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The Kaimanawa Ranges (as seen from the train on the Wellington-Napier line), North Island, New Zealand.
The New Zealand Railways Magazine is on sale through the principal booksellers, or may be obtained post-free for 6/- per annum.
Employees of the Railway Department are invited to forward news items or articles bearing on railway affairs. The aim of contributors should be to supply interesting topical material tending generally towards the betterman of the service.
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I hereby certify that the publisher's lists and other records disclose that the circulation of the “New Zealand Railways Magazine” has not been less than 20,000 copies each issue since July, 1930.
The Department's accounts show that the sales of the Magazine during the year ended 31st March, 1936, were more than treble those of the previous financial year.
Deputy-Controller and Auditor-General. 26/5/36.
A record has been established by Messrs. M. Pettifer and A. Rowell, of Napier, who made the longest railway bus trip ever undertaken in New Zealand in driving buses which carried 25 Maoris each from Ruatoria, East Coast, to Waitara, Taranaki, and back for the unveiling of the memorial to Sir Maui Pomare.
The trip took 13 days and covered nearly 1500 miles. “We slept in all sorts of queer places during the journey,” said one of the drivers. “One of them was the verandah of a Maori meeting-house out of Dannevirke. We slept on bales of straw there. There was only one family living there, and they had to cater suddenly for 250 visitors at one time. In spite of the early hour of the morning and the large number of guests, a wonderful breakfast was served.”
Before his departure for Blenheim last month, Mr. M. Coutts, stationmaster at Rlecarton for the past five years, was met by a gathering of local merchants and other clients of the Railways Department, and made the recipient of a presentation as a token of their esteem and goodwill. Appreciative reference was made by several speakers to the excellent service always given by Mr. Coutts, who had a fine reputation for courtesy, promptness and efficiency.
Activity in the new station yard at Wellington. The top scene shows railwaymen engaged on the alteration of the tracks to enable trains to utilise the suburban platforms at the new station, and below is shown a view of the new engine sheds under construction.
For comfort and satisfaction on a long journey it is doubtful whether anything will ever excel the express train. There is a sense of security in its size and substance that nothing else can quite give. There is majesty in its movements, irresistible strength in its momentum, unconquerable assurance in its stride. It can do its 50 miles an hour with a thousand people aboard while road units, so far as loading is concerned, seldom touch double figures and never reach a century. Such is the “Express” as we know it today.
But the rail-car, the latest arrival on the railway stage, although it carries only fifty or sixty people, is destined to make every other kind of land travel (excepting always the fast express) seem monotonously tiresome and dangerously dull.
Rail-cars give a new zest to riding. They are so fast, so safe, so clean, so easy! There is a fairy-like lightness in their movement. They extend the outlook, turn tunnels into treasures, and give a new meaning to the companionship of the rail.
They woo the traveller to sleep, wake him refreshed, strengthen his appetite, widen his horizon, brighten his imagination and increase his tolerance. They are the bright birds of the rail—the fast shuttles that weave the bright colours in the lordly loom where the magic carpet of travel is made. If you can think of any other desirable virtue—rest assured, the railcar has it!
Such is the impression gained from actual experience of travel by the rail-car “Maahunui,” which, in its epic journey through the North Island during the past month, has helped to make history in New Zealand.
“Maahunui” is the first of the Rimutaka type of rail-cars to be completed in the Hutt Valley Workshops. Already “Mahuhu” has joined “Maahunui” in the ranks of this rail-car fleet, and others are rapidly reaching completion.
“Maahunui”! There is only about 12 tons of it, empty, or 16 tons, fully loaded; it is bigger than a motor car and smaller than a house, but it woke up the North Island, town and country alike, as it took the two dynamic forces in the railway affairs of this country, the Hon. D. G. Sullivan, Minister of Railways, and Mr. G. H. Mackley, General Manager of Railways, on their inspection tour over nearly 3,000 miles of territory in less than a fortnight.
The trip soon ceased to be a trial run—it became a pioneering classic. At the hoot of “Maahunui's” horn, mothers dropped their baking and made for the back fence, daughters forgot their hair gadgets and stared out from behind the parted curtains of windows; fathers neglected their plowing, boys lined the embankments and bridges. Station platforms filled up and overflowed with people of all classes anxious to see the rail-car and meet the men responsible for it.
Mill hands left their saws and peevies, and patients forgot their doctors. Jolly, excited, children crawled under it or crowded through it, drew pictures of it, and dreamed about it through nightmare nights. Hope came to outback country districts as the red rail-car, a gigantic dragon fly of fast flight and flashing brightness, hurtled through the night with a wild burst of broadcast music from its powerful loudspeakers.
Teachers brought their pupils to view the car and its occupants, Maoris made hakas to it, poets made
The rail-car heard enough speeches to fill every inch of every mile she travelled with an unfailing succession of words.
The Press took up the tale where the speechmaking left off. 10,000 inches of space were devoted to the rail-car and those associated with it. Busy men forsook the marts to try a ride in it. Statements were composed in it, correspondence was typed in it, interviews were conducted aboard it.
The rail-car was the embodiment of life and movement—wherever it went with its Minister and Manager, there did the crowds gather. The combination of administrators and car was a most fortunate one.
A sylvan scene near Lake Mahinapua, Westland, South Island, New Zealand.
The trip was a triumph of organisation, an inspiration of transport, and a bright spot in the lives of tens of thousands who were drawn to the places of call by the magnetism of both men and machine.
As a means of putting the controllers of the railways in touch with their owners and users nothing more effective could have been conceived. And as an instrument for popularising travel by rail, the rail-car has an assured future.
During the past month I have had many good opportunities for personal discussion upon railway matters with users of the rail, particularly in the course of a fortnight's travel by rail-car in the North Island while accompanying the Hon. Minister of Railways on a tour of inspection.
Apart from the great variety of subjects dealt with, a feature of the trip which impressed me strongly was the very high regard in which members of the railway staff are held by the public amongst whom they live and work.
It was notable that in 2,500 miles of travel, with stops every few miles, not one complaint of a personal nature against any member of the Railway Department was received by me. On the other hand, at station after station, I found representatives of business interests and members of the travelling public laying special stress upon the good service given them by the railwaymen in their locality.
In the midst of the general problems of management confronting the Department at the present time, this universal testimony from outside sources that the staff is solidly backing up the efforts of the management on behalf of the public is very gratifying, for it shows that members of the staff are in sympathy and are keeping pace with the management through all the changes which the circumstances of the times require.
There was a time when railroading remained comparatively stabilised for years on end. Those days have gone by. The basis of the railway system remains the same—sound engineering practice in the design, construction, and maintenance of everything used on the railways, strict adherence to the rules to ensure safety in the conveyance of passengers and freight, and professional skill and judgment in planning the scheduling and operating the running of all trains. But new features, such as the co-ordination and operation of road services, the introduction of rail-cars, and spreading information regarding the many services the railways now perform on behalf of the public, have added greatly to the diversity of a railwayman's activities. It is a good proof of the high quality of railwaymen generally that they have been able to “make good” in all these new directions without losing any of their ability as railwaymen in the essentials of their profession.
