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Evening Post, Volume CII, Issue 38, 13 August 1921, Page 6

Why does Nelson alone of all New Zealand enjoy a holiday oil the first Monday in August? The answer to this question, says the Mail, is hidden in the mists of provincial antiquity, and the .holiday has been accepted by recent generations as a gift of the gods, to be enjoyed as'inclination suggests, without tiresome inquiry into its origin. The readiest and most probable explanation that occurs is that the first settlers transplanted to their new home as many of the institutions, they had been familiar with in the Old Country as they conveniently could, and the first Monday of August came with the rest. There are in England and Ireland six bank holidays, so-called, shared in by the people who toil not in banks,.of_ which the first Monday in August is one. A holiday in August in New Zealand must necessarily be passed in different activities to those which make the first Monday in August joyous in England. There it falls shortly before the official beginning of autumn ; with us it heralds the approach of spring, and the ; weather, even in Nelson, is not always genial. The planting of potatoes is so largely practised that it, has bestowed upon tho day a homely soubriquette—" Spud Monday " —by which it is more popularly known than by the rather cumbrous name' given to it in the calendar of holidays. '

The wutersiders at Wcstvort were Viatd hit last week owing to the scantiness of the shipping, due to bad weather and also tlie glut in coal in the Dominion (states an exchange). One watersider said Ills wages for the whole week were only ISs. It i 3 a long time since such a bad bout of wfather has been experienced.

The Wellington Spiritualist Church (Incorp.) has engaged. Mrs. SiU B. Pedley, a native of India, who was a pupil of the lato Swami Vivikananda and of Judge Troward, of India, Her first lecture will be given at the Spiritualist Church tomorrow morning. ■ i