HASTINGS (TAPU CREEK).

Thames Advertiser, Volume VII, Issue 1909, 3 December 1874, Page 3

HASTINGS (TAPU CREEK).

(FBOH QVU OWN CO'EBESPONDENT.)

December Ist, 1874 Meek and party have returned to their coalfield, and are taking out a couple of tons to be tested at the Queen of Beauty, Grahamstown. Three tenders were sent in from Grahamstown for driving in the Bullion-595, 60s, and 70s respectively; but, as the lowest tender was informal, the next was accepted, and work commenced this morning, Hitherto, those parties paying in had to submit to a kind of indirect pocket-picking, but now all parties wisely pay direct taxation, which will prove much more satisfactory to those concerned The work is to be carried on under the " gubemation" of Mr Crampton, who has displayed great patience and perseverance in ridding himself of the Flaps-but I must not resurrect them! A party of specimenhunters are again at work in the Hard Cash, but information therefrom is never to be relied on. Enquiries have been made about specimens, or "salt,".supposed to bo wanted for Ohinemuri. It is rumoured that for that purpose specimens are at a premium in Grahamstown.—For a considerable lime past the arrival and departure of the mail from Hastings has varied from Ito 4 o'clock; but last week the clock in Mary-street appears to have been better regulated, for the arrivals varied only from half-past 12 to halfpast 1. The advertised time for closing the mail for Hastings at Grahamstown is 9 a.m., and letters delivered by the return mail at 4 p.m. Ido not know when the mail left Grahamstown, but for a long time past, instead of the Hastings maS being sorted at 4 p.m., it must hare been considerably more towards midnight before it was even delivered.

I am glad to observe that your horticultural show has been such a success. You mention that Mr Steedman's glass case of bees was the result of three years' experiment. Some twenty years ago, I got two glasses specially blown in Edinburgh, each capable of holding ten or twelve pounds of honey. The glasses were put on the top of " skeps," and the bees displayed no reluctance in taking possession. It is indispensably necessary that another skep or box be put over the glass, so as to exclude the light, otherwise the very first performance of the bees will be to put a thin coating of ; wax over the inside of the glass, so as to allow them to carry on operations in the dark. 1 his I learned from former experience with humble bees. One glass I tried with pins to assist the bees in fixing their combs, the other had nothing but the bare glass, and looked much prettier when filled, as the combs were less broken, and held equally well. By having a moveablo drawer capable of holding six or eight pounds of honey or boiled sugar, and communication made through the bee board, any number of glasses will speedily be filled, the bees taking the food from below and storing it above. Properly boiled lump sugar makes beautiful white comb in glasses. You also state that the mammoth strawberries exhibited weee nothing less than " two and a-half or three inches in circumferonse." Why, in this miserable God-forsaken hole, not later than yesterday I pulled a strawberry measuring fully four inches and a-half in circumference.

A few evenings ago I heard rather an interesting discussion between some Masons and non-Masons, regarding the appointment of a clergyman in Grahamstown as R. W.M. of the Sir Walter Scott Lodge. One party evidently looked upon Freemasonry as something awfully unholy, which a minister should have nothing to do with. Another was of opinion that in order to becomingly discharge the solemn duties and ceremonies of a It.W.M., a " pietist" was a much more suitable person than one of the "devil's own." He further stated that in order to secure proper respect inside as well as outside the lodge,.the moral character of the holder of such offices should be without reproach; and he was sorry to say, that more than once in New Zealand, in the absence of such respect, he had witnessed otherwise solemn Masonic ceremonies where the impression left upon his mind was something analogous to what it would have been if he had seen a man taking Athol brose out. of an unclean utensil.. ; ..•:■•.-.