STRATFORD NEWS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVI, Issue 166, 13 January 1914, Page 3

STRATFORD NEWS.

FROM OUB fiBSIDENT KEPOJiTiiiB. Office and Job Printing Works: York Chambers (upstairs) it-lopaosa Ho. 113.

STRATFORD BOROUGH COUNCIL Al ilk' meeting nf the Stratford Borough Council last night, the following resolution, i>~ijposr<l by tin; .Mayor ami seconded by Cr. Morison, was carried, after an interesting debate:—"That this Council place on record its salisI faction at the determination of the (loverinncnt. as conveyed by letter to the Stratford County Council, nut to grant the issue of tile proposed license to the Elcctrie Supply Co.. and that l!ii> resolution be convevc.l to Cue .Minister of Public Works,'with a rei|' ; iest that copies of any petitions bearing on the issue ot (lie said license be furnished to this Council.'' A Committee to be set up consisting of the Mayor ;!iid t'r. Thompson to draft a covering letter 1% be forwarded with the resolution. STRATFORD BOWLING CLUB (In Saturday K. Jifcksoji anil \Y. fl. If. Young wrested the "feathers" from the. holder-. (1. Sangsler and C. llobson. PERSONAL Mr. V. J. King has returned from an cupi;. able trip to Invercargill. News was received in Stratford yes-terd-'v that Mr. It. i'earon. secretary of lint Stratford A. and I'. Association,'■had met with an accident which would prevent his re turn to Stratford for a few days yet. Prior to lciving for Auckland. Miss M. Mai.|uis, a popular member of the sUli' of the Club Hotel, was presented by a number of friends and habitues of "the house" with a pretty jewel pendant. Mr. Jack Anderson made the presentation, and .Mr. Diamond, "mine host of the Club." added his expressions cf regret at .Miss Manjnis' departure. STRAY PARAGRAPHS. Stratford has set a new fashion in "tin-canning." One of these unmusical soirees was interrupted the other night, and ;>. presentation made of a tine fender ami irons by a number of business friends of Mr. S. Sharp, as a ' wedding present. The:; the cans rattled again. About sixty visitors spent tbe week- j end at the, .Stratford Mountain Hone, and were very courteously received and treated by Mr. and Mrs. Williams. Mr. A. \Y. l?eid took his car right to the j house, and another party went up by drag. The road is in capital order, and ] a local motorist says it is better than <vcr. Mounlain-house trippers will scarcely find a better road to travel over. I

Don't leave it too .long. Get jour order in now for one of Dan Malono and Co.'s great value Christmas hampers. All licjnors of the best liramh. H ileliverv is required at Hag station, [iluasc add 'freight.

It's time to have tlint lontr promised portrait taken. Xo need to wait for a fine dny. Fast lenses ami fust plates make showery weather as good as sunshine. Make the opportunity to-day. McAllister's Studios will give you faithfill and pleasing results.

Warmer weather wakes neglige shirts more than ever desirable. '"The Knsli" has them in new patterns and various materials. Tennis shirts, light singlets and pants, new hosiery, new ties, new sox, new hats, are here: in fact, an entirely new stock of men's wearing apparel.— Mullen and Marshall, proprietors.

Give him a nine. But let it l.e a good pipe. Handsome is as handsome does, and our handsome pipes provKe a delightful smoke. Fill the nine with Stan. Sharp's special mixture, or any of the. regular brands, all of which are stopked here, as well as cirors, cigarettes, cigar and cigarette holders, cases, pouches, and so on. Stan. Sharp's, next to Bellringer's.

TEANSFOSMI'NG THE WORLD

WHAT A lIURHICAXK OF CLVIUSAI TIOX HAS DOX'K. ''l have coasted a workshop 00 kilometres long, which is transforming the world. Jt is the creation of the globe which humanity is here revising and correcting in order to bring two hemispheres- closer together by 8000 miles. "1 disembarked only a. few hours ago, and t cannot yet describe anything; but , in the first disorder of my impressions, and of my emotions, in t'he chaos of my ideas and the darkness of my perceptions, before 1 learn or see any more, I feel the necessity of immediately taking a pen in hand through one of those impulses which at certain moments render ' a cry of admiration and enthusiasm irrenisti'ble. "I cannot wait. It seems to mo as j if .something pressing, impetuous, fatal, j is being completed, and not, a calculated I work of construction." )

