Te Aroha AND Ohinemuri News AND UPPER THAMES ADVOCATE AND SATURDAY, OCTOBER 5, 1895. COGITATION.

Te Aroha News, Volume XII, Issue 1776, 5 October 1895, Page 2

Te Aroha AND Ohinemuri News AND UPPER THAMES ADVOCATE AND SATURDAY, OCTOBER 5, 1895. COGITATION.

“ He that calleth a thing into his mind whether by impression or recordation, cogitatetii and considered!; and he that einployeth the faculty •of his fancy aho cogitate! h.” —Lobd Bacon. Bohemian, a writer in tie Christchurch. Press, has a pungent par on the tactics

~ r —o The Piisiri TAOTICS

of the Hon. Dick, in which he says : “ Hr Seddon’s diffi-

**'with his tiir- | bulent following have led him to adopt ] a new method of attacking his oppon- 1 ents that will not add to his glory or : dignity. Ho appears to h tve abandoned the hob nailed boot for the stiletto; as his. favourite weapon" of offence. Recently he - made a most unfair insinuation against Mr Montgomery; Hark hints of something vaguely dishonourable, suggestions of the ‘I could an I would’ order, threats of ‘ You had better hold your tongue on that subject,’ and other equally, cowardly innuendos to the same end went near to costing him the allegiance of one of his strongest sup . porters. And when Mr Montgomery angrily demanded an explanation he shuffled and hemmed, and haa’d. and finally confessed he had nothing wherewith to substatiate his insinuations. Some trival accusation about contradictory voting on the Sergeant-at-Arms question was all that could be got out-of him. i. The only ourse open to him was frank apology and complete withdrawal j but he was not man enough to make either. This week again he has had resort to the same cowardly weapon of innuendo—this time directed against Captain. Russell. The Captain veiy properly disclaimed any offence at the Premier’s insinuation against his honour ‘ for Mr Seddou's ideas of-honour and mine are so very different ’ the most cutting rebuke he could have administered. The sarcasm will make no impression on the thick hide of Mr Seddon, but it’s a-sorry spectacle when the Premier of the .colony and leader of the House is so utterly callous to reproach, so complet ly forgetful of the dignity of his position.

The bush fires which lately devastated many of the most pricturesque

Bush Fires inv New South Wales

parts of New Sou th Wales wil long be remembered by many

unfortunate settlers who lost everything but their lives undor circumstances of great danger and discomfort. The disaster was on a scale which will make it a memorable occurrence in the colony’s records.;- The fires which recently were raging, over miles - of country, were fanned by a'gale which lacked little of the power of a hurricane, and this of courseahade the task of those who were endeavouring to cheek the spread of the flames one o2 grea: p iril, and., often of utter uselessness. In the Hawkesbury district the fires bad, and the destruction of ar|pFeat deal of property at the homestead of the Messrs iPitt on the Kurraji ng heights was unfortunately atten led by the death of an old black sei vaat, known* as * Black Sally, f the last of her tribe,' who bad"' lived with the family forty-six - years, ever since she. was two years old. She wont out with- the family to; endeavour to beat -out the fire*-which; was- approachingthe house, and being half Suffocated by the smoke she lost her way, fell down, and wias/burnedrto death.* At this homestead the great-efforts of the occupants resulted in the saving of the house itself, but all the barns and outbuildings -were destroyed, together with a large quantil y of produce and stock, and. a fine orchard",-'*' So .intense wasthe'heat, and so furious the wind, that except for the metal parts of the machinery in the sheds, it would have been impossible next day to have de termihed the sites of the buildings. Everything but the ironwork was licked up by the flames 'or blownaway. A buggy, removed from .the c&ach - house for safety, was blown a distance of twenty yards in the fire and destroyed, and. sheets of Corfugated iron Were flying about like note paper, some of them being found 300 yards away. The Pitts’lost upwards of £ISOO worth of property, and their experience was, in a greater or less degree, that of scores of settlers in the same district and elsewhere.. In some cases the occupants of houses had to fly for their lives without being able to make an effort to save anything, owing to the rapidity with which the flames, driven by the hurricane, leaped across the country. One settler, who was in the thick of many fights with the fires, said he did not think a horseman could have escaped the flames at a canter. He would have had to push forward at a hard gallop. ‘ I can assure you,’ he said, ‘ where the grass was half an inch long - the flames were a foot in height, and where the grass was ten or twelve inches high the flames ascended as high as I am. With the f >rce of the wind they shot forward, I‘in certain, ion or twelve feet. It w is in some places a regular billow of ; fira, against which no man could stand,’ :