FIFTY YEARS AGO

Evening Post, Volume CXVII, Issue 129, 2 June 1934, Page 22

FIFTY YEARS AGO

ARRIVAL OF THE VICTORY

The steamer Victory arrived at Wellington on the morning of May 25, ISB4, after a passage of 57 days from Plymouth. It was her-second trip to New Zealand, and she brought 370 Government immigrants and Gl private passengers. There were two deaths and one birth during the voyage. The "Post" remarked that the Victory was one of the smartest vessels while in port to visit Xew Zealand, and would be an ideal direct steamer if she were as quick at sea. It was pointed out. however, that at sea the Aorar.gi beat her by 14 days;

The schooner Waircka, which had to put to sea from New Plymouth while on a trip from' Sydney for Waitara, returned to New/Plymouth on May 2G, 18S4, and reported that a man had been washed overboard. She had encountered seas so heavy that the vessel was hove-to, the helm v.'as lashed, and the survivors took to the rigging. The schooner Marmion reported that

her first mate was washed overboard in the same storm.

The steamer Albion, purchased previously by i Messrs. Ellis and Mitchell from the Union Company, attained 12 knots against wind and tide in a trial trip after she had been altered and repaired. She could then accommodate 60 saloon and 80 steerage passengers, with additional space available for a further 60, and was intended for passenger and cargo trade between Wellington, Lyttelton, Port Chalmers, anil Sydney.

■' A project for the construction of a ship canal to Manchester was authorised, according to a London cable, and a capital of five millions was subscribed to carry it out.

Whereas the imports of frozen mutton from New Zealand into Great Britain for January and February, 1883, totalled 3000 hundredweight, the figures for the samo period in the following year were 28,000 hundredweight.