TOWN EDITION. The Daily Telegraph. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 25, 1881.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3220, 25 October 1881, Page 2

TOWN EDITION. The Daily Telegraph. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 25, 1881.

It is tbe opinion of many who are well able to judge that it would be premature for some time to come to establish a company for the supply of frozen meat to England. We do not pretend to offer an opinion ourselves upon this subject; but we think that, with the steady improvement of the wild country, the time should not be far distant when our Bheepfarmers -will be glad to look for some better market for their surplus fat sheep than the boiling-down pot. The country that finds an outlet at Napier is by no means carrying stock equal to its capacity, and every year, by the sowing of artificial grasses, larger flocks and herds are able to be kept. Nearly every runholder has made immense improvements within the last few years, and there is no reason to suppose that those efforts are being or are likely to be relaxed. But whether this provincial district has or has not s large amount of surplus stock tn dispose of annually any information relative to tbe establishment of freezing works will be read with interest. In reply to a letter from W. Common and Co., of Gisborne, Mr S. C. Rawlins, the agent and consulting engineer for the Bell-(Joleman Refrigerating Company for Victoria and Riverina, writes as follows. —The coats of a plant f.o.b. Glasgow sailing ships, going to Auckland for boilers and machinery equal to your requirements would be £2,800, to which you may add £160 freight and duty, and for sheep and cattle slaughtering yards, chilling roome, freezing rooms and store, capacity of say, 200 tons, dead weight of meat, would be £1,200 extra, or in all, about £4160, and fitting up machinery and all extras, land, &c, &c, £4,500: This includes a small digester and piggeries, &c. This is ample for your purposes ; euch a plant would enable you to

