25 YEARS AGO

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 144, 15 March 1938, Page 8

25 YEARS AGO

Aviators’ Dreams (From “The Dominion,” March 17, 1913.) A visitor to Auckland on Friday was Mr. Harold Velmont, a young Australian engineer who two years ago went to Europe from Melbourne to study aviation. An interesting feature of aviation was mentioned by Mr. Velmont in an interview. This was the undertaking of lengthy aeroplane flights over the sea. The “Herald” representative observed jokingly that it would not be long before the journey from Auckland to Sydney, which Mr. Velmont was beginning that day, would be made by aircrafts. “Long journeys over the sea by aeroplane,” said Mr. Velmont, “are not to be thought of With the present development of the machines, but it may be perfectly safe to predict that the crossing from Auckland to Sydney will be made in six or seven years’ time. It is not hard for one to predict that, if they have watched the wonderful progress of flying within the last four years, provided the science develops at the present rate. Every day sees some improvement, and it will not be long before the dream of the flying men, which is to cross the Atlantic, is realised. Mr. Graham White says he will possibly cross from Ireland to America in 1915, but, of course, he says he must have engines of such a power that cannot be constructed to-day.”

The father of viticulturists in Wellington proper was the late Mr. David N. Wilkinson, formerly of Oriental Bay, who planted vines in hothouses in the sunniest corner of Wellington fifty years ago, which are still yielding hundredweight of luscious grapes. The old gentleman, who brought with him a ripe knowledge of the garden, and in particular the cultivation of the vine, arrived in Wellington by the ship Olympus in 1841, in company with Dr. Featherston and many others, and laid out what was for a decade or two known as Wilkinson’s tea gardens, to whose shady arbours half Wellington used to repair on Sunday afternoons in the ’eighties. Even then Wilkinson’s grapes were locally famous. [Wilkinson’s tea gardens were at the corner of Oriental Parade and Grass Street, where a block of "fiats was recently erected.] A serious problem confronting the police force in Hamilton is the shortage of houses.- With five married members of the force prevented from fulfilling recent transfers to Hamilton because of the difficulty of securing a house single men are carrying out the duties under temporary transfer to the district. There are 30 members of the force at the Hamilton Police Station, with an additional four at Frankton and one other constable at Hamilton East. Five single men are serving temporarily until homes can be found for married men for whom appointments are provided as soon as the housing difficulty can be overcome. Tile shortage of houses in Hamilton lias been affecting the police force for many months now. At present there is little prospect of (he problem beiug alleviated