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Poverty Bay Standard, Volume IX, Issue 923, 5 March 1881, Page 4

The punt at the entrance of the Big River is undergoing repairs made necessary on account of damage sustained through the recent gale. We learn that Madame Lottie Wilmot, the popular Sunday lecturer on “ Forbidden Fruit,” and other attractive subjects, will arrive by steamer from Napier to-morrow' A notice appears to the effect that unallotted shares in the South Pacific Petroleum Company, amounting to 9,500, are offered to shareholders pro rata at 6d per share, fourth call paid. At Messrs. Pitt & Bennett’s mart to-day will be sold a quantity of furniture, cooking utensils &e, There will also be the usual horse sale. On Wednesday at Makaraka there will be offered, steers and store cattle. We observe by our Dunedin exchanges that the well-known indefatigable contractor, Mr. David Proudfoot, is advertising for 1,200 men to proceed to New South Wales. The invitation is to blacksmiths, carpenters, fencers, and navvies. They are promised three years’ steady employment.

The large framework for the necessary pile driving in connection with the bridge over the Taruheru, is rapidly approaching completion. It is constructed on a novel principle, so far as Gisborne is concerned, being capable of allowing monkeys to fall on three separate piles at one time, or, by a.simple contrivance, only one pile. The height of this framework is forty-five feet, and will be moved on a punt with a smaller punt at the back, containing the steam engine. Mr. McAuley, Mr. Davis’ overseer, received a telegram yesterday, stating that a portion of the timber and piles was being shipped, but that owing to bad weather some delay has been occasioned. There is a very old saying that children and another class of people, “ whose name is legion,” should never see things half done and it was verified in a somewhat ludicrous manner yesterday. A would-be-know-all was examining the framework of the pile driving machine for the Taruheru Bridge, and after some time asked what it was intended for. In a chaffing manner he was informed that it was one of the approaches. “ Good Heavens!” he exclaimed, in all innocence, “ it will take a steam engine to drag a horse and dray up that grade. I’ve seen many a bridge, but never one built that way.”. The burst of laughter from the carpenters let him see that he had been fooled, and he departed, looking as if he had lost a pound and found a sixpence.