EIGHTY-FIVE YEARS AGO

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26748, 17 April 1948, Page 6

EIGHTY-FIVE YEARS AGO

FROM THE FILES OF THE ©tago Bail? ICtmee DUNEDIN, APRIL 17, 1863 ' "The election of goldfields members for the House of Representatives took place on Tuesday at Tuapeka. The gentlemen proposed were Captain William Baldwin and Mr G. Brodie. These gentlemen, having been duly proposed and seconded, were elected without opposition.’’ The Daily Times publishes the prospectus of a company entitled The Peninsula Steam Boat Company, Limited, which is being formed with the object of running a daily steamer service between Port Chalmers, the Peninsula and Dunedin. The proposed capital is £15,000, and the Provincial Committee consists of Messrs James Macandrew (chairman), Captain Henry Ridley, James Seaton, Charles Edmonds, William Bacon, James Christie, James Lewis, Henry Monson and Francis Henderson. “A medical gentleman in Victoria draws attention to the very great superiority of kauri pine wood for stethescopes. He states that on applying an instrument made from this wood to the ear the faintest scratch on any part of the body was clearly distinguishable. He considers that the peculiar sonorous quality of kauri pine renders this wood admirably adapted for'the manufacture of musical instruments, particularly violins. We are aware that kauri pine is exceedingly suitable for organ pipes.” “The city engineer is evidently a facetious fellow. He has had bills stuck up in two or three parts of the town inscribed with the words, in large letters, ‘ No road, by order of the City Engineer.’ We only wonder he has limited their circulation, for he might with propriety have almost the whole town posted with them; indeed, they might be distributed generally all over the province, for anything worthy of the name of a road is scarcely to be found in Otago.”