OUR NEIGHBOURS.

Northland Age, Volume IV, Issue 47, 13 July 1908, Page 5

OUR NEIGHBOURS.

RUSSELL. (From our own Correspondent.) The last time I ventured to assist you to fill your columns my subject was a fishy one, relating the capture of a shark. Since then either my ideas or my ambitions have expanded somewhat and reached the quantity of a whale. Hitherto I have always been inolined to think Whale a fishy subject, but now that it is being tinned and sold as beef I am beginning to wonder how I could have made sucli a mistake since the meat from the whale is proving an equivalent to the best beef steak. Messrs. H. F. Cook and Coy., of Whanganuimu, are having a good catch this season. Already they have captured nine whales. Mr. Cook, one of the proprietors and tho manager of the industry, is a man of progress, with up-to-date ideas. True ha was born and bred in Russell, said to be one of the slowest towns in New Zealand, moving only at the pace of the “taihoa” march, but now and again we get a move on and then people from distant purls come to see what has happened and are amazed to find that if there is no corn in Egypt there is gold in Russell, and they begin to ask themselves—why are we not there ?

Well, I can’t continue my gold story, because that is not half as fishy as some would like to think., so I must go back to the man of progress and tell you what is being done to catch whales by a new system, and when taught how they are con voi tod into articles of commerce. For many years past nets have been used for securing the whales—this of course is still looked upon by some as a novel idea, and has been the one and only method of capture. But ocular demonstration goes to prove that few are the whales that go into or come near the netting ground as compared with the vast number that pass along the coast, hence a large bomb gun suitably fixed on the Lows of a swift sleamor of small dimensions is proving itself a weapon of great danger to the whales as also a source of increasing profit to the firm, for after the whales have passed the netting place, tossed their flukes in a last farewell and spouted in derision, they have yet to contend with another and a new foe in the shape of that gun. The steamer with a whaleboat, crew and all appliances towing astern, gives chase and when near enough the gun is discharged and tho bomb on entering the monster explodes, rendering the creature in such a sick and disabled condition as to leave little for the boat’s crew to do, a few well directed stabs with a lance usually bringing matters to a speedy close. The whale is then towed into port where everything is ready to deal with it. Floating the whale on to a slip, a steel hawser is attached and by the aid of steam and machinery the huge thing is drawn up into a shed, there to be dissected for the various purposes for which it is used. The blubber is boiled for the oil, the flesh or meat, as it is usually called, is put up in tins and sent to the Islands where I am told there is great demand for it and where it is eagerly sought for by the natives in preference to the ordinary canned beef. The blood, bones and general refuse are all stored up and subsequently converted into manure of excellent quality which fiuds a ready sale in the Auckland market, where the demand has outgrown the supply, so that everything is used to advantage and nothing is lost; no, not even the smell, for every person visiting the station comes away satisfied that he has had his full share of even this. I have heard some funny stories about the combination of odours, but I need not relate them here. If it be true that out of some of the most objectionable and vile smelling commodities the sweetest and most costly perfumes are made, I venture to predict that Mr. Cook, with his progressiveness, will yet produce from offensive effluvia a perfume so popular as to leave “Butterfly” essence a drug on the market.