HAWERA.

Patea Mail, Volume VI, Issue 533, 15 June 1880, Page 2

HAWERA.

[from OUR CO R RE S PO.KEKK T.] The storekeepers in the town are about to start an early closing movement, so as to give their employees a chance of getting a I'ttle fresh air. No doubt the employees will appreciate this concession, as the present hours, 8 to 8, are rather long. I\ T conecquence of the badness of tha Mountain Road the coaches are to make Normanby their stopping place for the night, and the journey will occupy two days from Wanganui to New Plymouth. I am glad to see Mr During once again on the box. We have complaints here of a driver trying to imitate Mark Twain’s coach driver. One traveller told me he had a scab on the top of his head from bumping against the roof of the coach ; and that on remonstrating with the driver, he was told that on the pre\ious trip a lady had put her head right through the roof. Consoling, very ! ■Several' ladies and gentlemen are practising for a concert in aid of the Hawera Institute. Some of the glees are expected to be first-class in their rendering ; and I trust there will be a good muster, as the Institute deserves patronising, to say nothing of the attractions of the fair vocalists. The meeting that was called by the Normanby folk for last Thursday evening to discuss the question of a municipality for the two places, fell through, no doubt in consequence of the bad weather. I believe the shares in the Normanby Town Hall Company are being rapidly applied for. The provisional directors are confident that they will be able to make a start ere long with the building. Messrs Webster and McKellar, last Tuesday, took over from the contractors, Messrs Mclntosh and Co., the building, bn the Te Whiti stream, to be known in future as the Hawera Flour Mills. The building is a substantial one, 38 x 30 ; and all the latest improvements in milling plant have been ordered from England, and the Messrs Webster hope to have the affair in fall swing by next January. They are confident of success, if fire farmers will only support them by trying to grow grain crops somewhat more than they do at present. A billiard handicap is to be played at Prosser’s Hotel this week. There arc sixteen gentlemen in for it, and as the handicapper seems, to have given general satisfaction, no doubt the acceptances will be close up to that number. People are in a great state of uncertainty with reference to the filling up of the Property Assessment papers, as they expect some modification to be made.