AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXV, Issue 1073, 8 March 1913, Page 2

AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING.

The Waipa Post draws attention to the fact that the total takings at a fire brigade concert amounted to £lO. A few days previously the public contributed about ,£450 to a circus. Our contemporary wails that the establishment of an itinerant circus is not of the same ultimate value to the town as the establishment of a fire brigade. Apparently Te Awamutu is in the same position as Foxton in respect to the want of a fire brigade. Foxton can console itself, however, on the fact that it possesses a firebell. Talking about a firebell calls to mind some ancient local history recorded in the Herald some thirty odd years ago—to be exact in 1881. In order to settle an argument between two local identities we were asked the other day to give the date of the earthquake that rattled Foxton and incidentally other chunks of New Zealand in the eighties. We discovered that the quake took place early on Sunday morning of June 26, 1881, and the local details make interesting reading—a chemist named Fitzgerald, had most of his bottles broken and drugs spilt, different hotels fared badly as did the stores, and large fissures, several inches wide and extending for miles, were recorded at Motuiti and Opiki. But to return to the firebell. It Was in September, 1880, that Mr C6ley, father of Messrs George a pd Henry of that ilk, at a meeting of the' local Town Board— Foxton had not then been raised to the dignity of a Borough Coun-cil-brought up the desirability of having a firebell in the town, and it was decided to canvass for subscriptions for same. On the 22nd of the same month and year, Mr A. Gray’s store was destroyed by fire, and the Herald, commenting on the fact, urged townspeople to organise some means of protection against fire, and added that Mr J. W. Biddell, during his term of office as Chairman of the Board, ‘‘purchased a bell from Mr Mills, and since his retirement the bell had been quietly reposing under one of the benches in his warehouse,” and a site was suggested for its erection on ‘‘Government land near the goods shed or in front of the Customs House.” The present tower was subsequently erected and the bell hung, and for thirty years past it has tolled forth its warning notes —but Foxton is to-day no farther forward in fire-fighting methods than it was wheu the bell was hung. “ As it was in the beginning, etc.”