The Hapuawhenua Viaduct (1 3/4 Miles North of Ohakune), North Island Main Trunk Line, New Zealand
Contents
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Rly. Publicity photo.)
A scene on the Blenhelm-Christchurch Road, near Kaikoura, South Island, New Zealand.
On the road to the Haast Pass, South Westland, New Zealand.
The nunneries of silent nooks, the murmured longing of the wood. —Lowell.
The New Zealand
Railways
Magazine
Railways
Magazine
Registered at the G.P.O.
Wellington,New Zealandfor transmission by post as a NewspaperPublished by the
New Zealand Government Railways Department
“”
For Better Service.Circulation Over20,000
Vol. XI. No. 1.
Wellington,
New Zealand
April1, 1936.
The decision of the New Zealand Government to complete the North Island East Coast railway from Napier to Gisborne, naturally brings into prominence the part generally played by railways in the development of the country which they help to open up.
From Russia comes news of the fast development of traffic on existing lines in 1935, and of the pressure maintained to duplicate portion of the Trans-Siberian railway, construction work being carried on even throughout the winter with the thermometer frequently 700 below zero. Another immense railway system in the same country is planned, to reach in a 7,500 miles stretch from the Black Sea to the Pacific. Coal is to be brought to copper, and copper to hydro-electricity in the Kazakstan area, in size the second republic in the U.S.S.R., where a new 300 miles of railway makes feasible an industrialisation hitherto impossible of achievement.
In New Zealand the areas concerned are on a comparatively miniature scale, and nature is so kindly that work can be carried on all the year round without temperature causing any real hardships.
Gisbrone is about 340 miles from Wellington—a little less than the distance from London to Edinburgh.
Judged on the basis of what has occurred in every other district of New Zealand where direct rail access has been given, the effect on the life of the people in the area concerned, and in the tendency towards increased settlement and the fuller development of the land and related industries, may be expected to be something which will be of immediate benefit to those in the locality, and which will at the same time react very favourably upon the whole course of business in the Dominion.
The new aspect which the rail-car offers for dealing with passenger transport in sparsely populated districts is of great importance in a matter of this kind. Admitting that, under modern conditions, the “mixed” train (as the train which conveys both passengers and freight is known in New Zealand) ceases to meet requirements if faster and, at the same time, more economical methods of train transport are available, the rail-car comes as a solution which gives all the speed desirable for passengers at a most economical operating rate, and allows freight to be worked by separate trains devoted to that purpose alone, with, of course, greater mobility of operation.
With all these old and new features of rail access working in favour of the East Coast line, primary and secondary developments of no mean importance may be looked for “up Gisborne way.” To railwaymen the new line opens up prospects of further activity in their own particular sphere of employment, the importance of which cannot be disregarded. To the travelling public it means a valuable extension of the facilities the railways provide for travel either for business or pleasure. To the people of the district along the new route of railway, the new construction will have the effect of bringing them more fully than ever before into the general life of their own country.
General manager's message
The Change in Railway Control.
By the time this message reaches readers of the Magazine, all those interested in the change in Railway control, namely, the patrons of the Railways, the members of the service, and the general public, will doubtless have had an opportunity to consider the details of the Government's decision in the matter, whereby the Railways Board is dissolved, and the principle of Government control through the Minister of Railways and the General Manager of Railways, is fully established.
There is one point in connection with the change to which I desire to draw attention, and that is to the fact that, when the projected change was announced, the newspaper press of the Dominion seemed to be unanimous in giving credit to the influence of the Board for the improvement in the quality if service rendered by the members of the Railway Department during recent years.
As head of the Railways Department, and without wishing to take away anything from the Board, I am impelled to say that the whole of the credit for the quality of service given to the public in recent years should go to the staff of the Department who, from one end of the Dominion to the other, have responded so well to the frequently expressed desire of the Management, that the quality of service rendered to the public might be as good as it was possible to give in every circumstance, and fully worthy of this great Department of State and of the people of the Dominion. In this statement of the position I am sure individual members of the Board will agree, and would be the first to disclaim any credit for the improvement referred to.
Hence I have no hesitation in assuring the patrons of the Railways and the general public, again on behalf of every member of the Department, that the standard of service, regarding which so many favourable comments have been made, will be fully maintained in the changed conditions, and that wherever possible it will be still further improved.
The members of the Service, as is only natural and in duty bound, have the utmost goodwill towards the patrons of the Department, who really constitute the whole of the public; and even that goodwill, translated into terms of service, cannot fail to be enhanced as a result of the expressed intention of the Hon. Minister of Railways and the Government to see that the Railways obtain fair treatment and better recognition of the value of the work they are performing and are designed to perform in the general transport interests of the country.
General Manager
Gisborne—The Progressive Capital of Poverty Bay.
(1) Gisborne Refrigerating Coy's Works, showing portion of the killing room. (2) Modern show windows of Pettie's Ltd. (3) Te Puia, showing open-air thermal pool (natural gasometer on left). (4) Gisborne's main thoroughfare, showing Pettie's Corner. (5) Lounge of Gisborne Hotel. (6) Leading book emporium of Poverty Bay. (7) Hawke's Bay Motor Coy's Fleet of Special Service Cars. (8) Morere open-air thermal swimming pool. (See article on p. 10.)
The charming river front at Gisborne.
Gillespie
Captain Cook was a great navigator and he leads the world in the number of names he allotted to new and hitherto undiscovered places. I wish he could return to New Zealand to correct his most ludicrous mistake; the title he gave to “Poverty Bay.” It ranks as one of the greatest blunders in history, making the little error of Columbus in thinking that San Salvador was one of the Indies, quite excusable and negligible in comparison. He could have done better with “Bountiful Bay,” “Golconda Gulf,” “Riches Reach,” or “Croesus Coast.” My trip to this land of golden richness was one perpetual succession of pleasant surprises which would have been brightened if I could have heard a recantation by the ghost of that greatest of British sailormen. I am afraid that I went up there with many misconceptions that I held in common with tens of thousands of New Zealanders, and in this article I shall try to put readers “wise.”
The winding route to Gisborne from Napier is interesting, but, like many works written by esteemed authors, it remains long. The service cars are the last word in luxury, and there are bonny townships along the route. Wairoa, with its river frontage, is a foreshadowing of what will later be seen in the Poverty Bay Capital, for the utmost decorative use has been made of the big river, and its banks are green with sloping lawns, and bright with shrubs and flowers. Here and there on the journey one spies the complete and incomplete skeletons of lofty railway bridges which one day may be crossed by swift trains. I am always fascinated by the ways of service car drivers. Every sight is familiar, and half the children that scatter as the horn sounds, call out “G'Day Bill,” and Bill seems to be gifted with television or some similar form of sight which sees round corners. There is a camaraderie between the passengers and the officials of the Hawke's Bay Motor Company which we noticed at Napier. Perhaps this is due to the fact that all the seats in these road palaces are so comfortable that there is little to choose between pews.
The arrival at Gisborne was in the early hours, but the supper at the Gisborne Hotel was excellent, and in the morning when we woke, the sun was shining on a pleasant prospect. My friend of the camera and I met on the spacious verandah in pyjamas and decided to take some pictures immediately. We had been warned about Gisborne hospitality and thought it wiser to get to work immediately. This subsequently proved to be wise politics. I have heard it said that everyone returning from this friendly, lavishly hospitable little city, requires time to recover.
The town itself is a model of planning. The streets are broad, the buildings solidly impressive, and there is an air of spaciousness lacking in many of otherwise beautiful provincial capitals. The most skilful use has been made of the river frontages. The bridges are handsome ferro-concrete structures, and the splendid banks are planted with ornamental shrubs and trees, and in the magical manner of
Gisborne from surrounding hills.
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Rly. Publicity photo.)
The creeper-clad exterior of the Gisborne High School.
I am always first anxious to see what a town has in the way of beaches and sunbathing facilities. I often feel inclined to grade them on their possessions of these advantages. The Waikanae Beach is reminiscent of Caroline Bay at Timaru. It is sheltered by the harbour mole, is within a minute or two of the city streets, and has up-to-date appointments, and safe water. It is crowded “merry and bright,” and without fault or blemish. After the swim, we went up the Kaiti Hill to look at the view, taking the truly magnificent Whare-runanga on the way. Our picture shows a little of its glories. Its size is in keeping with the pleasant thought that it symbolizes the sweeping away of the tragic memories of this settlement. Here in Poverty Bay there was more than a fair share of the sad misunderstandings and bloodstained quarrels between Maori and pakeha. To-day both races use this glorious hall for a host of social purposes.
I shall not waste readers’ time with a description of the amenities of the city. It has good cinema theatres, a good legitimate theatre, golf links, cricket grounds and other playing fields in profusion, splendid official buildings, and the usual comforts of deep dramage, telephone system, paved streets, and hundreds of large and luxurious homes. To my everlasting delight, and I make no excuse for stressing its importance, I found that Gisborne beaches were free of one of my tribal enemies as a sun-bather. There is not a sandfly in the district and the sales of citronella are wretched. The stores and warehouses are most impressive. It is a commonplace of this distinctive feature of New Zealand development that its provincial capitals have business establishments that rival those of the four larger centres. I take the local drapery business of Pettie's Ltd. as an example. From small beginnings it is now a modern store with a floor space of 20,000 feet, and 2,500 feet of show windows. We show its Parisian modernity in our picture, and add that many a Gisborne girl visitor to London has bought a frock to find that its twin has raced her home to this modern emporium. The business to-day is celebrating its jubilee, and has a half century of history, of enterprise, courage and steady progress. Gisborne is one of those places where no one grows old, and there is a good example in the senior partner here, Mr. Toneycliffe who joined in 1908. He had then retired for some time from a large Christchurch business, but was (and is) the kind of man whose doctor ordered him “back to work” as the only way of recruiting his health.
European critics, accustomed to dismiss us as a nation of utilitarian folk running the “Empire's Dairy Farm” should have a peep at Adams’ book shop. The range of books would surprise them, and no tourist need go without his accustomed weekly. Cities of a million in older lands lack the equal of this commodious emporium. However, many of these advantages are shared by other places.
Gisborne has its own distinctive set of golden gifts. We went through Hexton and climbed another gentle hill to look over the famous “Flats.” Here is a vast area of old world beauty and symmetry. Trees are everywhere, ringing the paddocks, or sheltering neat homesteads. It might be an English wooded county except that the graceful second growth totaras and the innumerable fields of maize give it an exotic effect. Pumpkins grow here that need no enlarging for Cinderella's coach. Onions, turnips and other root crops grow to prodigious sizes that would make anyone of their millions a prizewinner at agricultural shows in other parts of the world. I pause here to say that a railway brought to this area of extravagant and prodigal fertility would be working overtime at once, in getting the goods away. In the meantime there is glut and waste.
On the circling hills there seem to be countless sheep, and so thickly crowded are they on the lavish grass that in the distance the paddocks look like lawns studded with white sauntering daisies.
Next day brought me the greatest surprise of all. I had been out to the
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A typical example of a Gisborne garden and home.The wonderfully situated Whare-runanga on Kaiti Slopes.
Now I am a well-travelled New Zealander. I have been in most out-of-the-way spots of this wonderland of ours. And I replied, “Well, remember that I can only spare one day.” Like thousands of you who read this article, I visioned the country north of Gisborne as a mountainous, remote, inaccessible country, remaining, however, good for sheep, inhabited by doughty heroes who did not mind being out in the “Never Never.” It is all wrong. I did not see an acre in that whole day's journey that one could not ride over on a Shetland pony; much of the country is ploughable and all through it are green and level stretches. The settlers have left the bush in the gullies and lower slopes for shelter, giving the changing scene a woodland and parklike loveliness. The road is mostly paved and where it is not, it is smooth and perfect macadam. The panorama for the whole journey is one of sheer visual magic. It is as changeable as the summer sea, but always vividly beautiful. Every few miles there is a delectable little bay with a yellowsanded beach, and there is no dearth of excellent wayside inns. I state with conviction that in all the long years of pleasurable journeys and of sylvan sight-seeing that I have experienced in the Dominion, this day on the East Coast Road was the red-haired girl of them all. The Te Puia Hotel was another surprise. Here is a modern spa, luxuriously appointed, and in the most romantic surroundings. Interesting and marvellously pretty walks are in every direction. There is a large concrete swimming pool of regulation size fed from the mineral springs, and a plunge into its champagne-like water had exactly the same effect upon us as if we had used the real article as a beverage. The medicinal value of these hot springs have been known from time immemorial. Here you can see the springs, as it were, in their natural home, and it took a stout heart to erect this palatial resort from the very beginnings; but the task is finished. There are, of course, many bath houses of varying temperatures and strengths. Here also, by the way, you can trace natural gas vents to their native lairs. The hotel (and the large hospital standing nearby) run their lighting and cooking stoves with this gas from the earth caverns. It burns with a bright, clean flame and leaves no trace of deposit. Down below lies Waipiro Bay, a lovely beach now rather side-tracked. Once more there was evidence of Poverty Bay's richness of soil in the crop of onions in the hotel kitchen garden.
We ran home to Gisborne in just under two hours which included time to certify to the speed and courtesy of service of two kindly brethren in shirt sleeves. My friend of the camera had an agitated passage. At every bend, at every sudden sea vista, at every sweep of green hill crowned with handsome homesteads, he wanted to take another picture. However, we were finally in sight of the enormous block of buildings in which the “Bay's” wealth is largely minted. The Gisborne Farmers’ Refrigerating Company is a monument to the commonsense of amalgamation and business planning, and here actually are freezing works with touches of beauty in gardens and approaches. It is a model of arrangement and efficiency, and deserves the pride in it which is felt by the whole district.
I made my third entry into the Pacific as I found that Gisborne was having its evening swim. I must not forget the exceedingly graceful pile of buildings which house the High School, and the two racecourses, one of which has the best “plough” I have seen in New Zealand. Poverty Bay has always been famous as the home of the thoroughbred horse, particularly of what the Irish call “leppers.” Steeplechase champions have come from there in plenty; but it will not end at that. Cattle and sheep, as well as horses, grow to special virility and size in this paradisal climate and upon this opulent pasture.
One of these days (if the railway goes through) Poverty Bay will export to the world at large thoroughbred stock of every description. Favoured
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Rly. Publicity photo.)
Te Puia, showing pool and gardens and hotel (Lake Waipiro in background).Showing the care of the Native Bush. (
Rly. Publicity photo.)
The return journey saw a stop-over at Morere, another fairyland of mineral springs and natural bush. Here also are bath houses, and a concrete swimming pool, ornamental gardens, and hundreds of acres of scenic bushland. The Morere Hotel is a modernly appointed place, popular and of long standing reputation. I do rather wonder that any Gisborne townsman ever goes away. The wealth of attractions available to him is enormous, even to this last particular in having ideal spas on either side.
Morere is surrounded by the most delightful private park which needs to be wandered if one is to learn the real delights of the New Zealand bush. In its little by-ways are small green islands of mystery which tempt one to explore and bring back days of boyhood. Across the long flat there is Waikokopu harbour with its promising rail-head, and nearby, of course, there is another glorious beach.
One of the remarkable features of the configuration of all this country from far North to its lower boundary, is the regular occurrence of rich level areas. It is little wonder that our intelligent predecessors, the Maori pioneers, settled in this part of their new domain, for growing food was not a problem at all in this land of fabulously fertile soil and everlasting sunshine, alleviated by soft rains.
There is a feeling of history in all this scene, and history has a way of repeating itself.
It is curious that the later years of New Zealand development have seen the pakeha experts crowding to the places that were first favoured by the first voyagers from Hawaiki. Circumstances like the discovery of gold and coal in our early times attracted rushes of settlers, and forced the growth of districts to the disadvantage of places far more golden in their natural riches of air and sky and soil. It is a latter day that has made the pakeha realise that the real treasures of our lovely country are in its other gifts, and nowhere are they more marvellous than in this part of the Dominion.
Saying “Good-bye” to Gisborne was a difficult task. Its distinguishing characteristic is a hospitality that is redolent of the spacious days of old-time New Zealand. It would seem that these owners of lovely homes, these members of friendly clubs, the newspaper men, the business associations, and the whole community, are engaged in a gracious conspiracy to make that spectacular blunder of Captain Cook look more and more absurd to any visitor.
Gisborne's glowing future is no dream vision. It is a commonsense statement of fact.
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Rly. Publicity photo.)
Gisborne's Popular Beaches. (1) Waikane Beach, showing appointments;
(2) Wainui Beach—ideal for surfing.
James Cowan
“Bless me eyes,” said the white-whiskered Old-Timer, “it's just sixty-six years since I lay in Apia harbour in Her Majesty's twelve-gun brig Elk.” We had been yarning about Samoa as it was in the days when it was still a No-man's Land, and when three Great Powers were alternately coaxing and bullying the natives, and now and again setting up a short-reign king, and now and again hurling shot and shell into the hapless islanders’ bush villages.
