STRATFORD NEWS.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 130523, 27 January 1906, Page 2

STRATFORD NEWS.

(From Our Resident Agent.)

January 26th. — There is ■quite an embarrassment of choice in the matter of a borough councillor to take the place of Mr Wm. Burrough, resigned. No less than five good men and true offer themselves * for election, Messrs Davey, Kirkwood, Leydon, Liardet and Tichbon. It is pleasant to find so much public spirit still existing now that the day of spending is over and it has become a question of how to make ends meet. I utterly discredit the infamous suggestion that the candidates are animated by a desire to sit in high and gold-topped placed at the festive board what time Governor Plunket comes along to lay the hospital foundation stone. The Caledonian sports gathering yesterday ' Suffered in competition with the Band Contest ~srtr -Hawera, but tb|re, was a. lair, /^ienclance," and J shfcnid say tlie pipers put through quite* tbj .usual , cubic- miles. *of .wind. At i|mes it waJ very leyei going-. ber tw se£ the pipers, the Municipal brass baid^and the -betting men.' 'The lat tei were more in evidence than ever, ana food for reflection.. It is ani>%er instance of the^diarming inconsistency of people's "views on the gambling question that among suppojrters of athletic • meetings are to b» fo|inpl men who look upon the racecourse as \th£ antechamber of— well; n<jt|t)he freezing works. Yet themers casuld observer cannojuJbelp seeing with,* half an eye that the average spbrjts meeting is a place where the young idea is very ■qfuickly and comfortably inducted into the delights of backing his fancy, and, if a competi tor, very soon initiated into tbe arts and devices by which an increasing number of loud voiced young fellows are making a very easy livelihood. Our bowlers came a cropper yesterday in a four-rink m'atoh witih New Plymouth. Some say it was -a judgn.'ent, on them fox want of local patriotism in being absent from the sports. paptahr Edwin's weather forecasts have these lasjt few days rivalled' the sporting tipster's in the deadly certainty with which they -have missed the mark. We were to have had i\ hpavy gale and heavy rain yesterday and there was not a half-capfull oi wind and the rain would' n-ot have moistened a, postafge^stanij). Nothing daunted, he still ' p'ersist&d in promising rain to-day. ' Where' is it 1' Fox to-morrow he has westerly winds and a rising glass, (and "at <t&e present moment it looks' as if we' were eibou-t to have a diownpour, from the North. Telegrams from Wellington intimate that another nJan and a-h'alf are to be put on the SttiattEord-IWihianigiamo-mona railway works at once, aS it is essential that the line sihould reach Huiakama before <,he consas iniyLLic preserve the balance of population.