EWEN'S HILL CUTTING, CAMBRIDGE ROAD.

Waikato Times, Volume XVIII, Issue 1493, 28 January 1882, Page 3

EWEN'S HILL CUTTING, CAMBRIDGE ROAD.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, — Everyone who reads your report of the late meeting of the Waikato County Council, and is acquanted with the history of Ewen's hill cutting, must be struck with the bad taste exposed by Councillors Eunciman and Wells in their uncalled for remarks upon the very reasonable demand for assistance made by the Cambridge Highway District Board. It seems an attempt to shift the blame, if any, from the guilty to the innocent shoulders, for either the cutting designed by a former board, of which Mr Runciman was chairman, was in the first place ill-advised, or the engineer who carried out the work was at fault, or else it was no person's fault, but an unlooked for casualty for which the elements alone are responsible ; but whoever may be to blame, unless the work be thoroughly well done this time, it will occur again, and unless the Government either take over the main coach roads, or the county render some assistance, the ratepayers of the Cambridge district will resist paying taxes to be wholly absorbed in maintaining a thoroughfare between the townships of Hamilton and Cambridge. Already great complaints are made by the outlying settlers of the highway district in question that they have been paying rates for many years merely to keep the main road in repair. The present board deserve the thanks of the community for the time they have devoted to carrying out the work allotted to them, in the face of the difficulties with which they have been surrounded, and the limited means at their disposal. Therefore, the voice of censure raised by Councillors Runciman and Wells will reflect only upon themselves.'— l am, etc., W. A. Graham. Tamahere, January 27, 1882.

A Martyr to Frozen Meat. — Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam, and St. Albans was, probably, one of the first Englishmen who experimented upon the preservation of meat by cold. The immediate cause of his death deserves to be stated. In the spring of 1626, says Aubrey, his strength and spirits revived, and he returned to Gray's Inn, from whence, on April 2, going into the cemetery with Dr Witherborne, the King's physician, it occured to him as he approached Highgate, the snow lying on the ground, that he would ascertain whether flesh might not be preserved in snow as well as in salt, and he resolved immediately to try the experiment. They alighted out of the coach, and went into a poor woman's house at the bottom of Highgate-hill, bought a hen and stuffed the body with •now, my lord helping to do it himselffl The snow chilled him and he immediatly became so extremely ill that he could not return to Gray's Inn, but was taken to the Earl of Arundel's house at Highgate, Avhen he was put into a warm bed, but it was damp, and had not been slept in for a year before. He died on April 9, 1626, in the 69th year of his age. He was buried by his own desire in St. Michael's Church, near St. Albans, in the same grave with his mother. — Saturday Magazine, Juno 27, 1835.