STRATFORD NEWS.

Taranaki Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 10482, 6 December 1895, Page 2

STRATFORD NEWS.

[FROM OUB RESIDENT AGENT.} December 5. — There is something like % crisis in Church of England affairs in the district, a crisis \yhich even the little temporary enthusiasm resultingfrom the visit of His Lordship of Wellington may- not avert. For some time past it has been an. open secret that things were not exactly boomiug ; the church, which was about equal to the needs of the place five yeara ago, is still capable of accommodating all the worshippers, although the population ha 3 trebled; each succeeding treasurer has found the difficulty of making ends meet l growing one. The latest developments ire that the clergyman has sent in hia resignation, and the vestry has notified the Bishop that it is not in a position to guarantee any fixed stipend to hi« successor. The latter rather humiliating confession is the final upshot of negotiations that 'iave been going on with the IngJewoocL committee. It appears that Inglewood 1 has always resented the choice the authorities made of Stratford as the place for the resident minister, and ha 3 manifested a corresponding feoling of soreness at h.wing to some oxtcno to play second fuldle. Kuowiug this, the Stratford vestry, on finding there was to bo a change in the clergyman, offored to take iho back seat and let Inglewood drive the coach, the new minister to live at Ingleivood instead of at Stratford. At a con« ference held here last week tbig was .igreed to (subject of course to official ■anction), but not without a feeling oq Iho part of many church people here that Cnglowood had driven a hard bargain. It appears, however, that all this arrangeinert is upset owing to an attempt to extort further concessions from the Stratford vestry, an attempt which has been met by a resolve to have nothing further to do either with the Inglewood .committee or with the provision of a stipend for the present clergyman's successor. All this is very deplorable and a resuli little anticipated when fi\e years ago the district was worked up to providing ft church and a parsonage. It is an indication of " something rotten in the State of Denmark." In deference to the prejudices of batsmen, the Cricket Club has enlisted the services of a mob of bullocks to eat the long grass off the ground. The Clerk of the Court has taken up his new quarters in the Courthouse. The building is nearly finished, and will bo usod for Court purposos at the New Year. Whatever may be thought of the architectural merits of the exterior, the interior seems conveniently arranged, and this, after all, is the great desideratum. The stained glass windows of the , Court-room are much admired. It was a happy thought on the part of the architoct to introduce a memento of the event which, calamity as it appeared at ,tbe time, first blazoned forth the name of Stratford to the world and so laid th« foundation of the town's future greatness. I allude to the great bush fire of 188(3, scenes from which are depicted in appropriate tints in the lower divisions of tho windows of onr Temple of Justice. It may be alleged by the thoughtless that the scenes are not sufficiently well defiued to bo recognisable, but it is just here where the merit of the artist comes in. To those who, like myself, were oyo-witnesses of tho conflagration, the verisimilitude of these glass pictures is something admirable. It was just a murky symphony of angry reds and gloomy yellows, iv which all that the distraught eye could note were the alternating shades as smoke or flame were successfully iv the ascendant.