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Kaikoura Star, Volume XIV, Issue 736, 8 May 1894, Page 4

Football notes on 3rd page. Report of Dairy Factory Company meeting on 3rd page. On 7th page: Australian News ; N. Z. items ; Frozen meat market; Racing ; and other news.

Mr Maxton yesterday sold the Queen's Birthday Racing Privileges, as follows : Publican’s Booth to T. Whitty, at £2 ; Refreshment Booths to J. A. Haswell at £1 15s for the two.

The members of the North Star Lodge of Good Templars are working assiduously to render themselves thorougly prepared for their entertainment on the evening of the 24th inst.

Messrs Brown & Co. (including, we understand, Messrs R. Brown, B. Burland, G. Galbraith and Win. Gibson) have made a number of tests of a Vegetable Bronchial Astringent prepared by them for the cure of lung worm in sheep, and cattle. They have been remarkably successful in the trials made by them, curing on the first application seventy-five per cent of the cases treated, some of the sheep dealt with being viewed by their owners as beyond cure. The discovery of Messrs Brown & Co., is of great value to sheep farmers ; in view of the depressed state of the wool and meat markets it conies as a great boou.

The Rev Father Delach, who has just paid Kaikoura the first of his semi-annual visits, gave the Maoris of this district a course of services, for one week, at Maungamaunu. During his visit he performed two marriages, receiving in one case the bride and in the other the bridegroom into the Church, they not being residents up.to this time at the Pah. The Rev Father left for the South on Thursday last by Creed’s coach, ere route for Kaiapoi and Little River-two native districts included in his charge. Turkeys are not the easiest birds in the world to rear, so that people who succeed in raising tnem are afforded a measure of satisfaction. It is, therefore, decidedly galling to find such birds vanish through the depradatiotts of marrauders, particularly so when the prowlers about the poultry yard are bipeds. Mrs James Ingram, Kincaid, was much annoyed last week to find that some miscreant had killed three of her finest turkeys, the heads ot the birds being discovered in a pool of blood, She has a very shrewd suspicion, supported by strong circumstantial evidence, as to who the offenders arc, so that it will be unwise for certain parties to pay nocturnal visits to the grounds of Air James Ingram. The Marlborough Express reports the death of an old and respected identity in the person of Mr Neill Ross, who has been in the Wairau for 25 years. He was a native of Wick, Scotland, and in his early days followed the adventuresome calling of a whaler in Greenland waters. He was for many years engaged on Dumgree station ; was wellkuown in Blenheim, and had been an Oddfellow for over 20 years.

Horse sale at Culverden yards on the 18 th.

The County Clerk invites tenders for County works—bridge and harbour improvements.

Mr Thomas Jackson has an idea of organising a crew with the view of reviving whaling here. Lack of employment during the winter suggests this to him.

Kaikoura hotelkeepers are grumbling at having to go to, or be represented at, Amberley in order to obtain renewal of their licenses. Had this County remained a separate Licensing district some of the hotelkeepers here would not have obtained renewals this year.

Mr Preece, the eminent electrical engineer associated with her Majesty's Post-Office, who views the telegraphy of the future as the transmission of messages without wires, is reported to have stated that it is not a wild dream to say that we may yet hear on this earth a thunderstorm in the sun, or even communicate by telephone with the planet Mars !

The hands taken on at The Reserve yesterday to engage in rabbit poisoning on the Inner Clarence country had a glorious day to go over the range. They must have had a splendid view from the summit of ‘ the divide.’ Thirty men were required —a smaller number than in past years, if we mistake not—but there were about a hundred applicants for employment.

The Marlborough Times is informed that it is likely there will only be a couple of boats whaling during the coming season in Tory Channel, and the crews of these even are not yet complete. Owing to the deaths of so many of those fine young natives of Queen Charlotte Sound within the last couple of years the pursuit has become more of a monopoly than formerly.

Last week the Marlborough Daily Times appeared, not only in an enlarged, but, also, much improved form, and resplendent in a new suit of type Our Blenheim morning contemporary is now the property of Mr James H. Clayton, an enterprising and able journalist, who has won credit for himself in Otago, South Canterbury, and Hawkes Bay. In making his bow to his readers our contemporary says : ‘We intend to make the Times a credit to Marlborough and the town in which it is published.' No greater earnest could have been given by the proprietor of the value of words than that furnished by the M. D. T. since the change made in it on the 30th ulto.

Swaggers have never, it is declared, been so numerous in this district as during the past few weeks. One station manager in Kaikoura is reported to have a record of 134 meals given to swaggers since the beginning of the year, while another station manager is said to have even a far higher record. For every hand required there are a hundred ready to do what is wanted. What is to be done with the swagsers no one can tell. ‘ Call them to the Upper House,’ was the humorous suggestion of a resident here the other day ! Poor fellows, many of them would be glad enough of such a call, and, truth to tell, some of them are, probably, just as well qualified to occupy a seat in our Legislative Council as some who are now numbered on the roll of that body. It is not only station proprietors who are providing swaggers with food and shelter. Many hotelkeepers on arterial lines of road are asked by, and do provide, meals and shake-downs for men on the road. The tax upon station holders and hotelkeepers is becoming a heavy one.

Today (May Ist) is May Day. How dead the words fall on our ears. In the Old Country one's blood would flow quicker at the thought, and old men would begin to grow younger again at the prospect of pleasant rambles ’tnong flowersand fields, and the young folk would go mad with delight, at thoughts of the joyous revels incidental to the coronation of the Queen of the May, of garlands and maypole dances, Jack in the Green, and the Maid Marian mummeries. But out here —the words have no such associations. Why don’t we in some modified way, suited to our altered climatic conditions, for the sake of our children, if not of ourselves, keep up the old English customs, and the sportive associations so dear to our own childhood ? It’sjgoodeven for ‘ grownups’ to be children sometimes, and to lay aside the business of money grubbing to get a little real enjoyment out of life. We might another year, with a little trouble, get up a may-pole dance and choose and crown a May Queen, if we could do nothing else. Too late this year, though. —Picton Press.

—Tenders for lease of South Bay Reserve invited by County Council,