Raglan News.

Waikato Argus, Volume XXIV, Issue 3757, 14 April 1908, Page 2

Raglan News.

A man named Lamb, who is travelling for an Auckland drapery firm, was brought up before the local justices last Wednesday upon two separate charges of gross cruelty to horses. In the first case he was accused of driving a pony long distances while the animal was suffering from exceedingly sore shoulders. For this he was fined £5 with costs £6 13s. The evidence produced showed the second case one of heartless cruelty. Defendant, it appears, borrowed a brood mare from a Waingaro settler for the purpose of riding to Ngaruawahia to fetch a sulky. On his return the same day he obtained the consent of the owner to drive to the Waingaro landing and back, but instead of doing this he drove right on to Te Mata, returning to the springs in time for breakfast the next morning, travelling all night, as well as the previous day and covering nearly ninety miles of roads heavy with moist weather. Upon arrival at the hotel before going to his own breakfast, and without even removing the bit from his dumb victim's mouth, defendant shoved under her nose a box of stale fowl-ransacked chaff that had been lying about the yard since the day before. The hotel keeper, Mr Bernet, deposed that the mare could scarcely walk; that she had weals as thick as his finger where she had been flogged, the skin in some places being broken and her shoulders were puffed and blistered. The owner had practically sold her for £15 previously to a neighbour, who after the ill usage she received, said he would not give threepence for her, so the sale was off. The Bench pronounced this a case of brutal cruelty and fined defendant £15, with £5 13s costs or in default six weeks' imprisonment. Mr R. McCardle has been appointed poundkepeer and dog tax collector.

The fact that several cases of machinery measuring in all 7½ tons imported by a certain co-operative concern from Wellington cost in railway and shipping freights £5 per ton, to say cartage at both ends which brings it up to over £6 per ton, is a good illustration of the extortionate charges the New Zealand public are subjected to. It is said that the stuff could have been brought from America for less than half the money. The railway freight alone between Wellington and New Plymouth equalled about £4 per ton. The machinery was second hand, and cost £110 in Wellington—landed in Raglan the cost had climbed to about £160. Although the direct profit on the handling and transport must be very considerable, one can scarcely imagine these freights create large dividends, as such charges are prohibitive, and must discourage, if not entirely kill, certain branches of trade.

Mr Allen Bell has been spending a week travelling through the district, visiting the electors at their homes and thereby becoming more intimately acquainted with them and their circumstances. With the nearer approach of the election campaign, interest is beginning to awaken in these out districts.

Grass seed sowing is still going on on an extensive scale, and as showing that the loss sustained by fires was not exaggerated in this district, a good many, if not most, of the burnt out settlers have had to send off supplementary orders for seed, their first estimate being a too modest one. —Own Correspondent.