Another impression I gained in the course of my inspection was the feeling of hope existing amongst the staff, indicating that, with the introduction of new methods of transport and the changed conditions in the industry, they now find more satisfaction in their outlook than has been the case for several years past. This is, I think, a very important feature of the railway situation at the present time, and has a bearing on the welfare of the country as a whole.
General Manager.
For the first time in our history a purely Labour Government is in power in New Zealand, and its head is a man who within a few months has won fame as a vigorous and courageous leader of a great forward political policy. Michael Joseph Savage, Prime Minister since the end of last year, was practically unknown outside the bounds of the Dominion. He is now a great Empire figure, who has done much in a few months to shake up the dry bones of Government in this country. In last month's number of this Magazine I sketched the character of Mr. Savage's lamented predecessor in the leadership of the Labour Party, Harry Holland, whose career was cut short by death. Mr. Savage took up the burden where Mr. Holland dropped it, and carried the party on to a sweeping victory. Now with a clear mandate from the citizens of the Dominion, he is carrying on the duty of giving the country the administrative and economic and social reforms for which it has waited since Richard Seddon died. As he has made manifest, he is taking many stages onward the humanitarian labour legislation which Seddon and his party began. He is a Prime Minister with high ideals, and in the effort to put those excellent ideals into practice he has the help of a band of brothers who are students and thinkers and men of action, and men with a courage and an enthusiasm and an energy as great as his own.
S. P. Andrew, photo.)
The Rt. Hon. M. J. Savage The first Labour Prime Minister of New Zealand.
Michael Joseph Savage has been a citizen of New Zealand for very nearly thirty years. His birthplace was Benalla, in Victoria; and, like more than one of his Australian-born colleagues in the present Cabinet, he toiled in mines in his youth. The Hon. P. C. Webb was a fellow-Benalla lad, and it was he who first turned young Savage's attention to New Zealand. Savage tackled many jobs; he held a certificate for driving a winding engine in a mine. In this country he saw something of work in a flax mill. Finally he entered the employment of Hancock and Co., the great brewery firm in Auckland, and he was there when he engaged vigorously in politics and before many years was elected to represent Auckland West in Parliament. Like all his eager Socialistic colleagues of those days, he read omnivorously; there is no greater and deeper reader than a Labour politician, who is usually an idealist with a diligently acquired knowledge of social science and economics and the theory of government. Michael Savage is best described as a practical idealist; a man who is a builder, not a destroyer, with the objective of a happy and contented nation ever before him. His religion has been summed up by a great and intimate friend of his in the words: “His religion consists in doing his duty towards his neighbour; his guiding principle is charity to all.” Now, I have not the honour and pleasure of personal acquaintance with Mr. Savage; my appraisal of his character and his gospel of life is based wholly on the testimony of those who know him well and on his public career, his accomplished work and his announced programme of work for the public betterment to come. Those who have known him in his day of small things, say that he was the most generous of men. When he became a member of Parliament he gave the greater part of his honorarium away in charity. On his initiative it was decided by the Parliamentary Labour Party that when the Party came into power, all the Ministerial salaries should be pooled and equally divided.
Mr. Savage's pleasant face is a happy index to his character. Yet that genial, easy smile can give place when occasion demands to a firm lipped air of determination. Resolute and downright and earnest, he can hold firmly to a course of direct action. He has gathered around him a band of tried and staunch comrades entrusted with the charge of the various Departments of Government, and it must be said that he has made an excellent choice in every one of them. I do not know one of them personally as yet; that is my loss; I can only offer my humble judgment upon them in terms of praise for their courage, their obviously able grip of the special business of their Departments, and their determination to use those Departments for the public betterment. I judge them by what they have done already in the short space of time they have had control of the machinery of State. The hammer strokes of Mr. Robert Semple, who can be described as in very truth the man who gets things done, have captured the fancy and the sympathy and hearty appreciation of the people. The work of Mr. Peter Fraser, Mr. P. C. Webb, and their fellow-members of Cabinet is already manifest in the stimulus given to departmental activities. The team spirit appears to be perfect, the soul of loyalty and co-operation. Mr. Nash has a task of enormous difficulty and responsibility as Minister of Finance; who would envy him his job? I am told that he toils at his desk day and night till the early hours of the morning. My only fear is that these great and conscientious men will wear
It has been well written of Mr. Savage that “he is an idealist whose whole political life has been a fight for the ultimate objective of a world where all men and women will live together in happier relationship; and he is practical in that he has never allowed that ideal to cloud his vision with fanaticism.” This good practical balance is reflected in his speech. He is not impetuous; he weighs his words, speaks leisurely, with often a whimsical kind of a drawl.
We have heard words poured forth, tumbling over each other, from the mouths of impetuous ones of the past. Anything that came into their heads; that haste often went with want of thought. Mr. Savage is an exemplar of the other kind of public speech.
Had Mr. Savage and his colleagues done nothing else since their accession to office but attend to the necessary and pressing reforms in the mandated territory of Samoa, I consider they would have justified their positions in the Cabinet room. The daily telegrams from Apia have told us how joyfully the people received the news of the lifting of the atrocious sentence of exile on their beloved Taisi, and the lifting also of the various oppressive and coercive laws and regulations imposed on them because they had dared to press for their ordinary human rights. Mr. Savage held strong views on the subject of those extraordinary dictatorial measures directed against a peaceful patient people, who were treated as rebels and sedition-makers in their own country, and deprived of the right to travel about the islands, or even from village to village, without a police permit. That the Samoans continued to behave with such patience and forbearance towards the New Zealand administration and the little official tyrants who treated them as so many mere “natives,” with an uncomplimentary adjective, was a perpetual marvel to those who, like myself, had seen them in armed action in the lively days of old Samoa. Continually they were exhorted by their wise chiefs to remain patient; some day a liberator would arise. One of the last things Sir Maui Pomare said to me, in the sad final days of his life here before he was carried on board the steamer for California was: “Poor Samoa! Will she ever be free? Yes, but I won't see it!….” Pomare was not of the Labour Party but its opponent; yet I believe had he been alive today he would have counted his place well lost so that Samoa regained its rightful liberty—which after all is only the ordinary human rights we New Zealanders ourselves enjoy. He would have blessed M. J. Savage for his practical sympathy shown in the revocation of the hated ordinances and regulations. The Hon. F. Langstone was hailed as a deliverer, dispensing the “dew of heaven”; the warm-hearted people, in their relief, likened the tactful Minister to Tangaroa the god come to their help.
All this must indeed be gratifying to Mr. Savage and Mr. Langstone, and to all their colleagues, who have restored to a splendid and loveable race their ancient rights. A race of poets and orators and warriors, a race of culture and beauty, they are a finer people than the Europeans who have dictated what they shall do and say, and even wear. The race has suffered so much from white man's arrogance and interference that it is a wonder how it has continued to preserve so much of its charm and simplicity of character and life. Now that arrogant dictatorship has been demolished by a new regime in New Zealand, we may hope that the way is opening for the ultimate self-government of the islands under the benevolent and non-interfering protection of New Zealand.
