A NEW ZEALANDER ABROAD

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 150, 25 February 1916, Page 2 (Supplement)

A NEW ZEALANDER ABROAD

A VISIT TO COLORADO. (By "TE WHARE.") During our stay in Colorado Springs we were struck by the beauty of the arrangement of the city. For instance, ite beautiful street lamps are artistic pillars, surmounted by a cluster ol six huge electric lamps in large round opaque globes, and these put very closo together, the lovely green of the trees in the parks all lit up with strings of coloured lights, and the country round being full of scenery of all kinds. One does not wonder that the place is crowded with tourists, nor that it is the place we love best since Honolulu. To-day ir. walking up the gateway of 1 lie '■GARDEN OF THE GODS," we just escaped a terrific thunderstorm, very grand and impressive, whilst it lasted, but we were very thankful to pick up an auto car that happened to be going homeward. Grand hotels and apartment houses, every other shop and in every nook and cranny, curio shops full of quaint Indian work local gems and minerals, for which this place is noted. Here agam. as in all other parts of the States, the Y.M.C.A. and the Y.W.C.A. are much in evidence. Their fine buildings are six storeys high, in which they cater for meals and are well supported because of their low prices, cleanliness, courtesy, and non-tipping principles. We visited each of the •■springs, all of which are free, although in each instance built over and surrounded by curio and post-card stalls and planted round about w.th trees, flowers, etc. Iron and soda springs ar. l here also —an iron one and also the two combined. We noted one curiosity shop kept by Charles Dickens (just a namesake of the immortal novelist). At one of these we were shown a petrified man under a glass case. This specimen is perfect, and was only found some two years ago in one of the caves and considered to be as old as the rocks around. We visited a portion of the "Garden of Ihe Gods," owned by the Chamber of Commerce and free to the people. From one end to the other, this is about five miles of quaint outcrops of red rock —the natural colour of the locks in this State, and hence the name Colorado. Here one sees the Bsilanced Rock. Sentinel Rock, The Gateway, Amphitheatre, etc. Yesterday, they had a bit of A CARNIVAL in the afternoon. 1 witnessed my first game of football (which is really "rounders" elaborated upon) and this was between a local nine called the "Eeks," and the like number of "Utc" Indians, and it proved very interesting. In the evening a huge parade of motor cars took place and at night they had closed in one whole street, erected a grandstand on each side, polished up the already shiny oiled road, charged 50 cents admission, and had a masked ball in the open air. Tli.s I thought a unique way of getting space and comfort with little expense. The population of Colorado Springs and suburbs is 37,000, but in the summer time this is enhanced by many more thousands each week and certainly is the best scenic place in the whole of the States. The electric trolley system links up the suburbs of Manitou and Colorado City, and radiates for long distances in every direction, and is in itself (without the many special scenic trips by auto cars, horse conveyances and ra 1ways) very enjoyable and inexpensive ways of viewing the city and surroundings. We buy many guide books, but seem to have no time to read them until we have left the place and then we usually find places that we should have seen but didn't! We did not do the immortal Pike's Peak, for we took so many others and such beautiful canon and other scenery that we felt quite satisfied to leave it out. and there are so many trips of a sameness that one needs to be very discriminating or you feel that you have been "had." We heard a very fine band concert in a fairyland of a park planted for the most part with English trees and lighted by thousands of fairy-like electric lamp.s running from end to end through the trees. The MENUS of even the smaller of the cafes in the States are a study in themselves. Whilst waiting for an order the other night I listed into my note-book from the supper menu a choice of no les.j than 20 soups, 12 fish, 30 chops, steaks, etc., 3 chicken, 20 potatoes, 15 savouries, 15 cold meats, 24 vegetables, 11 egg 3, 21 omelettes, 24 sandwiches, 10 canned fish, etc., 17 fruits, 30 pastry. 10 farinacious foods, 19 salads, 20 relishes, 3 cheese, 20 drinks (hot oi cold), as well as heaps of ice creams, etc. We took a car to Stratton Park fa very line one) and then walked through the beautiful Ciiejannp Canon to SEVEN FALLS and afterwards to the grave of the poetess and writer. Hsiee Hunt -Jackson. She, ai any rsie, w»» so in love with the glorious scene that she not only visited it daiiy and wrote most of her works in it, but requested to be buried there. It is a grand walk of about a mile through a mighty (left in the Rocky Mountains, with its perpendicular granite walls and red standstone towering thousands of feet in the air on either side of you, and at the end of the walk the Seven Fa'ls, one above the other and each stage reached by hundreds of steps. This is a good place to get your photo taken riding a burro (donkey) with the falls as a background! The trees on this walk are pines, scrub oak, maples and wild cherries. Changed another I'2o circular note to-day only to find exchange still coming down, only l-t>o to the 111. Wo took a line auto trip to the mining centre of CRIPPLE CREEK". ('0 miles going and 50 inile n returning, price 5j dollars for each person, by way of the petwiied forest and 10~-il bids and the wiW flower gard 'ii, San plenty of oh pmuAs (a specie-, of ground squirrel), aid parsed a lar.'o 'utile ranch of 30.000 ai re - and line agricultural country in patch' Cripple Creek shipped away no le-,. than 1 1V millions of dollars' w"it 11 m gold last year. The gold bearing dislrot ilimited to a 5-in.le radio--, no ■ ign of gold be Tig found outside tlu-e limit -, but here I bey lir-t found 11 under th" very grass roots and haw- loiit.nued to get it sine,- a'l tli" way down until now in the mire open for inspection tli".v are down no le-s than 1000 feet. 11l I'.ii 12. however, when a lair ru h was on tin",' had a populat on of 3H,01K) people, but now about 51)0!I are the only actual residents. Lp in this region the quaking ar-pen is the forest tree. On , another occasion we visit"d the beaut'- I fill Printers' Home, .situated on Nob'; I Hill and which is kept up by a v-rv i small levy on every pr liter in America, and which 's a liii" coniiortable ivi ige i