deal .vith 800 tons in two months. The meat would be purchased al 2£rl perlb, I presunv) not more, and to freeze and load this on to a sailing ves3el would cost about £3 a ton. Clothing the carcases I am going to leave out of the question, because I want you to go in for packing all your stu>ep in Uv.i! hard wcod crates with butfer to fill all the spare space, a sow depart..:- in dealing with meat, but when frozen it rciakee no matter what is done with it, and by adopting such a process the meat can be carried easily ;..' ""d per lb. to London. The present charge is about 2d for large steamers' holds, which makes the meat cost in London about 4£d, leaving about Id per lb. clear profit at the present low prices; but if you send good meat, the fatter the better, It. will fetch 6£cl, leaving you 2d per lb. at present prices. If you can purchase good butter at 7d to 9a" per lb. made up in lib to 2!b packages in cloth and pack it in beiween the carcases in the crates, you can get from Is 4d to Is 8d for that, but not for butter in casks. Good sound dripping packed thus will realize about 7d in London, hut as tallow in a cask it would only fetch £40 per ton at best. Some butter that I know of was purchased here at 7d, and simply frozen in the casks. It was more or less injured before going into the freezing room and some of it fetched Is 4d, and the whole shipment averaged 10£ d. It was purchased hurriedly. In New Zealand with your fine climate you could make the very best of butter and your sheep and catfle ought to be very good. The main thing in dealing with meat intended for Smithfield is to have it carefully killed, and only to send the beet of meat. I am Norry to have to tell you that the meat that has been sent in tbe Ouzco was handled badly at Orange, and the sheep were merino but fetched s£d all round. The sheep that went home by the Protos were fine crossbred sheep, and the best of tbe mutton averaged 6,} d, but the machinery was totally inadequate to the demands on it and a large portion of it was never properly frozen, and this brought tbe average down to 5d per lb for mutton, and 4d for beef. The whole shipment was bungled—the machinery being made in Melbourne. The Catania that left Sydney last month has very poor sheep on board, but tbe Orient has a fine cargo of mutton. She, I expect, will be in London and tbe meat on the market, about the time you receive this. The Garonne has a cargo of medium meat on board sent down from Orange. I expect from your fine temperate climate that you would be able to send home good meat in the best style. If you only give the cattle time and have skilful butchers, there is no trouble in free? ng keeping it frozen, and delivering it < oun 1 in London. If you think of going in for the requisite machinery, I can send a telegram from here to Glasgow to load the machinery for Auckland, but if you require it particularly to go in one of your own ships, the telegram will cost more The machinery and boilers would take 90 days to go from Glasgow to Auckland and about six weeks to make it, in all about four to five moths, say six months for certain. Messrs Henry P. "Welch and Co., are agents for the Bell-Coleman Company, and you will require in sending such an order, to piy £500, or to open a bank credit in London for the full amount, the balance on delivery at Auckland. The buildings required for the machinery can be constructed simply of hard wood packed with sawdust, the floors would be asphalte. no windows, cattle yards and raceffinto killing sheds, chilling room from cattle pens, sheep killing shed and chilling room, engine rooms and boiler rooms,*etc, all simple weather board. If you decide to go in for the plant you can send me plans of the land on which it is proposed to'erect the works, levels, depths of foundations, etc., showing where you put it on the wharf or tramway, and how it is loaded on to the ship (as short a time as is possible ought to elapse from its leaving the store rooms till it goes on board and into the chamber on shipboard) the approaches to the proposed site for the works and facilities for fetching bueh cattle up quietly. I will then forward you the plane in full, and you can call for tendere for the erection of the work. My charges in this matter will be five per cent, on the total cost of the plant and machinery. The buildings would take three or four months to erect, and I would suggest you getting a digester from from Grane in Sydney, as you could then get up all your beef-fat as clean as it is possible to make it, and pack it in with the frozen meat. Messrs Bell-Coleman, who have a house in London, can make all the arrangements with regard to the fitting up of the sailing ships for the ship owners, all you have to do is to give guarantee of loading. We have only just lately fitted up a sailing ship with freezing machinery. The holds can be used for any sort of merchandize on the voyage out and would coin a larger sura taking meat than they would taking wool, but in order to have two strings in your bow it would be worth your while to charter a steamer or small sailing ship from here and fit her up to load for Sydney or Melbourne with a 100 tons dead weight, and let her run regularly. If you only have the freight to offer you will soon get ships to take it away. "We are fitting up all the Orient, Cunard, and P. and O. boats with machines, and the freights, which are now pretty high, will come down. I am sanguine of being able to ship yet at fd perlb. I send you herewith a form of prospectus to issue as a provisional one. I would suggest your making your company a forwarding and freezing agensy, and not a purchasing company, although you reserve to yourselves the purchasing power, but if yoa have to face the purchase of 300 tons of meat at £20 per ton it runs into £5,000. All the Banks, particularly the Union Bank, will assist you in this matter, and your clients can draw these shipments. If you have any fish to freeze, you can forward them inland in a frozen state, and you can supply the town with ice, and other refrigerated luxuries during the summer. The cost of running the machinery to deal with 300 tons in two months would be about £50 per week for everything, leaving about £25 per week as profit on a charge of £3 per ton for freezing and putting on shipboard. I should propose tbe sum of jd perlb., which would pay a handsome profit, as in 1,000 tons, which the machinery and works would easily do, a sum of £4,666 would be the result. The hides and skins would go to the owners, and would be the means of inducing people to go into tanning and fellmongery. If the owners of stock are the chief shareholders, it is only fair to charge the sum of id. With regard to the tallow, an average will have to be struck in the matter on each lot ot cattle or sheep based on experiments. The laying down of the machinery will be done by an experienced man, whom I will send over for the purpose. The sum of £2,000 would be paid away in wages to carry on such a work, and the establishment of such an industry in the neighborhood would double the value of land suitable for breeding crossbred, sheep and heavy cattle, besides inducing

people to go in for dairy produce such as butter, which ought to pay well at 8d per lb. The refrigerator opens up a wide field for poultry farming, as all the Orieut boita take large quantities of dead fowls in their provision holds, and it is likely that the 'Fri?co beats will fit up all their steamers as v/eil.—l am, dear sirs, yours faithfully, Oas. C.

