CARTERTON.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1095, 24 February 1893, Page 18

CARTERTON.

It has fallen to the lot of the Rev AV. Balluchey, Curate of St Mark’s, Carterton, to take the initiative in this district in imparting religious instructions to the children attending the State school, whose parents will permit of their receiving it at his hands. He has announced his intention to throw open his church at 9 o’cloek every week-day morning for the purpose of Bible-reading and prayers, and has invited parents and guardians to send their children there for instruction. The State school opens at half-past nine o’clock and the service, or lessons, at the church are not to occupy more than about ten minutes. It is an acknowledgment of the present system of secular education and a determination on the part of the clergy to supplement it by religious instruction without interfering with the present secular system. Notwithseanding the good work done by the. Sunday-schools, it must be acknowledged that our children, the boys especially, are growing up in sad indifference to, and ignorance of the Christian doctrine, and whilst we make a boast of this being a Christian land in our day, it needs something more than what we are giving our children to make them value the privileges we possess fn this particular.

An old AVairarapa settler, Mrs AVilliam Challis, died at Carterton last AVednesday, at the age of 67 years. She arrived in AVellington in 1858 in the Olliver Laing. She was then a Mrs Fenshaw, a widow with four children. They settled in Carterton, and five years later she married Mr AVilliam Challis, who for the last 15 years, has been a helpless cripple from rheumatic gout. A special general meeting of the AVairarapa Hunt Club will be held at Carterton next Saturday, when it is proposed to amend the ruie increasing the members’ subscription from LI per annum to L2 for hunting members and LI for honorary members. The number of hunts to be held during the season will also be fixed, and, if necessary, the arrangements made with huntsman Roake will be further considered.

It is reported that there is likely to be a change in the local Bank of New Zealand, and that we are to lose the manager, Mr Burgess. He will be greatly missed, for in the few months he has been here he has, by his uniform courtesy, made many friends. Inmusical circles Mr and Mrs Burgess have proved a great acquisition to the town.

Bush fires are still burning in different parte of the district and coming unpleasantly close to the dwellings of outlying settlers. A great quantity of grass-seed has been destroyed.