Miscellany

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30094, 30 March 1963, Page 3

Miscellany

Early Christchurch. By R. C. Lamb. Canterbury Public Library. 102 pp. Mr Lamb, who is head of reference at the Canterbury Public Library, is a painstaking recorder of the early I days of Christchurch. From ! his work, which includes examination in detail of the early newspapers and the minutes of the City Council, he has produced a book commemorating the beginnings of municipal government in Christchurch. It covers the years 1802 to 1868 and has been published to mark the centenary of the Christchurch City Council in 1962. Students and future historians will be grateful to Mr Lamb, as he has produced I new ma terial on the social history of the city. Dry statistics are enlivened every now and again by a refreshing quotation from the minutes or the newspapers—usually “Hie Press.” As a condensed record of six years to 1868. the book will find a place hi many libraries. The New Zealand bibliophile will find it rewarding. “Flock House”: A History of the New Zealand Sheepowners’ Acknowledgement of Debt to British Seamen Fund. Keeling &, Mundy, Printers. 35 pp. During the first World War —as this booklet points outall wool was sold to the Imperial Government at a fixed price, wool being classed as a commodity of war. Any profits made from the sale of wool for civilian purposes were shared equally between the growers and the Imperial Government. To- ; wards the end of the war, |Mr Edward Newman (member of Parliament for Rangitikei) placed before a meeting of the Farmers’ union at Manton a proposal that the woolgrowers’ portion of these profits should be devoted to “a fund for the benefit of the dependents of the sailors of the Royal Navy and Mercantile Marine who had lost their lives or had been wounded while serving at sea in the defence of the Empire.” The proposal gained wide support, with the result that by August, 1920, a sum of £237,000 had been subscribed. The board of trustees appointed to administer the fund, adopted a scheme whereby children of killed or disabled British seamen could be brought to New Zealand and placed on the land. Flock House Station, Bulls, with an area of approximately 6000 acres was 'acquired and on June 28. i 1924, the first group of 25 j boys arrived. These were i followed in September of ! that year by a further draft of 29. The immigration scheme was extended to include daughters of seamen, and a property was secured at Awapuni. Palmerston North, for the purpose of training the girls. With the aid of the fund. 635 boys and 128 girls have been brought to New Zealand. At the end of tihe booklet is a list of the trainees brought out from Great Britain from 1924 to 1931 Photo Finish. By Peter Ustinov. Heinemann. 91 pp. The vogue of plays that performed parlour tricks with time has probably passed once for all; and in that sense there is something darted about Mr Ustinov’s “Photo Finish.” Thirty years ago it would have brought the house down; and even now it can be read with some pleasure and more profit. The scene opens in an invalid octogenarian's room. Sam has been a successful writer, and he still keeps on writing. In his loneliness, it is his only resource. Suddenly, one evening, he realises he has company. His former selves come to revisit their old haunts. Sam at 60. Sam at 40 and so on, right down to Sam new-born, Sam’s wife and his father and mother also make entrances and exists at the appropriate times. The lesson that can be learned is that it would have paid Sam not to have acted on impulse and always to have been doubtful about the wisdom of his choices “And don’t be afraid of doubt. It’s not love, that makes the world go round, but doubt. It’s the price of freedom. With doubt against you. life’s confusion ; —with doubt on your side, its adventure.” That is the lesson “Photo Finish" teaches It is a lesson full of Mr Ustinov’s own type of scepticism. made all the more forceful by being expressed with a somewhat cynical wit. . . ; ! i