The happy solution of the political problem in Samoa is only one of a
Rly. Publicity photo.)
Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand.
The responsible Minister, the Hon. Robert Semple, thus summed up the position after the new methods had been in operation a few weeks:
“When I took over the Public Works Department 13,000 men were employed, while we now have 17,000 and probably more.” The Minister said engineers of the department had submitted proposals for a three years’ plan of works involving an expenditure of £17,500,000 and designed to employ up to a maximum of 20,000 men. “We are submitting the proposals to close examination,” he said, “classifying them into the categories
The decision to complete the East Coast line has naturally greatly pleased the Gisborne district, which will now at last realise its long-deferred hopes of rail connection with the outer world. So, too, in the South Island the completion of the Main Trunk line and the Nelson—West Coast section will carry to a logical and satisfying end the scheme of through rail connections that were left hanging as if the builders had suddenly been seized by a panic.
Mr. Savage and his colleagues have examined the country's education system, and we may expect to hear of improvements that will be in accord with modern requirements. In this department, under Mr. Peter Fraser's wise direction, there is apparent already the hand of reform.
The re-opening of the schools to the five-year-olds and the re-opening of the teachers’ training colleges are two good deeds to the credit of Mr. Fraser. The training colleges especially came as a blessing to many young men and women who had been deprived of their opportunity to enter the teaching profession.
A careful consideration of the new Administration's scheme of constructive legislation cannot but compel respect for the altruistic spirit in which that programme was framed. The plan as enunciated at various times by Mr. Savage, in Parliament and in speeches outside, is broadly to help increase the happiness, comfort and security of the nation, and to abolish as far as possible the misery and want which have afflicted a large section of the population for so many years. There is to be a fair opportunity for every man and every woman to earn a decent living wage; the exploitation of workers by the selfish and unscrupulous species of employer is to be stopped by the regulation of wages on a fair basis.
For the producer, and especially the country producer, there are to be guaranteed fair prices, a system which is calculated to strengthen the position of the farmer; speculation in land for the sake of profit is to be combated. “We will see to it,” the Premier says, “that people do not get rich at other's expense by selling land.” That certainly will be a reform to which no one but the speculator can object. Land booms are evil and disastrous and they will be prevented. Profiteers in land have been the curse of New Zealand's genuine farming population. Millions of money have been spent in buying land for returned soldiers at hugely inflated
H. C. Pearl, photo.)
Conical Hill and Lake Kanieri, Westland, New Zealand.
The machine inevitably has displaced labour, and the new Government, to counteract the effect of this increasing mechanisation of work, has adopted a policy of shortening hours and raising wages. Industry in New Zealand is to be protected against the products of cheap labour from overseas. Protective tariffs are not the only way, says the leader, therefore we must have agreements with the outside world, beginning with the British Commonwealth and gradually extending to other countries. The agreements must be based on sound economic principles for both parties to the agreement.
We cannot produce everything in New Zealand; we must take so much from abroad and pay for it with the surplus of that which we can produce in New Zealand. Higher wages but not too high, reasonable hours of work and reasonable leisure, fixed prices (so far as they can be fixed) and planned production; a fair share of the means of existence and of the comforts and some of the luxuries of life for all; no artificial booms for land and prices, and no preventable depression—that surely seems an ideal to which all political parties should subscribe.
For another thing, the easy and costly practice of delegating Ministerial authority to this Board and that has been reformed drastically. Already three unnecessary and expensive Boards have been abolished.
Mr. Savage and his colleagues stand for an improved order of society and industry which cannot by any stretch of imagination be called violently revolutionary. After all, economic security is the practical heaven for which everyone wishes, but to which far too few attain.
Thoughtful people in all sections of the community, who perhaps at first were disposed to distrust the ambitions of the Labour Government, have come to realise the unselfishness and altruism of Mr. Savage's scheme of life's effort. Courageous and sincere testimony from a perhaps unexpected source was recorded a few weeks ago. Archbishop Averill, in an address at the annual meeting of the Auckland City Mission, expressed thankfulness for what the new Government was doing for the “under dog.” He praised the policy of increasing the sustenance grants to a living wage. Those who were making efforts to alleviate the lot of their less fortunate fellows were doing a Christ-like work. He made an appeal to the people to withhold hasty criticism of those who were trying to solve problems of finance in their efforts to provide for the needy. “If people are trying to do their job, which appears to be that of helping their fellow creatures, it is up to us to assist those people as much as we can.”
A generous, noble, helpful speech, O Archbishop! It sounded the hopeful, cheering note. Give the new Government a fair show and your sympathy, and await results. I do not think Mr. Savage and his colleagues ask for more than that.
It has been asserted that marriages are made in Heaven. This may be true, but Woman registered the first earthly patent rights. Man believes that it was he who introduced the marriage law, and Woman lets him believe it. But the fatal truth is that Man, while not bigamous, was originally polygamous until cured by Woman's wiles, and the nuptial knot; for, early in the game she decided that it was hard enough to snare a man without having to share him. So, gradually, by convincing him that he was the only-only and the “answer to the maiden's prayer,” she prevailed upon him to give up collecting wives as a hobby, and get down to the serious business of supporting one as a duty. Finally he actually came to the conclusion that it was better to work for one wife than to have half a dozen to work for him. In fact, he grew so jealous of his reputation as an indispensible accessory to the fact that he invented the Marriage Law—or thought he did. Later on he woke up to find that he had overslept.
We do not suggest that marriage is not a good thing. It is one of the greatest institutions ever evolved by the ingenuity of Woman. There are cynics who say that, if love is blind, marriage is a greater “blind,” but these are generally people to whom marriage is a kind of “war of the ruses,” or “a thing of duty and a cloy forever.” When a woman agrees to share a man's lot, she naturally likes it to be a lot. Thus she is usually the power behind the drone. Many men succeed because of their wives, some succeed in spite of them, but only a few succeed without them. There is no doubt that there is something in her claim that she “boosts” while he boasts. Her slogan is “lead to strength through weakness” as in bridge and other games of chance.
Woman's strength is her weakness, while Man's weakness is his “strength.” With his manly strength he leads; with her womanly weakness, she only directs. They are both happy because he believes that he is protecting her and she knows that she is protecting both of them. For the most mousely spouse has, concealed in the velvet glove of fidelity, the metal mitt of duplicity. This is nothing to her discredit for, while she may boast that she loves him “for what he is,” she knows that she loves him “for what she has made him.” She may be unscrupulous, but she is not uninteresting; life without her might be less anxious, but it would be more monotonous. There
So long as Woman preserves the age-old illusion of her “helplessness” man will continue to lead while she pushes from behind; and everybody will be comparatively happy; but let her beware of the snare.
Some say that Woman lacks a sense of humour; yet she perpetrated one of the greatest jokes in history when she claimed “women's rights.” The joke was almost on her, and the only thing that saved her was that, when she claimed that she was the equal of Man, he refused to believe her, and so preserved her “rights” for her. For Woman possessed the patent rights of power before ever she fired a letter box or pelted a Prime Minister with tomatoes to get them. She fought for “Equality” when “Inequality” was her strongest weapon and “helplessness” her strongest lure.
