IN THE EARLY 90's.

Gisborne Times, Volume LXVI, Issue 10473, 31 December 1927, Page 12 (Supplement)

IN THE EARLY 90's.

A TRAMP'S” IMPRESSIONS OF GISBORNE.

NOT “A (*AVK OF BE-PA R.”

HOFFS OF THE FPI'EF'NG INDUSTRY.

“Such another inelem -ni season is not” wrote •-.'. Train]:” in the “N.Z. Herald'’ in August., 18'4). “Within the memory of the earliest liigrint. Ycl is the trvt'.snian hopeful arc! ho looks forward to a bright ami booming summer to coinpeiisa*" bun for the dulness of business during thowintor. Gisborne is not a •Cave of Despair.’- . ChrlsMnrs must rente and with it hundreds of festive bushwhackers, who are now in Ibe baekhlocks hewing fortune;-; for the publican and the storekeeper. With its falling bush, and the rise of the frozen meat industry. Gisborne lias, indeed, reasonable cause to be sanguine as to her future prosperity. “The enterprise of Alessrs. Nelson Bros, in establishing freezing works in Gisborne bus given a •;>!*»•>I impetus to the prosperity of tho Bay. Land hitherto considered too rmote, with but doubt fill rrosn'—ts of I ’Hirning interest on the capital expended oil its cultivation, is now Icin'' eagerly sought after and oceup'o'l. They say that the area .if bush at nresent under the axe is greater than at any other period in the history of theBay. One great blessing for Gisborne is that it is being taken up ill comparatively smwl ! blocks. /Ml “Nothing advances the progress, and prosperity of a town so much as a thriving population of small settlers. The frozen meat industry seems destined to create this muchdoss ired population for New Zealand and give the conn do grace to the squatting monopolist. The squatter lias always met the atta ks upon his monopoly and justified his occupation, by the assertion that sheepfarming ort. a small .scale, unless close to a market, would not pay. The market is now at the small man’s door.

“One of our excuses for seizing the, land, of flu* Natives is that in their hands it is not sufficiently s.»otlttc-t-ive. Vliv draw the lino at the Maoris ? Freezing .writs have brought' millennium days tr f : e sbecnlarmers. both great and small. Ihe days of the land monopolist are numbered; tlie (lav of the bursting up of big estates is near. Proceed. 0, Nelson Bros, with your good work and establish more freezing works. “What takes the buoyancy out ot the Gi.xburnito and brings gloom to his brow and sadness to his eye and causes his lip to droois is ihc few chains of concrete wall lie t'cd round iiis neck and dropped into the sea in" tin 1 hope of forming a harbor. Notwithstanding the tons ol money spent on it, the- formation of the harbor seems as lar ell as over. Haibor or no harbor the interest on the borrowed money lias to be paid and this is the gall i!i the cup of prosperity in front of Gisborne and causes its citizens to feel sad. Still there is a. sparkle of hop.* ior the harbor.

Exiting Hurdle Race at Wairoa. Vairoa, it secn-s. fad by January 1882 earned for itself the name of ‘ The Terror” as a course, owing to the awfully siifi hurdles. And this, is what happened in the HurdlosHandicap of that year. The hot favorite was A. O. and Lizard was a. perfect outsider. On getting to the last hurdle both were dead beat/, so much so that- neither could clear; the obstacle. Tlie jockeys were in a like state. Both hoi ses swerved paste the hurdle and stood si 11. A G Imvitag a. little pluck left. made, an effort torun at it. placed his head egtvnst it, and raised his hind quarters ancl came down a terrible crasher, his rider. Jones, an Australian, bavin;; three ribs broken. While this was going on, I.iza'd slipped through the aperture ancl in a woebegone canterwriggled past the winning pest first. Tin* 3 other "horses imd drawn up aconsiderable time before.

An Early Wharfage Return.

It was reported at the annual meeting of'the Harbor Board in 1884 that the ■wharfage receipts' for the previous year had totalled £OSO. Previously the Board had refused an of—-fc-r to lease the wharves for £SOO a. year.