District News.

Southern Cross, Volume 9, Issue 23, 7 September 1901, Page 12

District News.

OTAUTAU EiOTES. We have had our share of the influenza visitation. We don’t like it it is a case of ‘ would that we were greater strangers.’ The energetic committee who have the building of an Anglican Church in hand recently organised a plain and fancy dress ball in aid of the object in view. The affair was a great success, and the nett result was an addition to the fund of £2l. At a meeting held the other evening a committee was appointed to canvas the district in the interests of the farmers’ union, a branch of which is to be formed in Otautau. There were ten bona fide farmers present, and there was some discussion as to the conditions under which farmhands are to be admitted, the opinion being expressed that they might to be out-voted by the farmers. Mr O. Fisher, the sub-organiser of the Union, said that this whs scarcely likely to happen. Mr John Smith, who was the first railway porter here when the line was opened 22 years ago, and who has been for a good many years in the service of Messrs Macpherson and Co., sawmillers, as yardsman at Otautau, was entertained at a social the other evening, and presented with a purse of sovereigns. He goes to Mr Wallis’s mill at Hedgehope. On Sunday last 46 members of the Wallace Mounted Rifles took part in a church parade here, attending the Presbyterian Church, wheie the Rev. Mr McDonald officiated. A good deal of promiscuous shooting has been indulged in in the township of late, to the danger of some of its inhabitants. Will some persons please remember that this is

not the wild and woolly West of the United States, and that no one is anxious to lose the number of his mess yet awhile P