" WHERE IS WAIUKU?"

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9163, 19 September 1888, Page 6

" WHERE IS WAIUKU?"

C.H.G., Waiuku, writes: —" Waiuku, where is it?" is a question that seems to have troubled your travelling correspondent A. Tramp, Esq.') a great deal, and from the way he has written up Waiuku, I think it must have been greatly against his will to come at all, or else it was a bit rough crossing the Manukau Heads, and started his stomach-pump to work freely, which put him out. of writing humour. The greater part of his letter about Waiuku is nothing bub twaddle, and would tend to convey a very poor impression to the minds of any persons who might be thinking of taking up land and living amongst us. Anyone reading "A. TrampV'letter would think that Waiuku is a place worthy of no notice whatever, but I will endeavour to give your readers a more favourable opinion of Waiuku than your travelling correspondent has done on this occasion.

The best way to get to Waiuku is to leave Onehungaby thes.s.Manukau, about9a.m., and arrive here at 12.30, and if the weather is fine it is a very pleasant trip. Stepping ashore, and walking a distance of about 150 yards, will bring you to the Kentish Hotel, a fine, large, and spacious building, with accommodation room for any number, and run by Mr. Sedgwick. There the traveller will find a table he can relish his food from, and should ho be staying for a few days, I am sure he will admit that there is not a cleaner and better conducted hotel in or around Auckland. Comfort, cleanliness, and civility is the motto strictly carried out at this establishment. Besides the hotel, Waiuku has three stores, each doing a very fair,amount of business, four butchers' shops, which I certainly must say is about two too many, two blacksmiths, always kept busy, one saddler's shop, one tailor, one bootmaker, and one carpenter, wheelwright, etc. The other buildings are post and telegraph office, R.M. Court, large public and temperance hall, library, central school, and three churches. A short distance from the village is a sawmill and a butter keg factory, and there is also a flourmill in course of erection to the order of Mr. Hockin. We have almost daily communication with Auckland, as the mails arrive overland via Pukekohe every Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday, and per the s.s. Manukau when the vessel runs on the remaining days. The principal produce sent from Waiuku is butter, and of that article over a ton done up in pats leaves here every week for the Auckland market. There has not been a very large quantity of grain grown formerly, but now we are having a tiourmill going up in our midst, a number of farmers are turning their attention to growing grain. Onions are grown here in large quantities, also potatoes, but the freight debars farmers here from being able to compete with growers near Auckland. A quantity of the land between Onehunga and Waiuku, as seen from the s.s. Manukau, along the banks is generally poor and unoccupied, bub a very short distance back from the water you will find some of the finest land in the country, and all under cultivation. In the immediate neighbourhood of Waiuku is a large tract of land belonging to Mr. E. Constable, where he has a number of sheep and cattle grazing. About four miles from the village is the West Coast, along which is the grazing farms of Mr. Bent, Mr. May, and Mr. Muir, where a large number of cattle are fattened, and stock from these farms are well known and looked for by Auckland butchers. Several pieces of new bush and swamp lands have changed hands during the last twelve months, the new purchasers letting several contracts for clearing, draining, etc. There is also the Awaroa swamp of several thousand acres, which has just lately been surveyed, and Government have oxpended several hundred pounds cutting main drains and making a road across it, which, I venture to say, will be readily taken up as soon as open for selection. The headquarters of the Waiuku Cavalry is here, under the command of Captain Barriball, with a muster of 68, including their brass band, and is not (what "A. Tramp" says) composed chiefly of Barriballs. There are certainly five brothers of that name, and I believe the whole of them have belonged to the troop sinco it was first organised, some twenty years ago. Our constable, he says, is an easy-going 1 sort of a fellow, and goes on to quote events j that happened fifteen years ago, when con- | stables had not the facilities then that they j have now ; but it seems even now the same ' thing is liable to occur, to wit, Gasparini, 1 the French escapee. The paragraph about a certain gentleman having to shout twentyfour whiskies before he could obtain an audience might have been left out, as I do not think it a gentlemanly thing to accept of anyone's hospitality, and get all the information they can, then expose them in j the public press. In conclusion, I beg to ! say that the Weekly News is read by a large number in this district, and great indignation is felt at the way our district has been ridiculously handled by your travelling correspondent.