Why does a young man, otherwise comparatively sane, seek to sacrifice his liberty, half his cigarettes, and his Sunday mornings in bed? Why does he deliberately knot the silken legrope of matrimony and abandon the flesh-pots for the cook-pots? Why does he forsake the glad and glamorous glades of bachelorhood for the rugged road of Matrimony. Why? Because the “little girl” looked so frail, so helpless, so unfitted to face life without his broad back to shield her. Every time she looked at him he felt like Canera and Joe Louis and Mr. Schmelling and the League of Nations rolled up in muscle. And while he vows to himself “I'll protect the little woman,” she murmurs to herself: “I'll make a man of him yet.” And so they live happily ever after.
Later on, she may even allow him to believe that he has become a father, knowing, of course, that he is only baby's meal-ticket. And he goes about for a few days looking like “the first of the fathers.” While he recognises that she has had some small part in the achievement, he makes no secret of his cleverness. She lets him take all the credit while she takes everything else.
There is nothing to beat the divine duplicity of a good woman. The better she is the worse she is. The more she thinks of her husband the more she deceives him. The greater her simplicity the greater her subtlety. She knows that “women's rights” were gained when Eve cried over the spot where Adam's spare rib used to be.
The age of chivalry is not totally dead, but it can only survive while women allow men to believe that they are not quite capable of looking after themselves. It is difficult for a young male to believe that the “only girl” requires
The Height Of His Ambition.
The hub of Wellington, New Zealand. Upper Featherston Street, showing the General Post Office on left.
I Wonder what “Old Nosey,” as the privates of the Line used to call the Iron Duke, would say if he could “look in” at the city that was named after him. He would find a total absence of civic pride. By comparison with Auckland, Christchurch, or Dunedin, and Waipukurau and Naseby, he would find that the residents of the capital city had very little audible affection for their town. Their motto seems mostly to be, “I'm but a stranger here, heaven is my home.” This is mainly because the population is so largely exotic. It is a town of exiles, largely recruited from other places. As it is the Head Office for all Government Departments and practically all large business organisations, there is a substantial proportion of executives; but, as is natural, they have been promoted very often from all parts of the Dominion, and remain faithful, as a rule, to the “Old Home Town.” When there is an inter-provincial Rugby match being played, on the Auckland day, the city streets seem to have gone all Wedgewood; they are a mass of blue and white; when Canterbury comes up, the transformation is to black and red; and when Otago plays, Wellington becomes a city of bagpipes and navy blue. The indigenous Wellingtonian seems to go into hiding, and the only times he exhibits sporadic flashes of local patriotism are when he himself is exiled and finds his Cinderella city too profusely assailed in some other place. If tackled at home he mostly says in a detached sort of way, “Oh, not a bad sort of place… I think Haile Selassie is in a bad corner don't you?”
I am not a Wellington native, and I have recently visited several times, every provincial capital, hamlet and large city in the Dominion. I say, as a fact, that Wellington is a city of everlasting beauty, of romantic loveliness, and a quaint old world picturesqueness that cannot be matched even by the galaxy of decorative places with which this Dominion is blessed.
Our four metropolitan centres are largely misdescribed, mostly by their own civic broadcasters. Auckland has become the owner of a name for easygoing ways, summer sport, semitropical gardens and endless bathing beaches on which multitudes of sunbronzed bathers lazily disport themselves. Christchurch has become invested with an atmosphere of English orderliness, profound culture, a semiecclesiastical tone of Gothic architecture, and the leafy quiet of Grantchester. As a matter of fact both of these are busy, bustling, industrial towns of large factories and forceful enterprises. Dunedin started every commercial undertaking of any importance in the Dominion, and has an exciting history of taking business risks of more than ordinary danger. Its reputation for caution, frugality and solidity, is the exact opposite of its record as one of the greatest centres of mining speculation the world ever saw.
Wellington seems to have been mostly occupied in contemplation of all this feverish activity, indifferent to its own interests, and seeing the life of the Dominion as a whole.
This cosmopolitanism is admirable, in some ways, but it has defects. The true blue Wellington citizen is totally uninformed about his own place of residence. How many know of the quaintly beautiful first commercial building in the city? I doubt if many of them know the whereabouts of Lombard and Cornhill Streets. Yet a few seconds from Willis Street or Manners Street, there stands this wooden building with the superscription “Bethune & Hunter, Established 1840.” The roof is of grey tiles, the iron chimney pops out of its original concrete base, a friendly black cat is the commissionaire of the foyer, and fires in open fireplaces blaze pleasantly in the old world inner rooms, as they did nearly a century ago. Dray horses in passing give it a friendly glance, but the motor lorries in this narrow lane seem to sniff.
The city heart of Wellington is almost universally attractive. The new ranks of brightly coloured buildings give a new magic of tone and sweetness to the teeming canyons of the town itself. But its real charm is that a turn to the right or left, a short walk, or a quick pilgrimage up a picturesque flight of steps, brings one to another world. The Terrace is a flower area. Two minutes from the
Wellington presents a beautiful and impressive spectacle by night. This view was taken from the hills overlooking Oriental Bay.
But it is the beach resorts of Wellington that should make it famous. In its heart, and on every side, the sea is close, encompassing, and all pervading. One never hears from its locally born that it is the only city in New Zealand where a busy sunbather can have a large choice of lunch-hour swims; yet Oriental Bay, Evans Bay with its dozen or more little ones, Lyall Bay, and Island Bay, are crowded day after day. A moonlight warm summer night is a sea festival in the heart of Wellington, not on a distant sand. Oriental Bay is full of gracious beauty in the daytime, but at night it goes into exquisite evening dress. The cluster of white lamps on the parade, the throngs of car lights, the effervescing crowd of young and old folk in bathing gowns of all colours, make up a scene that is like the Riviera. Wellington has more hours of sunshine than Naples; how the average growler of the capital would hate to admit that! It is all a matter of familiarity with him, and the seas of the Picton Sounds, West Coast, Gisborne or Tauranga, somehow seem different and superior. I am just afraid that this complex, that the grass across the fence seems greener, is growing in our country. Our instalment of physical comfort has been too stupendous. Our climate is too paradisal. Nature's gifts are in such profusion, so copious and magnificently lavish, that we are getting to the crumpled roseleaf stage. Our devotion to open air recreation is good, but we should display a mite of thankfulness that we live in a country, which upon all the earth's surface, affords the most opportunities of living under the blue skies of day and the silver stars of night, without any discomfort worth mentioning.
Wellington an seen from the Kelburn Hills.
However, to return to the particular, peculiar and special qualities of Wellington. I propose to describe it as the “World's Prettiest Capital City.” Its industries are many, but their premises are often leavened by sweet surroundings. We show the recreation courts of one great enterprise situate in the very heart of the industrial area. The creeper covered office building with its air of immemorial age is only a step from the city's Chinatown. This latter with its two main thoroughfares, Haining Street and Frederick Street, is known wherever seafaring yarns are spun. Horrors and romance have been written about them to freeze the blood of boys in London suburbs and American hick towns. They are slowly being
The junction of Lambton Quay and Bowen Street, Wellington, showing the Cenotaph (centre), and a comer of the Goverment Builings (left).