■So begins an extraordinarily vivid account of a visit to the Panama Canal by Luigi Urazini, in llio. Daily Telegraph, lie won sonic renown in the Balkan War through his wonderful pen pictures. lIUMAMTVS (IRFATKST WORK. His fresh mind, now seeing ihi' Panama Canal for the first time, is stni lively moved by the tremendous fight he witnesses: ''l have caught a glimpse of the trrliieiulous work,'' lie writes. "In the rapid voyage across the Isthmus, from Colon to P.anama, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, the fantastic spectacle of the greatest work which •humanity has over undertaken has passed before my eyes, fugitive, chanceful, vague as a dream. "It has been a confused succession of prodigious visions, Between ocean and ocean, the vast passage that has been opened is traversed \y a torrent of labor. In the wide lakes which man htrs created, in the deep gorges which man has dug, there is a tumult of gijjantic machines, a busy movement of troops of workmen, a toilsome creeping of trains, an infinite palpitation of activity in the. midst of the solemn majesty of a laud that is wild and strange, torrid, luxuriant ami sinister. CIIAXCLVII TUB KARTH'S. I'ACR "A region is being shaped anew. Cut, carved and 'transformed, it has now another fori!') and another outline. J'eaks have disappeared, other heights have risen; certain valleys have vanished, others have been born; great fivers have obediently followed the will of imin, as in the Arab legend the sea, roaring and foaming, followed the steps of J-alla Mima, tlie Moroccan saint. And across the yellow virgin earth has at last been opened a deep, monstrous furrow, which the waters now invade. The gigantic shipway passes from sea to sea, and possibly is visible to other planets a slender, luminous, strange new s'i£n on the old and immutable face of the world. "It was necessary to rhango the strategy at every moment, to alter the dispositions for'the attack, divert the lines of battle, confront new dangers, invent defences, create barricades, strengthen the assaults, imagine new machines, solve new problems--to do all thisuiu'easingly under the ever-present threat of the unexpected, while Death every day passed his livid scvihe through the ranks, decimaleil the Kail' of officers, and cut down the commanders one after I lie other.

''The active French campaign lasted •seven wars, after which triumphant Nature resumed absolute possession of the isthmus. The dream of four centuries seemed to have vanished for ever. A DJVIXK UJ.CSIOX.

The; divine illusion of Christopher Col- I milium im the eve of being realised, fell again into the abyss of lost hopes. It was the road to Cathay, the way to tin; Indies, the passage through Asia sought hy \"cs[uu-cr, by Magellan, by Cortcz, which seemed to he appearing already as a mirage, and whieh, like a mirage, dissolved. . "The '.Secret of the Strait,' as it was called by Charles V.. of that mysterious and elusive .Strait, which was Ihe obsession of the great Spanish navigators, of that unknown way which was market", on tlie earliest maps between the two .Americas, of that gate which was believed to exist between the oceans acro-s the Xew World, of that hidden and virgin passage the search for which led to the rapid discovery of the whole of the Eastern Coast of America as it was approached by ships interrogating the mute majesty of the unkiiowii land—the fearful and almost religious secret of a channel hidden by the stern jealousy of la continent, the. legendary secret was ■about to he revealed to the world when the Creat Harrier closed again. "Fifteen years later another army landed on the isthmus. The war was j resumed with new forces. The American • campaign began. I 'J'llK M.EX AND THE MACIIIXKS, "The armies of workmen increased in number and in power. First 20,h(1i), then 311.1KK1, then -lll.lli!!) men, led by a multitude of engineers, were thrown into the immense transoceanic trench. With the ■progress of the work new masses entered linto the line. The ligure of l!l),(MK) workmen on the canal was reached. And over the. human battalions towered i\ black, titanic, clamorous population of machines.

k -A hundred excavators, twenty dredgers, 'HID locomotive.-, ">.lli»0 trucks and pumps. elevator-, crunch, tup's; machines with enormous teeth which li.t tlie earth; machines with gigantic hands which seized ami carried invar rocks; machines which plunged into the depth of the waters the eternal chain of their penetrating and capacious shovels: machines which at one blow unloaded a itniin "f iiftv wagons; machines which held their foreheads against the rocks ,In an attitude of bullish obstinacy anil ifurv. and penetrated them with their .long! whirling arms: inetnllic castles full of a clatter of ;;ear-\vlieels. and potent ' Miciuliers of slow and docile motion, n wheezing of boilers, a pulling of steam, and boiling of water—all this and more in Ibe midst of the puny activity nf the human insects, intelligent and precise, who jruided the machines just as the ■coniak' snides the elephant. "Far from every social centre, in the .baking solitudes of the, forests, (his hurricane of civilisation raged for I en vears. i'More than iOO.CKXI.ODO cubic metres of earth and rock have been excavated, i This is an excavation ei|iiivakal t« that I of a tunnel traversing the earth from

one side to the other, or a gallery large enough to permit the comfortable trau-.-it of an American subway train. fwciN'd tiik i\si:l»ki:ai:u<:.

| "The i.-ihrnu., attempted to re<.st. The (.second campaign also had its revcr-es, Us ' hours of uncertainty sunt anguish. Many ,;i time the attack made by man was rcI pulsed. On three occasions the directors J of the work found themselves confronted I by I he iu-'iipcruble. "To sacrilicc everything to victory, to march forward, to give no quarter, to ,) permit no interruption, to give the ) enemy no time to recover himself and cause devastations and catastrophies was the secret. "A machine that broke was thrown down as material to strengthen an embankment. When a train, with its engine, was overturned because of a landslide no time was lost in rescuing it, it was buried; like a great corpse, where it lay. Forward! Forward! The machines, like the men. had their losses and their dead.

"Xnmbcrs of laborers fell from the height of the locks. Many w;re killed by the premature explosions of mines, many disappeared in I lie turbid waters of the rivers, which are populated by 'big-mouthed caimans.

"In great conllicts all I he values of existence undergo a change. We must proportion ever.thing that happens here to (he immensity of an enterprise that is full of tin: unknown, to its aspect of siruggle-a struggle that has been so varied, so bitter, so long, and so vast.

"Everything is secondary as compared with the glorious goal which the cheerful activity of ii hundred thousand arms, the 'heart of a nation, the interests of humanity, are steadily bringing nearer."