Dunedin Doings

Bruce Herald, Volume XXXXI, Issue 4, 17 January 1905, Page 5

Dunedin Doings

.[.BY FRITZ.] '■;''. Monday. The Central Battery at Ocean Beach at last seems likely to achieve notoriety if not fame through its gunnery practice, and it created a sensation on Saturday afternoon by going near perpetrating a " Dogger Bank Jincident " all on its own. It seems that Saturday, was fixed for some big gun practice, and the trawler Express was hired to. tow a hypothetical sbip past the battery at a suitable range. The target consisted ■of t<vo uprights 200 or 3oqft apart, and the garrison was to lodge their projectiles between the two. With a prudence that was certainly justified by events, the captain of the trawler took the precaution to tow tHetarget with a quarter of a mile of line, but ■such was the shooting of our brave defenders the trawler's crew to their. consternation found themselves within the zone of fire from the battery. The afternoon was beautifully fine, and some hundreds of people either went out to the ; Beach for ..the. fresh air, or to see the shooting, The range was about 3000 yards, and after several shots had dropped very wide of the mark, those who were following the shooting with glasses, were surprised to see one of the shots strike the water a few yards away from the trawler. 'The fact that at a range of- 4000 yards a projectile fell at a spot over 400' yards' away from ./the target' conveys, some idea of the small risk run by a hostile warship, and one would havelh'ought that then and .1 here the practice would have been, stopped till the men behind the gun got some more lessons in the art of shooting. - The wildest excitement prevailed on. the trawler, the _i-_w waving red flags and making violent sig.- '■ rials 'to the battery to. slop. But it was not till a : second shot nearly sealed' the doom of the little craft that bur cock ; eyed artillery, began .to. think it was time to -desist. . No, doubt the Defence Department will want to know something about the ins and the outs of this -extraordinary incident and with some reason, 'for t-vident.y_in point of gunaery the, garrison entrusted with the defence of Dunedin tis just abuut good enough 'for'the Baltic fleet. ..'■■'■ _ • j Talking of- election rumours, the latest is that the city is not to be divided into three sections from, the water frontage to the westward, but thai, instead, the hill suburbs will probably be made to constitute one district, and the remainder of the city divided into two electorates.- In the event of this happening Mr J. A. Millar, will probably reckon he has a; mortgage on the hill constituency, and, shape his plans accordingly. On the otlv-r hand, I hear that it is improbable that Mr. Barclay will contest the northern end of.the city against Mr Bedford, but- that the latter is likely to have a much more dangerous opponent in'the. person of Mr A. C. Hanlon; the well-known, lawyer, who would have .ah excellent chance of being returned. ,Mr. Hanlpn has 'been a " North-ender" . all his life,. and would have a big. folloAying amongst the,'cricket and football people, with whom he is very popular. The only other matter worth mentioning is- the report ; that the redoubtable. Earnshaw is going to make another attempt to unseat Mr Sidey for Caversham. Should the contest *be- confined to the pair the seat must remain a pocket borou_h for the Government; • and the innocuous, '.',T.K." is as good as returned. .',.,. • The other day one 'of.the city dailies published an inoffensive'-lookirigparagraph -to the t effect that negotiations were pending be ; t\ye^n the Union Steamship Co. and. an Australian line with a view to putting a stop to the cutting now going on in regard to Calcutta freights. The prompt and. emphatic steps which ■'-•■'the company took to deny , the slate : ment has set a few .folk thinking, ;and the fact that heavy orders have been placed lately wiih. Calcutta firms for cornsacks. and bqneuust seems to imply that the low freights are likely to-be discontinued at air early date.; The matter is of great importance to farmers, who haye been profiting greatly by the efforts of the shipping companies to cut each other out, and the d fTerence of at least 15s per ton between the present and the old freight is a" big item. The Aparima- is due here in about. a week with bone dust and guano, etc.,, and .the.Bri tish India Company.s steamer Fazilka left Calcutta On the 16th inst. lor Australian and New Zea-, land ports. _ . • 'By the way, there continues to be> great dissatisfaction among the Farmers Unions in the north over tbe decision of llie Government, to' proceed no further with the erection pf the sterilisingplantsatßlufTand Auckland to ensure that no infected bone., meal shail' be > distributed throu'ght. the colony. The trouble seems to be that'; bone mtal wont stand sterilising twice and as it; is done before, shipment in a more or less ineffective. /way, the merchants object to its being put through ~the perishing processagain on, being landed in the colony. It does not. seem 'to have occurred to our enlightened Agricultural Department to dispense with the Osrfunctory steaming that- is ( done at the Calcutta end,' and do jthe Work" properly once and for all when the bone meal is landed here. .At present many farmers who badl y want bone meal are afraid to use it lest they should be spreading anthrax Pr some; other loathsome disease through ."lhe.ii; stock. • OThe process of reclamation goes> on steadily in- Dunedin— l mean - r maierial, not moral reclamation, .which we hope is: unnecessary. Half of :JDunedin has already grown up out of the st:a, arid-the waves that used to "lap against Custom-house sqiiare have been driven back Steadily, and hundreds and hundreds of acres of -valuable-land now covered with buildings stand where the .tide used .to run in and out some 50 years ago: The Harbor -Board has riearly. completed the reclamation of an area 6f» 32 acres at thefoot of Albany stre.et,- and ihe way things are going the day must-come when its real estate, unless confiscated by a needy Government, will be worth millions. This "town, like San Francisco, 'is. slowly but/ surely foi lpwmg : the, harbour down, and the upper harboris heing filled up to make room for. the expansion of the city. Some 20 years ago I remembered .being told .of an instance where a stranded ship in' ban Francisco became silted up, and the town grew .around it, but utilised as a saloon, the hulk of the vessel remained many years a prominent- land mark; in ' the place. About a year ago I happened to be. in -Hyde, and asked Mr Connolly, one of the very -last of the old band; of. forty minersriri .New f Zealand who saw the Californian goklfields at; their best, if this ship story. was: truy.He re-~: plied that it was, and gave me alp. of interest ing particulars about ;the vGolderi^City :fifly years ago. Mr Connolly has since gone to his' long rest, but old goldfielders' in Otago will : know him well, and think kindly of his genial personality. .. . ; '• 'Tha electric are ,'Pgiin'.' the' innocent caiise of much tribulation, and vexation- 'of spirit. We have a completed line to .Cav-r---sham and another to Andersou's ßay. y.Every- ■ <thingthat the wit of riian can devise to com■piy with the complicated laws concerning the running of trams lias beeri 'done ; by "the cor-; ; pbratipn, but the. Public -Works Department, 'vhich has got its " knife "into the City Corporation refuses to be placated: •It is unlawful to run/ trams without an- Order-in-Council .authOrisjng the same.' Originally the City ' .Council hope 1, in order to save expense, .that : it' could obtain one Order : in-Council ' tpebver the tramway systems in the separate boroughs ' of Caversham, South .Dunedin, and St. Kilda. > But : -this:" was a; fond delusion. Orders-in-Council sue not like dog collars or bkthceriifi- ■ cates 'they cost aboiit '^200 each.; y What ihe / Dunedih 1 Ordefs-in-Cpuncii will-cost it i^ vii 1