for indigent print"!.- uhen too old (or afflicted) to work. A very fine <anitari 11111 is :'ii a in eonneet ion -a it i i the place, and the whole grounds with t; l.i'.;i|tifnl avenue of maples over I'IH feet hi'd; and its flower and keyset a !i!e

aideiis ami i'ni't plantation-, iii.d-

a very desirable place to rest- in the beautiful library, reading and smoking rooms. Its billiard-room, in fact tho whole vast building is replete with all the comforts of many a modern mans on. We visited the city cemetery and again remarked on tho very simple and modest grave-stones that seem to be a feature out here. It is very rarely one meets with what we term a monument and there is no such thing as vying with your neighbour as to whom should put up the most elaborate angel (or what not) over their dear departed. The Union Printers' Home before mentioned has 250 inmates at present and fully half of them are being treated for tuberculosis, and ths magnificent home and hospital is supported by a small levy of II) cents per month from the membership in America and Canada, totalling 70,01)0 of both sexes, which puts before one how easy a b'g tiling can be accomplished with little effort when a large number agree upon a .scheme. The open-air treatment is adopted, and 6") per cent, ol the cases are cured. The institution received at the start a donation of 10,000 dollars and from time to time good-hearted printers and publishers of means do the same. Thunderstorm, with vivid lightening and awful peals are prevailing every day here, and the weather, they tell us, has been somewhat similar all the summer, but let ween these tropical downpours the climate is just delightful. and as long as one goes out prepared for accidents everything is all right. We took on the " High Drive" with a two horse " r:g" thiough the North Cheyenne Canon past Helen Hunt's Fall and severs*! others, and Lowered up through the hills to a height of 10,000 feet above sea level, a cost of two dollars each, and much enjoyed it. Here a lot of the finest trees were cotton trees, with a leaf similar to the poplar, but a bloom much resembling cotton. We learned on ths trip that a burro is not a donkey after all. but a cross between that animal and the mule. At tho summit ;;t our drive lives Mrs Ellen i'. .Jack, an old <ady of 76, who claims to be the only freemason on earth. She is the widow ot Capt. Charles E. Jack, of the Farrngut Fleet, F.S. Navy. Sho is a born prospector, sold one of her mines ;n California for 100,000 dollars, and is now living in these Colorado mountains with a line mansion in Colorado Springs that she rarely visits. She still has Tier prospecting outfits, working round about the gorges. She also claims to be a great gunwoman. and also to have t>not a bushranger and an Indian during her career. She is also a poetess and writer. Two poems she gives inCeersted visitors are " Masonic Welcome Here." and "The Indian Girl's Prayer.'' Another one is "The Veteran's Cry,'' and her book is entitled "The Fate of ihe Fairy." This latter, by the way, cost me a dollar and a half, but worth tho money. From Mrs Captain Jack's house we can look across a vast plain at the bottom for 2*o miles as the crow flies. There are three go.ldlsnicV.ting works at Colorado Springs and sixteen at Cripple Creek. Colorado City (which a street only divides from its neighbour Street No. 1, starting in opposite directions on