TARANAKI.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1013, 31 July 1891, Page 13

TARANAKI.

We have had rain every day during the past week and cold winds. The bleak weather and the frightful mud in the roads are enough to keep the most ardent newsseeker at home. Biding down one of the comparatively thickly settled by-roads near Ngaire the other day I was filled with sympathy for the inhabitants to whom such a dreadful road must be a great trial. Some, of them too are gifted with great musical talents, and are much in request at the local entertainments. That they can be persuaded to venture out these cold dark nights to find their way across such slippery morasses, carrying heavy cases of instruments too, with the possibility of having to return under a deluge of rain shows what power music must have to inspire the human heart with courage. On the 17th a public meeting took place at Eltham to consider the best means of inducing the Goverment to open up the Anderson Eoad, which leads from Eltham to the Mangamingi Block. Some seventy settlers attended, Mr Hugh Coutts was voted to the chair. Mr Hamilton said the road was already opened and surveyed and graded. It now required to be formed for traffic. A number of gentlemen spoke on the matter, and then the best means of arranging some form of self-government, without which it was thought the place could not prosper, was gone into. . A committee of seven were then appointed to act as a vigilance committee. A vote of thanks to the chairman brought the meeting to a close. The same night a farewell supper was given at the Eltham Hotel in honour of Mr D’Arcy Hamilton, the late headmaster of Eltham school, who by his medical skill had been able to relieve many sufferers, and had been in other ways the good genius of Eltham. He has taken shares in a saw-mill at Midhurst whither he and his family have gone to reside. Many interesting speeches were delivered. The toast to ‘ The Press,’ was responded to by Mr Yorke, of the Hawera Star, and Mr Allsworth of the Egmont Settler, (Stratford), who remarked that the press of any district was generally a reflex of the people in it. Some good songs were sung during the evening, and the gathering broke up soon after one o’clock.

At a meeting of the County Council on the ISth, a deputation of the Stratford Town Board was introduced, when the difficult question of the Stratford levels was again discussed. A hansom cab has just been started in Stratford, and meets all trains. The enterprising owner also runs expresses between Ngaire and Stratford, when entertainments or balls are coming off, so that people are no longer under the necessity of walking three or four miles there, and again back, if they prefer to ride. The much-needed assistant at tho Post office, Stratford has been supplied in the person of Mr Greatbatch from Wellington.

Mr J. H. Penn, of Stratford, has been appointed Town Clerk, in the place of Mr S. H. James resigned. A pair of red deer procured from Nelson have been brought up by the Acclimatisation Society and let loose in the Forest Beserve on Mount Egmont.