TEXAS ON N.Z.

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 869, 13 January 1930, Page 11

TEXAS ON N.Z.

The Cow Which Won The District Prize LOTS OF DRINKING HERE! Temple. Bell County, Texas, has learned lots of things, astonishing and amusing, about New Zealand. The arrest oi John Grey at Helen: - ville and his trial in Temple wero responsible for intense searches m year books and library records lor information about New- Zealand. Tho Temple reporters have excelled them* selves. Who would think that a New Zealand cow, producing fully 3.241 b of butter-fat in on*’ season, would win the district prize ? A Temple paper observes that ih.s was done and goes to the extent of placing this heading above the information: “Cows Pay Mortgages." New Zealand farmers w ill not be inclined to ugree, but that is beside the point. And who knew that the Government of Great Britain, annoyed by political enemies, banished these troublesome persons to New Zealand? The Texans think so, but that is beside the point, too. An earnest reporter made this comment on this aspect of New Zealand: “But, despite the fact that it may have been first partially settled by criminals and political objectors, the country is very peaceful now and strong for law' and order.” An item from an almanac informed Texans that New Zealand was a British province, lying south-east of Australia. SHERIFF AND OBSERVER % Sheriff John Bigham’s genial personality intrigued Auckland during hid long stay here; embellished by hi* undertaking a 15,000-mile journey t<i arrest a man after 13 years, it has intrigued Texans even more. Sheriff Bigham’s view's on New Zealand have been keenly sought, and (Auckland will appreciate this) he has been kind to the country. His information has been extremely accurate, too. The sheriff had these remarks to make on New' Zealand: “There are not as many murders in all New Zealand as in Bell County. “Lots of drinking goes on. The bars are called ‘pubs’ and maids f vi» the drinks in many.” “It’s a great horse-racing cc try. . . Grey-haired women seem get more kick from the rac than anyone else.” “The traffic laws are very strict. I’ve driven for 20 years, but I bad in get a licence there.” “I tasted the finest butter in thsj world.” "The Maoris are a dark-hued race, intelligent and adaptable. They are very large in stature, and are fighters by birth and inclination. They were not subdued until the ’SO’s. ’in th* old flays the chiefs would send out challenges for w'ar, and arrange their fighting schedules, in a similar way to the fixing of football dates among American colleges." COLUMNIST’S PRAISE

Let a columnist on a Temple paper tell the sheriff's story in his own way:

John Bigham of Belton is back home from an adventure ■which w’ould stir the enthusiasm of any kid. He ha* gone on the sort of adventure as a boy I never dreamed of . . . and as a man I despair of. It clutches my fancy and sends me off on a dream tour of strange lands across the world. But there’s still enough boy in Sheriff Bigham’s make-up that he realise* he’s been off on a great lark. Of course, he had very serious business to do . . . but it was a lark, anyway. As he spins his yarns about New Zealand and Hawaii, and the other lands he visited, you’re reminded of a kid who’s just home from his first trip to his grandfather’s farm, where he played in the hayloft for the first time, and rode the plough. This John Bigham isn’t the bighatted, twogun, two-fisted Texas sheriff that the story books tell about. He’s just an ordinary guy. Bigham has received in three months a world education four years in college couldn’t provide. He’s bad a dose of navigation, geography, history, economics, sociology, law, and a half-dozen other sciences in the brief space of three months. He’s had a chance to perceive the customs of a half-clozen peoples, their laws, their business, their life. John Bigham has done a good job. He’s done a job which others tailed at. But, more important, he did the job he set out to do. He did it, not as a big-hatted, two-gun Texas sheriff might have done it, but as a business man would have done it. Being a sheriff of Bell County is as much of a business as any other job, if a man tries to make it so. There’s a lot of romance to any business if you go at it with a smile and do it up right . . . and you don’t haVe to go to New Zealand, either.