Waimate Jottings.

Patea Mail, 12 August 1880, Page 3

Waimate Jottings.

fFROM A COUUESI’ONDKNT.] It is said that Captain Marshall resignes to enter on the calling of insurance agent. Mr McMurdo, an agent lately at the camp, was formerley an officer in the A.C. force. There must be something enticing in this business. Dr Hacon, an Englishman from Guy’s, and successor to Dr Keating, is engaged for a month or two only. The public may draw inferences. Several men have been on sick-leave lately. Some attribute this illness to the fact of a former camp having been pitched in low swampy ground. The next site chosen was decidedly breezy, the tents being often blown down. It might have been as well if the men had not been supplied with New South Wales campaign tents.. Some say they of the kind used there during summer. These are scarcely suitable for our climate during winter. The men used to get so wet through the thin canvass, that they contrived shelters, -which they propped with poles inside the tents. These poles wore holes in the tents,and it is said that some of the officers were surprised at the appearance of the mys tcrious apertures. For the sake of the men’s health, vegetables should be thrown into the dietary. They do not fare so badly for recreation, with bagatelle board and bowling alley in one camp, and billiards in the other. Add to these, bands in each camp, which play an hour daily. The one in the near cam]) consists entirely of brass instruments : the other has the advantage of some wood. I understand that officers are requested not to gratify any curiosity they may have to visit Paribaka. Curious, that! Opunaki is not entirely destitute of amusements, having no less than two billiard tables; the one at Bartlett’s Hotel and the other at the store opposite. The billiard room at Bartlett’s is a new one, fitted very comfortably with benches, having cushioned backs and seats ; the floor covered with new material on which the foot-fall is silent; a fire burns in the grate, and there is plenty of light. A comparison with Patca ancut billiard rooms and accessories proves unfavourable to the County town, Bartlett has sold the hotel to the brothers Middleton, just from [the Old Country. Mr Bartlett goes to live in Hawera till land is available at Opunaki, when they say he will be there again. Opunaki will doubtless get a share of any money that may be diverted from the Taranaki harbor scheme. The pretty bay here will soon be made servicable by supplementing what nature has already done, adding masonry to the reefs which run out on either side. Even now the Government steamer anchors here, as you know, and the Clyde takes a cargo of Waimate pigs for Lyttelton now and then. Hursthouse has cut a track 22 miles long from Stratford to Opunaki. It is rather rough, and takes about two days to travel. Skinner is cutting a track about two miles this side of Oco, which will probably join that of Hursthouse. There arc a good many big ratas on this line. Four or five miles of the road being formed by the unemployed from Stratford to Opunaki is finished at one end, and seven or eight at the other.