Puns and a Nor’-wester

Press, 31 March 1983, Page 30

Puns and a Nor’-wester

“The Press” marked St Patrick’s Day 120 years ago by becoming a daily. Until that Tuesday morning, there had been no daily newspaper in Canterbury, although Auckland and Dunedin already had two dailies each.

It was an eight-page paper, but the whole eight would not equal three pages of our present issue. No fewer than six pages and a half were taken up with advertisements.

An oddity was an article headed “Notes and Queries,” and it consisted of several bad puns. For example: “Why must the present Government be feebler than the last? — Because it has been de-Bealey-tated (debilitated).” “Has any Christchurch man a com? — No they are ground on the boulder bank pavements.”

“What is the most flourishing trade in Christchurch? — Shoemaking is the sole flourishing trade.” The editor felt an explanation was needed, and added a note:

“The above was in type before we saw it. It was written by our ‘printer’s devil.’ We instantly dismissed him.”

The kind of news given the people of Canterbury in the first daily was very different from that expected — and given — today. There were no telegraims, no cable messages.

For New Zealand news, the paper was dependent on its exchanges with other New Zealand papers or letters from occasional correspondents. It knew nothing of English or Continental news until an Eng-

lish ship arrived in Lyttelton.

The leading article congratulated Mr Bealey on his success in an election for Provincial Superintendent. There was a report of an action for malicious prosecution heard in the Supreme Court before Mr Justice Gresson. Christchurch had its trying weather in the news, a paragraph recording that “yesterday afternoon Christchurch was visited by one of the most violent north-west blasts we have ever experienced.”

Three houses under construction were blown down and “our old friend, the dust, may be said for an hour to have taken complete charge of the town.” There was a report of a murder by a Maori of two other Maoris at Amuri boat harbour.

Particulars were given of an earthquake felt on February 23, which appeared, judging from the extract taken from the Hawke’s Bay “Times,” to have been most severely felt at Napier, where the majority, of the chimneys were down to the ground.

It had taken three weeks for that news to travel from Napier to Christchurch. Other items in the paper consisted of an account from the Nelson “Examiner” of the discovery of a pass to the Buller gold diggings; three or four paragraphs headed, “The Latest News from the North,” principally taken from the Wellington “Independent” of March 12; and an article from the Nelson “Examiner” on a proposal to introduce German immi-

grants to Taranaki; a little over a column of market reports and about 20 lines of shipping news. The market reports give an indication of the ruling property and produce prices:

One quarter-acre town reserve on Kilmore Street East for $200; cottage and land on Ferry Road, $440; three-quarters of an acre on the corner of Cashel and Barbadoes Streets, $960; 15 acres beside the Avon three miles from town, $l7OO.

Sheep were quoted at ?3 to $3.10; rams from $lO to $16.80; a mixed mob of cattle from $16.80 to $17.60 a head; draught mares from $l4O to $160; and hacks from $5O to $lOO.