each side of the way) some 30 years ago was a very warm shop, filled with spielers, gamblers and grog shops, out it "went dry," and is now the ,pretest and most desolate place one can think of, most of its business being diverted to Marritou on the one side (which by tl.e way is "wet") and the Springs on tho other. By the bye, although Colorado Springs never has had license a single quart of liquorcan be bought from any drug store, nor to be consumed on the premises. In tne concrete gutters of Colorado City a 0010 is made opposite each tree that lines the road and in dry weather threw or iour times a week water is diverted rrom the Springs. That keeps the trees ungated and it struck me this plan is YHir-uh copying in our town. V.'e stare ni on the'morning of the 25th August

ON OUR WAY TO CHICAGO, and uid -!00 miles that day, getting out at Belleville. Kansas, staying at ;>■ comfortable little hotel called the Van rieo Inn, and all the way passed througn tnousands of acres of lovely plains or Agricultural and grazing land, maize oeing a predominant feature. J'hc tieavy rains, however, of the past week or i.wo had played havoc with the crops, and for miles we passed grain in the suiok absolutely rotten with the rain. \\ 7 e took tickets on the Rock Island Railway, and although we could not take tickets through to Chicago, as wl proposed breaking our journey, we wore allowed to check our luggage from trio office of the company right through from our residence to Chicago, but had to pay 50 cents a package for the cartage thereof. We received our checks irom the local office on purchasing oui tickets, which we thought a plan worthy of us adopting. They are maK nig an auto road now to the summit ol Pike's Peak, in Colorado, and on the Ist September the road will he opened to the public for 11,000 feet above the sea, and tho cost of the round trip is to he no l°ss than 4.50, and private autos will be charged one dollar toll for ea-h person. The equipment ot out train, which was numbered S and call ed " The Rocky Mountain Limited,' »v;is as follows: —Electric lighted throughout, stoves in each car for cold weather, a tram of 12 sect ons ail built, or steel and with drawingi oom, stateroom, sirepmg, chair, dining and smok :ng cars. It was a lovely day, with a rice cooi breeze and wo kept our double window open all the time with tho biind drawn occasionally. We put watches on one hour at Pliill pshurg. changing irom mountain to centra! timer We had no new-paper or cand> nuisancts of boys to annoy us, and after the conductor with his satellite had passed through the train and had looked at our tickets and stuck tho Cnlitorn a chock into the bands ot our hat, we were at liberty to roam all over the tram —to read, doze, or smoke without further annoyance til arrival at our destination the next morning. \\ o had a two hours' walk round Helleville and found it a very prosperous little old town, every street with plants and with lofty and boaiitilul tree-., j lackin" however, the oeaut I'd oiled and asphalted roads t'ua: we had been gelting us. d to. In fa 1 ■t. they were dlstincilv very ininldv iiom the prellt rams." W< 'could not help wonder ng in passing through that tor a country renowned for unions and strikes how it happened t hat shops may open and j -be going on in each and evev lino of business every day and even night and every Sunday' We le.t by i 1.20 a.m. Ira n for

