Country News.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume IV, Issue 227, 10 July 1902, Page 3

Country News.

(rROM OUB OWN CORBESrON DENTS.) HUNTER. The weather of late has been very changeable, but now promises better, and it is to be hoped we get no more rain for a moath or two. Farming operations have been greatly retarded for the last three weeks, and even yet the land is not quite fit to work with plough or harrow. Given fine weather large crops will be put in, but we must have it now, or it will be too late to sow much this season. As it is, there will be but a small quantity of winter wheat sown. Keen disappointment was felt by' all in this district when news arrived of the King's illness and the postpone- i ment of the Coronation. Many had | decided to spend a few days in viewing processions and attending fetes in the various towns of Canterbury and Otago, and most had to abandon their project. Some, however, unbelievingly, would not bo baulked, but took train, and reaching their destination, found out when there that all festivities were not to come off.

I have now to report the dance of the season, the Hunter bachelors’ annual ball, which undoubtedly was most successful and enjoyable, and voted by all and sundry to have been the best ever held horo. The ball was held in the schoolroom, which was tastefully decorated by the working committee with beautiful fern leaves and many tinted flowers, one end of the room having a device worked on the wall and the w»rd “Welcome" inserted in largo letters. The committee deserve great praise for their painstaking efforts. Proceedings commenced at 8.30 p.m. with the Grand March, thirty-two couples taking part in it io tho music of Messrs Englebrecht (violin), Giles (piccolo), and Mercer (piano), these musicians being relieved several times in later dances by Mr Gillespie (violin) and Miss Cartwright (piano). Messrs Gibson and Mercer divided the duties of M.C. with efficiency. Dancing was most enjoyable, the floor being in the best condition, and although the room became crowded shortly after tho first dance, the pleasure of it was still unalloyed. Between the dances songs were agreeably rendered by Messrs Sullivan, Wilson, Coates, Bertie, and Curtin. Refreshments of cooling and appetising viands were handed round at various intervals, and were done ample justice to. The pretty dresses of tho fair sex, blending with the khaki uniforms of the Seventh Contingent troopers and the more sombre black of the rest of the sterner sex, made the ballroom one of the brightest ever seen in the Hunter. A warm welcome was given to local Seventh Contingent men. Trooper Fulton and his mates, I am sure, got as hearty a one, although they were not so well known. We still hope to know Farrier-Sergeant Ward and Troopers Curtin and Spring better, and hope they enjoyed their visit to Hunter. The fun was kept going till 3.30 a.m., when the gathering broke up and the bachelors’ ball of 1902 was consigned to memory's storeroom. A concert and dance is to be held in aid of the school funds on July 18th, and piomises by all accounts to surpass all previous ones. Everyone in the Hunter says last year’s was good, but this is to be better.