COUNTRY NEWS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVII, Issue 8287, 20 June 1890, Page 6

COUNTRY NEWS.

TAURANGA. [BY TELEGRAPH. — OWN CORRESrONDEKT.] Tauhan<;a, Thursday. A social and ball in aid of the Roman Catholic Church funds took place on Tuesday last, and was a great success, both socially and financially. The football team selected to play Mercury Bay left by the steamer last night, receiving a great send off as the steamer left. The game was played to-day, and the result is Mercury Bay scored one goal kicked from the Held, and Tauranga two tries. DRURY. A pleasing ceremony took place in the school house at Drury, on Monday afternoon, the 9th instant. The scholars, with their friends and some of the committee, assembled in the large room, when Mr. S. Cossey, chairman!' stepped forward and, in a few wellchosen remarks on behalf of the committee parents, and scholars, welcomed Mr. and Mrs. Uockin back to the district. _He said that he was suro he expressed the wish of all in hoping the present good feeling would continue in the future. Miss Elsie Mayo then read a suitable address, which was accompanied bv the presentation of a beautiful handbag for Mrs. Hock in, and a handsome writing-desk for Mr. Hockin. The presentation was suitably acknowledged. Great improvements are being effected in the enlarging of the school building, and the painting of the whole structure. The outbuildings are also being repaired, and a shelter-shod is to be erected. # The fences will also, it is presumed, be repaired, as they are in a bad state, and the teacher's house has also been put in a good state of repair. I [Own Coweepondent.]

HUNUA. The election of a school committee here having been declared to be invalid, another meeting of householders was held in the school-room on Monday, the 9th instant, when the following gentlemen were elected a committee for the current year Messrs. Charles Rhodes, Robert Macrae, George Hill, James Hill, George Hirst, Wra. Trail, and Thos. Stewart.[Own Correspondent.] POLLOK. At a meeting of the Pollok Mutual Improvement Class, held on the evening of the 3rd June, after preliminaries, the programme was gone through, which consisted of readings, recitations, and four instructive and interesting essaysone on "The Queen City of the Far West." Amongst other remarks, the essayist said that Chicago had no existence in 1830; now it was a great commercial citv of 700,000 inhabitants, producing '200,000,000 feet of timber, 900,000, OCX) shingles every year, also 000,000 bushels of grain, 2,(XX),000 cattle, 1,000,000 sheep. 5,000,000 hogs are butchered and converted into provisions every year, and as many steel rails manufactured every year as would put a light rail round the world. Mr. James Scoullar and Mr. Robert Tindall, of Awhitu, gave excellent readings. Mr. A. Clark gave another essay oil " The New Zealand Civil Service and General Government." He said : " New Zealand is a beautiful land, with a climate unsurpassed, a land abundantly watered with springs, brooks, and rivers, a land of romance; many of her lakes, lakelets, and caves are unique, and whose mountain peaks are cleaving the clouds, rich in gold, silver, copper, coal, and other minerals ; a land free from disastrous floods, droughts, cyclones, blizzards, venomous beasts, etc.; a land with fertile valleys, encompassed by most extensive seaboard, teeming with fish, which might be made to be worth £7,000,000 every year, calculating from various favourable advantages possessed by New Zealand, also from the value of the fish harvest of tish caught on the shores of Great Britain and Ireland, France, Norway, and other countries, and at the same time training a hardy race of men who would cheerily face the raging of the elements and the thundering of war in manning our navy, the national bulwarks of New Zealand defence. Perhaps our paternal Government may take a thought and mend its ways, instead of handicapping the fishermen rather help them to mend their nets, give them every facility to land their fish, to sell them, to freeze the overplus, to store them, and to export them beyond the sea. What would do good to the fishermen would do good to the colony at large. The geographical and insular position of New Zealand, her deep bays and grand ship liarbours, and all her other advantages, place her in a jwsitiun superior to almost every country in the world. Man alone is vile, some o': whom are lower than the beasts of the field. There are, however, some good, honourable men in the Parliament, who would make things much better if they could, but who are often outvoted, hooted, nicknamed, and sneered at by a crowd of very indifferent men, well up to all sorts of dodging and scheming for their own aggrandizement,of guilty of shady transactions. Why is this crowd permitted year after year to have any say in tiie House of Representatives? Give the people the Hare system of voting, and few if any of that disreputable class would ever be returned. When shall the people of New Zealand float their State ship into the big dock and scrape the retarding barnacles off her ? Fathers and sons, in-law, uncles, cousins, nephews, and a host of other relations, are holding the fort at Wellington for their own interest.?, sowing their other friends broadcast over the colony into snug Government situations, schoolmasters, &c., granting to themselves and friends great salaries and pensions out of all proportion with other things and the beggarly state of the colony. It is good to hear of a surplus in the Government accounts. If this surplus were put to good use in attempting to liquidate, and the Government set its face sternly against all borrowing, abolish the Civil Service Act, and ail pensions, except in certain cases, as is done in the United States of America, where those worthy of being rewarded for any extraordinary service done by them for the welfare of the State, let. such service be well discussed through the public newspapers, and afterwards let such be finally decided by the House of Representatives in accordance with the voice of the people. At least the onehalf of the Civil servants should be dismissed. A friend tells me, who was himself in the .service for a few years, that there are some good useful men in 'he service who are exceedingly well paid for their services without pensions ; but, on the other hand, there is a crowd of men fit for nothing, doing almost nothing, and having little or nothing to do except to make a show of work when strangers are present. This host should be swept away, and all Government situations be open to any man's son throughout the colony, if qualified. At present we see a generation of these parasites, descended from the old stock, just from school, having received a first-class education from the State, pushed into every available corner in the Government ollices as cadets, often with good wages from the first, having to pay no premium or apprentice fee, as other men's sons outside this ring have to do. This state of things must sooner or later be altered, or it may lead to very disagreeable consequences." The people of Pollok have reason to be sorry that Miss Anderson, the schoolmistress, is about to leave for a new engagement. She has been over six years in this place, and has j conducted herself in a praiseworthy manner, both as a teacher and as a good member of I our community. We should not lot her go away without some recognition of onr apprej ciation of her worth. Perhaps a tea meeting and a souvenir would be the right thing to do, but the school committee would l>e the I right body to take the initiative.[Own Correspondent.!

