RETROSPECTIVE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 154, 28 December 1911, Page 6

RETROSPECTIVE.

To the Editor. Sir, —"Fifty-one" in his interesting "Old Stories Retold," published in your columns, when referring to the election of the last Superintendent of Taranaki, in tho old Provincial Council days, omitted to mention Mr. Frederic Alonzo Carrington as contesting the election with the late Major C-. Brown and Sir Harry Atkinson, he (Mr. Carrington) being the successful competitor, thus becoming Taranaki's last Superintendent. The late Mr. Rawson, at one time a chemist in New Plymouth, and who was severely wounded in the Waireka fight, and son of Dr. Rawson, issued some diverting electioneering cartoons in which the candidates were typified as racing dogs, Major C. 'Brown steadily leading. Next came Mr. F. Carrington, with Major Atkinson a little dog in the rear turning a somersault in his anxiety to keep up with or outstrip the big dogs. The libel suit alluded to, instituted by the Atkinson and Baily faction, was unquestionably that against Mr. C. D. Whitcombe for his skit on a "Dismal story," in which the gallant Major Atkinson figured as "Major Cheek," but so far from the cose concluding *in one day, it extended over several days. Mr. Whitcombe absolutely refused to apologise, intimating that he would go to gaol first. He was at length induced to apologise, and the affair closed. Possibly the only living person now therewith connected must be Mr. Isaac Baily. I must here request forgiveness for complete lapse of memory as to the personality of "Fifty-one," the erstwhile "prominent member of the Taranaki News staff." Mr. Alexander Black, now of Stratford, in those times ivas foreman of the printing office, with the principal compositors, Mr. J. 11. Ainslio and his younger brother, W. Ainslie, Mr. Thos. Avery, then, lately arrived from England, and Mr. Chas. Moon. For myself, I was chiefly employed at press work on the News. Major C. Brown, the proprietor, was then agent for the Union Steamship Co. at New Plymouth, together with the late Captain Thos. Hempton, with Mr. Maximilian Ring as assistant cashier. On Mr. Ring's departure, the collection of the freight account payments devolved on me, I having to go off in the surf boats to each arriving steamer, with files, and to obtain the ship's manifest and other papers. I am also wholly at a loss to conceive what member of the New Plymouth police force became a "titled man," or obtained Ministerial rank. Sergeant Dunn, of the police, was Sergeant-at-Arms of the Provincial Council, with Mr. Compton as Speaker, P.C.'s Duffin and Doherty being privates; In very earlv days Mr. W. liaise, solicitor, was in the police force. The latter contested with Mr. C. Brown the first election for the superintendency. Mr. Langhan, senior, was also a policeman at one time, and there were one or two Maori policemen. In some respects, perhaps, those were Taranaki's best times, before the war half ruined it.— Lam, etc., C.W.W.