ONE OF THE TRAIL BREAKERS.

Taranaki Daily News, 25 October 1916, Page 7

ONE OF THE TRAIL BREAKERS.

(By Talii Ilerciii), For several years there was hardly a name more generally known in affairs of interest from Inglewood to New Plymouth and in tho Moa District than that of Mr .Tames Tarry. First as the capable and obliging owner and driver of ''Tanya Coach," a regulai institution on the .junction lioad; as a prominent member of the. A.0.F., as a road eontractor, and as tho possessor of the first privately owned traction engine and crusher plant in these parts. Mr. Tarry has for about four years been doing 1 his "hit" towards opening up the recently settled parts of the IVaitomo and'Awakino Counties, where he and his crushing plant have done much useful work in conjunction with the County Councils, and have become nearly as well known and as much a household word as, they were a lew years back in Taranaki.

Quite lately Mr. Tarry paid a visit of some days to his home, Ngatoro, near Inglewood, and it was like old times to see him as well as interesting to listen to the recital of- his varied experiences in days gone by—how, once, when bringing two tons of coal out from New Plymouth in his express with a team of four horses the brakes refused duty at the start down Upjolin's hill and lie Bimply had to "let her e;o, Gallagher!" and take the skew-whiff bridge over the Henui at full split.

It would astonish the settlers of today who are used only to the, by comparison, excellent road we now have, could they listen to vJig genial Jim discourse of the discomforts and risks ot travelling those roads in the days v'.vi "The Mudhole Committee under Ngatoro Bridge" harrowed the fcelingß of tho County Council by advertisements in the Taranaki News inviting applications for a pilot for the Mountain road, and offering a reward for such information as would lead to the recovery of the bottom of the same road which had dropped out, and so on. | Or, again, later of his experiences with his traction' engine. How with it he pulled the County's engine out of the Maketawa that time she fell through the bridge on tho Junction road over that stream with fatal results to the driver and a narrow shave for young Kennedy, and see the photos he has of the engine hanging through the bridge, of the one hauling the other out, and towing it into Spiirdle and Allen's yard at Tnglewood for repairs. More pictures are produced. One his men and teams on a gravelling contract beyond Tarata, standing in front of a high steep face which has. been pierced by tunnels to follow the gravel scorns for the needed road material. Next no men, no teams, no tunnels, but a tumbled heap of tons upon tons of rubbish and earth and papa which has suddenly come down and would no doubt have done a deal of damage even if no one had been killed bad not Mr. Tarry "twigged" the danger and hastened men, teaiM and tools beyond its reach.

Such talcs as these supplemented by pictures of the events related make the years roll backward for awhile, and help one to realise how much has been done to improve the roads and general conditions of life in what were then the backblocks in so short a space of time. To meet such a man and listen to his yarns is to tho ordinary, quiet, hum-drum-living house-dweller like a breath of a gale off the sea and makes his pulses quicken their beat. Some of the tales he tells are chiefly funny, as that of a man in one of his King Country camps whose foreign cognomen had, by general consent, been perverted into "Whisky," whose son, Jack, was known as "johnny Walker," and the triplets with which his wifepresented him (and for whom the County Council voted a bonus of £5) were promptly dubbed "Three Star." 'Tis a liberal education in itself, but as these lines arc sure to meet the eye of the person chiefly concerned they must be curtailed lest bis brow be suffused with the unaccustomed blush and he sock to wreak his vengeance on the writer or the, office staff when next he comes this way. Mr. Tarfy has now gone back to his camp in the wilds, but lias promised to communicate from time to time anything coming his way that he deems worthy of notice. (