WAIHARARA NOTES.

Northland Age, Volume 25, Issue 15, 6 August 1925, Page 7

WAIHARARA NOTES.

(By Black Watch). On the 26th ult there was a j meeting of gummcliggers here. There often is. But this was different. As you may know, King Allen the Adipose, revising and reversing the roles in the old play from Runnymede, is at present preparing to wrest from the saucy gutn barons of Auckland, a New Great Charter of Liberties for the enslaved and downtrodden giimdigger. Our Royal Hero would fain enter the lists armed to the top-knul in statistics and the object of the meeting was to furbish np a few. Regal-airs, it is feared, are beominc infectous. At anv rate hv

the most progressive watches, it was quite 50 minutes past the appointed hour before Messieurs Couch, Tom, and Ernie—-the key characters of the piece—were descried far off, mounted on palfreys and approaching with the leisurely monchalance of Princes of the Blood. However, in ten pointed words they were told they were’nt. And then to business. Mr. C. Shine was in the chair. Mr. Tom Rener pushed the pen and read the lesson for the day in place of Ernie who had got out from under when about a ton of typescript was unloaded on him from Waihopo—wherever that may be. I did’nt feel up to it,” quoth Ernie, whose modesty in estimating his own powers is a model that might be followed by more than a few others. But of course it won’t. Sir Tom discharged the cargo of vain vocables from Waihopo in the style best suited to it: 400 to the minute, like a priest saying the burial service over some one for whom he knew there was no earthly (or heavenly) hope. Waihopo had gratuitously taken upon itself to tell Waiha-

rara what to do and how to do it, when to speak and what to say ; urging particularly that 5 years figures at least be sent to Wellington. But the “Colonel” had asked explicitly for three years representative prices, and, at Waiharara, when any one asks for a glass of water it would be

considered bad form to pour a bucketful over hftn. So believing the “Colonel” knew best what he wanted Waiharara decided to give only the figures asked for. Similarly with the other irrelevant matters Waiharara was urged to foster. It wasn’t once felt that of all places, Parliament was the least in need of the drivel, rant, cant, bunk, junk, impertinence, piffle and poppy cock of which a world’s supply seems available from Waihopo. In a word, when serving a drop of whisky, Waiharara doesn’t believe in diluting it with ditch water till divvle a taste of the “creather” is left. The “Colonel’s” figures will be served neat.

Victoria Valley think they will have some of Mr. Baker’s redwood ready for the mill in about 500 years. Some optimists at Waiharara think by that time to have enough peat oil to oil the engine —one oiling. Others think it will take longer than that, Much missed from the “Age” : “The letters to Bert.” Much appreciated: “Kerikeri’s” work.

Much good to the district hoped for from “Conifer’s” column. Much regretted that the Pott and Kettle have been permitted to go off the boil. In dull cold days what could more successfully impart the illusion of warmth than the gentle sizzling of the Pott and the clatter of the Kettle lid under pressure. Is all the fuel being saved for December ?