!>;:!, MOINES. CWCACO. (iii(i I. 1 llm Stall > 'it lov.a. ;V-hia.-ka all J illmois, all 1 past r-everal larLie and influent ia! eit e.-, null as iiili<■'i!m l Oinalia, ete., ami had ;.M>od ;|imp- - (if the Mi- nun ali'l M i--i- -i|i : [.\ct-. anil through li mid reds el inile(,f 'r|,')i mis airi'ii iil' ural and ];a-l"ral country and linally arrived at ( I: < a;Mi ;',t ill oYloek the next nil.l num. Tlie .ipproaeii to the eity i - ver\ diiiy and i u • i :i ]V: < i. (i •< 1, and tie' <'it,v iti-eli ha|„!lLr j 11 rl |,a.--ed l!S >d IUUIIe <>i' I >O- - t j|,. In ,-t liii'll and n:o-t modern ot ilio The nn'se in the i-olihle .-tn-et-, cr-]iecia'!>" if when one str keiin;so :ii whieh th'" overhead train runs, ia just lieaf. nine; and the imi of 1 ia);ie makes it quite an adv. iitnre tn »ro„ a fleet. After a day or so ol it e*l1■ red to pu-h on for Buffalo and

Niagara Falls. We had hoped to do tins part of our trip round the Lakes, but found that the last boat of the season had left the week before and we [ wore not worried much over this, lor j the weather was bitterly cold and we had to wear overcoats during the time of our stay. We were informed, however. that such cold weather is quite exceptional, and that we are really getting October weather in August. We visited the Art Gallery on the great Miohigin Boulevard, facing the lake, but admission to winch is 25 cents, vliich pleased us not at all. The statuary, pictures and art treasures, however, are very line and renowned throughout America. \\ e also took on the H hour dollar trip round the boulevards of the city by auto car and were pointed out the mansions of many u millionaire and of people well known in commerce, art and the stage. \\ e were also told that the fine Post Office, covering a block, cost >4 millions and took S years to complete. We sugg(*sted that an aeroplane trip would show H 8 the city better, as the streets not being wide, it is almost impossible to crane one's neck sullVientiy in the crowd to see the height ot the seventeen storey buildings that everywhere abound in the heart of the city. Chicago has a population of over double the whole of New Zealand. By waiting in a queue in the middle ol the iiiorainir lor nearly an hour we managed to net dollar tickets for a matinee of a great picture called " Ihe Hirtli ol an Empire," depicting the troubles of America from the tme of the abolition of slaverv and during the Civil \\ ar an onward. This was the very grandest t.ifng of the kind we had ever witnessed, and worth going a long way to see. »or although the picture-; were not very large in size, the detail was great. Mr. D W. Phillips goes to tremendous expense over these pictures of Irs and spares no effort to make them great successes and puts them on at his own theatre. The Colonial. Ihe very special music is discoursed by a fine orchestra of 50 instrumentalists. We si'so v.int in the evening to a fine musical comedy at the Garrick called " The Only Girl." The sixteen vocal numbers wore | well suns: and the acting was very I laic. We left on the Ist September for

