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Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 59, 22 March 1907, Page 4

Messrs J. j. and E. J. Clarke, architects of Melbourne, have boon awarded the first prize of £4OO for the best design for a town luill for Auckland. The second prize of £2OO went to Messrs William and Herbert Black, also of Melbourne, ami the third of £IOO to Messrs Clegg and Miller, of Bullarat. There were forty-three designs handcl in. The new Auckland Town Hall buildings which are to be erected at the head of Queen street, in the reserve near the llrebcU tower, are to cost £IIO.OOO. They will include muiiicip.il olliccs, a clock tower, and two concert halls, one of which is to be about the same size as the Wellington Town Jlall. An incident with file elements of comedy and tragedy is being told in connection with a dance thai followed the Kawakuwa race meeting on Anniveiviry Day, says an exchange.' A Maori, wh-i.-'o wife had decamped with a friend, peeped in the door of the hall wh.-re the lia'l was being held, and beholding his faithless wahine ill the embrace oi' her swain as I hey spun merrily round the room, began to gesticulate'violently, exclaiming: "My C.orry, my v.ii'e'.' My wif-j dance that fellow! Suppose f go to them." •■.Suppose you pay your bob,' rejoined the doorkeeper ' curtly, and with no apparent sense of humor and pathos of the situation. But the -'bob'' was 100 much for the Maori's desire for vengeance, and he disappeared, to be found later lialf-chokeil as he hung by the neck in the noose of a clothes line, suspended from the brunch of an adjacent tree, lie was cut down and handed over to the police.

"Jf 1 were buck in Sydney with my ticket purchased for 'Frisco", I would, knowing wlr.it J now know, sell it ami remain.'' This sentence is culled from a private letter written by an Jinglish builder who left Australia "last year for the stricken city. The correspondent gives an appalling description of affairs in the Californiun capital. "The town is infested with thugs and gas-pipers," lie says. "Someone is shot daily. Others are clubbed and robbed. Three women were shot about a week ago not a hundred yards from where I am staying in the heart of the city. One night last week—the letter is dated January Hi—we hail a slight earthquake shock. The weather is cold and miserable. All trades are having broken time owing to the rain. There is little continuous work; quantity not quality is the watchword. It is heart-breaking to see how work is scamped. Any workman in any part of the world would be a fool to come here if be can gel work where he is. lOverything is" union- - bootblacks, hodcarricrs, dish-washers, and waiters, and the dill'erent classes of laborers have each a union. Hritklavers and painters pay 50 dollars (over ,€HI) to enter their respective unions. Carpenters pay 30 dollars (over jctj), and the wages range from 11/,l 1 /, dollars to 7 dollars pel- day. Laborers earn, when working, 3 to i'/ :i dollars per day. If I were back in Sydney," etc.

The ''.Southland Times" says:—"TUc ancient walking feats of the "'old identity' are frequently related with baled breath for the admiration of the j> resent generation; Hut the performance, uiuiutboii.-,ed 'though it was, of two hoys, agod 13 and H is ji>>ne the less notable. Somu time ago they were, for causes which need not Co explained, committed to the ISiirnhaui Industrial School. They absconded on the 25th of hist month, and struck out for the south. They reached Invert eargill last Jlon'day, having .lone the whole journey oil foot and subsisted almost entirely on apples and field humps. Their condition when they reached home was not lla tiering to ihe mistaining power of their enforced Kiel/' In a letter ju-( received in Sydn'fy from Valparaiso the writer savs ; -''Since the disaster of August Kith 'last year, there hare been idiocies daiiv, more <,r less severe. N„ attempt has'been made at Ve-building the city, and no ell'ort in I hat direction will be made r or lt 1(m „ | lime. People prefer to live out of dowa 111 tin huts or tents, the t ,;i r i; d ;lll ,i lie place- being completely occupied in Ibis way. The experience gained -.,11 Align,! Kith shows thai- 11.1 huildin" j, safe unless well built into solid rod:. Tbo.-.e on raised sand mn=,t come to grief." ,