“The old Elk—she was a comfortable little ship if ever there was one. You know, in those days there were hellships in the Royal Navy just as in the merchant marine. They'd flog a man as soon as look at him, in some British men-o'-war. There was the Iris for one, that fine-looking frigate that was out in these waters in the days of the Maori War. The Elk was in these parts at the same time, but how different she was, a little brig of four hundred tons, with a crew of about a hundred and thirty. No flogging in her. She had a captain who didn't believe in it, but he got good discipline for all that.”
This veteran of two services, James Capper, well on towards his nineties told me of the days when he was a carefree barefooted young bluejacket jumping around up in the branches of that little brig-of-war. He had come out to New Zealand before the mast in the ship Rose of Sharon, and after a turn at whaling along the Hawke's Bay coast he signed on in the Elk at Auckland for the term of a cruise; she was going to the South Seas. “This was early in 1859. I served in her for eighteen months. A few months after we left Auckland we were lying in Apia Bay. The hands were busy cleaning and painting the brig and boating off water from one of the beautiful clear mountain streams that ran through the beach town. The Elk was making ready to sail for Sydney, her headquarters on the South Pacific station.
“We were busy getting the ship in order,” said my old sailor friend, “when we saw a whaleboat under sail come in through the reef entrance and make for the beach. The boat, running in before the fine breeze, passed close to the brig. We thought it must be a trader coming in on some urgent job from one of the other islands; perhaps a native war had broken out. Presently a boat came off to us from the shore, with the two consuls, British and American, and they had a conference with our captain and went ashore again. Signals went up recalling our pinnace and cutter, which were bringing off water. A few moments later the bos'n's pipe went shrilling and then the order was bawled, ‘All hands lay aft!'
“We dropped every job we were at and doubled aft, and mustered in front of our Captain, Campion. He was standing on the midship gun grating in the gangway. He said:
”'My lads, I've just received some very important news, and I want you to work as you've never worked before in your lives. It's to save human life. A brig has foundered out there and there are fourteen people adrift on a raft. Now, my lads, we must go out and find them.'
“That was Captain Campion's way. He got us going good and willing straight off. I see him now, in my mind's eye—a burly man, rather stout, clean-shaven except for mutton-chop whiskers, bluff and hearty of manner. He turned to the first lieutenant, Mr. Hume—'Nobby’ Hume we called him, a rather peppery customer and a splendid seaman—and told him to get the ship under way.
“The bos'n's pipe, and the bos'n's mates', went again like birds, and there was the roar we were all ready for: ‘Hands unmoor ship!’ Both anchors were down. We manned the windlass, and the ship's fiddler couldn't fiddle fast enough for us, racing those hooks up. The fiddler was a Scot, and he played all the lively reels and strathspeys, ‘Miss McLeod's Reel,’ and all the rest of them. We got the ‘devil's claw’ to work—them two hooks that grappled the cable like grim death and kept it from slipping—and we manned the quarter-deck capstan too and rove messengers, and kept reeving new messengers, and the anchors were soon a-trip, the fiddler squatting on one of the guns sawing away like a wild fellow.
“Then it was ‘Hands make sail!’ That was a glorious job always. We made good quick work of it with our big crew, though everything had to be done by hand, of course—no mechanical labour-savers in those days. Our topsails—big three-reef sails—were loosed and hoisted, and then the others, and in less than half-an-hour from the time we got the first word we were standing out through the reef entrance
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Drawing by A. H. Messenger.)
H. M. Brig “Elk” sailing out of Apia, Samoa.
“As soon as we got out clear of Apia reef and well to sea, look-outs were posted aloft on both masts; and we were all on the alert for a sight of the driftaways. Then we were told that the missing people were from an American brig called the Ellenita, which had sunk somewhere to the north of Savaii Island. The whaleboat that brought the news had come from Savaii, where the captain and some of the crew had landed in a boat. The captain's name was Hayes. That was the first we heard of the afterwards celebrated Bully Hayes, but it was not his first coming to the South Seas. He had been sailoring in the Pacific since about 1853. This Jost vessel of his, the Ellenita, was a brig of some three hundred tons. We heard all about the wreck later. He got a vessel somehow at San Francisco, and hoisted the flag of some fancy little republic called New Grenada. Nine or ten people, one of them a woman, had taken passage in the brig for Sydney. Hayes gave some of them the slip, he sailed without them. It was all of a piece with the tricks he played in the Pacific Islands afterwards. His last day in San Francisco was a Sunday. He persuaded several of the passengers to go to church with him. He left them there—left them in the lurch, waiting at the church, and got away to sea that night, taking all their baggage with him. There was one woman passenger; he didn't leave her behind. His crew were a tough lot some of them, all whites, thirteen men and a boy.
The brig sprang a leak. There was no carpenter on board, and the ship gradually filled and sank. The pump was choked by some bags of beans that swelled. There was only one boat fit for use. Hayes and some of the brig's people got into her, most of the others left the sinking brig on a raft they had knocked together. Boat and raft were provisioned, and each had a mast and sail. Hayes took a couple of the passengers with him— one was the woman—and several of the crew, and took the raft in tow. He told the people on the raft that he would stand by them, but in the night, so the story went, he cut the raft adrift and left them there; perhaps it broke away, at any rate he had disappeared when daylight came. He reached Savaii, and that was how we got the news.
“Well, there we were cruising along to the north and west of Savaii Island, keeping a sharp look-out for that missing raft, look-outs on both masts all day and night, and we burned flares. Our master—as they called a navigating lieutenant—calculated that the drift of the raft would be in the direction of Wallis Island, a French island, lying all by itself to the west. We zigzagged towards the island, and called there, but saw no signs of the raft. Our captain concluded at last that we had missed it; and that there was little or no hope for it. At Wallis Island, or Futuna, a whaleboat crew of natives came off. Captain Campion asked them to keep a good look-out for the raft, and they would be rewarded when he returned from Sydney to Samoa. We continued on to the west and called at Ovalau, in Fiji, and then on to Sydney.
“After all, those driftaways were saved. The raft was blown right down to Wallis Island, and all landed there, alive but in a very famished and exhausted state, after nineteen days at sea. It must have been the most wonderful drift of a raft in the South Seas, because all on board survived it.”
The old sailor reverted to the comfort of the life in the old gun-brig. It was comparative comfort, of course, taking the ordinary sea life of that day as the datum-point. Everything depended on the captain in such a ship.
“We were a happy crowd,” said Capper. “You should have seen the lads laying aft for their tot of rum, the regular midday grog ration. They came slapping along on their bare feet, dancing along to the big tub with the polished brass hoops, and the fiddler playing away at a lively reel, perched up there on a gun in the waist. I tell
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Rly. Publicity photo.)
Picturesque Waiwera, a popular hot springs resort near Auckland.
“As I told you, there was no flogging in our ship; Captain Campion detested it. He was one of those officers who were trying to rid the navy of a brutal, degrading practice. But there were some that didn't hold with him. I remember our bo's'n was so disgusted because the captain wouldn't order a flogging for a certain man he—the bo's'n—wanted punished that he laid his warrant on the quarterdeck capstan. The Captain put him under arrest for it. But discipline wasn't really any slacker because there was no flogging.”
That gun brig the Elk enjoyed a curious sort of fame in Auckland and Sydney, 1859–1860. Her figurehead was the talk of the waterfront. Never was there a ship's figurehead like it. It was the stuffed head and neck of an American elk, skin and all, mounted as for a hall. The captain was immensely proud of it. But he only used it when lying in port; it was for harbour show. He unshipped it when he went to sea and put a fiddlehead in its place. The elk-head he took into his cabin for the cruise.
“You should have seen the way,” said my old sailor, “the skipper went round the ship's bows in one of the boats every morning in port, making sure that the precious head with the big antlers was all right. He'd pull round to see that the yards were squared nicely, and everything in its place, but he gave most of his attention
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to the old elk. He'd be specially particular about it on Sunday mornings, because we were sure to have a lot of visitors in the afternoon, going round the ship.
“When we were lying in Sydney after that South Sea cruise, some scoundrels got up to a lark with our figurehead. Imagine the horror of the captain when he pulled round the ship, as usual, and found that a bunch of carrots had been hung just under the elk's nose! They were from another ship, of course; our own lads thought almost as much of the old fellow as the captain himself did. We had something to say about it on shore the first time we met those jokers. I tell you there was a fight or two over those carrots before we sailed from Sydney.”
That South Sea cruise under the White Ensign was one of a great many episodes of the ‘Sixties which the sturdy old sailor told in our leisurely talks. He had an uncommonly good memory for details of names, places, and conversations. After his Navy experience he joined the Waikato Militia for the Maori War, and served in the fighting from Mauku—the battle of Titi Hill—right through to Orakau. Then a turn on the West Coast goldfields, like so many old sailors, and back to the salt sea again. When he died in Wellington a few years ago, aged just over ninety, his last request was that his ashes should be scattered on the ocean he had sailed for so many years, and this filial duty his sons carried out in the waters of Cook Strait.
The changes time brings! Half-acentury ago no one with any pretensions to respectability would have dreamt of smoking in the street, and few clubs or private houses possessed smokerooms. To-day as many pipes and cigarettes are smoked out of doors as indoors, and every club and every large private residence rejoices in its smokeroom. But public taste is more fastidious than of old in the choice of tobacco, and the best brands now command the largest sale. This is especially noticeable in New Zealand where “toasted” has become so highly popular. Go where you will, you'll find the five famous toasted brands, Cut Plug No. 10 (Bullshead), Navy Cut No. 3 (Bulldog), Cavendish, Riverhead Gold and Desert Gold on sale. “Once a smoker always a smoker,” it is said, and it's no less true than once a smoker of toasted always a smoker of toasted. For there's nothing to compare with it for flavour and bouquet, also for purity and harmlessness. The toasting eliminates the nicotine! But beware of “imitation” toasted. It's no good!*
(Courtesy, Great Western Railway.)
Building the First Locomotive.
Right-Away
.“)
It is holiday time, and the train is an unusually long one, somewhat belying its title of “Limited,” but a few extra carriages are nothing to that big “K” engine, which has power and to spare. There is something inspiring about that great machine standing at the head of its train, pulsating with life and power: something magnetic that attracts and compels the admiration of bystanders, and the confidence of travellers. The driver, seemingly indifferent to his audience, having put on, the final touches with his oil-can, mounts the cab, and takes his seat at the levers, the while, his mate, the fireman, throws on a few more shovelsful of coal. Theirs is the job to take that train safely, smoothly, and expeditiously on its way, a clearly defined job, demanding strictest compliance with regulations and instructions. The subject of this article, the Guard, completes what is known as the train crew.
It may, perhaps, appropriately be said that responsibility for the external welfare of that train belongs, in the main, to the engine-crew.
The internal affairs are in the hands of the guard. For him there is neither glamour nor romance in running the “Limited.” A thorough knowledge of the requirements of the job, acquired in a lengthy apprenticeship, is essential, and preliminary preparations for each trip must be carefully made, requiring a thorough acquaintance with all special instructions affecting, or likely to affect, the running of that train. All must be carefully noted, and where necessary, checked up with the driver. When the “Limited” pulls out of the Auckland Station at 7 p.m. nothing that will ensure efficient and safe running has been left to chance.
The guard's immediate task is the checking of the tickets of upwards of two hundred and fifty passengers, quite a formidable task in itself, and not the perfunctory business that it may appear to the uninitiated. Each ticket is carefully scrutinized, and its availability verified; possible errors in issuing must be looked for, or misuse detected. The work must be done methodically and withal expeditiously, for that train, once on its way, travels fast. Other and equally important matters, must, at the same time, be kept in mind.
The “Limited” may speed along past a long succession of “clear” signals; but a slowing down, unnoticed by passengers, has its significance for the guard. He passes to the outer door of the carriage, extends an arm, and grasps a closely folded piece of paper held out to him by a wayside station official. A short blast on the engine whistle denotes “O.K.,” and the train quickly gathers speed again. The guard unfolds and carefully reads the instruction written on that crumpled piece of paper with its diagonal red lines—a Crossing Order, a document of first-rate importance, denoting that the scheduled crossing with some opposing train has been altered. Ticket nipping is resumed and completed, questions and inquiries answered, and when that guard gets back to his own compartment Frankton Junction is not far distant. He may permit himself the luxury of a cigarette, but there is much to engage his attention. Returns and reports have to be prepared, and a mass of correspondence sorted and pidgeon-holed ready to hand out at the respective stations. Time must be found to look over and prepare the piles of luggage, and parcels, to insure a minimum of delay at stopping stations, and avoid inconvenience to passengers. While passengers crowd the refreshment rooms our guard has a busy ten minutes at Frankton, for a dozen things require his personal attention. Overtaxed accommodation may require the addition of one or more carriages, and possible additional engine power must be provided for over the steep grades to be negotiated later on. Advices or instructions affecting his further running must not be overlooked.
The real test of a guard's capacity for his job faces him on leaving Frankton. The process of full-checking all tickets has to be repeated, and, in addition, a record taken of the seating accommodation, occupied or available. This must be done with care and expedition, to avoid further disturbance of passengers when settled down for the night. The inevitable questions and inquiries inseparable from train travelling have to be satisfied. A difference between two passengers claiming the same seat can generally be settled by a reference to the chart, or the exercise of a little diplomacy. Requests for the adjustment of a seat to its most reposeful position, or the heating apparatus to the desired temperature, are complied with as a matter of course. Such things are all in the day's (or night's) work. While the general body of travellers are moderate and reasonable in their requirements, the arbitrary and unsociable person is occasionally encountered.
It is then that tact and forbearance, and failing that, firmness, have to be exercised if friction is to be avoided. It is as well, at times, that guards have a sense of discretion, if not of humour. Take, for instance, the case where a lady passenger insists on taking her “young son” (a hefty lad of ten years) into a four-berth sleeping cabin, despite the protests of the other occupants. The guard can be depended upon to decide such a point with a due regard to conventionality. It is well into the night, when, all demands satisfied, lights turned low, and travellers mostly in slumberland, our guard returns to the seclusion of his own compartment. The long run from Te Kuiti to Taumarunui affords some opportunity for
The van must be given a final look over, and squared up if necessary; returns, reports and schedules brought up-to-the-minute, and instructions and information set out in detail. Well established precedent and pride of profession insure the fulfillment of this requirement, and there is an infinite satisfaction in stepping off that train, on time, with everything in order. Within an hour our guard will take over the running of the north-bound express, and carry on the work of his predecessor, in turn.
The return trip is just a case of viewing the same picture from the opposite angle; a reversal of the order of things from the outward journey. Passengers are mostly in some state of somnolence, disturbed only by the incoming or outgoing passengers at wayside stations. The guard makes his way silently through the darkened carriages in search of the new arrivals. There will be the usual little trials and tribulations, a passenger who cannot find his seat, or another who has lost his ticket. There is sometimes the traveller who has no ticket, or the wherewithal to pay for one. Something has to be done about it, and a way is usually found.
There is a continual variety about the job of the express guard, and it has its amenities as well as its vicissitudes.
The work may be trying and exacting at times, but never dull or monotonous, and the constant contact with a wide variety of human types has a distinct educational value.
On the Permanent Way.
“You're a signal failure,” said the churchman to his prodigal son. “You ought to have occupied a good station in life, considering the way I've endeavoured to train you. Instead, you are driving to perdition along the lines you are going. Once again let me warn you of the dangers at all points. Let me express—”
“Yes, yes, dad,” interrupted the impatient and impenitent one, “please stop it. Pull the ex-communication cord!” (From The Weekly Telegraph).
Oriwa Keripi
I expect that whatever takes the place of profane language in Maori will be freely muttered by our beloved “Jimmy Cowan” when his eye lights on this article. He is the victim of field strategy for he is lying ill, unable to furnish the current number of the truly wonderful series of “Famous New Zealanders” that has been the adornment of this magazine for three years. Modesty is his “middle name” as the Americans would say, and no one could be more reticent about his work or more given to the praise of other men than the very great man pictured in the following pages. I have seized this opportunity of putting him, as he richly deserves, in the pantheon of great New Zealanders.
Mr. James Cowan.
In James Cowan, the man met the time and the place. His birth here in New Zealand at the time it occurred was one of those happy circumstances that seem to have blessed this land of ours. His forebears were of the Celtic admixture which has so triumphantly vindicated the claim made for it (often advanced to me by that poet of dreams in prose and verse, David McKee Wright) that the magic vision and the power of beauty in words are its almost exclusive possessions.
His father was a “Far Downer,” a pioneer settler of Irish-Scottish extraction, and his mother was a Manx woman, given to the “white nights” that haunt that island of seers.
The human instrument, thus shapen, saw the light first, on the border of the King Country, his farm home being the actual battlefield site of famous Orakau. He grew in the company of the ghosts of old glories, the haunting memories that sprang from every field he could see from his cradle.
