FIFTY YEARS AGO.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20678, 25 September 1930, Page 8

FIFTY YEARS AGO.

EXTRACTS FROM THE HERALD The following are extracts from the New Zealand Herald of September 25, 1880: Later intelligence from the Cape ctf Good Hope states that"1000 Basutos and Mohalers, together with 5000 Mafeitgas, attacked the Cape Rifles, when severe fighting occurred. The enemy was repulsed. Federation of the Empire, that lofty ideal which engages the attention of SO many earnest and able minds, has bewitched even Sir Hercules Robinson. Speaking at the banquet recently given him in Sydney; he expressed a hope that a great statesman would arise in England who would perceive the means of attaining this important end. A North Shore resident writes complaining of the conditions on the North Shore ferry. "By the 8.30 a.m. boat from Devonport," he says, " a large number of passengers, both juvenile and otherwise, come over to the city. The directors opine that if they can supply, for the benefit of the- youthful passengers, some living illustrations in natural history, it is a graceful act on their part. To gne practical effect to this idea they arrange that whenever any pigs or horses are brought, to town to convey, them by the boat which is always the most crowded with passengers. To infuse variety a " or ® e is occasionally introduced among the crowd on deck. Sometimes the pigs are conveyed in boxes, but not always, horses never. . The rabbit, difficulty in the South has at last been successfully met. The Sou - land Times says:—" There is now sutneent evidence that the rabhit_ plague, a _ baffling for years the ingenuity of all w suffered under it, has at last been subdued. The reports that reach us trom different quarters of the success of p phorised oats in nearly _ rabbit read like exaggeration, the ture has almost literally disappeaie with its disappearance begins, it is hoped, an era of new l iro^uctl \ Rn cnllfhthe pasture lands and farms of .bourn land."