'THE MOKAU MYSTERY.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXV, Issue 93, 26 April 1913, Page 8

'THE MOKAU MYSTERY.

£Per Press Association.] Now Plymouth, April 25. The Mokau mystery has been solved. Barry can now sleep in peace and not allow his dreams to be disturbed by visions of some unknown challenger from an unknown place in Now Zealand called Mokau, which possesses a river of which he probably had never heard the name, even though it is famed far and wide in New Zealand

as a beauty spot. Moreover, had he not to struggle hard to wrest the championship from one burly New Zealander, who originally bailed from a place as little known to tno outside world as Mokau, viz., Akaroa, and probably had already begun to conjure up homeric struggles to retain the bauble against this unknown sculler, who must have some renowned prowess to obtain backing to the extent of £IOOO. Why, what difficulty did not Barry have to contend with before ho could secure the necessary backing from the British public in bis own championship challenges? However, he can once more breaths freely for although the challenge was real, the challenger is only a myth, so too is the £IOOO. It emanated in the brains of a few residents of the district of Awakino, a small settlement in the King Country, where hotel licenses are not, and who at a convivial meeting started an argument on sculling. One thing led to another, and the tightness of the money market evidently not being so stringent at Awakino, one member of the party spent the necessary hard cash and forwarded the cable, which has caused such consternation in rowing circles at Home. Why the joker did not fix upon the Awakino River, from alongside which the cable originated, as the venue of the championship passeth understanding.