TOKO.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XXXXII, Issue 55, 21 March 1900, Page 2

TOKO.

(FKOM OUE OWN correspondent.) I have not sent any notes from Toko for some time, as I have been waiting for some important events to happen : but they won't; that is the worst of a little country town, —you can't have anything great in it. For instance, you can't have a great railway collision, or a great steamboat disaster, or a great bank robbery, or a great riot, or [a great conflagration, or in fact a great anything. I fooled away a lot of time trying to hear of a big gooseberry, but Brace's bushes were all stripped before they were ripe; I ! thought I might get up an exciting story about snakes, but I found that there were no snakes in or about Toko; I then had an inspiration,— I thought of mules, a story of a kicking mule would bo interesting—but this was a failure, as all the mules had gone out to Strathmore. I then thought, ha! our new footpath. But just think of men of culchaw, men of New Plymouth ; men who enjoy the feast of reason and tho flow of soul ; men who have tho eye of a hawk for ft cheap section, or a spec In chilled tmtter; men who have the glorious blue Pacific puis'ting beneath their gaze, and laving their beaches with its foam ; men who are in hourly touch by wire with the heart of the woiJtl i

'fancy such men taking up a paper like the Daily News, and reading that Toko had a new footpath. Bah! take it away—metaphorically, of course, as in reality the footpath is a great improvement. All this leads me on to think that I used to despise big towns, and the people who lived in them, the sordid little shops, the little back yards, the houses all jammed together, the sedentary occupations, and I used to compare this with the country; the open space, the freedom, the long sweeping gallop on a spirited horse, and, to a lover of na'ure, the subtle changes of the season, the cool green bush, the thousand jacket all out in white flower on the banks of the cieek, the karamu covered with pink berries, the pigeon j showing his fat white breast over the branch, and the tuis chuckling loudly , about their favored lot. I have changed , my opinion now, Jf a. great speaker ' comes to the colony, where does he go ? 1 Why to big town ; a beautiful singer to I the big town, a talented company to 1 the big town, everything of the best in music, literature, science, and art goes to the big town. I was asked the other day why I did not go to a big—hold on, let me see, I have lost the thread of my narrative—oh, of course, a big town. Well, now, what comes to a small town? an uncomfortable hall stays in a small town, inferior little companies come to a small town, the kinematograph comes to a small town, but it is the intellectual calibre of the' man that the church authorities send to preach on Sunday evening in the little church of the small town that will eventually drive some one to the big town. That last sentence was so involved I nearly came to grief over it. I will show it to Mr. Clark, our teacher; the grammar may be bad. So that, all things considered, the next time our Debating Society discusses Town versus Country, I will vote for town,

I hear that Mr, J. Hine has sold his property on the Makuri Road. I have not heard the price, and, for that matter, there is a difficulty in this connection, for if one quotes the price one hears in the street, one may be wrong, and if one goes to the seller of a property and asks him how much he got, he may say " What is your business ?" and if you say "Oh, I am the correspondent," he may say, " Oh, are you the idiot that sends those silly cotes to the paper," and then you mentally estimate his weight; he may be fourteen stone; then you decide to treat it as a joke, and laugh and come away. But I hear the price was between six aud seven pounds per acre. One of our young men has been selected to go in the Fifth Contingent to South Africa—Kerr Maxwell. JSe is well known in ths district and is a general favourite. The school picnic was held on Friday last, and a dance iu the hall in the eveiiing followed. By the way, speaking of schools reminds me that I have not: yet mentioned the election of a Toko representative to the Education Board. Mr. "W. "L. Kennedy is the gentleman referred to; he should make a capable and useful member, and one who will, no doubt, look after the interests of the country schools.