WAII'JKO (WAIAPU.) I alluded in my hist to the unaccountable fact that the county engineer during his kite visit had left the Tokomuru-Waipiro portion of road "severely alone," while tenders had been called for mid extensive improvements carried out inland. Now, this portion of coastal bridle track is probably more frequented by travellers than any other north of TologalJay, and one would therefore think called for a little extra intention. There are, indeed, two roads, one (the original) over Tawhili Hill, and another, a new one, which, avoiding the hill, trends away by the Hot Springs, and is a little longer than the other. A pleasant road to travel is the latter in the summer ; the grades are easy, and scenery picturesque in the extreme. But in the winter it is a continual bog, only diversified by one place being more boggy than another ; just now it is quite impassable. Well, sir, since the formation of the new road the surface men have been recalled from the original, and no repairs effectedwell,since the new road has been started. The consequence is that the old one, formerly never boggy from its great elevation, has become otherwise dangerous. The superincumbent soil has been' washed off the underlying rocks on the southern side of the hill, thereby exposing a slippery, dangerous surface for an equestrian to traverse, while the mountain streamlets in their impetuous course down the northern side have worn the track into deep furrows, with intervening ridges. These ruts, from '2 to 4 feet deep, are too narrow for a traveller to ride along, and he is therefore necessitated to take the apex of the ridge for it, a most precarious and dangerous path in wet weather. lam requested by both Waipiro and Tokomaru residents, whose business pursuits take them frequently to and fro between the two places, to mention this matter strongly, and as the circulation of the Wekkly News on the coast is greatly in exeess.~i)i that of the locals, that fact must form an excuse for my dilating on so purely a local matter, wholly uninteresting to the outside world, but interesting enough to ourselves— county member and Council and engineer notwithstanding. I am sorry to say that along the whole coast line, from Tologa to Hicks' Bay, the entire population, European and native, has been prostrated with influenza, which stills prevails, though gradually dying out. Old Maoris say so severe an epidemic has not prevailed since the measles,many years ago.which carried off hundreds of them. There have been a few deaths (Maori) of old debilitated people. No Europeans have succumbed as yet.— Correspondent, Juno 3.]