He rode daily when school days came a long journey, his companion being a Maori lad who eventually became an interpreter. They exchanged ideas, those two, in the superb friendship, frank and unrestrained, of boyhood. Even in those days, Jimmie had the mind of an adult in many directions. He was profoundly and scientifically curious, his memory was accurate and prodigious, and he loved and appreciated, in his first conscious thinking, the Maori people whose minds he continually explored. He learned to speak and think in Maori. In those days, the tribes were in close contact with the white settlers. The Ngati-Maniapoto and Ngatia-Raukawa people lived all about, and helped the elder Cowan with his potato crop at digging time. The hardy pioneer's young son was never far away at these times, and steadily his knowledge of his Maori friends widened and deepened. But, possibly the greatest formative influence of his life was Mount Pirongia, that mountain of mystery whose fires had died aeons ago; whose sides and summit were richly forested; whose misty heights were wreathed with Maori saga and ancient Polynesian legend. What that must have meant to dream-filled childish eyes must be remembered by those of us whose toddling years were filled with the clangour of passing trams, or who saw from homstead windows, neatly ordered fields and electric lights in the cowbails. According to the stories which little Jimmie heard instead of “The Snow Queen” and “Jack and the Beanstalk,” the summit of Pirongia was inhabited by fairy folk, the Kakepuku tribe. Here is something he has said himself. “The mountain of a dream, always changing its hues, always charged with some mysterious life and hidden energy, massed tremendously on the eye of boyhood when one rode a Maori pony along its spreading foot.”
In those days, the early ‘80's, there was material on every side for the future writer. The Puniu River, unbridged and unfordable in flood seasons, was the boundary. On one side, where the white man reigned, there were tidy farms, cosy houses, schools, shops, and churches with sounding bells. But, to the mystic South, there lay long faintly blue distant ranges; here and there a raupo thatched village; random patches of potatoes, maize or wheat; long stretches of fern and swamp, and again and again, the endless dim green aisles of the bush, its mossy floor lying in perpetual twilight. Its awesome silence was only broken by the melodies of bush birds, the weird noises of wild pigs and the sudden scurry of wild Maori horses. Maori tracks for man and horse were the only roads, and dignified Maori chiefs ruled with kingly power.
Those golden days of boyhood remain forever in James Cowan's imagination, and over and over again, in the noble torrent of his prose, those old days of the Waikato and the King Country come to vivid foam of shining memory. He, of course, went further afield. The Mokau River is the favourite of his heart. “Of all my loves among the rivers of New Zealand, the Mokau is the One; because of its aloofness and its atmosphere of adventure and exploration, for its almost unbroken forests and its many rapids that give the spice of excitement to the voyage and, above all, for its beauty, winding down from the King Country ranges through an enchanted region of high woods and fern-tree draped cliffs.”
He loved, as in that rich old phrase,
As he was growing, as his days flew by, he found his way more surely into the deepest recesses of the Maori mind, so misunderstood, so underrated, and so utterly misinterpreted by hasty observers. So, too, all the time, his respect and affection for his Maori brethren grew till he became, above all men of New Zealand, the one best fitted to make the pakeha understand the logic and nobility of the native ideology.
In case I have emphasized too much the dreamer's side of his life, I would like to say here that he was, and is, a veritable Samuel Pepys in the matter of diaries. He has trunks packed with material, jottings, comprehensive diary entries, original documents and letters, and all manner of exact transcriptions of fact; for James Cowan worships facts. It is the custom to ask him questions about anything in New Zealand history. In spite of a memory that is an orderly treasurehouse of dates, events, and personalities, his answer on the telephone may be instantaneous, but he always verifies. In addition, he has the gift of true sympathy, that most rare repertorial faculty. This enables him to gently empty some ancient salt, or hoary old Maori chief, of the precious honeystore of memories.
He naturally became a journalist, and he joined the Auckland “Star” in the spacious days. Apparently his special quality was soon observed, for his assignments ranged from the trip to Barrier Island for the tragedy story of the Wairarapa to the long and perilous exploration journey in company with the survey party exploring the Te Kuiti to Stratford railway route. At that time the King Country contained no single pakeha farm. He was in Auckland, too, when Admiral Kimberley's naval lieutenant came into Auckland by the ‘Frisco mail steamer to cable the news of the Apia hurricane, and all hands on the “Star” worked furiously to get out what was to be, first of all the world, the published story of the Calliope and Westport coal. During 1899 he was sent as war correspondent to the MalietoaMataafa war. There he was on old ground, understanding the native point of view, speedily using their language, and in every sense, the right man in the right place.
He left the Auckland “Star” to join the Tourist Department under the late Mr. T. E. Donne. Here was work after his heart. For seven years, he travelled every nook and cranny of New Zealand, making discoveries of folk-lore and legend, and weaving together the silver threads of Maori history. Moreover, he poured out an incessant stream of booklets of surpassing craftsmanship about New Zealand and its world of beauty. He often had with him another
Mr. Cowan's favourite means of transport in the back country of New Zealand.
His next move was to be sub-editor of the “Lyttelton Times,” and it is characteristic that while in that job, he made countless journeys to Lyttelton Harbour to visit Rapaki where he and his great friends, Taare Tikao and his wife, spent many Saturday afternoons in exchanging tales of olden times. It had now become natural to him to record the personalities that he met, of which we have had the benefit so richly given in his series of “Famous New Zealanders.” Who does not remember his story of “Richard John Seddon,” the best tabloid article ever written on that doughty giant of progressive democracy.
Again he went back to the State, for he was engaged to write the history of the New Zealand wars, and for four years he worked at this labour of love. His method was unique. He was able to go to the original records, both documents and men. He understood with perfect clarity and perfect sympathy the point of view of both pakeha and Maori. On many occasions he actually got the opponents together and re-created the conflict on its actual site. As the old antagonists relived their battles, he was often able to correct and amplify incomplete despatches. This great work is in two volumes—“The History of the New Zealand Wars.” It is more than a history; it is the living texture of those pioneering days when the two cultures clashed so fiercely; a texture lit warmly by the light of his twofold love for the warring sides in the struggle, and woven from the enduring staple of his exact knowledge.
Later he had pleasant years as subeditor of the “N.Z. Free Lance.” Indeed, it is fact to say that there is no side of letters in the Dominion that has not been at sometime or other his field of activity. I doubt whether there is a periodical of any rating that has not carried some story or article by James Cowan. A pantechnicon would be needed to hold the cuttings of all his work. And all of it has been consistent; for I want to talk a little on that much discussed subject “literary style.” James Cowan's prose is supple but simple. The purple patch only comes to him when his thought is flushed with the poetry of Maori imagery. The sex problem, the slow poisoning of the springs of action and thought, the hectic surges of the modern story, delving into psychological oddities, none of these are for him. His interests are with the rich, clean life of the open air. He knew the feelings of the pioneer struggling with a hostile and ruthless Nature. He loves the beauty of lake and tree and stream, of mountain and swamp and plain, all for their own sweet sake.
He penetrated to the heart of the splendid chivalry of the Maori and the Maoris love of fighting for its qualities of struggle, courage, skill and endurance. You will find this best in both the big volumes of his official war history and in his countless short stories, the last of which is the impressive “Hero Stories of New Zealand.” These qualities give him that unquestionable air of impartiality in these recitals, for biassed bitterness is impossible to his sunny nature.
James Cowan (top left) with H. E.
Partridge (top right), Hone Heke (sitting—left),
and Henare Parata, 1901.
The secret of his prose, therefore, as is true of so many other great writers, is that he sees clearly, thinks clearly, and therefore writes clearly. The special quality that infuses his work with a personal colouring is his warmly human habit of being unable to think poorly of anyone. I believe that his work has been mauled about, filched from, broken into for nuggets, and pilfered more freely than that of any other writer in the Dominion. He simply smiles faintly and totally fails to register the proper indignation.
Until he fell into his last year or two of illness, he was brisk and hearty. From a bright eye still shines the love of a good horse, the bush and a yarn, preferably about old times. If he could arrange his own Paradise, it would be a “peach orchard in a clearing and summer always.” He would want as well, I think, in this private Valhalla, to have his Maori friends dropping in and the ghosts of Gilbert Mair and Colonel Porter would be welcome. However, it would not matter as long as the caller was congenial. Then the golden flow of anecdote, epic narrative and storied wisdom would run, and hours would pass like hasty rosary beads. In a letter only written from his bed a day or so ago he wonders if he will ever be able to “sleep under the stars again on a bed of soft leaves.”
The power of James Cowan's pen is not fully understood, nor is the wide range of his influence appreciated. He has fought the good fight for many a good cause and succeeded. To him, largely, we in Wellington owe the grove of pohutukawas in Courtenay Place. All over our land his onslaughts have saved the tall trees from their destroyers. More than once he has brought into the light of public knowledge and the realisation by officialdom, great men whose modesty, like his own, forbade them advancing their just claims. Among those, I can justly mention his sterling work to make the men of this country know the worth of that grand old man of Canterbury, Dudley Dobson.
James Cowan himself is almost irritatingly retiring about his own achievement. All the facts that appear in this article have been dredged, mined, and extracted by wile and subterfuge, by plot and stratagem without his knowledge. This doyen of New Zealand writers deserves his place in our gallery of historic figures as much as any of our other great ones. In the years to come, his monumental accomplishment will be seen in its proper perspective, and the ages to come will bless him. His work will be the museum of all that was good and great in the epic of our early days. When the Maori, as may happen, has been absorbed into the crowding millions of the pakeha, future historians will be seeking the sources of the 2,500 A.D. New Zealander's love of poetic imagery and the golden tinge of his skin. In the works of James Cowan they will find their answers. In the following works he has left us a legacy of recorded truth, wholly undefiled and nobly told: “The History of the New Zealand Wars” (two vols.), “Hero Stories of New Zealand,” “The Old Frontier,” “Travel in New Zealand,” “Samoa and Its Story,” “Adventures of Kimble Bent,” “Fairy Folk Tales of the Maori,” “The Maori, Yesterday and To-day,” “Legends of the Maori” (in collaboration with Sir Maui Pomare), “Tongariro National Park,” “Trader in Cannibal Land,” “Tales of the Maori Bush,” “Tales of the Maori Coast,” “The Romance of the Rail,” “South Sea Stories,” numerous Government publications, and a score of booklets.
“My after-breakfast pipe is the best of the day,” declared Tennyson, and plenty of smokers will agree with him. The poet, it's well-known, always smoked a “churchwarden,” otherwise “a yard of clay,” and never used the same pipe twice. Many old smokers hold that the tobacco counts for more than the pipe, whatever the latter is made of. So it does. So long as it's pure, sweet, soothing, comforting and fragrant — and the genuine toasted brands are all like that—any pipe will do provided it will ‘draw.’ “Toasted” owes its fame to its superb quality and also its harmlessness. The five famous brands, Cut Plug No. 10 (Bullshead), Navy Cut No. 3 (Bulldog), Cavendish, Riverhead Gold and Desert Gold are as near perfection as tobacco can possibly be. Practically without nicotine (eliminated by toasting), they can be indulged in not only with keen enjoyment but absolute safety. The toasting process (the manufacturers’ secret), is complicated, necessitating the employment of special machinery and skilled labour. Attempts to imitate these brands have all failed. They are “imitation-proof!”*
Tangiwai
In camping expeditions this holiday time the tramper and tent-dweller may profit by this bushcraft hint, among a hundred others. Don't use the kotukutuku, the native tree fuchsia (it is sometimes called the konini, but that is the name of the fruit only). The small, knotty, twisty tree is well enough known; it has a habit of growing plentifully along the banks of creeks, and an inviting camping ground will often be found closely neighboured by clumps of it. There is a temptation to use the bark, which often hangs in loose strips as if just waiting for the camper to make kindling of it. But the bark and branches both are about the worst wood for fuel; they refuse to burn well.
Once when boating around Paterson Inlet, Stewart Island, I learned a scrap of Maori folk-lore concerning this tree. We sailed into Kaipipi Bay; the sandy beach of the little cove was fringed with kotukutuku trees. Mohi, an old Maori of the island, was with us in the whaleboat. We set about gathering small dry branches to boil the mid-day billy. “Don't take any of that kotukutuku,” said Mohi; “it is unlucky wood.” He said that even if we succeeded in making it burn well, there was a baleful form of makutu in it, a wizardly property which affected unpleasantly anyone drinking tea or eating food prepared over the fire. Any person consuming kai from the kotukutuku fire would become afflicted with a kind of paralysis, a sudden weakening of the limbs. A curious old belief—which we did not put to the test. We hunted for some less noxious fuel.
My own theory, which I did not impart to Mohi, was that the weak-knee symptoms described by the greybeard of the Inlet were caused by the weary work of bending over a fire of fuchsia wood in the effort to induce the sulky stuff to get a blaze on.
There were many great craftsmen in the making of ships of all classes among the pioneer Waipu men from Nova Scotia. They built most of the vessels in which they came to New Zealand, every stage of it, from felling and sawing the trees to finishing them, and they navigated and sailed them. The Rev. Norman McLeod, the famous spiritual head and teacher of the settlers, was a good navigator himself; he took sights and checked the captain's reckoning on the voyage. In New Zealand they have left a tradition of clipper shipbuilding; the Mathesons, Meiklejohns, Darrochs, and others built some fast and handsome vessels, chiefly schooners, at Waipu, Whangarei Heads and Omaha.
A typical product of these wellskilled and most faithful of shipwrights was a very fast fore-and-aft schooner of 100 tons we used to see in the Waitemata, the Three Cheers. None to beat her, among all those speedy craft.
Skilled artisans there, those Mathesons especially. Here is a story from N. R. Mackenzie's book of the pioneers; it referred to the building of the schooner Saucy Lass at Omaha. The contract was undertaken by Duncan Matheson, and it was stipulated that the deck, of kauri planks, must be planed. Part of it was planed, and the remainder was dressed with an adze. The prospective owner objected to the adzing of the planks. He was challenged to point out the part that was planed and the part that was done with the adze, but he could not distinguish between them, and so had to accept the situation.
That beautiful smooth adzing was the work of a perfect master of his craft. And there were Maoris, in the great timber-working days, who were almost as good as the Omaha man. Even in later times, I have seen a Maori at work with his adze making practically as good a job of planksmoothing as any European could have done with a plane. He worked barefoot, and how he missed amputating a toe or two with his razor-keen adze was a marvel.
The original name of Taupo township, where the Waikato River leaves the lake, is Nukuhau, which has a legend of its own, as explained to me by Paora Rokino and another Kaumatua of Taupo. It means “Moving in the Wind,” and was first the name given to a certain totara tree trunk standing in the lake, near the shore, a remnant of an ancient forest. The broken top of the tree moved to and fro in a strong wind, hence the name, which came to be applied generally to the shore and the Waikato mouth.
Tapuwae-haruru, “The Resounding Footsteps,” a name heard in other parts of pumiceland, where the earth in places gives forth a hollow sound under a heavy tread, is the name of the old pa on the head opposite Taupo township. This was the fortified position of the chief Poihipi Tukairangi and his section of the Taupo tribe during the last Maori war; he was friendly to the Government. The name is applied also to the present Maori village just opposite the township, on the green shore slanting down to the river.
An excellent painting from the late Mr. James McDonald's Tokaanu studio has been viewed by many thousands of people. It is a warrior figure, of admirably natural pose—the original was a veteran Hauhau chief, Tutange Waionui, of Patea, whom I induced to sit, or rather stand for him some thirty years ago. The title is “The Rangatira,” and it appropriately adorns the social hall in the Wellington-Lyttelton express steamer Rangatira—a commission picture for the Union Co. from a capable artist who did not advertise but whose faithful work has greatly advertised his country and his fellow-countrymen.
Robin Hyde
Of course, when you first hear about it, you say gloomily, “That's exactly the sort of thing that couldn't happen to me.” And, putting your newspaper aside, you continue to play bowls, or whathave-you, and to arrange a nice quiet winter vacation. But, once these snowland pictures have struck you in the eye, they develop a haunting quality. Unlacing your boots at night, you sit on the edge of the bed, and thinking, obscurely, “Ski … she … she … ski … if not, why not?” As the days wear on, and winter, in the cities, remains just the usual little procession, the snowland idea increases in size and substance, like one of its own snowballs. You think, “Jolly, that would be! … strapping a pair of skis to my feet and flying off a precipice like an albatross.” “Get along with you,” says Reason, “Break your neck, that's what you want to do.” “But they have instructors, and there's no reason for you to assume that I'm going to turn out a rabbit at everything,” courageously insists your Suppressed Self. Next night, you like the mustard-bath programme less than ever, and the news in the evening cables is all to the bad, and the wind shrieks like a child at the dentist's. “Come along,” says your Suppressed Self, “Let's hop it.” And before you know where you are, you are centred in a Railway Booking Office, hearing your own voice ask intimate questions about the cost of a reserved sleeping-berth.
They can offer you a very nice little excursion from Auckland—or Wellington … and lots of room aboard for you, you South Islanders, who think you know all there is to know about snowballs.