The contrast is all of a piece with the piquancy which is a characteristic of any Wellington street scene. You wheel out of Lambton Quay, past a small everyday corner shop and reach the Turnbull Library. How many citizens exult in the possession of this world-famed storehouse of wonders! One day, the Turnbull Library will be the objective of special pilgrimages of full ships from older lands. It is one of the great book collections of modern times, studded with treasures, priceless, rare, and, in many cases, unique in the world. The value of its contents can hardly be expressed in money. Its overseas visitors are astounded and regard with stupefaction, the serene indifference of the Wellingtonian to this heritage.
As may be imagined from its topography, the city is one of innumerable outlooks. It is arranged like a vast amphitheatre and its dwellings are, for the most part, in the dress circle seats. Its outline can best be seen from a steamer entering the harbour; at night time, it is a twinkling fairyland. In all modesty it can be claimed that the view from Roseneath or the Mount Victoria top road on a calm evening (and there is one now and again) is of surpassing and intoxicating loveliness.
But strangely exciting as the city herself, it is the hinterland of Wellington that, makes it the red-haired girl of all cities from the point of view of scenic beauty. Muritai (“the very sound is muted music on the lips”) and her sister, Day's Bay, are reached by a marine drive which, in the words of an English visitor “make Monaco and Nice look in the steerage class.” The bush clad hills run down near to the water's edge and within a few minutes of pleasant walk,
But it is the “Round Trip” that makes the final revelation. For instance, there is the Khandallah native bush reserve from which a short climb to the top of Mount Kaukau gives a view of the distant shining snows of the Kaikouras, on the one hand, and the crenulated white tops of the Tararuas on the other. All along the hills that border the Hutt Main Road there are dozens of these points of vantage. Then there is the harbour drive. This is a marine parade of a score of miles with a panorama of kaleidoscopic changes and a roll call of twenty named bays, each of them with its own distinctive and essentially different charm. Most of the way on this ride, the South Island is visible across the rolling waters of Cook's Strait. Happy Valley road, which twists and turns back to the city, might be through a Scottish
I have carefully refrained from mentioning public buildings except that I ask readers to wait until the noble wooden pile of the Government offices is surrounded by green lawns again; by bright parterres and gay borders. Then the most beautiful of all soldiers’ monuments in New Zealand will have its proper setting, and the noble pile of the new Railway Station will lend dignity and massive splendour to the portico of the capital.
Suprema a Situ needs a new translation. Wellington should base its claim on scenic beauty, not on any other qualification. Let its people forget that it is the seat of Government and that it has head offices and big businesses. Wellington is excelled in utilitarian aspects by other centres in New Zealand, and its main claim to fame must rest on the fact that it has been the chosen town for poets who have written more of it than of any other New Zealand place; it is a paradise for painters; a dream place for nature lovers; the Dominion's treasure house of the loveliness which is vagrant, inconsequential and wholly desirable.
What is the highest speed at which a single rail-car can run with safety on a well-laid track? (asks the “Railway Gazette”). This question must have been asked whenever it was realised that practically all the diesel or petrol-engined units that have run at over 90 m.p.h. have been of the articulated type with two, three or six vehicles. Yet the highest speed recorded, 143 m.p.h., was made by the Krackenberg car, a six-wheeler without even the supposed advantage of the double-bogie layout. From there we pass down to the 119.5 m.p.h. of the Etat Bugatti, the only other single unit vehicle which has appreciably exceeded the hundred mark. It has been reported that this vehicle has since attained 125 m.p.h. on the same stretch, viz., between Paris and Le Mans. The Burlington Zephyr. U.P.R.R., City of Portland, and the Flying Hamburger, with respective maxima of 112, 112, and 110 m.p.h., are all articulated trains, and we must go down to the 100.2 m.p.h. of the Breda-A.E.C. car on the Italian State Railways before we come to another single-unit running alone. Of the range of articulated trains, the Nord triple-car units have run at 98 m.p.h., the Dutch triple-car sets at 90 m.p.h., the Belgian twin-unit at 88 m.p.h.; both the Flying Yankee on the Boston and Maine railroad and the Comet on the New York, New Haven and Hartford railroad have exceeded the hundred mark. Apparently the Danish “Lyntog” Diesel trains are limited by permanent-way conditions, for so far as we are aware they have not exceeded 85 m.p.h. The top speed attained with safety is not as a rule a matter of careful streamlining and the provision of adequate power; it is more particularly dependent upon the suspension, and definite knowledge on this subject for super-speed railway vehicles is not yet in an advanced state. Moreover, the top speed which may be attained without derailment is by no means the maximum which can be attained in conjunction with comfort.
For generations, wealthy overweight people have, been visiting those European Spas, whose waters are recognised for their reducing effect. Today, a multitude of corpulent men and women are getting the really essential part of that Spa treatment in their daily dose of Kruschen Salts. The formula of Kruschen represents the ingredient salts of the mineral waters of those far-famed Spas. These salts combat, the cause of fat by assisting the internal organs to perform their functions properly—to throw off each day those waste products and poisons which, if allowed to accumulate, will be converted by the body's chemistry into fatty tissue.
“I have sold Kruschen Salts for years,” writes Mr. F. M., a shopkeeper, “but never tried it until six months ago. I have lost 2 stone of solid fat. Six months ago I was 15 stone 7 lbs.; I am now 13 stone 6 lbs., and I feel better in every way, age 45 years. Before I began to take Kruschen Salts I had difficulty in breathing or walking uphill—now I have no trouble.” F.M.
Kruschen Salts is obtainable at all Chemists and Stores at 2/6 per bottle.
We were discussing old maritime life on the New Zealand coast, and talk turned on ships that went missing after departure, from one or other of our ports. There was the story of rats leaving a doomed ship, a sea-tale so often derided yet firmly believed in by many seafarers. Undoubtedly there have been many authentic cases of this kind, a strange manifestation of animal instinct—or was it simply that the rats had been starved out?
I mentioned a story told me by an old frieend, a shipmaster in the Shaw-Savill sailing clippers. He was an officer in a wool-ship lying at Lyttelton, and his younger brother was an apprentice in another ship there. The brother's ship sailed first, for London. The night before he left the wharf, the lad saw the rats walking ashore along the hawsers; they were deserting her for good. He told his elder brother, who strongly advised him to leave the ship. “Give her the slip,” he begged. “She's doomed,” he said, “I've never known that sign to fail.” But the boy, though strongly impressed, thought it would be unfair and cowardly to desert his ship like a rat. “No, I'll stick to her, Tom,” he said. He sailed next day; and neither the ship nor he was ever heard of again. Struck an iceberg, caught fire, foundered in a hurricane? No one ever knew.
One of our group narrated the mystery story of the Kentish Lass. This vessel, a barque engaged in the timber and coal trade between New Zealand and Australia, was owned in Wellington. After discharging a cargo of coal she went up to Hokianga and loaded kauri for Sydney. A night or two before she sailed all the rats came on shore. That fact was observed by people on the wharf as well as on the ship. She sailed out into the Tasman and vanished from human ken. Hers was the Port of Missing Ships.