TAHEKE. The offer made by the secretary of the school committee and Mr. Duginore at the last meeting of the committee, has been carried out, and on Friday evening a concert, or rather an entertainment, in aid of the school fund was held at the school. The weather during the early part of the week had been splendid, but on Friday it became very squally. In spite, however, of the disagreeable atmospheric conditions, there was a considerable muster at the school by the time announced for the commencement of the affair, but unfortunately none of the expected musical talent had arrived. I have been informed since that there is a sufficient local supply of that invaluable commodity to be had for the asking. I fancy, however, that it must be coupled with a quality not usually to be found wedded to the Lyric Muse—that is, much modesty. At any rate, the promoters were unhappily ignorant of its existence, and it did not occur to them to make a house-to-house visitation in search for it. I cannot speak too highly of the patience manifested by the large audience. I think that, including children, there could not have been far short of a hundred present. It was explained to them that the jjecfjacaaars who

were relied upon to carry out the programme mostly lived at somejdistance, ana they good hurnouredly acquiesced in the request that some grace should be granted them. About 8 a.m. the first, and, as it afterwards turned out;, the only contingent rolled up in the persons of the Rev. Mr. Joughin and his lately - acquired bride, and two Messrs. Bryers with another gentleman, Mr. Broadman. Owing to the non-arrival of others who had promised assistance, the programme had to be entirely reconstructed, and several readings introduced to make up for the absent musical items. Mr. _ Goouin gallantly came to the rescue in this particular, and Mr. Broadrnan kindly gave a recitation. 1 must say en passant that I sincerely hope that the audience generally had a greater liking-for this form of entertainment than I have myself. The musical portion of the programme was as follows : Song, Mr. Dugmore ; song, " London Bridge," Mr. Joughin ; song. "Johnny Sands," Mr. Dugmore ; harmonium, "Nazareth," Mrs. Joughin ; song, "Halloween," Mr. Dugmore; song, "Better Land," Mr. Joughin, with violin obligate by Mr. Bryers. Violin solo, Mr. Bryers; song, '• Constance," Mr. Dugmore : violin solo, Mr. Bryers. " God Save the Queen. Mrs. Joughin accompanied the songs on the harraonium, as we do not possess a pianoforte at present. All the items were well rendered and well received. It was the intention of the secretary of the school committee to have made a few explanatory remarks, and to have reiterated that portion of the annual report which referred to the bad attendance of children, as well as to thank those who ' had kindly given their assistance, but through a misunderstanding the national anthem was struck up too promptly, and he did not get a show. The dance which fol- , lowed was well attended, and was kept up with vigour until about 5 a.m., when itbegan to flag a little. It was then too dark for those who had any distance to go to make a start, so the violin and accordion were kept going, and some spasmodic efforts at dancing made until daybreak. Some of the visitors then found to their disgust that their horses had cleared out, but I think thev were discovered at no great distance away. Light refreshments were provided in the "shape of tea, coffee, buns, sandwiches, etc., and the cominisariat department was well patronised ; in fact, the only eatables left on hand were half a loaf and a few pieces of cake. The result of the undertaking was, financially, a success. I cannot say exactly what amount will be handed to_the treasurer, but it will be something like i'.s, a sum equal to a whole year's grant. I hear that the tender of Mr. Joseph for the rock cutting on the Opunake Road has been accepted, and that he has commenced work 011 the job. . Some of the settlers connected with the YVeseleyan Church have presented Mr. Joughin with a small token of their regard, on the occasion of his having annexed a life partner.—[Own Correspondent.] rUKEKARORO. Among other disasters caused by the bursting of dams than those previously reported may be mentioned a large bridge spanning the Mountain Creek erected and owned by Mr. A. Stewart, which was lifted from its position and carried a considerable distance j by the rush of water.