Page 6 Advertisements Column 2

Colonist, Volume L, Issue 12159, 6 February 1908, Page 6 (Supplement)

A grass ti re-occur red yesterday morning at Tahuna, and spread with > great rapidity. The flames for a time threatened several residences, and the schoolhouse, the latter being saved with great difficulty by a number of helpers, who beat back the flames with sacks. The "Press" reports a case heard at Lyttelton, which shows the manner in which some prisoners spend their leisure hours iD gaol. The case was that ot a criminal named George Ferris, who had been seut3nced last year at Wellington to 15 years' imprisonment for burglary, and who had evolved a scheme for escaping from his cell by boring holes with a brace and bit through the wooden portion of his cell door. With this end in view, the prisoner manufactured a' hrace in the. sboemaking shop and stole two bits from tiie tool shop. He obtained a quantity of putty to fill up the holes bored by him' in the cell door, and some red paint to rub over the putty in order to conceal his handiwork. The pri soner also made a sandbag, soaped like a great sausage, with which he intended to silence tbe warder in charge of bis cell. The sandbag was a formidable looking affair, and would have been a most effective weapon. Fortcraately the prisoner's plans were frustrated by the vigilance of the warden Mr Bishop sentenced the prisoner to be kept in close confinement in a "light" cellar for 4 days, and to be fed on bread and water for that period. Mr F. J. Quick, of Lake Takapuna, has brought back with him from Canada some very fine varieties of seed potatoes from the experimental farm at Agassiz. They include Kural New Yorker, Country Gentleman, Sir Walter Raleigh, Rose N0.9, and Sabian's Elephant. They are early kinds, free from blipht, and splendid croppers, Mr Quick has also introduced 1000 plants of the ' ,Magoon" strawberry. This is one of the finest berries . grown >n America— similar to the Marguerite, but larger, »