STRATFORD.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 143473, 21 April 1911, Page 2

STRATFORD.

(From Our Resident Agent.) April 20.—1 n racing parlance, the entries for the Municipal Stakes are very satisfactory. There are thirteen contestants for the nine seats. All but two of the old council are facing the starter again. Messrs. R. M‘K. Morisoa and G. Gangster, two veteran performers who have been taking a spell, will again bo seen on the track, and there are five colts to help to puzzle the tipsters. For the Mayoralty the present holder, Mr. J. Masters, is challenged by Mr. W. H. H. Young, and a good race is expected. There should be a heavy poll, - for undoubtedly the issue at stake is graver than usual—whether to endeavour to force the town ahead by the expenditure of a new loan; or to allow it to develop by the agency of more natural but slower processes. Unfortunately there are some side issues that may determine the electors’ choice, and where all the candidates are so intimately known personal predilections will be an important factor. 1 am all for the steady-goers myself, having absolutely no faith whatever in a boonjing policy. There seems no room for much doubt that we have had an imitator of the great Fowelka amongst us. The empty house in Juliet Street nest to the burned motor garage was to a practical certainty deliberately fired, and it is marvellous that the flames, after burning the .'paper off the walls of the staircase and almost burning through a stud, should have gone out of their own accord. Again, on Tuesday afternoon an. outbreak of fire that, if it had not been discovered almost immediately, would have involved the loss of a house and furniture, occurred under most suspicious circumstances in Orlando Street, within a stone’s throw of the scene of the Juliet Street fire. The police are blamed for not putting X certain suspected individual where he could not indulge his supposed propensities. The management of the new picturetheatre has had a singular run of illluck in connection with the recent fires. At Derby Bros.’ fire the joinery and seating for the new building was destroyed; at the Trocadero the whole staff of the theatre just escaped with their lives: and in the motor garage burned oh Sunday the manager, who is a scenic artist, had a lot of finished scenery for the new municipal theatre at Eltham.