Auckland Echoes.

Thames Star, Volume XIV, Issue 4410, 21 February 1883, Page 2

Auckland Echoes.

[feom otte own coeebspowdent].

Nothing of vital important has oc« curred here of late, the sensational opening of this year appears ,to have been a prelude to a " reign of peace." The most agitating event of the week was the election of Committees under the Licensing Act. The Good Templars tried to " run " candidates for the various districts, but Uieir success was not great. In the North Ward they secured the unopposed return of one candidate, aud in the bouth Ward two; in the Middle Ward they were en:irely unsuccessful.

The diamond craze is a little epsier; several parlies are out prospecting,, and probibly Lome of them will remove-the doab<s now existent as to tue Cape ab:lity of the province to produce-gems similar to those bhown. ; ■'""

One of the most genial of m§n and most thorough of sportsmen is .Major. Walmesley, the respected managing director of the Stud Company's iarai at Sylvia Park. The gallant Major's hobby ■ is houses, aud be is as g"eat a<a aethonty oa pedigrees as the Pentateuch, tie can speak as glibly on the descendants of Stockwell and other lions of the tar I', as Moses doubtless could about the generations after Noah. JBut all this is betrida whet I intended hanging this paragraph on. When at Sylvh Pe.rk the other day, my attention was i ieected by the Major to a remarkably fine brood marcr— one of the animals imported from England ok the Major's recommendation. l'Do you see that maroP" . I nodded an affirmative. "We 1! that mare's sire brought me out fcere." " How was that ? " I queried, beginning to feel interested, and experienoinjAhat^peetiliar joy a jcarnalist alond c&HKsel, when he thinks a choice bit of nfjHnii.-about a to be vouch-, safed to him. ''fJ^eUi you see." said the Mtjor, not notje^tig my eagerness, " I thought that mare's father was going to win the Derby 1885—I thought, and thought, and the more I thought the more I became convmcpd lie could land tho blue ribbon. Well, I went and ba^ed him for all I was wo< fth. aad—well*, he didn't win, and I emigrated to Maoriland. But he was a gocd one, aad could have won.it, and the very first chancel had I imported one of h;s progeny, and there, she is and a beauty too." I will not r©«peat the whole of the Major's panegyric* He is a splendid fellow, and X ixn\y hope that some day soon, in some Antipodean Derby; one of the grandchildren of that hovse that did not win the English Derby will prove as good to the Major as. thirteen trumps in a rubber of whist. *?rg

The . above calls to my ifeeoHeetfbn. a good Jstory about old John Smith, our sporting draper, whose death was recorded a few months ago. John!a sterling honesty as a sportsman, and the faot that he owned Maid of Honor and Tim WhifHer, will cause him to be long remembered amongst the sporting public of the colony;.. When brought to bed with his last illness, he could not for some days bring himself to believe that he was face to face with the great Destroyer. When the poor man began himself to realise that his burly body was soon to return to its kindred dust, he called his ■-„ physician to him, and in all seriousness offered " to lay him £50 to nothing '* that he wouldn't cure him. When his wife was sitting weeping at the bedside he 'remarked, "Don't cry. wife; there's £40,0C0 between you and the workhousp," The widow has had a cpstlj v maußoleum erected for her spouse, in the Church of England cemetery. ' * . >.;-.

An old Thamesite, Mr E. Horniby, is in luck, having been admitted^into-part-nership with Mr W. S. Laurie. A, spacious warehouse for the new firm is being erected near the Queen - street wharf. Ned looks as happy as a bumble bee, pad as prosperous as a country publican on the right side of the loedbobby.