But to North Islanders and South Islanders alike, let me say, don't do the Chateau Tongariro and its surrounding mountains as an ordinary, well-planned-out holiday, if you can avoid it. Save it for an adventurous moment, when you are tired of yourself and everyone else, and would like to attempt what hasn't, so far as you are concerned, been even thought of before. There are, for example, thousands and thousands of us who look more or less respectfully at those Alpine films in which one sees mountaineers climbing escalator-like bits of rock with the aid of long black ropes and tough-looking little alpenstocks. But, in our own minds, we give such mountains and such mountaineers best. We can't see ourselves going forth and doing likewise. We have an inferiority complex over all heights above the snowline. We read about Everest expeditions with a feeling that this is not for us. Well, the Chateau Tongariro is one place where the stranger learns differently. Mountains are the playground for everyone and anyone. You can climb them. Yes, you, with ease and dexterity. I know, for I climbed one myself, and with all due modesty may say that if I can climb a mountain, anyone could… .
Not, mind you, that they're tame, uninteresting mountains. You'll be winded, and if you have dared wear anything resembling high-heeled shoes (supposing you to be Eve, not Adam), the progress of your party will have been one steady and uninterrupted stream of adjectives. And your face will glow scarlet with your mighty efforts, and unless you have put unsightly black grease on your nose, it will be snow-burned, and a hundred times, you will have thought, “I'm not a mountain goat, I can't be expected to shin up there.” But, that's where the camaraderie which I found one of the most agreeable features of life at the Chateau comes in. There always seem to be one or more husky males who, at crucial moments, give you a sympathetic leg-up, shouting, “With a Yo-Heave-Ho!” And before you know what is happening, the ground before you becomes dotted with odd little salty flecks of yellowish-white; and then, over Frying Pan Flat, the yellowish-white grows foamy cream, deep, cool and soft. Then you cry “Ouch!” which means that somebody has taken an unfair advantage and launched a snowball at the back of your neck. Snowballs, properly constructed, can be most effective missiles. You must try them… . One should begin, I daresay, at the magic moment of arrival, which, if you do it the after-dusk way I have recommended, suddenly presents you with a curly trail among tufted hills looking as though they might harbour both pheasants and brigands, and then with a miraculous number of bright golden little lighted windows. The outline of the Chateau is vaguely white behind them, but for the moment, the golden windows look like something off a Christmas tree … or like one of the old-time castles in the rousing days when knights drank almost unlimited mead before setting off on their quests…. the whole effect is unquestionably one of jollity, which is advanced when the vehicle of your choice executes a graceful curve around the Chateau drive, and turns you over to the care of the enormous glowing fires in the lounge.
Those fires! … and, I say it with genuine affection, those hot-water bottles! … last but not least, those wonderful hot-showers! It seems odd that one should have to come to Snowland to feel really warm in winter. But there you are. Almost the first impression delivered unto you by the Chateau Tongariro is of huge log-fires, with jolly blue and gold flames leaping up and down, like Test Match spectators. Since this glow suffuses the farthest corners in lounge and cardrooms, women, in the evening hours, arrive looking diaphanous, with gauzy garments flung across their shoulders. None of that huddled and bundled look so characteristic of city winters … Then, naturally, the idea of a hot bath
“There always seem
to be one or more husky
males who give you a sympathetic
leg up, shouting ‘With a Yo—heave—Oh!“'
In the morning the whole scene changes. Last night's diaphanous dancers come running into the breakfast room arrayed in snow-suits, for the most part woollies: natty breeches and jerseys, or breeches, shirts and cardigans, of amazing colours. Young men, whistling, poke heads adorned with sky-blue and purple berets into the kaleidoscope. You feel that the world has suddenly gone just a little crazy, and you like it ….
Did I mention that from every bedroom in the Chateau, there is an individual view of one or more snowmountains? The three old giants, Tongariro, Ngauruhoe, Ruapehu, have thoughtfully grouped themselves around in an immense irregular circle. So you can choose between Ruapehu's black and white rugged sugar-loaf, the snowy cone of Ngauruhoe, waving its tall blue feather of steam, and darker, wilder Tongariro, the most irregular of the mountains in shape and disposition, and much the hardest, I believe, to climb.
From the breakfast - room, which is a long, light and magnificent affair of pillars and a deep cream-coloured background you look out on an apparently limitless horizon, plain fading into mountain, harebell blue of the sky broken by peaks, dark patches of New Zealand forest. The great room has been arranged so that this forward sweep of an untamed world is the end of its own solid walls: the effect is probably more majestic than anything else in New Zealand….
And let me tell you a secret for gourmets. There is wild honey for breakfast. Dark golden-brown in colour, and hived by the wild bees in the mahoes and the ragged little wild fuchsia trees…. I have known some who swore by toheroa as the flavour characteristically New Zealand; others who could not be weaned from muttonbird, more again who made oblation to the memory of Stewart Island rock oysters or of Picton bloater. But my vote is ever with the golden-brown wild honey….
Now you must decide whether you're going to climb purely as a lark, or in grim earnest. If in earnest, there are many things you can do about it. And, admittedly, there is fun to be had in donning one of those berry-bright snowsuits for the first time. The good climber's little pack always includes marching chocolate and … strange as it seems … honey, which is held by alpinists to have more bottled energy than most things else. You cover your face and neck with grease, that you may not be snow-burnt. And blue glasses are almost de rigueur in the best climbing circles. Farther up Ruapehu (which is morally bound to be your first mountain ascent), you are certain to come upon little rows of grease-painted and blue-goggled young people, climbing in Indian file: and you will know at once that they are University students, who, on, the surface, always do things au grand serieux.
It's a frightful temptation to linger in the preliminary beech-forests, taking snaps with your vest-pocket camera. You can hear the wild bees sing, and the tussocks are golden, and the beech-leaves have a green and gold patina, as of old weather-beaten bronze. But, let's hope, there's someone to goad you on: for much can be accomplished in a morning, and one doesn't want to waste one's first snowmountain. The tracks become small and precipitous, and you find yourself clutching thankfully at large crooked branches and tufty little bushes …. not, mind you, that there's anything really breakneck about it yet. You put your mind to the game, making the acquaintance of boulders and pebbles and slippy bits. Then, suddenly, somebody announces, “Scoria Flats!” and, depending on the time of the year, there you are, either on the lower brink of snowland or right in the middle of it. You find, too, that you can use that marching chocolate.
That ski business. You swear you won't, feeling inwardly that you can't. But then, not far above, you see the most unlikely-looking people, male and female, skimming past you like intoxicated swallows. And perhaps the mountain air has begun to go to your head a little . . it does, one must be warned against that … so you glance around at one of the large and patient guides who is certain to be within hail, if not actually shepherding your party. “Think you could teach me to do that?” you say gruffly. “Without breaking my neck, I mean?” The next thing is that long and strange contrivances are strapped to your feet, and you have a desperate feeling that never, never will you regain control of your legs again. You know how Human Flies feel, twenty storeys up in New York: you experience the sensations of the tight-rope-jumper and the parachutist in one … “Not bad … but keep your knees together, like this, see?” says an imperturbable voice in
(W. W. Stewart collection.)
His Majesty King Edward the Eighth (then Prince of Wales) on the platform
of the Royal Train, at Auckland, 1920.
Tobogganing, though … you don't have to start laden up with your own toboggans and skis and alpenstocks. You can hire everything, guide-instructor included, from the Chateau for what they civilly refer to as “a modest fee.” (It really isn't an expensive holiday: and worth every penny of it). Snow, whether rubbed into the back of the neck by ruthless relatives, or merely used as a soft spot to fall into when your toboggan tips over sideways (as it will) possesses peculiarly invigorating qualities. At the end of a morning on Ruapehu, full of marching chocolate and cocksure optimism, you look over at Ngauruhoe's curly feather of steam, and say, “You next, brother!”
There's so much to explore … about 150,000 acres in the Park alone, if you want to be mathematical. Alpine flowers, with their queer fragile cups, white and burning blue … and quail bobbing their funny little agitated persons across roads that take you by mountain torrents and up to springs which have the natural-born contrariness to steam, and sizzle fiercely, all among the snows … And somebody invites you to hop into a car and go fishing, the trout-streams are no distance … and somebody else seduces you into dancing on the parquetry floor of the Chateau, the mirror-like smoothness of which gives everyone a fantastic elegance, as though they were illustrations from The New Yorker suddenly popped into life … And, parked for a moment in lounge or cardrooms, you hear the voices of Babel Tower … tourists, wanderers from dear knows where, Americans, English people trying hard to look reserved, according to their national specifications, assorted Continentals, Australians secretly infatuated with Tongariro but trying gamely to uphold the banners of their own old Kosiuscko … and our own young folk, religiously bright as to sweater and breeks, dashing in and out announcing new snow-races fixed for five minutes ahead.
Excursion parties come dashing in, and are greeted with war-whoops by the oldest inhabitants … Whether you come from Wellington or Auckland, you're met by the Chateau cars and glide from the railway station the remaining ten miles in comfort.
But for me, I like Tongariro best either a little after or a little before its winter-sport thrills. Those old snow-mountains are never going to lack for fun and companionship. (Anyone, I mean to say, can and does snowball anyone). But when the place is just a little lonelier than at its peak season, perhaps one can pay more attention to the white snow-mountain painted on one's bedroom window, clear-cut as the dusk-blue deepens … to the spaciousness of that world of shining golden-brown tussocks and dark bush, inviting you so cordially to forsake the sunlit balconies, and come a-strolling after breakfast.
Did you ever watch a man choosing a pipe? The choosing is a guide to character. Your plain practical man generally prefers a stout serviceable pipe with a capacious bowl, so does the very heavy smoker. But the chap who indulges only very moderately usually selects a pipe with a fine polish on it, a longish stem and a small bowl. Tastes differ again when it comes to the weed. Some men will smoke anything so long as it's tobacco. But others there are (and these form the majority in New Zealand), who are “tobacco conscious”—and must have “the best.” To this category belong the innumerable admirers of “toasted” who find it answers all their requirements, being of delicious flavour and unequalled bouquet. Soothing, comforting, and worry-dispelling, also harmless because toasted, which ingenious process eliminates the poisonous nicotine and leaves the tobacco pure, sweet, cool and mellow. The original toasted—Navy Cut No. 3 (Bulldog), Cut Plug No. 10 (Bullshead), Cavendish, Riverhead Gold and Desert Gold, owe their popularity to their outstanding merit.
Tohunga
The series of explanations of the meanings of New Zealand railway station names is continued from last month. The places dealt with here are on the Westland branches, the transalpine line to Christchurch, and stations in the Canterbury district.
Karoro = seagull.
Paroa = spread out, or straggling settlement. Paroha = spread out, as a mat or garment.
-
Sweet potato.
Kumarahou,applied to several small shrubs; alsokumara-rau-nuia shrub. Kūmara has the accent on the first syllable, but is popularly and erroneously pronounced by West Coastpakehaswith the stress on the second syllable. -
Eel stream.
-
Literally, the pathway sought for or discovered. But this is an ancient Polynesian place-name given by Ngahue or other early navigators from the Eastern Pacific. It is the ancient name of Aitutaki, in the Cook Islands, and was probably given to the Arahura landing place and river in memory of the Pacific Islands home. In Polynesian pronunciation it is
Ara'ura.When the schooner “Julia Pryce,” a small Auckland vessel wrecked at Aitutaki nearly fifty years ago was refloated and repaired by the natives she was renamed by the community of ownersAra'ura. -
Eat fat or oil.
-
This exclamatory name, which some passing travellers think is Chinese, and others a local jocular greeting, is a
pakeharendering ofhouhou,the South Island word for the treePanax arboreumabundant in these parts. -
Hoki= to return;tika= in a straight line. A traditional origin, referring to the ancient Polynesian navigator's explorations. -
Sea-coast.
-
Mahina—the moon,pua,flower or bud, moon-blossom. Applied to the young moon rising. -
Literally sacred pit or cave. An ancestral personal name.
-
Council; court; tribal judicial assembly of elders.
-
To dash forward, charge.
-
An English word maorified—bottle, or the name Butler.
-
Uncooked food.
-
Straight road.
-
The white heron. Abbreviation of the name of Lake Brunner, KotukuWhakaoka, the “White Heron Stabbing,” referring to the act of the kotuku when fishing, suddenly darting his long sharp beak.
-
Sea, large lake. Name given in pakeha times to the township and Lake Brunner.
-
The owl.
-
Bird lake.
-
Food for a journey. O = food;
tira(in fulltira-haere), a party of travellers. Applied to the old camping place on the lower part of the Otira River, in the forest.
-
Large flat or plain.
-
Originally
Kaiapohia,name of the famous fortress of the Ngai-Tahu tribe. So named from the gathering in of food for the garrison, from a distance; food carried or swung there. -
Literally day of health, but many associated meanings. An ancient Polynesian name. Hui-te-Rangiora was a legendary place of instruction and amusement, where all kinds of knowledge were imparted by the priests, and all games and amusements taught.
-
River with a thick muddy sediment.
-
River which cuts out its course or erodes its banks.
-
Beard; the withered drooping lower leaves of fern-tree or cabbage-tree.
-
River of currents; swirling river.
-
Contraction of Opaawaho (the Heathcote river), the place of the outer fort or guard. A palisaded
paformerly stood on a low mound here—a kind of outpost against hostile canoes coming up the river.
-
The place of loving greetings and of laments.
-
Place of eating eels; the
tunais very plentiful here, in Lake Ellesmere. -
Lizard island. The gentle mound on which the racecourse is was formerly an island in the great swamps.
Kararais the South Island form ofNgarara,meaning lizards, and reptiles generally. -
Wide expanse of water. (To be continued.)
Steady progress is being made on the big Home railway improvement plan, aided by Government loans, to which reference was made last month. The various betterment works covered by the scheme may, at a later date, be supplemented by additional works of considerable magnitude, among which trunk line electrification may conceivably be to the fore. In well-informed circles, it is stated as likely that, within the next few years, a considerable part of the London & North Eastern main-line between London and Edinburgh will be converted to electricity. The London, Midland & Scottish Railway, also, have big electrification plans prepared, in readiness for the day when they feel justified in spending the very large sum of money such conversions would entail.
Until recently, electrification in Britain was mainly confined to suburban tracks, and the Southern line has been the pioneer of suburban electrification at Home. Now, however, main-line electrification is being undertaken by this Company, notably on its London-Portsmouth route; while the London and North Eastern authorities arc putting in hand the conversion from steam to electric traction of the Manchester—Sheffield main-line.
With the idea of securing the fullest benefits of standardisation, the Government laid it down some time ago that future main-line electrifications should all employ the high-voltage direct current system, at either 1,500 or 3,000 volts. An exception was made, inasmuch as extensions of existing electrifications are permitted to follow the same system as that originally favoured.
Railway centenaries have become quite common of late. Germany, Belgium, and our own Great Western Railway, have been in the limelight in this connection. Now, there is to be recorded the fact that just one hundred years have passed since discussion was first begun of the possibility of a railway connecting Manchester with Birmingham. The success of the Liverpool and Manchester line led to the formation of the Manchester and Birmingham Railway Company, and work was commenced on construction in 1839. The first 5 1/2 miles of line was opened for traffic in June, 1840, from Manchester to Heaton Norris, and thus one of our most vital transport links had its birth.
Actually, the Manchester and Birmingham line never reached the latter point. What happened was that, towards the end of 1840, construction expenses proved so high, that the original plan was dropped. Instead of building a new line to Birmingham, the Company constructed its tracks from Manchester to Crewe, at which point connection was effected with the already, existing Grand Junction Railway, linking Crewe with Birmingham. In 1846 the Manchester and Birmingham Railway was absorbed by the Grand Junction Company (which had by that time absorbed the Liverpool and Manchester system) and the London and Birmingham Railways, under the title of the “London & North Western Railway.” The L. & N.W. was one of Britain's most important lines in pre-grouping days. It was one of the principal components of the present L. M. & S. group, and, incidentally, boasted of possessing the finest running tracks of any railway in the world—a claim which, I believe, was never challenged.
With the object of forwarding scientific research in its many applications to railway operation, the L. M. & S. Railway has opened at Derby a central research laboratory, which marks quite a new development. The laboratory consists of a two-story block, structurally designed to permit of the addition of a third story when required, with an engineering test-room and workshop block. The laboratory block has a total floor area on each floor of about 5,600 square feet, and the engineering test-room and workshop block covers an area of 3,500 ft. The rooms on the ground floor include a chemical laboratory, a metallography room, a pyrometry room, a corrosion
“Ganz” Railcar, Hungarian State Railways.
Vice-President Sir Harold Hartley has been appointed director of scientific research, and experts have been engaged to take charge of the various sections. There is undoubtedly a great need for close co-operation between the scientific mind and the railway mind. A laboratory such as this should enable many valuable economies to be effected in materials and working methods, and also ensure the best use being made of modern scientific developments as they affect railway operation.
More and more streamlined trains and railcars continue to be introduced on the European railways. In Germany, the first express railcar operated by the German National Railways —the famous “Flying Hamburger”—last year completed its 1,000th run between the capital and Hamburg.