Why this often-verified habit of “ratting” from a ship on the eve of a last voyage? Had the rats some uncanny sense of foreboding, or was it simply because they were tired of sailing in a hungry ship? Who knows?
The Royal Navy is proverbially equal to anything. It is as useful on the shore as it is afloat; therein lies the difference between sailor and soldier. It always was so in the Navy, and one is sure it always will be. The association of the Navy with New Zealand was particularly close in the days of the Maori wars, and there were long inland expeditions in which a Naval brigade added strength and skill to the operations of the military. I have just turned up a capital little description of an incident in Hone Heke's war of 90 years ago in North Auckland, which illustrates my point about the handiness of the men-of-warsmen in those days of sail.
The crews of three British warships, the frigates Castor and North Star, and the Indian Government's ship Elphinstone, took part in the march from the Bay of Islands to the bush stronghold of Kawiti and his warriors, Ruapekapeka Pa. Commander Johnson, of H.M.S. North Star, received orders from Governor Grey to send up a 32-pounder to the front, for use in the bombardment of the fort. Johnson was at the time in command of the British camp at Tamati Pukututu's pa on the banks of the Kawakawa River. He manned the gig which had been left in a creek near Tamati's pa, and rowed down to the ship. There he had the 32-pounder hoisted out into the launch, and rowed up with it to the foot of the pa, helped by the flood tide. Two hundred sailors from the frigate also pulled up the river to assist.
He had a large Maori canoe cut in two, lashed the gun in the bow end of the craft, made fast a five-inch hawser round the bow, with a clovehitch round the muzzle of the gun, had a relay of handspikes to place under the canoe, and then the sailors dragged it through the manuka on the riverside and up to the naval camp. The summit reached, the lively sailors, at the double, hauled the gun to the front of the pa, cheered themselves for their success, mounted the gun on its carriage, and fired three rounds blank out of it, by way of impressing the friendly natives, their allies. The gun was then placed on a bullock-dray and carted over the rough track sixteen miles to Despard's advanced camp in front of Kawiti's great stockade, at which it was soon battering away.
In a natural history note (1860) Von Haast recorded the self-defence methods of the white heron. A beautiful Kotuku, of large size, was standing in the water, in a stream on the Matakitaki Plains, Buller Valley, when it was attacked by three sparrow hawks at once. “They made frequent but well concerted charges upon him from different quarters. It was admirable to behold the Kotuku, with his head laid back, darting his pointed beak at his foes with the swiftness of an arrow, whilst they, with the utmost agility, avoided the spear of their strong adversary, whom at last they were fain to leave to fish unmolested.”
There is a difference between Tauranga proper, and Tauranga festive. Tauranga festive calls itself The Mount, and is to be spotted very easily the moment you disembark at Tauranga proper: about eight hundred feet high, it soars up against a bright blueness of ocean and horizon, and the instant you set eye on it, you know that it's a place where things are being done. So strong is the Mount tradition in New Zealand's cities that as soon as I asked Auckland's bright young things if they had been to Tauranga, they at once cried: “You mean the Mount,” and started to babble about the surf-bathing, which I knew already. I did not, however, mean just the Mount, charming though the Mount is; I meant Tauranga comprehensive, the surf-bathing and the melon parties and the aspen tree and the Chinese gooseberries and the funny old brown and barefoot ways of the Maori world. Going to Tauranga for the festive side alone is like demanding a dinner, all lemon souffle. Don't be so limited. Adjourn with me instead, to the aspen tree.
They say it's the only one in New Zealand; its great feature is that it shivers unceasingly. Disapproval animates every one of its several hundred thousand delicate grey-green leaves. It is a large and an old aspen tree, and its little dance of disapproval was thus hailed by one of the above-mentioned bright young things “Jitters, what?”
But then, those children are impossible, especially as regards their language. I don't know, though. They have a sort of talent for enjoying themselves.
Enter a melon party. When I said I didn't know what this meant, everyone looked blanker than ever, which was in itself no mean achievement. The apparent course of Nature is that you wear a bathing suit (a backless one preferred), or at most, shorts, and the new sort of shirt with the zip fastener, and then proceed to get through any amount of pinkfleshed crisp melon. You're expected to be able to absorb vast quantities before complaining of that full feeling. Everybody was doing it. They seemed to find it aided both conversation and their sun tan, about which last they were a little anxious. This, of course, was at the Mount—I will, though it is against the unwritten local law, give that sugarloaf its full name, and address it as Mount Maunganui. Sun-tanning was the thing that you simply couldn't hang back from doing; some boated, some swam, some disported themselves in the loveliest creamy surf, which appeared in large fat billows and dashed prancing and snorting up the beach. Seagulls, dogs and an occasional infant—not very many, the Mount isn't what I'd call a family-gathering resort—chorussed deep-throated approval. But even those of us who didn't intend to get a little toe wet, submitted ourselves to the enthusiastic embraces of the gorgeous Tauranga sunshine, which is quite definitely A grade. I saw a well-known professor, who had gone a pale honey-brown practically all over. He was a strange sight, pleasing, although bald.
Tauranga as a town is small, but energetic. It means to go places and do things, but at the same time the past reaches out a hand and touches it on the shoulder, saying: “Hush!… lie back and listen.” If you agree to harmonise your mood with this passive dreaming, Tauranga will tell you the stories of its carved pas, which were strong and fierce and formidable. It will reminisce about Gate Pa, where General Cameron and his hearties were ignominiously licked by the Maoris who happened to be lurking with their flintlocks at a spot most inconvenient for all concerned, except themselves. And, of course, a few days later the bugles said “Tantira!” again, and the redcoats strode forth and avenged the defeat of their comrades. But the Maori part of Tauranga doesn't mean to die and to be forgotten. That is why the whole district is woven and interwoven with exquisite Maori names. Far down at Matamata is the Carver's Cliff, where hundreds of years ago the old Maori, looking at Nature's strange handiwork of windswept whorls and crests on a gleaming precipice, was inspired with one of the finest designs used in carving.
Tauranga has still to become as widely-known as it deserves among tourists, though I think that a good many of the Dominion's own weary,
There are lemon groves at Tauranga; those and sweet oranges and tree-tomatoes, the bright-hued subtropical fruits. Down in the native gardens of Maketu (which you reach by rail from Paengaroa station) things become yet more tropical; the Maoris cultivate taro root, which I always thought only happened in “The Coral Island” and “Robinson Crusoe.”
