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Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 118, 16 February 1928, Page 15

Excitement ran high in a popular homesteal at Tutukaka one morning lately (says the “Northern Advocate”). The'guests had just risen from the breakfast table when a great commotion occurred in the kitchen, into which had rushed an excited Jersey bull. Hie animal performed a variety of evolutions, the nature of which decided the kitchen staff that discretion was the better part of valour. The uproar continued for some minutes, when the intruder took his leave. Not an article was broken or displaced. Following on the report that a Maori woman swam across Cook Strait from Durville Island to Kapiti, it is stated in Wanganui that a white man, the son of an old whaler named Powell, who spent many years with the Maoris on the East Coast, also swam the Strait (says an exchange). He was a friend of the late Mr. Martin, a Maori, and the husband of the late Julia Martin, “The Grace Darling of New Zealand,” who carried out rescues at the time of the wreck of the Delaware near Pepin’s Island. Martin, himself had crossed the Strait on various occasions in a canoe and one day while he was at Waikanae Powell agreed to swim the Strait if Martin’s canoe would accompany him. 'Hie pair camped at Terawhiti and earlv one fine summer morning they set out, Martin in the canoe and Powell swimming. He was successful in landing on the South Island before dusk. They " then proceeded in the canoe to Cable Bay, where Martin owned a large block of laud.