The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE. MONDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 1915. WEDNESDAY'S SHOW.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 7, Issue 145, 22 February 1915, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE.

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 1915. WEDNESDAY'S SHOW.

("With which is incorporated The Tai hapo Post '/na \7aimarino News.)

The prospects for the agricultural and pastoral show that is to take place on Wednesday being the best and most successful our held under the auspices of our local association are extremely promising; so far as human control can operate, all surrounding circumstances certain!; - tend to that view. It is most satisfactory to note that the entries of exhibits this year constitute a record, as it discovers to us the fact that our back country is rapidly reaching; that stage of Settlement and cultivation when the utmost can be expected from it. There is an pie evidence that the Taihape show will, during the next few years, rapidly rise to a much higher plane of importance and usefulness than it has occupied in the past. For this year the executive committee has left nothing undone to secure the best, possible accommodation for live stock exhibits, for their care and safekeeping, and it is to be hoped that fitockowners and farmers will realise this and give that reward which the committee's labours so much deserve. A visit to the show-ground has convinced us that special provision for the comfort and convenience of visitors is to be of a character past cavilling or carping at; practically no room for novnojaint is left, Plenty of seat-in*} will be arranged under the stately and beautiful shelter trees with which the show-ground is ri«».hly furnished, so that the geuil.M- sex may find rest. The T'iuuket Nurse Society will bo in charge of a large rest tent for f.ioUurs with young children, v.-here iu>t water and every convenience lor th.fi feeding and needs of infants will he provided, and a number of Taihape ladies will conduct a tea and lunch eon marquee, where plean, wholesome refreshment may h» nhininod-nV r>]-niv n*

as the money they take is all to go to the Belgian Fmui, thoy are sure to have all the work to do they can reasonably wish for. Indeed, the .committe seem to have overlooked nothing for the welfare and comfort of visitors, and if the public's recognition of their efforts does not result in a record attendance we shall be

wry much surprised, more especially as special trains on the railway arc to bring visitors from both north and south at excursion fares. So much as the country needs rain we cannot resist the hope that Wednesday will brot.k fine, so that the committee may reap the full reward of their arduous efforts to make the forthcoming show something better than all those of the past.

DOMAIN FIRES. Despite all fervent and earnest appeals, warnings of clanger and threats of prosecution some stupid or wanton people have daringly taken the- serious risk of putting a fire through the splendid native bush in the Domain on no less thati two occasion:? since Saturday morning. In Saturday's issue of this journal we reported that a large log in the bush had been deliberately set on fire, and we gave a general warning that a standing reward of £1 was awaiting any one who supplied information that would lead to the discovery of the person or person's who caused it, but this did not prevent some one. being so silly and so indifferent to the destruction of public property from setting fire to a stately denizen of the native bush in the Domain on Sunday afternoon. In not- more than twenty minutes from the fire being started a majestic looking tree, some sixty or seventy feet high one that could ill b< spared from the ijrotcctivc position it occupied was aflame from the ground nearly to the topmost boughs. All small growth was licked up as though it were nothing but dry paper anel the lambent flames leapt from place to place up the huge trunk and' about the larger branches in a way that gave a xc-vy good idea of what sort of barn to expect if any of these incipient outbursts should get beyond control. Fortunately, it occurred at a time when a number of people were taking their afternoon walk; the fire brigade was called out, and they were not long in putting av end to further destruction for tin time. Ft is difficult indeed tc know wiiat to retribute this persistency in fire-raising in the Domain to. it is well-known thai: if has been found impossible in the past to prevent the wanton destruction of everything that has been put into the Domain by ;

considerate? Domain Board for the convenience of the public and to make it a rosorl of pleasure. Seat after s; al has boon broken down and taken a way,' iron seats have been want only Ditched over a high, precipitous bluff into the river-bed a hundred feet below, and newly planted trees as well as trees, plants and ferns of indigenous growth have ruthlessly been pulled up and destroyed, and yet it is hard to believe that any nature can )>:■ so crassly aiv criminally bad as to deliberately and wiU'uily attempt to destroy a piece >)i public property that means so much to the town, and the value of which is so great that ii cannot be assessed. Without doubt both the lire on Saturday and that of yesterday afternoon were Che result of deliberaii act, buj we feel sure there was tse real int. iifinn to cause a seri • <sly destructive burn. It may be the offender, or offenders, did not realise what might happen; still, it seems an example that will act as a deterrent will have to be made of some one before these menacing outbreaks cease. The fire yesterday caused our local fire brigade to work during a good parf of Sunday afternoon and evening, a-id its extinction required a volume of water that could ill be spared from our nearly empty town reservoir.