Although generally believed to be the fastest passenger service in Germany, the “Flying Hamburger” is actually beaten by another railcar service—the “Flying Cologner,“—operating between Berlin and Cologne. This car, diesel-electric, covers the Berlin—Hanover section of its daily run at a speed of 82 1/2 m.p.h. It is a streamlined double railcar, and is to all intents and purposes an enlargement of the original “Flying Hamburger.” There are to-day six long-distance services on the German National Railways of outstanding interest. These are respectively the Berlin-Hanover, Hamm-Hanover, Berlin-Hamburg, and Berlin-Cologne runs, averaging 72 1/2 m.p.h.; the Berlin-Frankfort 67 1/2 m.p.h. service; and the Berlin-Halle 66 m.p.h. run. The last-named is maintained by a steam-driven train, all the others being diesel-electric services.
The German National Railways have now been in operation for a little over eleven years, the Company being established under the Dawes’ Plan on October 11, 1924. The business of the Company is controlled by an elaborate organisation centred on the Berlin headquarters. In addition, there is a regional administrative headquarters, covering the former Bavarian lines. Next comes thirty divisional offices and what is known as a “central railway office”; 640 district offices and about 100 workshops of various kinds; 11,000 passenger stations; 1,400 goods stations; 3,300 track inspectors’ offices; and about 700 locomotive and car shops.
The Berlin headquarters is directly responsible to the administrative council, the government and the railway commission. It formulates general traffic, finance and staff policy, apportions capital expenditure, and handles all commercial and technical questions of prime importance. At the head of the administration is a president, assisted by a permanent vice-president. Seven departments constitute the administration. These are respectively (1) traffic and tariffs, (2) operating and civil engineering; (3) mechanical engineering, with control of workshops; (4) finance and legal; (5) staff; (6) administrative; and (7) purchases and stores.
Commencing 1st January last, the Home railways brought into operation on the passenger side two very interesting services. One was the instalment system for the payment of passenger fares; and the other a new arrangement, known as the “blue, arrow” system, providing for the registered transit of parcels by express passenger train. The first-named innovation provides for the sale at all stations of travel stamps to the value of one shilling each. With the first stamp issued goes a contribution card capable of holding ten stamps. When the card is full it may be exchanged for a ten shilling voucher, and a further contribution card secured. Alternatively, the ten shilling voucher may be purchased as an independent unit. The voucher bears interest at the rate of approximately 5 per cent, per annum for each completed month. At any time the vouchers or cards may be exchanged for travel tickets of all kinds, except seasons.
Under the “blue arrow” registered transit arrangement, parcels sent by passenger trains may be registered and brought within a specialised control, whereby every railway contact point en route receives an advance advice, by telephone or telegraph, of their passage, and a constant watch is maintained until the parcels reach their destination. Special arrow-shaped labels, coloured blue, with the words “Registered-Passenger Train Transit,” are affixed to each consignment, and for the special service a charge of half-a-crown per consignment is made. The registration fee covers the special transit of all traffic (including livestock).
On the Zugspitze Mountain Railway, Germany.
New Zealand Verse
.<name key="name-408643" type="work">Queenstown</name>
Exile
For a friend.)
Nelson Sun.
.<name key="name-408644" type="work">A Summer Day</name>
.<name key="name-408645" type="work">Dead</name>
Ken Alexander
There are many things on which men and women differ, and one of them is shopping.
Shopping is a woman's rite and a man's blight. A man enters a shop feeling like a “lorn sham,” and comes out relling like a shorn lamb. Men shop only when driven into it. Women stop only when driven out of it.
A man, during his daily endeavour, may be an expert exponent of cashas-cash-can, a dead shot on the fields of finance, a mogul of the money-bags, a master-mind in the realms of the minted, and shrewd withal; but the moment he enters a shop his backbone becomes a pillar of plasticine, his head a blob of blancmange, and where there was will there's whey. He becomes a vacillating victim of counter attacks. As soon as the shop-walker gets him fixed on his sights he signals, “Girls! Get your man!”
Then the scented sirens prime up with powder, knock their permanent waves into shape and prepare for action. Even the fifth assistant-improver bobs up for a sitting-shot, and the liftman has to restrain himself from unloading a parcel of shares in a collar-stud mine, because it's altogether too easy.
Such is the deadly influence a shop exerts on the male mind. No wonder shopping statistics say that seventy-five per cent, of men's apparel is purchased by women.
Women are different. When a woman shops she Shops. Otherwise she probably is quite a nice woman. She may be a good wife and mother; she may get home every night in time to slip on an apron and a “hasty pudding”; she may even be one of those super-spouses who darn socks. But as soon as she sights a shop (more especially a draper's shop) her eyes goggle and go glassy. Something seems to come over her; something seems to snap in her brain. She staggers from window to window like one upon whom a flat-iron has been dropped out of a tailor's window. People may be getting run over in the street, the building next door may be on fire, her husband may be spending the gas money on riotous living. Does she wot it? Not a wot! Her candle-power is practically nil.
She is not the woman you took for better or for bitter; she is not the person your children call “mother.” She is a temporary victim of “draper's amnesia,” “lapsis lingerie,” or loss of mum-mery.
While you lean against a post outside, smoking your week's supply of tobacco, she is as lost to you as if she had been swallowed up by the jungles of Borneo.
If you had the nerve to pursue her through the wilds of Haberdashery and Lingerie, and touched her on the elbow, she would turn a dull eye upon you, murmur, “Take it away! I don't think it will wash well,” and stagger off into the darkest depths of this mysterious land of Thingamybobs and Faldelals.
No man would willingly watch his wife buy a hat. However hardened he be to human suffering, however tough and wiry his fibre, no man could stand by and see his wife transformed from a wife and mother to a hathunter.
It is said of head-hunters that often they are fond fathers and pleasant providers—apart from their ambition to get ahead. So it is with hat hunters.
When a woman selects a hat she keeps on selecting it until the shopwalker starts to make a shake-down under the counter and the night-watchman tunes into the bed-time stories on the radio.
First she glances at all the headwear displayed to view and sniffs.
“Seventy-five per cont of men's apparel in brought by women.”
Finally, when the girl is too exhausted even to sneer behind your wife's back, she (your wife) selects the one she sniffed at the hardest. She knows that it doesn't suit her, but she has had her fun and now is willing to pay for it.
Contrast this with the spectacle of a man purchasing something to cover his soft spot!
“Hard or soft?” queries the hatter, in the manner of a waiter getting the “low down” on a customer's preference in boiled eggs.
“Yes. Soft should suit your ‘head,” says the hatter. “How's this for size, shape, colour?”
Like a juggler whipping a canary out of a dog's mouth he produces a hat from nowhere.
Three seconds later the hat is bought—paid for—worn.
Of course, the hat buyer gets it in the eye when he arrives home, for the colour and shape are sure to be wrong and the hat either will slip down to his ears or sit on his head like a pigeon on the dome of St. Paul's. But it is bought, and that is the main thing.
Strange as it may seem, many a man who casually slams on a lid is a terror
“The hut either will slip down to his ears or sit on his head like a pigean on the dome of St. Paul's”
Perhaps it is that the constructive instinct, latent in the male, is aroused; for a suit is rather a structural undertaking than a commercial transaction. Consequently the suitee keeps his eye on the specifications. He is not so concerned as to how the suit is to be built so much as to how it is not to be built. Unless watched, the scriptural words, “You have done those things which you should not have done and you have left undone those things which you should have done,” apply very neatly to tailors. The trouble with tailors is that they study form too closely and, because they have ascertained, by reference to the “Tailor and Cutter,” that the Maharajah of Chutney appeared at Ascot arrayed like the lily——and then some—they are cut to the buckram and their linings are lacerated because you refuse to impersonate the Maharajah of Chutney, or any other saucy scion of the Indes. Women accuse men of undue conservatism in dress, of their failure to change their styles to meet the times; but little do they wot of the battles that rage in tailor's parlours every day; of tailors on their knees imploring their clients, in the name of art and sartorial sublimity, to submit to stream-lined coats, low-pressure pants and vests modelled like the double doors of a strongroom.
Tailors may have their faults, but if men's clothes have not developed through the ages, it is no fault of tailors.
It is the fault of their clients who, year after year, have fought with their backs to the buckram to retain the Englishman's ancient privilege of looking like nothing on earth.
Cave-Man!!
HotelsA Realiable Travellers' Guide
Shiela Russell
.
Johnny Black In Trouble
One summer's morning, Johnny Black, the blackbird of Pudding Hill, was hard at work practising the notes of what lie felt was going to be his best song of the season. He was sitting on a lower branch of the old gum tree, and above him were perched the four baby Sparrowdenes.
First he sang a few notes, and then running along his branch whistled an answer.
The little Sparrowdenes clapped and asked for more, and Johnny Black, after bowing gravely to them several times, started to sing once again.
Now about this time of the day the Butcher's Boy would arrive with the meat lor the people who lived in the cottage. He was a cowardly little boy who liked teasing animals. Whenever there was a bird nearby he would pick up the first stone he saw and throw it. Luckily for the birds he could not throw straight, and Johnny Black had become so used to his nasty manners, ihat he now took no notice of him.
This morning, as the Butcher's Boy passed he threw his usual stone at the birds upon the gum tree, and struck the branch on which they were sitting. The Sparrowdene babies were badly frightened, but Johnny Black told them not to worry, “For,” said he “that boy could never hit anything.”
To make them forget their fright he flew down to a fence post and began to sing and dance at the same time. The song was a funny one, and Johnny danced such a merry jig that the babies quite forgot their troubles, and were soon laughing gaily. No one saw the Butcher's Boy coming back; no one saw him pick up a heavy stone, and aim it very carefully at the dancing bird.
The stone struck Johnny and knocked him clean off the post, so that he lay stunned in the grass.
“Got you at last,” said the Butcher's Boy and stepping across to the post picked Johnny up and put him in a box which he was carrying under his arm. He took the box a little way down the hill, and left it securely tied up with string, beneath a bush. He had more meat to deliver, and intended to pick it up on his way home.
For a long time the little Sparrowdenes sat horror-stricken, hardly daring to whisper among themselves. At last one of them plucked up courage enough to fly across to the cottage and still trembling, tell his mother what had happened.
Mrs. Sparrowdene immediately flew round to the verandah and woke up Mr. Tom.
“This is serious,” said Mr. Tom, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. “Poor Johnny. In a box you say, no light, no air, what's the Boy going to do with him ?”
“I don't know,” said Mrs. Sparrowdene, “but we've got to get him out.”
“Yes, yes, of course,” replied Mr. Tom looking solemn, “but how, that's the question.”
“Think of something, quickly,” Mrs. Sparrowdene cried.
“I could scratch him,” said Mr. Tom thoughtfully.
“Scratch who?” Mrs. Sparrowdene growing more and more excited began to flutter up and down the verandah.
“The Boy,” said Mr. Tom, “to make him give Johnny up you know.”
“Don't be silly,” shrieked Mrs, Sparrowdene.
“Well stay still a moment, you muddle me,” said Mr. Tom. “I have it. We'll ask Miss Amelia.”
So they set off to find Miss Amelia—Mr. Tom walking sedately down the path and Mrs. Sparrowdene fluttering round his head and uttering little squeaky cries of impatience.
Eventually they found her in the herbaceous border, trying to fit one of those flowers called Granny Bonnets on her head.
She blushed a little when they came up. “Just trying on a new hat,” she said smiling, and then grew serious as she listened to the news they had to tell. “Dear, oh dear!” she cried when they had finished, “I always was afraid that boy would do something really bad.”
“I think perhaps we had better collect all the animals we can and go down to where the box is.”
So they got the Hedgehogs and Peter Possum, who when he understood what was the matter didn't mind being awakened, and a lizard called Daisy who was a great friend of Miss Amelia, and trooped off down the hill. They did not bother to ask the Field Mice, because they thought they would only be in the way. But the Field Mice came of their own accord, for nobody could keep them out of anything.
Soon they arrived at the place where the box lay with poor Johnny inside it.
Peter Possum walked up and rapped with his knuckles on the lid.
“Are you in there Johnny Black?” he called.
“Ow,” said a muffled voice, “don't do that, it makes my ears tingle.”
“We've come to help you get out,” cried all the animals.
They thought they heard Johnny Black give a cheer, but they weren't quite sure, because he sounded so faint and far away.
Then they all began making suggestions as to how they were to open the box. Peter Possum tried to undo the string, but after a few moments gave it up in disgust.
“Are you in there Johnny BlacK?” he called.
“Just trying on a new hat,” she said smiling.
Horace Hedgehog suggested rolling the box down the hill in the hope that it might strike something and break open, but Johnny Black heard him and cried out a very loud “No!” Daisy, the Lizard, thought they might crack it open with a stone, but after a few blows they had to stop because Johnny Black's ears were tingling so badly.
Then they all sat down and thought very hard, and Mr. Tom began muttering to himself a rhyme he had made up.
“Poor Johnny Black is in a fix, the worst you ever saw,
“We'd get him out in half a tick if someone here could
“What rhymes with saw?” he asked Miss Amelia.
“Saw—saw?” said Miss Amelia. “Saw—raw—flaw—gnaw. That's it,” she cried excitedly, “Gnaw, the Field Mice, they could gnaw through the string easily.”
At first the Field Mice would not try. They said the animals had never been very nice to them, and quite likely the string would hurt their teeth. Miss Amelia, however, made them a little speech, saying that they should always think of other people before their own teeth, and some day they might be in trouble themselves, and then the animals would come and help them.
So presently the Mice set to with a will, and gnawed and gnawed, until in a very short time the string broke. Johnny Black, dusty and ruffled, but otherwise none the worse for his adventure, scrambled out of the box and shaking hands with everybody promised that his very next song would be in praise of the Field Mice.
It was getting late by this time and soon the Butcher's Boy would be coming back for his box. The animals thought it was time they were getting home, but Miss Amelia held up her hand.
“Wait a minute People of Pudding Hill,” she cried, “I think the Butcher's Boy needs a lesson, otherwise he might try and hurt some more of us. I have a plan.”
She signed to them to gather round and talked for a while in a very low voice, and the result was, that instead of going home the animals crept away into the bushes round about. Johnny Black flew off and woke up Joe the Morepork, and the pair of them hid themselves in the branches of a nearby tree.
They had not long to wait before they heard the Butcher's Boy returning. He whistled and kicked his heels along the path, and when he caught sight of the box laughed with horrid glee.
“Ha! Ha! my fine blackbird,” he cried, “you can say good-bye to your tree tops. From now on you shall sing in a cage nailed to my wall.”
He bent down to pick up the box and with a rush of wings, Johnny Black and Joe swooped down upon him, beating him about the head with their wings and pecking at his hands and face.
He turned to run, tripped over a wire which the Hedgehogs had stretched across the path, and fell headlong into a gorse bush. Instantly Mr. Tom pounced upon his back and bit his ear, and all the other animals came out and danced around.
Al last, bellowing with fright, and the pain of the gorse prickles and the pecks and bites and scratches he had received, the Butcher's Boy went stumbling down the hill and vowed that never again would he be unkind to animals.
The little People of Pudding Hill then went home happily to their teas.
The five little year-old Dionne girls have brought about such an increase in railroad and passenger traffic to and from Callander, Ont., trading point of the family, that a new railroad station is being built, states the “Railway Age.” Heretofore, two old passenger coaches, joined together, standing beside the railroad track, have served as a station.
Ingram
the many brilliant sporting achievements by New Zealanders in the month of February this year none could be classed as greater than the ride of the Canterbury cyclist, George Giles, in the final of the 1,000 metres sprint at the New Zealand championship meeting at Wanganui on February 29th. Giles rode the last furlong of the course in 12 2/5 secs. It might be explained here that a “1,000 metres sprint” is a misnomer. Two riders are on the track at the same time and tactical knowledge counts as much as pace; the riders aim to “position” one another and then burst away with a phenomenal sprint over the last part of the race. The time for the full distance is never taken, the only section timed being the last furlong. Giles was about eight yards behind his rival as the leader passed over the 220-yard mark, but rode a wonderful race to win by two lengths. The time announced was slower than that actually recorded by Giles, because the watches were started as Wade passed the check line and stopped when Giles passed the winning line. Had Giles been timed individually he would have been credited with time nearer 12 seconds than 12 2/5 secs. But even so, the time credited to him stands comparison with the performances of riders abroad. The sprint race at the Olympic Games in 1932 was won by Van Egmond, of Holland, whose, best time in the series was 12 1/2 secs, for the final 200 metres (just short of 220 yards). This time was established on a board track at the Pasadena Rose Bowl where the track was completely protected from wind. Giles made his fine time at Cooks Gardens, Wanganui, where the bitumen track is exposed to all the vagaries of the weather and his ride must go down as the best effort by a New Zealand cyclist.
