IN THE EARLY DAYS.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 845, 17 June 1910, Page 4

IN THE EARLY DAYS.

INTERESTING REMINISCENCES. (By TeleeraDb:—SDecial Correspondent). Christchurch, June 16. Mr. Farr, who arrived in Akaroa by the Monarch in ISSO, has been telling some'of his vivid recollections of the life in tho early days. One of .-Vkarca/s early buildings was a gaol, not a surprising thing when it is remembered that a number of Hobart convicts and ex-convicta had drifted across. "One Saturday," said Mr. Farr, "I met the constable and five prisoners who were doing some outside' work. 'Now boys, time's up,' said the officer, giving the signal to discontinue work. 'I say, boss,' 6aid one of the prisoners, r give us a little tiiuo to-day, there's an old lady wants some wood chopped, and she will give us something extra for dinner tomorrow.' The constable weakened, 'Very well,' he said, 'mind you are all in'when. I come down to lock up at five o'clock.' 'All right,' they declared, 'you will find us safe enough. We will lock up and put the key in the little hole.' I thought I would like to see how the affair would end. The men chopped the wood for the old lady, and she gave them something for their dinner, better than bread and water. They went into the lock-up some time after, and I went along to inspect the little bole. Sure enough the I:ey was there all right.'* T'he pioneer in those days had to 1m a' handy inan, ready to turn his hand to anything that cropped, up. Mr. Fan was an architect, and he has, in the many public buildings and private houses he planned, a memorial in Canterbury which should be a lasting one. Mr. Farr was engineer for the first sawmill erected in. Canterbury at Bobinson's Bay, and he helped to start tho first flourmill. The sawmill was burned down in a-bush fire, but the flourmill, the old mill of Akaroa, had a happier existence. The owner and his son who erected the mill did not understand the gearing of wheels, and the son was leaving for the Old Country to get an iron wheel. Mr. Farr, on the voyage out, had studied something' about the gearing of wheels from Maunder'a 'Treasury of Knowledge'," and he was able to apply the theory in a practical way. "In three weeks," lie said, ■ "wo had the mill going, and if you had seen the old gentleman jump with joy when he \ saiv the meal .coming out from the stone? you would have laughed. The irofix wheel, which the soil brought from Home, was never used.". . / Mr. Farr had also something to' do with the early sav,-milling industry on. the Peninsula, and one of, his regrets now is that the Home Governnr.nt did' not in those early days do soro-ithing to preserve the Peninsula in its primeval loveliness.