forward to “Shibli Bagarag,” for review, copies from the presses of all publications. New Zealand is such a glutton for reading matter that advance notices and criticism are eagerly looked for.
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Shibli Listens In.
There has been such a demand for the second edition of T. Lindsay Buick's “The Treaty of Waitangi,” that for the remaining copies leading booksellers are now asking 30/-, which is 10/- in advance of the published price.
(Continued at bottom of next page.)
The value of perseverance with Kruschen, in the treatment of rheumatism, is proved by this man's experience. He says:-
“I was abroad for over seven years, and when I returned I began to get rheumatism-particularly in the feet and arms. Three years ago my rheumatism got much worse, and I was eventually taken into hospital, unable to move any joint of my body. I left the hospital after two months, when I was somewhat better. I was recommended to take Kruschen Salts, and I have taken them continuously. Since then I have gradually got rid of my rheumatism, until I am now entirely free of those awful pains. I would not be without my Kruschen Salts for anything.”-M. B.
No remedy can bring permanent relief from rheumatism unless it performs three separate functions. These are (a) dissolution of the needle-pointed uric acid crystals which cause the pain; (b) the expulsion of these crystals from the system (c) prevention of a further accumulation of uric acid.
Two of the ingredients of Kruschen Salts are the most effectual solvents of uric acid known to medical science. They swiftly dull the sharp edges of the painful crystals, then convert them into a harmless solution. Other ingredients of these Salts have a stimulating effect upon the kidneys, and assist them to expel the dissolved uratic needles through the natural channel.
Combined with these solvents and eliminants of uric acid are still other salts which prevent food fermentation taking place in the intestine, and thereby check the further formation of mischievous uric acid.
Kruschen Salts is obtainable at all Chemists and Stores at 2/6 per bottle.
Browsing the other day in an old library, the writer came across a New Zealand Year Book of the ‘eighties, and certainly it brought out in striking contrast the condition of those far off days with the present. The shipping arrangements were of especial interest, comparing the liners that now enter the port of Auckland.
The “Chief Cabin” passengers were informed that they must fit up their own cabins, while the “Second and Other” passengers have their berths built for them, but require to find their own bedding and any little extra things they may think they require. They must also provide knives, forks, etc., and saucepans, cups, mugs, 41b. of marine soap—(a hook teapot to hang on the bars of the stove was regarded as very handy)—cannisters to hold a week's small stores and half a week's rations. Note: The ship provides a steward for second cabin passengers. Then for cooking purposes, there was a public stove on deck for the above classes, and passengers could, if they so desired, prepare their own favourite dishes.
The instructions for embarkation were many and varied. “Cabin” passengers were informed that they may get on board at Gravesend, by small boats, for about one shilling each, the “other” passengers were advised to board at the docks. “We,” goes on the instructions, “would caution them, too, when in London, to be on their guard against any strangers who may kindly offer to assist them in any little matter; for sometimes there are even decent looking men prowling round the docks and dock streets whose room is better than their company.”
A good deal of space is devoted to the outfit needed for New Zealand.
And in another part it says: “A want of means to reach this El Dorado is a much more serious matter, but a steerage passage for the better classes of society is a wholesome preparation for colonial life; it is eminently destructive of self-conceit, generates self-denial and consideration for others, makes men and women less selfish, because more mutually dependent, and is a fine preparatory lesson for life in the colonies.”
Plantation Profits.
Anyone travelling through N.Z. at present and seeing the large number of pine plantations now being milled cannot fail to appreciate the potential value of the large pine forests established by N.Z. Perpetual Forests Ltd.
Sawmillers are finding that it costs less, and is much more profitable to mill plantations instead of natural forests, which are now mostly inaccessible.
The importation of foreign boxing timber has dropped considerably and the milling of Insignis Plantations has been responsible for this.
Very satisfactory returns are being received for trees planted without any thought of profit.*
“Tobacco absolutely free from nicotine?” writes Mr. Eugene Orme, an analytical chemist of note. “No, I'm afraid it's as hopeless to look for that as it is to discover the philosopher's stone or elixer of life. The nearest approach to tobacco of such purity–and it is a near approach—is made in New Zealand. I know, because when I was there for the big game fishing a year or two ago I found that ‘the tobacco of the country,’ as the Maori-landers call it, contains surprisingly little nicotine. The manufacturers toast it (having installed special machinery for the purpose), with the result that so much of the nicotine is eliminated that what remains is negligible. Both flavour and bouquet are delightful. No wonder this tobacco finds so much favour with smokers in ‘the Britain of the South.’ “Thus the testimony in favour of New Zealand toasted tobacco is always growing! The four brands are: Navy Cut No. 3 (Bulldog), Riverhead Gold, Cavendish, and Cut Plug No. 10 (Bulls-head). Smoke them as freely as you will, they are harmless-because they're toasted.*
Shibli Listens In-Continued.
About four years ago a Wellington bookshop discovered several copies of the first edition of the same work stowed away on a book shelf. These were sold at the published price!
Since Ken Alexander commenced his series of humorous talks over the wireless there have been renewed inquiries for his “High Lights of Life.”
Big sales are predicted for “The Magic Story,” recently published by the Australian Book Publishing Co. A remarkable little book.
In the two days book sale of rare New Zealand, Australian and South African books (on account of Mr. W. J. Mc-Eldowney) recently held in Wellington, one of the items was No. 2 of the New Zealand Artists' Annual (1927).
I have received the first number of a monthly journal entitled “The Student's Digest.” It is a small paper containing informative notes on current affairs, and is to circulate through the higher standards of the primary schools and through the secondary schools. Certainly this little journal will be of great interest and help to young students, dealing as it does in a clear and forceful manner with current world problems. The Minister for Education (the Honourable R. Masters) in his foreword to the news-sheet, expresses the hope that the boys and girls of the Dominion may find the perusal of its pages both interesting and profitable, and that it may aid in the fostering among New Zealanders of a more intelligent interest in world affairs. The annual subscription to the paper is 1/6.