Champion athletes come in all shapes and sizes. This was borne out at the New Zealand track and field championship meeting in Dunedin this year, when Brian Tapley, short, stocky sprinter won the 100 yards sprint from men better built for quickness off the mark. Tapley, brother of Colin Tapley (now making a name for himself in the movie world at Hollywood) demonstrated that he is the fastest man off the mark that New Zealand has seen for many years. Malcolm Leadbetter, former sprint champion and at present co-holder of the 100 yards New Zealand record of 94/5 secs, was generally conceded to be fast off the mark, but he could never lead championships finalists by two yards at the first fifty yards of a 100 yards sprint. That is what Tapley did in Dunedin, and it would be interesting to see him race against time on a specially prepared 50-yard track. The world's record should not be far beyond his reach.
New Zealand has had some great all-round athletes, and the names of “Buz” Sutherland, Len McKay, Arthur Holder and J. W. Shirley come readily to mind when discussing feats of skill on the track or field. But the performances of the Oamaru athlete, Alastair Cameron will stand comparison with any of the quartette mentioned above. Cameron, a reinstated athlete, won four New Zealand championships at the New Zealand title meeting held in Dunedin on February 28th and 29th, winning every event in which he competed. Without wishing to be derogatory to the actual winner of the high jump it may be confidently assumed that Cameron would have won that event as well, had he competed, and so set a new record for a national championship meeting. Arthur Holder, Wanganui athlete of the late ‘nineties, holds the best performance at a New Zealand championship meeting. At Auckland, in 1896, he finished second to A. J. Patrick (Wellington), in the 100 yards, and won the 250 yards in 25 secs., 440 yards in 522/5 secs., 120 yards hurdles in 16 secs., and 440 yards hurdles in 584/5 secs. (establishing world's record). In Cameron's case there was a uniformity of good performances. He bettered the best New Zealander's performance in the discus throw by 1 1/2 inches. throwing the plate to 139 ft. 3 1/2 inches. (The previous record was 139.2, by Peter Munro). He won the hop-step-and-jump with 48 ft. 3 1/2 ins. (17 1/2 inches behind the New Zealand record, but in excess of what the record was three years earlier) and won the broad jump with 22 ft. 6 1/2 ins. In one effort in the broad jump Cameron actually bettered Gerald Keddell's 30-year-old native record, but as his shoe just showed over the edge of the take-off board the jump could not be counted. Cameron's fourth win was in the shot putt, but in this he did not achieve any great figure. An all-rounder, Cameron finds it difficult to specialise on any one event, but would probably find the broad jump and hop-step-and-jump his best events.
Dunedin was Host City to swimmers, surfers, track and field athletes during the month of February, and it says much for the capabilities of the officials in charge of the various New Zealand championship contests that no complaints were made against the arrangements. The swimming championships have been classed as the most successfully organised in the history of the sport, while the life-saving contests earned high praise from competitors and public alike. It was left to Guy Tapley, newly-elected president of the Otago Athletic Centre, to put the finishing touches on a month of sport. He conceived the idea of staging a miniature Olympic Games opening ceremony at the track and field championships. To be numbered among the 5,000 who witnessed that imposing, impressive ceremony was a privilege, and one's mind could not but think of what a wonderful, inspiring message must be driven home when the ceremony is staged before some 150,000 at the Games. “We swear
“The-true spirit of sportsmanship.” This spirit was pre-eminent throughout the sporting fixtures in Dunedin, and it is pleasing to record that this sporting community now houses the Ranfurly Shield (for Rugby), the Yaldhurst Shield (for senior swimming), War Memorial Trophy (for junior and intermediate swimming), New Zealand Championship Shield (symbol of amateur athletic supremacy), and the Speight Cup (for the most impressive team in the opening ceremony at athletic championships). Otago is on the rising tide in sport, and with young, keen officials, will set a standard for the rest of New Zealand to attain.
The performances of L. Newell, of Canterbury, in winning three New Zealand swimming championships at Dunedin last February recalls the great deeds of Malcolm Champion whose career is not generally known to New Zealanders.
There is a mistaken idea that Ted Morgan is the first and only New Zealander to win an Olympic Games championship—in fact it is more or less accepted without question by sports writers and others who should be better informed. The first New Zealander to win an Olympic championship was, however, Malcolm Champion, of Auckland.
Malcolm Champion, one of New Zealand's greatest swimmers in the days before the European War, was the first New Zealander to return with Olympic honours—his success was as a member of the Australasian swimming relay team at the Olympic Games of 1912.
Back in the ‘teens—and even before he grew to that stage—Champion was a strong swimmer, and residents of North Shore have recollections of seeing Malcolm and a boy friend strolling down to the water-front to keep fit with their rowing, and after having an hour of that exercise, plunge into the harbour and swim over to Auckland shore and back again. This gave Champion a wonderful physique.
It was in 1897 that the future Olympic champion was persuaded to take on competitive swimming. He was swimming off the dock at Devonport with some friends when an onlooker who had been impressed with his style and strength in the water suggested that he should enter for some of the swimming carnivals then being held. Champion laughed at the suggestion, and replied that he was not good enough. Not good enough! How many possible champions have said those words, I wonder?
But the suggestion made by the onlooker—a total stranger to Champion—was not forgotten. At the time Champion did not take a great deal of notice, but when he discovered that he could outpace and outlast his companions in the water he took to improving his style. He improved beyond belief, and with some of his friends formed the North Shore Swimming Club. It was a club and that was all! The boys did not realise that it was necessary to affiliate to the controlling body or anything of that nature. They formed a club to have fun, and have fun they did, without worrying about such things as Dominion controlling bodies.
Before long Champion was the best swimmer in the district—unchallenged at all distances—and when it was announced that the New Zealand Swimming Championships were to be held in Christchurch he set his heart on competing against the best. New Zealanders. The members of the North Shore Swimming Club were just as keen that Malcolm should get his chance and three of them were selected to cross the water to Auckland to see if Champion could be included in the Auckland team. The reception given this trio by the Auckland officials sent them home in dismay. Champion might be a champion but he wasn't getting in the Auckland team.
Wasn't it Hinemoa who made swimming history in New Zealand by a fabled exploit taught us at school? Well it was the Hinemoa, the old steamer so well-known in New Zealand waters, that assisted Champion to make swimming history, too. The steamer Hinemoa was in port at Auckland at this time and this spelt opportunity and success for Champion. A member of the crew met him one day and in conversation it came out that Champion was disappointed in not getting a chance to go to Christchurch and swim in the title meeting. This friend in need proved a friend indeed—he introduced Champion to the skipper of the Hinemoa and as the ship was going to Lyttelton he offered to take Champion as a member of the crew. This was luck with a capital L, thought Champion, who hurried home to gather in a towel and a pair of swimming togs.
All went well until the Hinemoa, passing Wellington, received a call to “make port.” A bad break, thought Champion, but it proved to be Dame Fortune lending him a hand instead. It turned out to be the best thing that could have happened. A swimming carnival was being held at the Thorndon Baths that day and the purpose of the carnival was to select the Wellington team for the New Zealand championships. How he performed at this and subsequent championship meetings will be related in next month's issue.
Anyone who has had occasion to go to Tawatahi knows that the journey involves some roundabout travelling. Coming from one of the main centres you leave the cosy warmth of a main line carriage in the small hours, stand blinking and shivering on a bleak little platform while your last apparent link with civilisation vanishes round a bend, and then stumble with any other lost souls who may be present, across metals and signal wires in the direction of a dimly burning lamp. This turns out to be encased in an iron frame above the door of “Madison House,” which is set in the black overwhelming silence of the bush, and the next five hours are spent in peaceful slumber.
Breakfast at “Madison House” is at seven sharp, and at seven-thirty, still bound for Tawatahi, you take your seat in the “Wild Cat, which, on its outward journey, consists of several empty timber trucks and a guard's van, and traverses some twenty miles of what is really a glorified bush tramway. The line is privately-owned and it is said that the contractor who built it, being paid by the mile, did his best to improve the old axiom that the longest way round was, to him at any rate, the most profitable, if not the shortest way there.
To the traveller sitting on the bench on the rear platform of the guard's van and watching the serpentine convolutions of the track spinning out behind, it may seem that that old contractor went out of his way to prove his point; but if he be in no great hurry and has an eye for beauty he will also give thanks to his memory. Kowhais draw trembling fingers along the sides of the van, tawa and rimu stand sentinel at every turn, and on all sides undisturbed by the fussing of the little geared locomotive is the piping of tuis and bellbirds. All of which suggests that Tawatahi, when one reaches it, is fairly remote. And so it is. It also comes as something of a surprise. The trees sweep back abruptly and give place to stumps, here and there are belled cows grazing, and a hint of fence-line. Then a roadway forms up each side of the line, and unpainted cottages each side of the roadway, The “Wild Cat” screeches like her namesake, a general store rolls past, then a bank, two or three sawmills and a post office.
The railway ends at the post office, and it was here, one very hot morning in January, that there stood amongst the other vehicles drawn up against the arrival of the train, one of those battered and indestructible motor-cars capriciously known as “galloping bedsteads.” A bearded and deeply sunburnt man sat hunched over the wheel, apparently dozing under the brim of his cabbage tree hat, for he took no notice of the comings and goings of men busy with the unloading, but remained quite motionless until the last of them had gone away. Then he roused, and shuffled across to the open door of the guard's van.
“Any stuff for Baker's?” he demanded, and his voice was of a pattern with his gait and his dilapidated car. Joyless, rasping and querulous. The guard, busy in the interior gloom, turned and saw the shaggy head framed in the doorway.
“Why, hullo George!” he exclaimed cheerily, “I haven't seen you in a twelve-month. You and that young nephew of yours are as shy as a couple of wekas.”
The bearded man vouchsafed no reply but a surly grunt, and the guard turned to some packing cases and sacks that lay on the floor of the van.
“This is your stuff,” he said, “if you back your old bus over here I'll give you a hand to load it.”
The packages were duly transferred to the car, and the guard, who had a reputation as a wag to maintain, kept up a running commentary during the proceedings, but his shafts of wit fell blunted from the bearded man's armour of taciturnity. When all was done he shook his head sadly, saying, “You must have a riotous time out on that block of yours, George!”
“That ain't George,” said a voice, and the guard, turning from his contemplation of the car which was moaning and sagging as it crawled out of sight, looking like some pathetically round-eyed animal with a broken back, found the driver of the “Wild Cat” standing at his side.
“Certainly it's old George Baker,” he said “who else could it be?”
“His nephew, Johnny.”
“No chance, Johnny walks upright and he's clean shaven.”
“Well, it's a long time since I saw him, but I'll bet that's not old George.”
“How much?”
“Double or quits the ten bob I owe you.”
“Right,” said the guard, consulting his consignment note book. He was silent a moment, then: “Bet's off,” he said, “what do you make of that signature.”
“Looks like the mark on a Chinese laundry ticket,” said the engine driver.
A certain Mr. Phillips made the trip to Tawatahi in February. He was a square-built, brusque little man, whose first inclination to curse the “Wild Cat” for its dilatory wanderings was soon dispelled by the interest which he extracted from the conversation of his fellow passengers. In addition to the guard himself, there were three citizens of Tawatahi and their talk was all concerning the recent untimely end of “young” Johnny Baker.
Johnny it seemed had been unfortunate enough to be standing behind a falling tawa, which, splitting as it fell, lashed back with the force of a recoiling gun and practically decapitated him. The details which the company discussed at considerable length were unpleasant, and Mr. Phillips presently made an attempt to turn the conversation into less gruesome channels.
“How long,” he asked, “had this ‘young’ Johnny Baker been working in the bush?”
“About a year, in these parts,” replied the guard, “but he wasn't too young, you know—man about fifty I should say.”
“Looks like the mark on a Chinese laundry ticket.”
“And he wasn't working in the bush either,” chimed in one of the citizens of Tawatahi.
“What he means,” the guard jerked a deprecatory thumb in the direction of his interrupter, “is that him and old George Baker wasn't working for one of the mills.”
“I see,” said Mr. Phillips, “where were they working then?”
“On old George's place, and according to what he said afterwards they were cutting for firewood.”
“And they were alone at the time?” Mr. Phillips opined.
“They were always alone,” the guard answered, and Mr. Phillips nodded thoughtfully.
Shortly after this the “Wild Cat” ran into Tawatahi clearing, and Mr. Phillips walked straight from the train to the general store which, by means of an enamelled-iron sign, pronounced itself to be the local office of the Perennial Insurance Company.
The store-keeper was a talkative man with a glistening moon-like face, and he became more talkative and glistening than ever when Mr. Phillips, drawing him aside, introduced himself and came briskly to the point.
“I am here,” he said “to investigate the Baker claim on the Perennial Company.”
“Ah yes!” the store-keeper mopped his forehead, “very sad affair that, Mr. Phillips, but between you and me it is a cloud which has a silver lining—for the old man. What I mean to say is, it is fortunate for him being able to collect Johnny's £500 insurance as next of kin just at this time. Things haven't been too rosy up here lately and there has been talk of the mill people giving an extra turn to the screws of that mortgage they hold on the Baker block—though how the information got out I couldn't say—”
“Yes, yes, I know all that,” Mr. Phillips held up his hand impatiently, “what I'm chiefly concerned with, is establishing the identity of the claimant.”
“Who, old George Baker?” the storekeeper laughed incredulously, “Why, everyone knows of him.”
“Do they?” Mr. Phillips raised his eyebrows in a faint smile. “What do they know? What does he look like? How old is he, does he pay his bills?”
The store-keeper flapped absently with his handkerchief. “'Strewth ain't the flies crook,” he growled irrelevantly then, —“Old George well, he's a queer old chap, a bit simple as you might say, and he don't come to town more than once or twice in a year, but I know, and everyone knows, who he is and what he looks like right enough.”
Mr. Phillips nodded, “Then you will agree with me when I say that he is a short, stout man, clean shaven, looks ten years younger than his age, which is sixty-nine, and makes a dubious living as a bookmaker's tout.”
“Ha ha,” said the store-keeper, “I suppose you couldn't have got further from the mark if you had tried.”
“I didn't have to try,” Mr. Phillips retorted, “because the man I have just described recently produced at the Head Office of your company certain evidence that he was the Mr. George Baker to whom the money was payable.”
“How could he do that?” demanded the store-keeper, “old George couldn't have left the district without someone seeing him, and even if he had, he doesn't look like what you said.”
“We shall see,” said Mr. Phillips. He glanced at the watch upon his wrist, “how long does it take to get to Baker's block?”
“Two hours if nothing breaks; the track's terrible.”
It was. The storekeeper's car, another of the genus “bedstead.” jolted and bounced in and out of the pot holes, boiled and covered its occupants with a fine cloud of pumice dust, until just when Mr. Phillips felt that even devotion to duty could sustain him no longer, the country opened out into a grassy clearing, in one corner of which stood an iron whare with a wisp of smoke curling from its chimney. Half a dozen mangy dogs set up a clamour at their approach, and at the door of the whare appeared a bent and bewhiskered figure, who received them dourly until the magic name of the Perennial Insurance Company kindled a spark of interest in his suspicious eye.
“George,” said the store-keeper, “Mr. Philips here says that some spieler in the city is trying to get down on your insurance money by claiming that he's ‘young’ Johnny's uncle.”
“Johnny never had but one uncle,” replied the old man motioning them into the whare, “and that's me. I can prove that.”
“So can the other man,” said Mr. Phillips. He eyed with disfavour the dingy interior of the whare, and settled himself gingerly on the edge of a rickety chair, “But perhaps I had better tell you his story first. It seems that about twenty-five years ago when this district was first opened up for settlement, George Baker took up this block, and had as his partner a penniless man called Harry Blanchard. They worked away amicably for a year or so clearing the section and selling their millable timber to a small portable concern which was operating nearby. They had just about cleared themselves out, and were settling down to cultivate the land when a rival mill came in, and to get a start, offered a better price for timber.
“Which is the real and authentic Mr, Baker?”
“Baker and Blanchard were in need of money for seed and stock, and what must Baker do but go falling milltimber beyond the boundaries of their block, on land which happened to be leased to the proprietors of the first mill. Naturally, suspicion was aroused at this new source of Baker's wealth, and the owner of the pilfered timber came out to investigate. There was a fight, and Baker struck his opponent with a slab. Thinking he had killed him, he bolted and let it be thought that he was Blanchard.
“As it turned out the man did not die, he was not even seriously hurt, but the identities of the partners had become confused, and as the years went on some said that Baker was Blanchard and others that Blanchard was Baker. In the end Blanchard, perhaps because he felt he owed something to Baker, perhaps because—” Mr. Phillips did not finish his sentence, but looking meaningly at the store-keeper made a slight movement of his hand towards his head, “gave the mill people a lien over part of the property to pay for the stolen timber and the manager's cracked head, and became definitely identified in the district as George Baker.”
There was silence in the whare as Mr. Philips finished speaking, a heavy brooding silence into which crept the squeak of a straining wire fence. Old George Baker, who during the recital had sat apparently unheeding with downcast eyes, raised his head at the sound, frowned, and made as if to rise, then settled back in his chair again as Mr. Phillips resumed his story.
