NOTES FROM DUNEDIN.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume 31, Issue 9220, 8 June 1900, Page 2

NOTES FROM DUNEDIN.

(By Our Own G'ohhespondent.) We have been a bit "previous" in our Pretoria celebrations. We now readily admit this. When the news of the evacuation o£ Pretoria came on Thursday Inst, however, there seemed no reason to doubt its authenticity. There was no qualification about the cable whatever, and we accepted it as perfectly reliable. We took our time, nevertheless, to act upon it. The news was posted up at Mendelsohn's window before 6 o'clock on Thursday evening, but there was not a trace of any demonstration that night. Instead the town was aroused from its slumbers at 6 o'clock next morning by the hideous disoordant din of the ringing of the firebells and the blowing of whistles. Those who had seen the cable on the previous evening, or hoard it read, as it was, at some meeting or other did not bestir themselves though further sleep was impossible from the added clatter of the ringing of dint) or bells and the blowing of unmusical horns and the explosion of crackers. But those who had not seen the extra—and they were undoubtedly in the majority—divining that some great success had been gained in the war, turned out blithely and hurried to the Octagon, which is now the recognised rendezvous. They did not have to wait long, either, before the mayor, who is quite the most enthusiastically patriotic member of the community, turned up to make one of the loyal speeches which he finds it necessary to keep constantly on top. The scene was a rather curious one. The morning was raw and gloomy. Splashes of rain fell and the clouds rolled black and lowering. The street lamps were still lighted, for the day had not yet fully dawned. In spite of all this there was a positively enormous crowd of people in the Octagon—all cheering and enthusiastic because they knew there must be good news and all anxious to know what it was. '• Has Kruger been taken 1" " Has ' Bobs' caught Steyn ? " These were the questions which were heard in the crowd. The Mayor had not anticipated any such gathering. He had thought that in gcitiug up at half-past five and rousing the residents of Roslyii with sound of gong and gun, he was about the first to make a joyful noise. By the time, however, that he was fairly in full swing a telephone message from the Towu Hall informed him that there were crowds of persons about the Octagon waiting for the Mayor and evidently wauling to do something. Accordingly he hastened down town, informed the crowd that the lioers had abandoned Pretoria, and declared a whole holiday in honor of the occasion. This declaration has been productive of trouble. There are many people in town, who are beginning io regard these repeated holidays as a nuisance and to protest against them. To tradesmen they must represent a serious tax. To tralesmeu's employes, also, they are not all beer and skittles,"although there is a great deal of beer about them. They involve very long l«ours on the next day, as will be realised when I say that, as a consequence of the holiday on Friday, there are grocers' vanmen who had such a heavy day's work on Saturday in undertaking the delivery of their orders that it was 11 o'clock p.m. and later when they started on their last round and the small hours of Sunday were encroached upon before they had completed the delivery of their parcels—in most cases, by leaving them on the doorstep or in a convenient outhouse of the soundly sleeping customer, There was a great deal of opposition, too, on the part of tradesmen to their having to close for more than half a *