Te Aroha AND Ohinemuri News SATURDAY, MAY 7, 1898. HIDDEN FIRES.

Te Aroha News, Volume XIV, Issue 2101, 7 May 1898, Page 2

Te Aroha AND Ohinemuri News SATURDAY, MAY 7, 1898. HIDDEN FIRES.

The approach, for some distance, to Te Aroha by the Waihou road was enveloped in smoke of such density that it was almost impossible for travellers to- see more than a-yard ahead of them on Thursday evening. It is curious to observe on a still night a thin spiral of smokb rising through the surface of a newly gravelled country lane, such- af-we saw the other evening. Is it possible that these subterranean peai fires are of any ex tent ? We used to think that at most it was merely a case of isolated tea tree stump smouldering underground, but the of the odour bewrays peat. 'There are some no-account lands about the flat, and the fear expressed that these fires would burn all the goodness out of them is scarce worthy of entertainment. Such lands cannot be worth much with a peat bottom so near the surface. One thing, however, strikes the most care less observer, they may become a source of danger; only the other day a bare-legged laddie stepped through a piece of shallow crust young Grattan, if we remember aright—into a bed of hot ashes, severely burning his foot up to the ankle. Before concluding, it has just occurred to us that the great foe to the successful conduct of an illicit whisky distillery is the peculiar odour given off by the grain while undergoing the process of becoming wort. In fact the inland revenue officers in the Highlands of Scotland hunt almost eutirely by the nose, and the uniformed officials must often piesent a curious spectacle to the tourist, as they go wading through the heather with tip-tilted nose sniffing the air for stray whiffs from an underground still. The atmosphere of the flat to-day, and for some mouths past, would furnish

an effectual cover under which any such proceedings might be curried on with impunity, at the same time we must add we would not like to he. r- of any of our industrious and law-adirling settlers engaging in, the forbidden traffic, although in these hard times, like the bush fires, distinctly traceable to the Seddon Government -and wilh bread a half-penny a loaf dearer too, ;it is hard to aay what a man will not : do to- make both ends meet.