WAIKAKA NOTES.

King Country Chronicle, Volume III, Issue 190, 13 September 1909, Page 5

WAIKAKA NOTES.

(Own Correspondent.> The standing joke of this district at present is the papa burning farce which was peformed on the main road at the tt mile between Matiere and Ongarue a short time prior to the Road's Department retrenchment scheme coming into force. It seems 50 yards of papa was burnt aa an experiment by the Roads Department at the It mile peg. A navvy was made a kind of temporary foreman with a shilling a day more than his mates. On the strength of this he evidently imagined that he was a fullblown road overseer while the papaburning farce was in progress, with the result that the burnt papa experiment, has coat the Roads Department a --good round sum per yard. Since the papa kiln was opened and th« contents exposed to the weather the burnt papa has commenced to thaw like snow under a warm sun. Our local poet has composed a very good comic song on the subject, which he sang at a concert and dance held here recently. The song is called the "Burnt Papa Expert " The audience fairly reared with laughter white the song was in progress, the singer on concluding receiving a well merited encore. The lambing season has commenced and a fair sprinkling of young lambs are to be seen in a number of the settlers paddocks along the Waifcaka valley. A fair quantity of bush is being felled by various settlers in the Waitjaka this year. Mr J. Phillips has started to fell 100 acres; Blank Bros. tOO acres; Woods Bros. ISO acres; Coventry Bros. 300" acres; Hunter and McFudgen 100 acres. We are alt very sorry to hear of Mr John Smitt, road overseer, meeting with an accident aond we alt wish him a speedy recovery. Mr Smitt has made himself very popular with every settler in the district during the time he has been stationed at Aria. The Ohura County Council election is drawing nigh, and as a consequence County Council matters and the mertts of the rival candidates is the leading topic of conversation here at present. I hear that one of the candidates* is going to tour the Otangiwai riding and deliver an address on council matter* at varous places. One of the other candidates has started operations by giving exhibitions of Highland dancing, bag pipe playing and singing, and cmic Scotch songs. He made his first appearance at a concert and dance neld in the Otangiwai school hous*» last Friday.