TOWN EDITION

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 11127, 29 July 1907, Page 3

TOWN EDITION

We understand ; that a .'hospital ball is to be held at the end of August. ' The s.s. Haupiri left for Napier at 4 this afternoon. The «.s. Squall is expected to-night, as she will probably pass Tolaga, where the weather is -too rough to work. The Cook County Council's cottage at the corner of Childers road and. Bright street was disposed' of by auction on Saturday for £30 to Mr J. Faulknor, who had previously offered £34 for it privately. The Oburicil thought the house would bring more •at auction. .'. A petition is being signed by ratepayers in Poverty Bay_ Road' Board district for the merging of the road district into Cook County. The petitioners say that, for over ten years they have endeavored to maintain the roads in their district out of an allowance by the Council, which, being reduced to £160, they find insufficient to perform the works required; that the maintenance of a separate staff is expensive, and, they believe, not as efficient as one, central authority; that a considerable. length of road maintained by the petitioners is used* by the residents of more distant districts who do not contribute any part of the cost of such maintenance; that they had learned a proposal was before, toe Council to secure a contribution from distant districts for the maintenance of the works- in the districts, which the petitioners "believed * would be a great assistance to th* finances of tlie county in that part which contained the petitioners' district. A remarkable feat of engineering has been satisfactorily completed at the Elmwood reclamation works, Victoria, namely, the bodily removal of a. bridge, 33ft wide toy 55ft in-. span, and weighing tons, a distance of 200ft along the canal to another set of piers prepared for it. Tlie work was done by means of 10 locomotive lifting jacks, belonging to tlie Railway Department, each capable of raising 25 tons, and with these let into tlie piers the entire superstructure was raised 4rom its resting-place. A number of 70ft beams were then hid along the course of the canal, and these were used as runners to support rollers, and the bridge was set moving them towards its new 1 site by the pressure' from its further side of 12 auxiliary jacks, as- - sisted by rope haulage, torough two Spanish winches, one on each side of the'canal. It was ticklish work to keep the rollers on the runners, but on an average 15ft of progress wa6 made every day and on Monday 26ii was covered. Ihe entire transfer was effected within a fortnight, at an estimated saving, of about £150 on any other mode of shifting the structure. . In a letter written from Sydney, on 12th July, by D. Barnett, trainer of Webb, the writer says:— "We are all in the best of health, and Webb is in tip top nick, not too far forward, but just ready for the final preparation. That means he will have to do more running, besides extra fast work on the river. Towns is out morning and night I with his brother and Fogwell pacing him | in a double sculler. My opinion is that, the way they are, trying to drag him along, he stands a chance of getting stale before the race. He is anything but a. clean sculler. . ; .\ Webb has altered his style a bit, and it is an improvement which will •'. make him faster. Jim Stanbury has been over giving him plenty of sound and good points in sculling, besides showing him how to scull his boat comfortably. He is ever so much improved, and you will notice the difference when you see him rowing again The members of this rowing club where we slay can't do enough for us, and we have everything of the best. \yebb won't get run down; he has a bigger chest measurement now (40fin), and strips at list lib. He will row at about list. In increasing the duty on greenstone the Government is taxing a product that otf all products is peculiar to New Zealand (says Monday's New Zealand Times). So far as is known greenstone has only been discovered' in this country, and for that reason it has become symbolical of the country, and of particular value sentimentally to the Native race. The stone age of the Maori is but yesterday, and the chief relics of Maoridom in the manner of talismanic trinkets exist in the tribal tikis and' meres, many of which have wonderful histories and peculiar associations. Tlie bulk of our greenstone comes from the West Coast, where it is found in river-bed^ and on tlifi sea coast in the form usuallv ol water-worn (boulders tliat give little outward' evidtence of the > beautifullymarked stone that may be witoin. -It is a most difficult stone to cut, so difficult that it took Native experts years to fashion the most simple of the implements that were made of greenstone, with the result that such implements were never very numerous, attd were always highly Valued by their owners. There are only two or three tradesmen in New Zealand who go in for cutting toe stone, the^bnlk of which is shipped away to the Continent, Belgium, and Germany principally, Where it is deftly cut into the hundred abd oue trinkets that may be purchased in any- jeweller's shop. A* duly of 20 per cent, has been paid on cut greenstone up till the present, -but the. new tariff adds another 10 per cent, to goods made of t"e national pebble of New Zealand. bo popular has greenstone become, that the real article has heen imitated to a marvellous degree of perfection, and it would be well if "the real thing" is to bear a duty of 30 per cent., that the imitation Bbould he taxed out of existence.