Omokora is a heavenly place, all dappled light and large ferns, where you go a-picnicking. If you are friendly with a resident, or even with one of the seasonal lights who go back year after year to spend their summers in the resting-place, maybe you'll be danced ovethe waters in one of the tight little craft sported by the Tauranga Yacht and Power Boat Club, which is a body corresponding to Divinity down yonder. Omokora, among the ferns is one of the places where you can still hear the bellbird's song dripping down, clear honey; and the sands are a happy hunting-ground for queer, quaint shells; which reminds me that the only New Zealand concologist I ever met was a woman, and had in the pursuit of her profession once had a stand-up fight with an octupus in a large rock pool. The octupus came off second-best, which makes me think better than ever of my sex. In Tauranga Harbour I do not think any such perils exist, but once you stand out from shore in the direction of Mayor Island (only a brief run from the Mount), fish stories tend to become more and more apocryphal; that is, the fish are so large that when you see them you don't believe them. You start on kingfish and work your way up gradually through immense gaping hapuka to the real gentleman adventurers of Mayor Island… the mako sharks. Enormous fish are sometimes caught by line only round about Tauranga, but this way of courting the mako shark's society is not recommended. And, by the way, mako shark teeth are still highly prized among the Maori citizenry, and up to a couple of pounds a pair may be obtained for a really impressive set of eye teeth (or whatever the equivalent in the mako denture may be). The mako teeth next appear in high Maori society, one in each ear of the lucky and grinning purchaser, another step back in the direction of the good old days, when a Maori proverb declared that manhood was achieved after a youth had single-handed fought and conquered a mako shark.
You can decide, in the course of a lazy day, between peach groves and mutton birds. If you choose the latter, be warned in time; like Rudy Vallee and Al Jolson, they croon. Really! they have the queerest little crooning ditty of their own. A place, by name, Karewa, is their principal habitat… also very popular with that oldest and wisest member in the Club of Creation, New Zealand's very own tuatara lizard. He has a sphinxlike smile, lives in a burrow, and can travel like a flash of greased lightning when the spirit… or the sound of an invader's foot… moves him The Maoris passionately adore the mutton birds, and the pakeha… meaning us… try to follow suit, because by this time we are becoming rather enthusiastic about the absorption of local colour. Our skins are beautifully brown, we have survived the melon parties, we can handle a fourteen-footer, and we don't see why we should let a mere mutton bird give us best. That's because we don't know the muttonbird. I suspect that most things and people addicted to crooning are spiritually formidable. Our muttonbird, turning a repulsive chrome yellow upon any attempt to cook him, instantly disgorged streams of oil; at which the cook went pale, muttering: “Who'd have thought the old man had so much blood in him?” A thoroughly hardened settler hove in sight, however, and put us up to a trick, which I pass on for what it is worth. The way to defeat the malice of your muttonbird is to cook it neither normally in a pan or bakingdish nor in the Maori oven way, but raised up in the oven upon a little slanting cairn of sticks. Down these the oil is popularly supposed to course, leaving the bird baffled but edible…
Was it? Well, in my view, barely so. And I should hate a stiff breeze to spring up if I were crossing the harbour directly after such an effort. On the other hand, I know white gourmets who follow this means of cooking the fowl, and who take back to their cities whole sacks of mutton birds. This may, of course, be mere bravado.
Maketu is a green and narrow valley, where rises still the funny old steeple-hat belfry of the native
An unusual situation was promptly and efficiently met by the Railway Department and St. John Ambulance at the Auckland railway station recently. An invalid was travelling south by the Limited, and it was found impossible for the bed to be taken into the sleeper in the ordinary way. Quickly the railway officials removed a car window to make it possible for the passenger to be taken on the train. With great care the St. John Ambulance representatives lifted the invalid through the open space right on to the bed. The care and ease with which the officials carried out their job excited the admiration of the spectators on the station platform.
“Don't you ever smoke cigarettes?” asked the tobacconist. “Precious seldom,” replied the customer. “Cigarettes have their points, but as the farmer said about the claret. ‘I don't seem to get no forrader’ with them. No, me for the pipe-and toasted Cut Plug No. 10 every time! If you know of anything better, tip us the wink!” “'Twixt you and me and the bedpost,” said the tobacconist, “I dont think there is anything better. Most of my ‘regulars’ smoke toasted, anyhow.” “About how many brands are there?” asked the customer. “Only five—Cut No. 10 (Bullshead), Cavendish, and Navy Cut No. 3 (Bulldog) are for the pipe. Then there's Riverhead Gold and Desert Gold. They make really top-hole cigarettes.” “By the way,” said the customer, “I hear these toasted brands are being imitated.” “That's right,” said the tobacconist. “What some folks will do for money! Not that I think there's much money in sham toasted! Nobody's going to buy it twice. Once is plenty!” “It's a wicked world!” laughed the customer, “so long!”*
The Strand, Tauranga, North Island,
An outstanding event in the world of travel was the inauguration of the new “Queen Mary” steamship services across the Atlantic. All of us are rightly immensely proud of this stately Cunard-White Star liner which bears so honoured a name; and railwaymen, in particular, have played a big part in the building and despatch of our latest ocean greyhound.
Practically all the steelwork and other material required for construction passed by rail to the Clyde shipbuilding yard. It was in the Southern Railway dry-dock at Southampton that the final overhaul of the “Queen Mary's” hull was undertaken, while it is also the Southern Railway's Ocean Dock at Southampton which has been selected as the Home terminal of the new service.
With the general construction and equipment of the “Queen Mary” most readers will be already familiar. One interesting feature which has not been given special prominence, however, is the operation on board of a fullyequipped railway and travel information bureau, representing the four Home railway groups, the Irish railways, and the Travel Association of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The staff of this bureau, provided by the Home railways, issue tickets and make reservations in respect of steamship travel between Great Britain and Ireland, and between Home ports and the Continent, as well as reserving accommodation for tourists at any of the long chain of railway hotels scattered throughout the British Isles. One powerful publicity agent at their command takes the form of a complete film library of travel subjects, these films being regularly shown on board for the entertainment of passengers.
Cheap ticket arrangements by the score operate on the Home railways for the benefit of the holiday-maker. An especially useful plan is that known as the “seven day holiday zone season.” Under this arrangement, the whole country has been divided into special zones, with about 250 miles of railway in each area. There are about 118 selected zones within which holiday season tickets may be obtained covering seven days’ travel, these including both large cities and seaside and country resorts. For fifteen shillings first-class, or ten shillings thirdclass, unlimited travel for one week within any of these zones is placed at public disposal. For five shillings extra one may take a bicycle along, too; or for half-a-crown, your favourite dog. The whole of the stations in the beautiful Isle of Wight can be covered for seven-and-sixpence, thirdclass. Any one of the River Clyde steamers operating from Glasgow is at the passengers’ service for twentyfive shillings a week. These cheap tickets are immensely popular with knowing holiday-makers, and provide a valuable source of railway revenue.
Stephenson relics are constantly being discovered on the Home railways. Recently, a 15-ft. length of rail designed by George Stephenson more than a century ago, for the Leicester and Swannington Railway, now part of the London, Midland and Scottish group, was presented to the South Kensington Science Museum, London, by Sir Josiah Stamp, Chairman and President of the Executive of the L. M. & S. The rail, which once formed a part of the original Leicester and Swannington track, is of wrought-iron and of a “fish-bellied” type. It had an original weight of 35 lbs. per yard.