NEW YOBK. v ; ;i Niagara Falls and Alhai.v. l>.v tho last express, doing the 540 miles to Buffalo* in 12 hours. This company (the New York Central) however, runs a much faster train even than this failed ihe "Twentieth Century Limited. We travelled along tiie shore., of Lake Krie all the afternoon till arrival at Buffalo, through very fine country with miles of vineyards, orchards, nurseries and flower gardens, and through fine (Hies and villages, notably Cleveland, with its beautiful suburbs and parks that the train skirted on its way eastward. Whilst on the way we had a chance to glance at the guide book, when T found that Chicago has seven parks with an area of 3,191 acres in all, G8 miles of boulevards, linking one with the other, and surrounding the city, a great portion of which faces I,alee Michigan in the form of an arc. so that really one can get from the heart and bustle of the city to one or Another of these peaceful, pretty and quiet resorts by car in a very few minutes. If one has a long distance to go it is better to take the elevated e'ectnc (system, away from the noise, and the stoppages being only at proper stations nnd at longer intervals than the street svstem. Everyone, too, that vs.ts Chicago is as welcome on the grass as on the footpath and one never can find the sign everywhere "Keep off the Grass!" The largest building for oonrentions or Irg assemblies is the ( °l'seuni, with a seating capacity of 1-1,000. and in the biggest theatres no one needs to go unt 1 a few minutes before the performance starts (which is invariably 8.1 o p.m. and 2 p.m. ior matinees) for all seats being sold ;u succession and numbered, no one turns up till the last minute. If you went in at S o'clock you would find scarcely rinyone inside the building, and throughout the performance the only persons seen standing w:ll be an usher nere and there, and these are invariably courteous and kindly ladies. Ihe well-known Masonic Temple is still spoken of as the tallest in the city, being 21 storeys high, and visitors are admitted by electric 1 It to the roof garden for a fee ot 25 cents, which money goes to the benevolent fund. One can get a great view of the city from here, which would be better, however, if the city was more clear of smoke from the vast factories round about. Chicago is renowned, too, for u-s stock-yards and packing houses. They cover an area of 500 acres and have 300 miles of railroads and a daily capao tv of 75,000 cattle, 300,000 hogs, 12.5000 sheep, and 6000 horses, and this entire amount is disposed of between the hours .of 9 in the morning and 3 o'clock in the afternoon. Anyway, to resume : We arrived at Buffalo in tiie evening and had to pay three dollars for a room for the night! Next morning we took electric car to Niagara Falls (22 miles) and then had a drive to the upper rap ds, which are half a mile long and have a drop in tnis distance of 40 foot before their big drop of IG7 feet down the America Pulls, and 158 down the Horse Shoe Falls. We drove through the beautiful natural and planted bush of (loaf Island. that covers 107 acres, past the entrance to the Cave of the Winds, bad great views of both falls, and in tho distance could see the immense p-.wer houses on both s'des. Those on the Canadian s : de number seven and r'ipply electric power to as far away as Syracuse (175 miles) and to Toronto (i-'O miles). The large one on the American side (which more about later) supplies Buffalo with power. Annie l'ay, who shot the America Falls in a barrel, is still here, making a poor ! : v j ng by selling her postcards and ex hibit ng the barrel!, but as the original iias stolen and the poor old girl tried to exploit things heise'f, instead of trusting herself to a syndYate, she make-, a poor showing compared with L\nch. who bad everything arranged { iietore lie -tarted in h s ..feel made con- | irivaiir" and had the cinematograph man read\ and the crowds of people and the a ute.rnoinh s and all the acces,sores lor a i-ig pie f ure it iie came nut alive, am! the signed contract with h-s managers. Ho came off all right and I ue'ieve is at tils iiimut" getting I'T'O per week salary as part of the show n-tw rui'n.iig : n the Old Country. Wo ivaikcd ever the bridges that oossno-t. : in- Mauds called the Three Sisters, and I.ad fine views from these. The weather hero, al.-o has been ceid and ua - vaMinriMe. but was beaut fully warm i s-tla.v. Hy the way. to get a >ig erowd in the winter they must have U unusiiallv seven 1 , for tho harder the ho t the bigger the sight, for when the fad., are absolutely frozen, which has '•eon known to he oil very rare oecas on«. the sight i- wonderfully sublime. Here aKo is one of ihe largest pulp paper mills, wherein all clashes of paper h made from wood pulp, but on our trip vsitors were not a I'owed admi--sion on the American side. We noted the streets all being paved with red brick, which they find very near and durable. We vis ted the big power house here and had to pay 25 cent-; admission, which amount goes to their benevolent fund. This was a very eyeopening and educative trip in charge of a competent guide, but 'tis n >1 posslide outside of a hook to gve you a sen.Hil.ilc description of H.