PALMERSTON.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5288, 7 March 1878, Page 3

PALMERSTON.

(i’RCM OUK OWN CORRESPONDENT.) Palmerston North, March 4. This may read like a conumdrum, but it is not one. Foxton is about twenty miles from Palmerston North and about eighty miles from Wellington. There is railway communication between the two former places, and not between the latter two; and yet the Foxton people find it pays better to send goods to Wellington and get a lower price, than to Palmerston ! How is this? Being in Foxton the other day I found that fruit was very plentiful there. As this year it is rather scarce here, I asked why they sent nine to Palmerston, and was told that the carriage to Wellington was so much cheaper that they sent it all there. Surely there must be something wrong somewhere 1 I understand that the old tramway stables here are about to be converted into a constable’s residence, four cells, and a three or four-stalled stable for constabulary horses; at an expense of about £l5O. The present cells certainly are a disgrace to the place. With regard to the charge against Berquist, of stealing sheep from the Maoris, mentioned by you in your issue of the 26th ultimo, there are so many versions of the affair that I will at present only say that there appears to be several sides to the question. Buih fires have been raging all round us for the last day or two, and perhaps it is as well that we had heavy rain this morning, for otherwise, with this high wind blowing, a good deal of damage might have been done. Aa it is, I regret to say that about £SOO worth of sleepers caught fire at Stoney Creek, and were all destroyed. The loss will fall principally on the English and Scandinavia i settlers in that district, and will I fear be a great blow to them; the sleepers being the result of mouths of labor. There is a report that one man who owned about 2000 of the sleepers has not been seen since since the' fire. ' This may not be true, however.