“Shortly after John Baker's unfortunate death we received a visit from a man who, as I have already told Mr. —er,” he waved towards the storekeeper, is fairly well known to the police in the city as an undesirable character. He had seen the notice of the accident in a copy of the local paper, which with the usual volubility of these journals, also printed the intelligence regarding the insurance moneys. He then produced proof in the shape of documents, records, and old photographs that he was the original George Baker.”
Mr. Phillips paused with a satirical smile. “The question to be settled, gentlemen, is, which is the true and authentic Mr. Baker?”
His question was directed at the bearded old man, but it was ignored, for at the same instant came once again that squeak of fence-wire followed immediately by a slithering crash and the terrified squawking of fowls. George Baker, or Harry Blanchard, whichever it might be, leapt to his feet with a lively stream of profanity, and still swearing charged out of the door and round the whare to where an aged and mulish draught-horse was standing amongst the wreckage of a flimsy leanto which, judging by its scattered contents had contained amongst other things several sacks of chaff.
Mr. Phillips and the storekeeper, watching him from the window, were amazed at the agility with which this erstwhile decrepit old man leaped over obstructions and cuffed and hounded the unfortunate animal back into its proper paddock. When he returned to the whare he walked erect with the stride of a man in his prime, and then, noticing the look of astonishment on the faces of the other two he stopped aghast, as he realised what he had done.
“I feel,” said Mr. Phillips facetiously, “that I have witnessed a miracle.”
The bearded man shrugged his shoulders in resignation.
“Well,” he said, “I suppose the jig was up anyway, with that precious uncle of mine turning up. Not that I had any idea old Blanchard wasn't George Baker, any more than you did,” he said to the store-keeper, “I certainly would not have tried it on if I had.”
“Tried what on?” asked the storekeeper
“Swindling the insurance company,” interposed Mr. Phillips. I believe I am right in assuming that it was Harry Blanchard who was struck by the falling tree and that you are John Baker.”
“You are, replied Baker. “And now that the cat's out of the bag, I may as well explain. I would never have had the idea if I had not gone to town for the stores last month. I had a touch of lumbago in the morning and the trip in the flivver didn't improve it, so that by the time I got in, I was nobody's friend, and couldn't straighten my back to save my bacon. The guard mistook me for old George, or Harry, I suppose it should be.
“I forgot all about it until the afternoon of the accident—and—poor old George, Harry I mean, might have been anyone after that tree had finished with him you see—”
“Yes, yes, I've heard all the details,” said Mr. Phillips.
“Well, then,” said ‘young’ Johnny, “it didn't seem to me I was doing anyone any particular harm in pretending to be the old man, and it would certainly have done me a bit of good.”
“I suppose it would,” remarked Mr. Phillips dryly. “Well,” he added, “we must be going Mr. —er—”
The store-keeper rose rather confusedly, and John Baker watched them in silence.
As they climbed into the car, he put his hand on the door.
“How am I going to get on?” he asked.
“That I can't say,” replied Mr. Phillips, “I'll do my best for you, but,” he added with a twinkle, “it will be a great disappointment to your uncle.”
“I can bear that,” said John Baker sourly.
Apart from the essentially business aspect of the General Manager's rail-car in providing rapid transport over the lines of the Dominion, it performs a valuable service in cementing the family relationship between the management and the staff. The rail-car's uses on the human side are Indicated In the following short article by “We of the” ‘Never Never.“'
The General Manager of Railways, Mr. G. H. Mackley (left) and departmental officers in the course of one of their official tours in the General Manager's inspection car—shown on right.
Not so long ago there was built at the Hutt Valley Workshops a motor railcar of modern design and pleasing appearance, with massive flange wheels for the rails.
I remember the trial runs. Packed full of the Heads, records were established over the Rimutakas. Reilly, of the staff, who had watched her tear through the station with an easy sway at the points, picking up speed again as the straight was entered, and somehow giving an impression of power and speed held in leash, exclaimed: “A blooming Phar Lap! The ‘Red Terror!” that's what she is.” The name was good, and it stuck. To railwaymen all over New Zealand the General Manager's car is now known by no other name.
It wouldn't surprise me a bit to receive a train advice headed “Red Terror,” Wellington, Napier, etc. —a better heading, surely, than “B10 will run as under,” for it would add Romance to the Rail.
But what is the use of the “Red Terror”? There is no doubt that the car is proving of great value not only to the General Manager but to others. The former Prime Minister, Mr. Forbes, travelled in the rail-car from Wellington to Napier, addressed a conference there and returned to Wellington the same night. He spoke in glowing terms of this mode of travel. The General Manager can get over the system with an ease hitherto unobtainable.
To-day, Sunday, the General Manager and party were running through a station which had only once previously been visited by the “Red Terror.” I took my wife and our infant daughter down to the crossing behind the ganger's house. On the embankment were the ganger's wife and children. The stationmaster's wife was also there, and further down in the cutting were grouped the surfaceman's chubby youngsters—quite a reception committee in fact.
Right on time, down swooped the “Terror,” and to the great delight of the children their waving handkerchiefs were answered from both sides of the car. Not mere indolent waves, either, but good, hearty ones. Not only the children, however, were delighted. That hand-wave was an interview with the General Manager to me. I was closer to him then than I have ever been, or will probably ever be.
He waved to me and the children and we waved back. We watched “The Terror” round the curve, then wended our way home to plant the rest of the potatoes, and as I dug I thought: “If the ‘Red Terror’ can bring that friendly feeling to the majority of the staff, the car will indeed be another Phar Lap, worth it's weight in gold.”
Thank you, Mr. General Manager and party, for your kindly greeting at a wayside country station.
The Tauranga Touch.
What makes Tauranga charm so many visitors is the variety of pleasing surprises it has in store. A mild and sunny winter is followed by an early spring and summer. Always you may go with confidence to Tauranga for a touch of summer warmth. The pleasures of the place are simple and full of ease. In the small hill reserve a few steps from the main street one meets the sun-warmed little breezes, lightly laden with the scent of flowers and grasses, as they play about among the braes and gently rustle the trees. Here, midst the light babble of children, many birds whistle and call in cheerful melody; whilst out upon the bay, white sails, and the chug chug of motorboats carrying their happy cargo of surfers and fishers, lend life to the scene of calm content in this lotus-land by the quiet seas of the sun-kissed Bay of Plenty. —X.Y.Z.
Helen
“Is it a really strong egg-beater? Non-rust? I like its green handle. I'll have it please.”
“Yes, it's a beautiful suite. The colours in the tapestry are right, and the shape of the chairs, but it's too big for the room. No, I won't have it.”
“I know it's a sale, and the silk things are beautiful and very cheap, but it's getting into winter and I must be, warm. Show me the new woollen goods —vest and pantee sets.”
* * *
A woman, seemingly, spends much of her time deciding suitability with the added quality of good appearance. Clothes, food, furnishings, are all matters of considerable thought. The ability to judge is susceptible of development as may be observed when one compares the callow girl just-leftschool, just-started-work, who shops haphazardly, regretting most of her purchases, with the same young person at twenty-five, knowing what she wants, combing the city for it and extracting every fraction of value from the penny.
Such a quality of discernment in material things is being applied by women in many new fields.
* * *
Landscape gardening is successfully carried out by women in countries which support a wealthy, property - owning class. Women with scientific training apply their knowledge in laboratories connected with textile trades, food preparation and preservation. The science of dietetics claims many women. Labour-saving appliances in hundreds are being evolved by women experts. Domestic architecture is being recognized, increasingly, as her field. Less often is the disparaging remark, “Only a man could have designed it!” applied to a comfortless, waste-space kitchen— for men are learning from women. A stroll round the British Industries Fair enables one to appreciate how much of comfort and of taste in modern living conditions is being supplied by women.
Mainly About Hats.
At times the fashion change from season to season is imperceptible. Skirts drift up or down, fullness is gently added or abstracted, waist lines move quietly up or down, sleeves are unaggressive—even hats tilt or droop in slow movement.
* * *
But this year everything is brusque, new styles challenge the eye, fabrics and groupings startle even the unobservant. Take hats! Courage and the military mode go hand in hand—for it requires courage, this change from the soft beret shapes or the picturesque wide and drooping brim to the upthrust of militant feather on a fur shako, or the shovel brim on a soldierly cap.
* * *
It all began, I believe, with the Breton beret. Since then, the archives of history and the colourful places of the world have been searched for the picturesque. The headgear of the Cossack, the French Legionary, the Merry Men of Sherwood, an Italian madonna —all have been recklessly adopted and adapted to grace the hat salons of Paris.
* * *
And what does it all amount to? A formal hat or a cocktail hat, a length of velvet and ribbon, a wisp of veil, a twist of felt or velour, to be worn a month or two and then discarded. A fuss about nothing? Let me whisper that I am inclined to think so Everything can be overdone—especially clothes.
* * *
I am reminded of a youthful riddle, “Why does the miller wear a white hat?” My guesses were many, straining possibility. The answer, “To cover his head” deflated my imaginative bubbles and caused me to think. Why do we wear hats? To show off our waves (the product of our hair-dresser), our profiles (ours through no virtue of our own), our purses or our pride? Let us apply the two criteria of suitability and appearance and we will not make mistakes.
In summer, hats to shade from the sun, cool light hats of porous material, coloured and brimmed to suit us; in winter, hats warmer and darker, closely and comfortably fitting the head even in windy weather, shower-proof for wear with rain-coats—of happy colourings and shapes for us.
* * *
My favourite hats this winter will be the Robin Hood, gay quill in high crown, right for sporty occasions, for winter walks; and a soft velour, peachbloom in finish, with a rolled brim of medium width, adaptable to any type of face, soft and flattering to young and old.
Fashion Notes In Brief.
Skirts an inch, or even two, shorter, less skimpy. Six or eight gored; pleats breaking out from the knee; pleated all round in plaids.
Frocks and coats have interest centred from the waist up. In frocks
Belts are wide, elaborately buckled. Buttons are novel.
Gilets (a species of front, fastening round the neck and with a band round the waist) help to ring the changes with suits or coat-frocks. Satin gilets may have narrow upstanding collar and small, stiff bow in front, or soft bows looped at neck-line. Gilets in silk tartans, velvets, or flat fur fabric vary the neck theme.
* * *
Coats are reminiscent of swagger with flaring backs, or plain and belted with no trimming. Fur collars are elaborate and large. The fur cape for afternoon street wear, or evenings, is new this season.
Wool fabrics have a smooth; suede finish as in mousse cloth, or are rough as in chevron bouche coating, angora, wool frieze, knopp effects, the raised chevron weave for suitings.
Colours? Marsh green, Gloucester green, Lady Alice blue, cocktail red, riff red, ruby red, purple-grape, copper beech, amberust and black, a great deal of black.
Evening gowns, evening wraps and accessories we will have to leave till May.
A Bedroom For Rest.
We want a pleasant room to go to sleep in and a pleasant room to wake up in. We want a room coloured correctly for electric light, for a sunny morning or a grey day. We want a room which will enhance the beauty of the furniture.
The richness of mahogany looks well against a light, cool green, but if the room has a southerly aspect the green will have to be warmed by applying deep cream to doors and woodwork.
Light oak or satinwood looks best against blue or blue-green, but for a bedroom an orange lampshade is necessary to correct the too stimulating effect of blue.
For a young girl's room, painted furniture lends itself to dainty furnishing schemes. Pale green lacquered furniture may be the basis of a green and primrose, or green and pink room. Deep cream with blue or green lightened with a splash of gold in cushion or lampshade is charming.
Green and gold is a popular bedroom combination of colours. The green is restful and the gold prevents any effect of dullness.
* * *
Bedroom lighting requires consideration as the bedroom is in most cases the dressing-room. The dressingtable should be placed where, during the day, light from the window will fall upon the face. A recessed window is the best position. Here, a central curtain will hide the back of the mirror from outside and will not detract from the lighting of the room. A long mirror in the dressing-table is a great advantage, as it saves the bother of placing the wardrobe mirror in a good light. At nights, a special fitting should be switched on over the dressing-table. I saw a crystal lamp, matching the tray, powder bowl, etc., on a mahogany dressing-table surfaced with plateglass.
Reading lamps are essential fittings in any modern bedroom, as are bedside tables with book rests or shelves.
A stool in front of the dressingtable is an incentive to careful dressing. One takes that extra minute or two for the extra polish to the nails, the inspection of the back curls, bob or roll.
A hospitable idea for the guest-room (which incidentally saves work for the hostess or maid) is the early morning tea tray or table complete with electric jug or kettle and tea paraphernalia set by the bed-side.
Milk.
In the last issue of this magazine we detailed a few particulars relating to Infectious Diseases, and, no doubt, you noticed that the commonest medium for carrying the germs of infection is food, especially milk.
Years ago, very little attention was given to the methods of collecting and distributing this most important article of diet. Milking sheds were in many cases primitive and unclean. Open cans, jugs, or other containers were left exposed at the door or gate, and into these receptacles the milkman served the milk from his bulk can, an act which, however carefully performed, was attended by considerable risk of contamination by dust, dirt, etc. Furthermore, our dairy farms from which we drew our supplies were not so carefully controlled, with the result that the milk was often contaminated before leaving the farm. Nowadays, these farms are run on the latest hygienic lines, and scrupulous care is taken of the cows, the management of the milking sheds and plant, the cleansing of the cans, and the method of delivery.
Through the efficient working of the Wellington Municipal Milk Department, we now have as safe a milk supply as is possible to get, and we are now going to briefly outline the methods employed by the Department in the handling of the milk.
The milk is forwarded in sterilized cans by train or lorry to the City Depot, where on arrival, it is tipped into weighing pans and weighed. A sample is taken to determine the butterfat content upon which payment is made, not upon fluid gallon. The cans are labelled, stating whether night or morning milk, no mixing taking place at the farm, as this is detrimental to the keeping quality of the milk. Any milk that smells or tastes abnormal is rejected, and the defect is at once notified to the supplier. If necessary, the services of a representative from the Department are placed at the disposal of the farmer to assist him in rectifying any defect.
From the weighing stage the milk passes into huge vats, and thence to the pasteuriser. The process of pasteurising derives its name from the eminent French Scientist, Louis Pasteur, who discovered the process. This process destroys any infectious disease germs.
The milk is heated to a temperature between 145–150 degrees F. at which temperature it is held for at least 30 minutes. Now this temperature, while destroying any infectious disease germs, does not destroy the natural properties of the milk which now passes to the cooling vat, thence to the bottling and capping machines, each day's supply bearing the stamp of that day on the cap.
The bottles are then placed in crates and forwarded to the chilling room whence they are passed to the distributing waggons.
Thus, you will notice, handling throughout the various processes is reduced to a minimum.
The farmers’ empty cans are washed and sterilized on the premises, as also are all bottles before filling.
As soon as received in the home, the milk should be stored in a cool place, and before uncapping, the top of the bottle should be washed and dried with a clean cloth. If only part of the milk is used, replace the card cap and return the bottle to a cool place.
Never leave the milk exposed to the ravages of flies or dirt, and remember that even though the Milk Department has done everything possible to ensure a safe supply, the onus is on the consumer to protect the milk from contamination after delivery.
Corns Grew Like Mushrooms
Remarkable Result of Excess Uric Acid.
Walks Without Pain After Suffering 25 Years.
Uric acid was the cause of this man's painful, extraordinary corns. His system was producing far too much of this harmful poison, and it seemed to collect in his feet, with the result described in the following letter:—
“My feet have never been strong and for the past four years I have been regularly attended by a foot specialist in order to walk at all. Two have remarked that they have never seen such corns—one saying he had never known corns grow so rapidly— literally like mushrooms in the night, due to rheumatic tendency. A short while ago a friend recommended Kruschen Salts and I took the small dose in my early morning tea. Then, to my great surprise, one day about three weeks later, I discovered I was walking without pain—think of it, after 25 years. It seemed almost too good to be true. The corns, which were like hard dry bone, were softening and coming away—the feet are now a more normal colour and shape, and becoming daily stronger.”—F.L.P.
The presence of excess uric acid in the system shows itself in many ways —all of them unpleasant. But whether the result be a painful attack of rheumatism or a crop of crippling corns, there is one sure way of obtaining relief. In every case, Kruschen Salts can be relied on to drive dangerous uric acid from the system. Two of the ingredients contained in Kruschen dissolve painful uric acid deposits. Other ingredients of these Salts assist Nature to eliminate this poison through the natural channels.
Kruschen Salts is obtainable at all Chemists and Stores at 2/6 per bottle.
Store Room.
The store room is now presenting a very attractive appearance, and we look with pride at our well-filled shelves, the result of many hours of tedious work—cleaning, stirring, bottling and labelling. In spite of this, however, we are always on the lookout for a new recipe—at least to us— which will enable us to make something different from the supply that adorned our shelves last year.
Try this new recipe for—
Cook three medium-sized beetroot and slice when cold. Put half-cup water and half-cup vinegar, 2 dessertspoons sugar, 1 teaspoon salt, 1/4 teaspoon pepper, a little mixed spice into a saucepan; bring to boiling point, then add one oz. gelatine and simmer for two or three minutes. Put beetroot into jars and pour the liquid over. Cover when cold.
