NORMANBY.

Patea Mail, 5 January 1882, Page 4

NORMANBY.

(FROM OUR COKRESrOXDENT,)

The New Year was n>htT>d in here by a series of timbrel-lik l ' sounds, probably the most extraordinary that were ever heard in Normanby or anywhere else before. The drumming at tins was kept up for two mortal hours, interspersed with bell-ringing, and now and again a faint attempt at singing some popular ditty in concert. A slight accession of musical talent would not have materially injured the singing, and a change of instruments in other hands might not have been a move in the wrong direction. We are thankful, however, that we shall have 52 weeks grace and suspension of instrumental music, if our repose is to be sweetened by these melodious ebullitions, and the incongruous thumpings of an old pot.

But whatever may be the splendor 0} our musical capacities, it is certain that the beauty of our town roads—if it does not excite the admiration—must at any rate arouse the amazement of strangers. To us, of course, the presence of a series of mud holes about the depth of an ordinary sawpit is nothing new, and it is dubious whether we should not rebel against any daring innovator who should have the temerity to lay his sacrilegious hands upon them and fill them in. It is in the winter, however, that we can shine and show off to advantage. These natural chasms are then replete to overflowing with a pleasing ebony liquid something about the color and consistence of tar. They form altogether a conglomeration of lakes of which we are very proud, and of which we furnish the most industrial evidence, by adding every year to their number and dimensions.

0 tempore ! 0 mores ! . But this is not all. Rub your eyes, oh gentle reader ! It is the beginning of another year, and you must know that we are a great and influential people. You have heard of the railway and the raupo swamp, but compared with our streets, this swamp, of which we have been swaggering so loudly, has not the ghost of a show ; for around these picturesque and lucustral identations we have the graceful dock with its millions of souls—so beloved by the farmer—flourishing in wild and wayward luxuriance ; while everywhere along the lines of our highways the thorn and the thistle are struggling for pre-eminence. These are the streets which decorate our town, and they tend to promote the interests of trade, and enhance the appearance of our shops and hotels ! Is it any wonder that strangers should decline to settle amongst us with this street dilapidation staring them in the face ? But in spite of this, we have excellent places of business and three magnificent hotels; and the curious spectacle in this embryo town with its weed-grown roads is the ghastly attempt of so many hotels to keep open here under such adverse conditions; not to speak of the periodical appearance of the young lady at the bar, arrayed in the finery incidental to persons of her profession, as though dispensing her smiles to admiring customers in the centre of a paved and mighty metropolis !

The secret of the success of Hawera and the Plains has been their roads, and it is reassuring to know that at last a Town Board is being formed in Normanby. If this Board, when constituted, will proceed energetically to work, impose rate, obtain the consent of the ratepayers and borrow a few thousand pounds, form and metal our streets and footpaths, then I venture to predict that in another year we will double our population, and in other respects stand on the same platform as other neighboring communities. The more cleanly and the better the streets of a town are constructed, the more rapid will be its advancement. This is my experience of a life time in New Zealand. A.s soon as Canterbury and Otago had streets metalled in their towns, settlers came literally pouring into them. So it is With the Plains, and so at this moment

it is happening with Hawera, and will with Normanby if she chosos to trust in herself. But if the same old system of inertia is maintained, Hawera will become the chief city of the Plains, and the centre of all attraction, influence, and government; and no one could justly say that she should not deserve it: while on the other hand the progress of Normanby will be distressingly retarded if she neglects her streets.