STRATFORD.

New Zealand Mail, 21 July 1892, Page 18

STRATFORD.

The deputation from Stratford to Wellington has returned, having been, on tho whole, very successful. Sti’ange to say, however, the point which everyone thought most certain of success namely, the subsidising of the cottage hospital seems unlikely to be granted by Government. It is stated that Dr Macgregor, the inspector ‘is opposed to the establishment of such institutions.’ No reasons are assigned for this extraordinary objection. Anyone well acquainted with bush life, the frequent accidents which occur, and the awful agony which must be endured by a poor shattered sufferer in being carried many miles and then compelled to undergo a long railway journey, would think it a very good thijxg to establish such an institution as a cottage hospital. At an ordinary meeting of the Stratfox-d State School it was resolved to put into force the compulsory clauses of the Act. The roll number being 219, the average attendance was 139, though on some days over 180 were present in the school. When it is remembered that the school will only hold 140, it is difficult to see how the compulsory clause can be enforced. What sense is there in compelling more children to crowd into an already overflowing school? And how can parents be expected to subject their children to the daugei’ous unwholesomeness of such overcrowding ? Let the school be sufficiently enlarged and doubtless all the children will attend as they ought. At a meeting of the committee of the Stratford tmall Farm Association a c&ll of 5s per member was made to cover expenses incurred in securing a suitable block of land. Those who have to do with the making of roads ought to learn an ineffaceable lesson from this year’s experience, though one wonders it has not been learned before. The utter folly of tearing up roads and attempting to make them through the winter in this variable climate ! In maixy places all over the county as fast as broken metal is placed on the road it disappears through the mud. Even the metal itself seems to be made worthless wheix got out in rainy weather. The Taranaki County Council resolved to warn persons not to take heavy loads on the Mountain Road. At the quarterly meeting of the Holy Trinity Church the balance-sheet was read showing receipts to be £6l 4s lid, and the expenditure £Bl 14s 2d, in which was included £l7 18s, cost o f fencing church grounds, and £4 16s for seats required in the church. A vote ofThanks was accorded to Mr C. D. Sole for having frosted the church windows. A lady di’ew my attention the other day to a rather strange fact. Although there are probably more women riders in New Zealand than in any other country, you never see such a thing as a mounting block In any of the towns. This is particularly embarrassing in such towns as New Plymouth and Hawera, where, all the pathways being made clear and level, there is positively nothing from which a woman can mount her horse. In Stratford there are still a few banks or even logs on the outskirts, but when all these are levelled and cleared away it would sui'ely pay the most enterprising drapers, chemists, and stationers to put small mounting blocks near their verandah posts. Women who had purchases to make would be sure to dismount at these stores rather than at others where there was no convenience for re-mounting.