: -terry.' impossible-. to say,- for they have been travelling . baclcwards and forwards between . here and Wellington for two long Svrary yenrs, ' and by this time they ought to be able to go alone. The merry procession still continues, for the . Public Works Department, which ; should have strangled itself with its own red tape twenty times over, is still busy altering ; the propositions, ancl hacking about the" draft Orclers-in-Gouncil, co'mpilecV after much. .travail, of brain tissue on the part' of the city solicitors.' The only interesting point to Dunedin folic i-' when is. the grisly;. farce '.'-goin!' tp end, or. whether electricity as a mode of traction Willbe superseded before finality to the present -dispute.' will be reached. '■••.. .•;■ The City,- Fathers get : hold of some rather ' hovelideas occasionally. The latest is to .form : a Public School Boys' Brigade, the object of which is to'; effect improvements, to; the City -Reserves at a minimum of cost to the rale-' payers. In these days when the halcyon hours., of youth are divided; between cram, .football,' and sleep, there would appear to be little prospect of the Council being inundated with applications from boys to by allowed to cut* gorse" for nothing oh the Town Belt. The Town Belt certainly is a problem. By . . the by, when we are all gathered to our fathers, and Dunedin has a population ot 150,000 people, .the Town Belt, .instead of being a wild / tangle of broom; elderberry, fus'chia, cocksfpot, and' flax, willbe a wonderful garden encircling the. town, ahd will be the pride of the whole province. The possibilities ■: of the Belt, from a landscape point of view, are' simply •iimitless.. At present- trees have been planted in many spots,. ofieri- with more zeal than discretion, but still they haye done wonderfully well, arid. the. plantations of. silver birch.,- oak, beech;.. and many Other English' trees give promise of splendid results. -.But £900 a year is all the city can- "spend on gardens and reserves, ahd by the time the wages-are .paid at the Botanical Gardens, the balance does not make much impression on the 500 acres of Town Belt, naturally much/of the native bush is fast disappearing, but. when. money is more plentiful thiri it is now, much may be done by way ofrestoring: the beauty spots. Till then— well, let, the young idea- go abroad with its billhook' and keep down as .much of the gorse and broom as it can. ,- . , ' ' ' A'A