The following recipes were also taken from a choice selection:
Twelve large tomatoes (dip into boiling water to remove skins), 4 large onions, 2 tablespoons salt, 1 1/2 tablespoons curry powder, 1 1/2 tablespoons mustard, 1/2 lb. sugar, 6 chillies, 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper, 2 tablespoons flour, 3/4 pint vinegar.
Slice tomatoes and onions. Put into separate dishes and sprinkle one tablespoon salt on each lot, and allow to stand overnight. Simmer all ingredients together for two hours; mix flour with cold vinegar and boil again for two minutes.
Mince six large onions and equal weight of white head of cabbage. Sprinkle with salt and stand overnight. Boil till soft in one pint vinegar. Thicken with one cup sugar, one tablespoon flour, two teaspoons curry powder and 1 tablespoon mustard, and boil for five minutes.
This is the natural adjunct to the storeroom, and the cultivation of sufficient herbs to meet the demands of the culinary operations is a most delightful hobby. Here we have mint and parsley ready to be of use when called upon, followed by sage and thyme for the more spectacular occasions. Lavender has its special place, as this aromatic plant offsets the strictly utilitarian nature of the garden.
To ensure success with our herbs, the ground should always be kept moist.
Shibli Bagarag
Possibly the greatest event for New Zealand writers in the history of literary endeavour in this country will take place this month in New Zealand Authors’ Week. Over a period of two weeks people in New Zealand will be told through broadcast talks, platform lectures, newspaper articles and by exhibitions in the four centres, what New Zealand authors have done in prose and verse. The idea is to instil into the people an appreciation of the literary worth of the Dominion. “Buy New Zealand Books” will be the slogan. It is mostly through greater sales that the writer is encouraged to greater effort.
In Wellington (other centres no doubt will have a similar programme) there will be, over the course of a week, platform lectures, twice daily, on every aspect of New Zealand literature. So that the public may see as well as hear, an exhibition will be open day and night of New Zealand books and magazines, New Zealand paper making, book-plates and the like.
An enduring result of the week will be the publication of a comprehensive illustrated magazine descriptive in prose, verse and picture of the literary work of the Dominion. This will contain a bibliographic compendium of New Zealand books and authors, with photographs and special articles.
The central executive has been working for months on their ambitious programme and now it is for the public to show their practical appreciation.
In a characteristic letter bulging with chatty gossip Percy Crisp, formerly editor of the Auckland “Sun,” and now in London, tells me of the doings of New Zealanders in the Old Land. Ian Coster is now film critic for the London “Standard”; David Low (“as magnificent a craftsman as ever: better, if anything”) is making something like #10,000 a year; Anona Winn is doing great work for the broadcasting people, and has just sold her first film scenario (she was through New Zealand years ago in pantomime); Lance Fairfax (sometime of Napier) is in the new Cochran revue “Follow the Sun” (he is also in demand for broadcast and films); Marie Ney is “a star in her own right”; Shayle Gardner has just finished a film with Claude Hulbert and Gordon Harker; George Nicholls (formerly Christchurch “Sun”) is with the P.A.; Geoffrey Cox is on “The News Chronicle”; Betty Riddell is on one of the Sunday papers, and so on.
As for Percy he is still on the London “Standard,” and is having considerable success in spare time free lancing.
Bird lovers will be keenly interested in the Gould League Annual (Angus & Robertson, Sydney) which has been published to celebrate the twenty-fifth birthday of the League which had its origin in New South Wales. It is a beautifully produced little book containing several appropriate articles and some fine full-page plates in colour and black and white.
No free lance journalist should be without “The Writers and Artists Year Book” (A. & C. Black, London) the 1936 edition of which is to hand. It contains all that much sought for information—the addresses and requirements of all the leading journals of the English speaking world, literary agencies, copyright, the markets for artists, composers, photographers, play writers, poets, etc., literary prizes, lists of publishers, serial rights, syndicating, and
A bookplate designed by Mr. Llewellyn Williams, of Wellington.
One of the most coveted of honours among our New Zealand writers of verse is to be included in C. A. Marris's annual selection of Best Poems. Although the annual anthology has been in existence only four years, its appearance is already regarded as a literary event. There are eighteen poets represented in the 1935 collection, and of these “Robin Hyde” outstands both in the number and artistry of the poems selected. Each verse glows with the brilliance of a precious stone, with its finely cut choice of phrase and the polish and sparkle of its music. Her “Irish Emigrant” appealed to me most of all. I revelled once more in the art of Arnold Cork in his “Tapestry” of which I had already written when it first appeared in “Art In New Zealand.” Rivalling “Robin Hyde” is Eve Langley's “The Widow”—there's rich, sad music here. But I love all these poems—the pensiveness of C. R. Allen, the verbal pulsations of Douglas Stewart, the philosophisings of Arnold Wall, the delicate traceries of Dora Hagemeyer. They are vital, these New Zealand poets. C. A. Marris has beckoned them to the heights, and it is a privilege to be with them and listen to their singing.
The Unicorn Press, Auckland, has made a splendid job of “Vulcan Lane and Other Verses,” by Warwick Lawrence. It is the most artistically printed booklet of verse yet produced in New Zealand. “Robin Hyde” has paid the young author the compliment of writing the introduction. Lawrence is therefore fortunate in his friends. He has ambition and energy. I believe that, although (as “Robin Hyde” observes) these verses are “small and simple,” the author may yet write something worthwhile.
Thanks to such keen enthusiasts as Victor Lloyd and others, the amateur theatre movement has made great strides in this country. Inevitably, play writing has developed and this also has
Two most delightful kiddies books are to hand from Angus & Robertson (Sydney). “Sixpence to Spend,” by Idal Rentoul Outhwaite, takes the reader to animal-land through the mind of a lady writer of rare charm and fancy. The book contains five plates in colour and many fine drawings. “More Australians,” by Nelle Grant Cooper, is another animal book told in illustrations and quaint instructive rhymes.
Sam August is the poet of Invercargill. Few people I have met are more interested in New Zealand literary endeavour than this enthusiastic Southland writer. Recently he published a further booklet of his verse, “Song of the Children of Leda and Other Poems.” S. G. August is a conscientious craftsman and there are some appealing lines in his latest book. Out of some sixty peoms on a variety of subjects, from the linotype operator to Noah's Ark, I liked particularly his tributes to several writers—especially his feeling farewell to the great “A.E.”
Because of pressure on space, the December number of “Art in New Zealand” receives a belated review. It contains two beautiful colour plates, several full pages in black and white, and on the literary side, articles, poems and a play by leading New Zealand writers. Every art and literary enthusiast should be a subscriber to this outstanding quarterly. The high standard of its contents would do credit to any country.
Reviews.
“The Mad Doctor,” by F. J. Thwaites (Jackson & O'Sullivan Ltd., Sydney) is one of the most engrossing novels I have read from the pen of any Australian writer past and present. I am pleased to say this, for the last novel I reviewed from the same writer I had to dismiss with a few perfunctory lines. The medical tragedy on which the novel is based may appear to some as a trifle unsavoury, yet it is a terrible problem that might confront any doctor. As a result of this “crime” Dr. Raymond is sentenced to seven years’ goal. He emerges a bitter being without hope in God or man. He buries himself in the African jungle, devoting his life to the treatment of the natives. He discovers a cure for paralysis, the fame of which spreads to England. Dr. Raymond has been forgotten, and he is now known only as the mad Doctor because he fanatically refuses to cure anyone but natives. The terrible journey made by two parties to his jungle fastness and of the direful events that followed make greater the position of this outstanding novel.
“Spanish Maine,” by P. C. Wren (John Murray, London; Whitcombe & Tombs, New Zealand agents) reveals this popular author at his best. The villain of the piece El Senor Manoel Maine is one of the most repulsive scoundrels of modern fiction. He is a devil incarnate whose methods of livelihood run from dope trafficking to blackmail. His efforts to establish himself for life by extracting money from a reformed dancing girl of Algiers provide the motif of the story. Thrill piles on thrill to the amazing finale. One of the most exciting novels I have read for months.
“Carfax of the Khyber,” by Victor Bayley (Jarrold's, London; New Zealand agents, Whitcombe & Tombs Ltd.) is an exciting story of secret service on the North-West Frontier in India. The central figure is Major Carfax, the political agent in the Khyber and also an accomplished Greek scholar. The latter fact is responsible for his being hustled into some amazing adventures in which a crazy Greek millionaire and a Mahomedan schemer seek to place him as a reincarnated Alexander the Great as King of India. Obviously the author has an intimate knowledge of the underworld of India enabling him to give to his story vivid touches of local colour.
“Letters From Rome,” by H. M. Moran (Angus & Robertson, Sydney) represents an Australian's view of the Italo-Abyssinian question. The motif of the booklet is that those outside have failed to understand and know modern Italy (“whose people have not assimilated the modern technique of birth control”). A sympathetic and discerning series of letters.
Shibli”
Listens In.
A few copies only of “The Australian Writers’ Annual” have reached New Zealand. It is a splendid production designed something on the lines of “The New Zealand Artists’ Annual.” Flora S. Eldershaw is editor, Syd. Nicholls art editor, and Will Lawson, business manager.
Percy Salmon, of Auckland, editor and publisher of “Ferrileaf,” has so far succeeded with his magazine that it is now permanently enlarged, allowing for a greatly improved lay-out of contents.
Will Lawson has had another novel, “When Cobb & Co. Was King,” accepted for publication by Angus & Robertson, Sydney.
Donald Cowie, who has achieved some success at home and abroad as a writer of articles and short stories, left New Zealand last month for England to pursue his literary activities. For a while he was on the Christchurch “Press,” since when he has contributed to leading journals in England. He has also been a contributor to this magazine.
The “Times” Literary Supplement of December 14th gave a very encouraging review of “Robin Hyde's” “The Conquerors and Other Poems,” recently published by Macmillans. The book was given pride of place in the poetry section.
Variety in Brief
Among the early vegetable productions of this country the trees claimed the principal place; for here were forests of vast extent; full of the straightest, the cleanest, and the largest timber trees, their size, grain, and durability rendering them fit for many kinds of building, and many were capable of receiving a fine polish.
The largest tree of the New Zealand forests is the kauri, which attains a maxmium height of 140 feet. The trunk grows to a height of from 50 to nearly 100 feet without a branch protruding. The largest trees are said to be the greatest timber-yielding trees in the world. This tree has a limited distribution, as it is found only in the Auckland province. —A.J.
Gorse and broom, although perhaps a curse to the farmer, certainly make a glorious sight when in bloom, while the scent is one of the chief attractions. Many tourists have remarked on the excellent sight it presents, Baden-Powell being most enthusiastic over it in the letters which he wrote home during his 1910 visit. So attracted was one American skipper when he saw the yellow gorse lighting up the landscape in Invercargill, that he ordered two of his men to see “if they could sneak a bit of it for him.” They obtained it alright, and the skipper sailed away very pleased with two small gorse shrubs planted in tubs in his cabin.—D.G.C.
The history of clockmaking, from the shadow clock of the ancients to the modern electric clock was demonstrated in a unique and interesting exhibition held at The Goldsmiths’ and Silversmiths’ Co., Ltd., some weeks ago. A very simple contrivance, the first clock ever used, consisted merely of a board with two wooden pegs from the shadow of which time was measured. Following this primitive method came the Egyptian water clock, a plain copper bowl with an opening in the base. The bowl, thrown on to a pool, floated exactly fifteen minutes, then sank, the water having filtered through.
Another quaint model of a water clock which was in continual use from 1000 B.C. to 1700 A.D., recorded the time by the level of the water in a cylinder from which the liquid could escape drop by drop. Specimens of fine English clocks included a model of the first marine timepiece, by which Thomas Mudge won the #3,000 prize offered by the Government. A “perpetual motion” clock was kept continually wound by changes in temperature. But one of the most ingenious items of the display consisted of a clear glass bowl with goldfish among water plants and crystal rocks. Constantly changing lights shining from the base produced a picturesque flood-lighting effect, whilst the bowl revolving allowed the time to be recorded as the hour numerals passed an ivory pointer. —“Pohutu.”
Figures taken from a survey of the world's “'phone population” reveal that New Zealand ranks second to America in ‘phone density, the Dominion possessing 155,059 telephones or 10 to every hundred people, the United States being equipped with 13 to every hundred. At the opposite end of the scale stands India with 58,241 instruments—one to every 5000.
Over half the world's ‘phones are in the United States, whilst Germany is the only country besides America with more ‘phones than Britain, that is numerically, for Germany lags behind Great Britain's 4.48 with 3.19 per hundred of population. —“Waikite.”
The courtesy of Dominion railway officials has always been a marked feature of our railway service and one very grateful woman recently recorded the fact. On a South Island station platform the train was just leaving, taking with it the mother of a young lady on the platform. So affected by the parting was the young woman that she fainted, but the station officials were equal to the emergency. A member of the staff who is associated with the Railway Ambulance Brigade appeared and with the assistance of another man carried her to the waiting room where, after a stimulant had been given, she soon recovered. When offered payment he refused it, saying he did ambulance work as a hobby— D.G.C.
Wit and Humour Fortune
Mike O'Shaw obtained a position at an observatory and spent most of the time watching the professors at the telescopes.
One night a professor walked in, went to a telescope, and began to make observations. Just then a star fell. Mike gasped.
“Begorra, that was a fine shot, sir,” he said with great admiration. “Why, ye hardly had time to take aim at it.”
* * *
A Scotsman had to send an urgent telegram, and not wishing to spend more money than necessary wrote like this:
“Bruises hurt erased afford erected analysis hurt too infectious dead.” (Ten words).
The Scotsman who received it immediately decided it was “Bruce is hurt. He raced a Ford. He wrecked it, and Alice is hurt, too. In fact, she's dead.” (Nineteen words).
* * *
Husband (morning after reunion dinner): “I say, old girl, I've got a large blister on my tongue.”
Wife: “I don't wonder at it. Last night you would insist on drinking my health out of your hot water bottle.”
* * *
Examiner: Name three bodies which contain starch.
Candidate: Two cuffs and a shirt front.
* * *
“Bloggs is very absent - minded. The other evening he sat up till midnight trying to remember what it was he wanted to do.”
“Did he remember?”
“Yes, he wanted to go to bed early!”
* * *
An Irishman got a job at a railway station. When the first train came in, however, he forgot the name of the station, so he called out: “Here ye are for where ye are going. All in there for here, come out.”
Judge: “Now what passed between you and Flannigan?”
Murphy: “Two pairs of fists, one bottle, one hammer and ten bricks.”
* * *
Sergeant Murphy (to recruits): “That line is as crooked as a dog's hind leg. Fall out all of you, and have a look at it.”
* * *
Young Man (in library): “Have you a book called ‘Man, the World's Ruler,’ please?”
Lady Librarian: “You might find it in the fiction department, sir.”
A Broad-Gauge Engine Driver Fraternising With A Narrow-Gauge Engine Driver After An Amicable Settlement of the Dispute (Courtesy Great Western Railway)
“Were you pleased with the new school, little boy?” enquired an interested lady.
“No!” said Johnny. “They made me wash my “face an’ when I went home the dog bit me ‘cause he didn't know me.”
* * *
Artist: “You must be very careful with that picture, it is not dry yet.”
Porter: “That's alright, sir, I've got an old coat on.”
* * *
Mrs. Pick: “Your Percy is sulking again, I see. What's wrong this time?”
Mrs. Peck: “Oh, it's too silly. Just because I used his new tennis racket to strain the potatoes.”
Albert: “Ma, kin I go out in the street? Pa says there is going to be an eclipse of the sun.”
Ma: “Yes, but don't get too close.”
* * *
Uncle: “So you finished bottom of the class at spelling to-day?”
Nephew: “Yes, I put too many z's in ‘scissors.“'
* * *
First Caddie: “What's your man like, Skeeter?”
Second Caddie: “Left-'anded, and keeps ‘is change in ‘is right-and pocket.”
* * *
The steward of the estate embezzled a large sum of money. “Get rid of him at once,” advised an Englishman, “Keep him on and deduct the sum from his wages,” said a Scotchman. “But,” said the landlord, “the sum he has embezzled is far bigger than his wages.” “Then raise his wages,” suggested an Irishman.
* * *
Professor Hodgson used to tell about a Scottish minister who went into a barber's shop to get shaved. The barber, unfortunately, was addicted to the use of whisky, and his hand that day shook so much that a gash was made in the minister's cheek.
“Ah, John, John,” cried the minister, “it's a terrible thing, that whisky.”
To which the barber replied: “Ay, sir, it makes the skin unco tender.”
* * *
The new lance-corporal, standing with an instructor, had the men marching away from him. The squad had gone some distance, and it appeared that the corporal did not know how to give the command, “About turn.”
At last, when the men were about a hundred yards away, the exasperated instructor yelled: “For ‘eaven's sake say something, you fool, even if it's only ‘good-bye.“'
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