LOCAL BODY MEMBERS.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 22 September 1926, Page 4

LOCAL BODY MEMBERS.

BUSH-WHACKERS IN THEIR YOUTH. The Hawera Hospital Board is a good pressman’s meeting. The atmosphere is congenial, and the work pro- . cedes expeditiously. About noon there is an interval for lunch at which the Press representatives arc made welcome. The conversation at the table is robust, and the visitor soon finds he is among no “silver-spooned” people, nor those 'by whom, success and capacity to represent their fellows upon local bodies has been lightly come. Talk drifted to bush-felling, and, as the theme developed, so much first-hand information was contributed that it was apparent that somewhere near a majority of those who spoke had served their apprenticeship swinging an axe among the supplejacks: One member proceeded to speak of the difficult times he encountered' when first lie went bush-felling. He was sixteen or seventeen years of age, and the food (was very Tough. The pay was 7s 6d a week, and be was very polite at that in case he should lose his job. Other members recalled having been engaged on contracts where the price for felling was no more than 10s per acre for timber up to 4 feet. Reminiscences of myrow escapes from falling trees, misadventures with sharp axes in hand followed. They were authentic and entertaining. A pressman was able to give a recital of that astonishing Californian axeman, Paul Bun.yan, whose chopping was so remarkable that (so the tale goes) when the farmers saw him take out his axe they brought along their four-wheeled carts and carried away the chips to make barn doors out of.