It was on the Leicester and Swannington Railway, opened in 1832, that the locomotive whistle is popularly believed to have been invented. Following a collision between one of the
Those two thriving north-country cities—Manchester and Leeds—famed respectively for cottons and woollens, are celebrating this year the one hundredth anniversary of the passing through Parliament of the Bill authorising the construction of that historic transportation link, the Manchester and Leeds Railway. The movement for the building of the Manchester and Leeds line began in 1825, but it was not until some five years later that a working company was formed, and George Stephenson and James Walker employed to conduct a survey. Short-sightedly, it would seem, the proposals of the promoters were thrown out by Parliament. In 1836, better luck attended the promoters, for all objections were then swept aside, and the Parliamentary Bill received Royal Assent on July 4 of that year.
Building of the Manchester and Leeds Railway commenced in 1837, with Stephenson in charge of the engineering works. The section of track between St. George's Fields, Manchester, and Littleborough was the first to be opened out—on July 4, 1839. The section between Hebden Bridge and Normanton followed, connection being given at the latter point with the old North Midland Railway. Through working between Manchester and Leeds began on December 31, 1840, the entire cost of the programme having run to something like #250,000. In 1847, the Manchester and Leeds Railway was swallowed up by the Lancashire and Yorkshire system, the latter railway itself disappearing as a separate concern in 1923 on the formation of the London, Midland and Scottish group.
On routes of relatively light traffic density, the European railways are finding the rail-car of real utility.
In France, rail-car operation continues steadily to increase. Rail-cars now operate over approximately 1,500 miles of track on the Paris-Orleans-Midi system, and have resulted in the regaining of much passenger business temporarily lost to road. Rail-cars for freight movement constitute the latest development on some of the French routes.
While Dr. Eric Brannigan knelt down again to examine once more the lifeless body of his old friend, he saw the multiple wounds on his head and shoulders, the clear marks of throttling, the terrible fear which even death had failed to remove from his features, to say nothing of the knife wound to the heart and the appearance of drowning. Mechanically he placed his thumb and forefinger on the wrist to satisfy himself that death was not being feigned, for he knew what a practical joker Pat Lauder always had been.
“Dead, Gentlemen,” he pronounced with that certitude which is possible only in a great scientist. “Quite,” remarked the great detective.
That fact having at last been established to the satisfaction of the small group present, the representative of the law, the local police constable, took charge. From his cavernous hip pocket he extracted a pocket book. This he elevated before him, and then gravely, as befitted the occasion, after carefully placing upon the end of a spatulate thumb a supply of saliva, he laboriously lifted page after page until he reached the first one that was blank. Diving his hand into his right trouser pocket he extracted a short stump of pencil which he first placed upon his tongue and then pointed to the great private investigator, Impskill Lloyd.
“Here, you what were you doin’ 'ere at this time of the morning?” At once the doctor gazed at Impskill. “Was this the murderer, this man who belonged not to Matamata?” “I Sir, am Lloyd; Impskill Lloyd.” This was said with savage ferocity, for the great investigator was upset to think that even in Matamata there was someone who did not know him, that is, without his disguise.
All the pomposity of the overfed constable disappeared. “Not the great 'tec?” he asked in awe. Impskill nodded. “Help me turn this body over,” he said. The constable slumped down on his knees at once. He turned the body over. “As I thought,” muttered Impskill, “dry as a bone.” The others gazed wonderingly at the great detective, yet he had only stated the simple truth. The front of the victim was dry while his back and shoulders were drenched. As the local constable, a grossly overfed and corpulent person, moved his knee, there was a slight sound of crushing glass and there arose at once a sweet odour which the sensitive nostril of Impskill at once noticed. With a heavy blow the constable was hurled on his back. A second later Impskill was extracting from a pocket on the dead man fragments of a broken bottle. Hastily he sniffed at those pieces which he was able to pick out; most had been pulverised under the great weight of the constable. “Cy-pot!” he said to himself. He did not have time to say, cyanide of potassium, though if he had cared to do so, he really had time to say prussic acid.
Whipping out his powerful torch—for that weapon was more important to him than his automatic, which, as it happened, he had left at home for his children to play with, he switched it on and carefully examined the halfopen mouth of the dead man. Lowering his face to the dead man's he sniffed, then rose with a look of triumph in his steely eyes. A moment later he was down on his knees again and was gazing intently at the feet. He raised one foot up, gazed carefully at the toeplates, for toeplates are worn in Matamata, and again with a gleam of triumph in his eyes, rose to his feet, dropped the foot with a bang alongside its mate, and strode rapidly to the windows across the cabin.
It was nearing dawn and the roadway across the railway track could just be discerned. The trio in the cabin watched spellbound as the mighty Impskill stepped back and stood over the recumbent form on the floor. The constable was watching, with his mouth almost as wide open as the book which he held in his hand. The doctor was rubbing his chin in bewilderment, while Gillespie, the blase, used as he was to his great master's voice and work, had stopped rolling a cigarette.
Once more Impskill dived his hand, this time into a waistcoat pocket of the dead man. He extracted a torn
“Constable, will you take me by the route usually taken to the main road?”
“Hurry constable,” said Impskill, in such an imperative tone that the great human walrus jerked himself, forward to obey the command. Impskill stopped to watch the result. Unheeding a swinging piece of fencing wire the constable caught his nose in a ring at the end of the wire. In a moment the huge leather pipe vomited 100 gallons of icy water upon the head and shoulders of the constable who fell prostrate upon the duckwalk. Again Impskill rubbed his chin.
“I thought so.” Then he added, “You can get up constable,” and stepped forward to assist him. As he helped him to his feet he flashed his torch on the drenched man. “As I thought,” he muttered again. “Almost dry in front.” He turned him round and then, in a tone as if he had made a great discovery, he added, “You are very wet, my man,” “So I am,” answered P.C. Fanning. “I can't stay now, I'll 'op 'orf 'ome and change or I might get pneumonia.” He pronounced it “pumonia,” for he could never remember if the “p” was silent, as it is in some words and places, or whether it was the “n.” He knew it was one of them, but he usually picked the wrong one. “I shall have to go on with the inquiry myself then,” said the great Impskill with a trace of irony in his deep voice. “Does that matter?” stuttered the shivering constable. “A little local affliction apparently,” remarked the ever ready Gillespie. The constable floundered across the patch of grass, through a wire fence and was soon shambling along the road to the police station.
“It must have happened near here,” said Impskill to Gillespie, for he was killed on the road and carried up to the cabin. Gillespie nodded his head, not because he followed the reasoning of his master, but because he could not think of any better idea. “As I thought,” said Impskill as they walked down the street for about ten yards. “Do you see that score on the road Gill?” and he pointed to a definite scratch on the tar-sealed road. It was there all right, and both before and after the scratch there was the mark of a motor-car tyre. Some car had been stopped suddenly there and not so long ago. “That car was travelling at 55 miles an hour or in modern and more precise terms, about 80 feet per second.”
As he made this further comment the great investigator swept the bitumen with his ninety candle power torch. There were stains which he measured and a strange smudge running diagonally across the road and heading towards the gap in the fence through which the party had passed.
“We will feed,” suddenly remarked Impskill. A door had j