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Manawatu Standard, Volume LIV, Issue 295, 10 November 1934, Page 6

Should no unforeseen difficulties arise, it is anticipated that the new concrete bridge across the Manawatu River will be completed in April. Precautions are being taken by the Public Works Department to ensure perfect safety on the Waioelta Road, on the East Coast, on the occasion of the trip through the gorge by the Duke of Gloucester. Trees and scrub overhanging are being removed and dangerous corners cut back.

Following the reported find recently of gold-bearing quartz in the Grey Valley, came news yesterday of another discovery ten miles up Taipo Creek, between Kumara and Otira, by two prospectors employed by a Greymouth syndicate, who now are pegging an area stated to assay seven ounces per ton. Outcrops have been traced for over a mile.

Although it produced large volumes of smoke, a fire in the grass alongside the railway, approximately from Botanical Road to Monrad Street, on Foxton Line, about 4 p.m. yesterday, did little damage. The Fire Brigado attended the area affected, it being about a mile in length, but there was no immediate damage to property. Yesterday’s burning-off has minimised the possibilities of a more dangerous grass fire at that point later in the dry period.

Comparatively little indication remains to-day of the dense bush which surrounded Palmerston North in the days of its founding, the passing of time having taken heavy toll. Mr J. E. Menzies, the clerk of works at the new Fitzlierbert bridge, in an address to visiting engineers last evening, recalled the early period of the city when he showed a photograph of the bridge which crossed the Manawatu River in 1877. Dense bush on the Fitzherbert side was plainly visible, the bulk comprising the splendid totara plantations from which a great deal of the timber for the construction of the bridge was secured.

Several instances of confidence men using information concerning Gisborne relatives of their victims have been reported from Auckland and Wellington. The popular procedure on the part of these men appears to be to gain and use some intimate knowledge of people living in a distant town, and, to relatives in the city, offer some story to account for an immediate lack of funds, with a request for help over a temporary embarrassment. Promise of repayment within a few days is made. In some instances the excuse offered is the loss of a cheque book or purse, while in others all the narrator’s money has been spent on travel so ns to get to the city, where work has been secured.

During play at the Terraco End School yesterday, Douglas Fraser, aged 11 years, the son of Mr and Mrs C. D. Fraser, of Victoria Avenue, was knocked over suddenly to the ground. Falling heavily, he broke his left arm near the shoulder.

Applications numbering 146, under the Mortgagors Relief Act, were dealt with by His Honour Mr Justice Blair in the Supreme Court at Palmerston North this week. This is the largest number handled at this centre since the legislation was passed. Two rows of young kauri trees line the drive to the entrance of the boarding hostel of the New Plymouth Girls’ High School. These were planted in 1929 by Mr G. M. Thompson, and are now fine healthy specimens, 3ft. to 4it. high, and give promise of providing an imposing approach in some years’ time.

Since the work of driving the temporary piles and putting in the concrete piers of the new Fitzherbert bridge was begun, the engineers have noticed a marked difference in the river bed, which has deepened considerably at both sides. The main current is now occupying a narrower channel on the city side of the river. The first race at Whangarei on Thursday started a few minutes late, and for horses and riders it was just as well that it did, for, at the time due for the start of the raoe, a large swarm of bees flew across the course near the mile and a quarter post and took possession. However, a very light shower of rain fell at this time, and the bees quickly made for cover, eventually settling in a fig tree in a property at the side of the course.

Thirty-two years ago yesterday the steamer Elingamite was wrecked on West Island, one of the Three Kings group, with the loss of 45 lives. The Elingamite, a ship of 2585 tons, was bound for Auckland from Sydney with 136 passengers and a crew of 59 on board. Captain E. B. Atwood was in command. On the morning of Sunday, November 9, 1902, a dense fog was encountered, and the ship’s speed was reduced to five knots. At 11 a.m., without warning, broken water loomed up out of the murk, and before anything could bo done to save the vessel she grounded. One lifeboat, with 37 passengers and 15 of the crew, reached the mainland at Houhora, from where the news of the disaster was received in Auckland. Another boat, with some thirty people aboard, was never heard of again. How a draughtsman’s error in the execution of a map of Palmerston North caused some anxious weeks subsequently was related by Mr J. E. Menzies, clerk of works at the Fitzherbert bridge construction, in an address last night on the subject. He stated that Palmerston North lay wholly within the Kairanga County, the boundary being on the Fitzherbert bank of the river, which fact enabled a subsidy to be obtained by the City Council for its share of the cost from the Public Works Department for the bridge. There had been some dispute that this was so because a red line had been drawn down the centre of the river on an official map designating the boundary, but an old Gazette of the ’seventies had eventually been secured with the declaration that the bank did constitute the boundary, so that the subsidy was procured.