CORRESPONDENCE.

Press, Issue LVII, 4 December 1900, Page 6

CORRESPONDENCE.

BULLOCK DRIVING. TO THE EDITOR OF THE PEKSS. Sit,—l notice in your issue of November 23rd' a signing himself J. A. Williams kindiy (..ffcrs hia services as an expert bullock driver to the Memorial Committee, and that, according to the writer, that august bedy are at their wits' end as to w.hi.re a. competent person could be found to fulfil ti'iut p__rt of the programme in cocnsotion with ths calcination. 1,, as your oarr-spor.dsn. states, hjs first job in' the country was carting firewood, t-wJxr, and shingle from Papanui Bush with a bullock team, ar>d also ploughing 25 acres and a number of s_rull_r sections in St. Albans with the same team, and that this is sufti-tici-nt to ra.se him to thi-rank of an expert bullock driver, then ail I got 'have to say is that expert bullock driv-rs' of Mr Wil-luiriiß'stypi9are€-_i__Uy-i_nu_aotured, and are as n_iE«--ou_ as In order to convince yaw cc-TespondJent aa to the real meaning of an expert bullock driver, it would be necessary for him to tike the first favourable oppc.iunity a. visiting - Little River or oihfr paxts of the Peninsula, ar.d I have no doubt lie -wSI have the pleasure of making the aoquaint-ance of bullcck drivers whose moral characters are equal to his own, in that they have not been ec_rvict.d for any criminal offence; tihey never ask a man to shout, they do not" throw dice or play any game of chance, neither do they possets a- bulldog or a trotting horse. But they cm nnd do successfully steer a team of ten or twelve bullocks ov_r slopes and ' ten-aces, betwe.n rocks and boulders, through right angles and triangle-, up and down inclines with a grada of 1 in 3 or 1 in 333, and, in colonial phrase, that ought to. ba good enough. In c©_K__s_an, I fail to see how your <H>rr__po-ndont could run away with the idea that be is ah expert buDcck driver because b" carted firewood, tin_b?r, and shingles, and ploughed a few sections of land in localities bliat are almost a perfect level. and if affl comes to all, the only accident that could bi-all him was to run foul of a stump wh&t cartiwj or a friendly dig en the ribs from the plough bundle.-i ours, etc "' M. QUANE. Little River, December Ist.