A TALE OF PROGRESS.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXVI, Issue 8414, 13 January 1899, Page 4

A TALE OF PROGRESS.

. «. — The Egmont Settler, published at Stratford, Taranaki, in a New Year article gays: Walking rouud Stratford on Christmas Eve, we could not help contrasting the state of the town now with its state of the first Christmas Eve we spent in Stratford. Looking at the splendid shops, the broad streets ana footpaths, all crowded With well-dressed and apparently well-to-do people, it seemed hardly possible that all these changes had been effected since Christmas, 1890. Yet on Christmas Eve of that year, all the shops could have been counted on one's fingers. Only one hotel existed and one doctor. Lawyers, chemists, bankers, and a number of businesses now established, were unknown. The State school with difficulty maintained an average attendance of 50. Broadway consisted of a strip of metal 12 feet wide, a good many undulations, and plentifully strewed ou each aide with logs and stumps. Dairy factories were unknown. A few butter packing companies were theonlyalternative to bartering the butter to the storekeepers. The population of Stratford was lesa than 300, and of the whole county very little over 2000. The formation of the county gave things a start, and at the census of 1892 the population of the town was 342 and the county 2521. From then on there has been a steady increase, and at the census of 1896 the population of the town had men to 1256 and the county to 5141. Since then Stratford has been incorporated as a borough, and a careful computation puts the population of the borough at 2000 and the county at 5000, making a total of 7000, or an increase since Christmas 1890 of about 5000 souls. The prosperity of the people may also be judged by the fact that since the Ist December the payments to milk suppliers for November milk, in a radius of 8 miles from Stratford, amounted to £8000. The bush village of 1890 is rapidly being transformed into a town of considerable size and importance. With a good water supply, drainage, and electric lighting installed, as they soon should be, Stratford should become attractive and more prosperous. A CONTRAST. In the New Zealand Times of the second instant is a description of another North Island town whose history and prospects afford a great contrast to those of Stratford. This is Bulls, on the Rangitikei river. Its distance from the West Coast railway is four miles, "through fine open country, some of it slightly undulating, but mostly level. The homesteads on the landscape ■ are, like angels' visits, few and far bet .veen. Bulls is a compact and venerable-looking township, presided over by a Town Board. It has t>7o principal streets, one leading to the railway, the other to the Rangitikei river. Years ago it was famed for its cattle sales, and the yards where Messrs Stevens and Gorton hammered beef into gold survive in good condition. Bulls has a Town Hall, and old-fashioned looking Post Office, three hotels, and two banks. There are two or three stores, and several other business places. First impressions of Bulls are not apt to be satisfactory. The town, though compact, is cramped like the foot of a .Chinese lady. The buildings are quaint, the reverse of fresh looking, and the absence of life and activity has a depressing effect. Nor is the cause inexplicable." It is visible in its environment of large estates, seven aggregating 75,500 acres surrounding the town. " The estates support but little labor, and do , a minimum of business with tho town. Surrounded with fine open country, well adapted for cultivation and dairy-farming, Bulls, as a commercial centre, is crushed and dwarfed — a raft in mid-ocean."