Rawlins

The neglect of tbe Harbor Board to accede to the very moderate demands of shippers and consignees has often been referred to by us, but no attempt has been made to supply a want that must suggest itself to anyone visiting the port during wet weather. Fifteen years ago, before a Harbor Board wag dreamed of, or a big loan wa3 wasted, the merchants at the Spit were better supplied with shipping accommodation than at the present time, for the warehouses that then existed abutted on a narrow quay upon which vessels discharged their cargoes with despatch. With the increase of population and trade the new breastwork is not equal to the demands that were formely supplied by the Tron Pot wharves and quay. It is a fact that the Harbor Board has utterly failed to keep pace with the trade or the requirments of the port, and in big as well as in small matters this failure is abundantly apparent. In certain advertisements at this season of the year the advertisers are careful to announce that, with the animals sent to them, " every care will be taken, but no resposibility will be incurred." In the matter nf the Board, however, in its relations vith those who make u*e of the wharves, neither care nor responsibility is taken with the natural result of a pitiless waste of private property. Shippers and cocsigneee are alike powerless to help theraielves, for while the Board jealously guards its rights, it, apparently, studiously ignores its duties. Let us take for instance the scene that presents itself on wet days at the Spit when a coastal steamer is in the roadstead awaiting despatch with impatience. There is absolutely no protection afforded against the weather for either passengers or goods, either for shipment or landing. Everything must remain in the wet; human beings, delicate women and children, and perishable goods, are all subjected to the same treatment, till at length this port has got as bad a character from travellers as is bestowed on Gisborne, thai has no pretensions to a harbor whatever, For years past passengers to this pert, and the bulk of our imports, have to be landed under unavoidable circumstances as uncomfortable as they can be to the one, and with very great risk to the other ; and it is astonishing that, with little or no prospect of those circumstance! being altered, the Board has not endeavoured in the slightest respect to lessen the discomfort to travellers and the daDger to which goods are liable. But nothing of the sort has been attempted, although the Board well knows that, until an artificial harbor is constructed, no alteration in tbe present system of landing and shipping is possible. In rain and pitchy darkness, in whatever weatber or whatever hour, passengers and their luggage must take* their chance on an unprotected wharf, exposed to the risk of breaking their limbs in the dark, and to the depredations of thieves. Neither a light nor a cover is provided, nor is tkere any defence against being run over by cabs. As our harbor improvements are a disgrace to the cost of their construction, and the requirements of the port atd district, so is the management of the vbarves a disgrace to the Board. The whole thing may consequently be said *o be well in keeping and thoroughly consistent with what we have always maintained, that these so-called local governing Boards are the worst administrative bodies that could have been called into existence.

At the request of Judge Heale, the Native Lands Court was foraally opened this morning by Captain Preece, R.M., and adjourned to the 10th of January, 1982.

The leader writers on the London Times get from £1,200 to £1,500 a-year: the editor has £2,000, and the manager £5,C00 a-year. Nobody seems to know, or to be able to guess, the annual gains of the Times, but the popular imagination puts them down at about £250,000.

The Mammoth Gift Show Company, that open here on Friday, will offer an entertainment that has long been absent in this town. By our Southern exchanges we learn that Mr Levoi is a very clever magician and comic vocalist, while the clairvoyance of Miss Swanborough is surprising. Mr Mannering is a ventriloquist and raimie, and in that capacity has earned a high reputation.

A meeting of the creditors of Mr W. H. Simpson was held to-day. A deed of assignment to Mr E. Lyndon for the benefit of the creditors signed by the debtor, vas presented. The debts unsecured were put down at £850, and the assets at £1000. A resolution was passed empowering the trustee to accept 10s in the pound in cash, and bills for a further 5s in the poundin six, twelve, and eighteen months, otherwise to realize at the end of fourteen days.

At Mr M. R. Miller's sale of the Korokipo and Moteo estates to-day the following prices were realised: —Lot 1, 251 acres, £16 per acre, Mr G. Heslop; 2, 192 acres, £12, MrEamsav;3, 163 acres, £13 10d, Mr Kirkpatrick; 3a, 145 acres, £13, Mr Baker; 4, 170 acres, £13, Mr G. Bee; 4a, 117 acres, £13, Mr Baker; 5, 61 acres, £22, Mr Nowbold; 6,294 acres, £15, Mr J. Begg ; 6A, 167 acres, £17, Mr T. Shirley; 7, 172 acres, £13, Mr Hoadley; 8, 73 acres, £12 10s; lots 9, 10, 11, and 12, were passed in ; 10a, 76 acres, £26 ;Mr Foreman; 13, 359 acres. £15 Mr Anderson; 14, 133 acres, £14 10s, Mr W. Heslop.

We notice the arrival of the ketch Forest Queen at the port to take away two railway locomotives. As the conveyance of railway material is contract work, why, we would ask, have tenders not been called for its performance ? If tenders had been called for in the local papers, no doubt the carriage of these locomtives from place to place would have cost the country something less than what will now have to be paid. Last Sunday week the schooner Sarah and Mary took away a locomotive to Westport from .here. Surely, with Mr Vautier's coal vessels going regularly to that coast in ballast, it might have been expected that the cheapest method of getting the work done would have been adopted. However, this is only another illustration of how centralism blunders, and of how the country has to pay for ignorance.

The purchase of the steam launch Bella by Mr R. P. Williams, and the erection by him of a wharf on the Ngaruroro river at the back of his boiling-down and fellmongery works, have quite changed the mode of conveying wool from the Olive district to this port. Last season the plan was tried by Mr Williams and Mr Chambers of shipping their wool and tallow from the Ngaruroro river, and transhipping direct from the launch to the home-going vessel. The cost of road carriage, the wharfage and storage charges at the Spit, were thus saved, and the experiment was so successful that, this season, fully 4000 bales will be sent by this new rout. The wool from the stations of Captain Gordon, Messrs R. P. Williams, T. Tanner, and Couper, we learn, will all be shipped by this way, and in addition, probably, some 700 casks of tallow. The Bella can take only fifty bales at a time, but as she can make nine trips a week she will be able to do all the carriage t

The Glasgow Fews of 24th of August has the following :—" iledsrs P. Henderson and Co.'b fine ebip Duiiedin left the river yesterday with a full cargo, and after taking her passengers, fifty in number, on board at the Tail of tba Bank today, will proceed on her voyage to Otago, New Zealand. The Dunedin crocs ou an interesting voyage. Sue has just Qren fitted with Messrs Bell and Colemun's patent refrigerating apparatus, for t!;e putpose of bringing fresh meat Home from the colonies. She is the fir&fc sailing ship which has been so fitted, and the experiment of carrying fresh meat in a sailing ship -will shortly have its trial. The remit, if successful, will have a most powerful influence on this trade, and will be watched with close interest. The New Zealand and Australian Land Company (Limited) have made arrangoments to bring the first cargo. We are informed that the first cargo of the Dunedin will be the whole or part of a shipment of 8000 sheep from Dunedin, to be shipped in December next. The whole of this large shipment has already been sold in the London market at 6d per lb.

At the Resident Magistrate's Court this morning, before Captain Preece, R.M., John Cooker, John Smith, John Lewis, Henry Robinson, and James Griffen were charged with drunkenness, and eaoh fined 5s and costs, with the alternative of 48 hours imprisonment with hard labor. John Smith was further brought up on two charges of committing wilful damage on the property of Mr Griffen. Ifc appeared from the evidence that Smith had been employed by Messrs Glendinning and Griffen. on a Corporation contract, that he had been discharged on Friday last, and that, whilst under the influence of drink, he had wilfully broken a lamp and two drain pipes His Worship fined him £1, or 14 days with hard labor for each offence. David Horton, charged with vagrancy, was sentenced to three months' imprisonment with hard labor. The following civil oases were disposed of :—Harris v. W. L. Rees, claim £3 95," Mr Lascelles appeared for plaintiff; judgment for plaintiff with costs and solicitor's fee £1 Is. Molnerney v. Fox, claim £4 ss; judgment for plaintiff with costs and solicitor's fee of £1 Is. Same v. Bowman, claim £2 18s 6d ; judgment for plaintiff for £2 9s 6d with costs and counsel's fee of £1 la. Same v. H. Brown, claim £2 12s Gd; judgment for plaintiff for £2 2s, with costs and solicitor's fee of £1 Is. Same v. Carroll, claim £8 12s 6d; judgment for plaintiff for £6 17s, with costs and solicitor's fee of £1 Is. Saefer v. Henry Neal, claim £2 ; judgment for plaintiff with costs. Ruddick v. Gardiner and Olsen, a judgment summons; order made that the amount be paid in one month, os 14 days imprisonment in Napier gaol.

Mr E, Lyndon will sell to-morrow several town sections and buildings, also 50 acres of bush land at Ruataniwha, at 2 p.m.

Young Hadji Baba wnl stand at Hastings during the season. Mr M. R. Miller will sell on Friday next a choice draft of the Korikipo and Moteo sheep. Mr E. !P. Menzies is prepared to take orders as a commission agent and general broker.

A G-ood Templar soiree and concert will be held in the Trinity Church, school-room on Thursday evening next. Mr John Bennett, Omaranui has a draught mare for sale.

A nanny goat has been found. A notice to water consumers in the Borough is advertised

A number of new advertisements will be found in our " Wanted " column.