Its symptoms are everywhere in evidence.
Once again, after twelve months of toil and moil, we feel the welcome relaxation of the pressure of every day's business.
The respite makes many think that life is worth living.
"This is our chief bane," said an ancient author, "that we live not according to the light of reason, but according to the fashion of others."
The discovery is one no moderately reflective person can help making and remaking.
When he is holiday-making the average man has probably a better measure of opportunity than at any other time of living according to a fashion of his own.
Then, indeed, he is in one of his most instructive and delightful moods - an inexhaustible subject for philosophic study.
There are as many different conceptions of the ideal way of making holiday as there are types of individual character and disposition.
Herein lies the source of the perennial charm of the seasonable picture.
And, as change of occupation is one of the most refreshing forms of recreation, there is no doubt wisdom in the practice that makes play, sometimes strenuous play, the temporary successor of habitual labour.
Natural, indeed, then is it to echo Charles Lamb's facetious query, - "Who first invented work, and bound the free and holiday-rejoicing spirit down?" But the material fact is that the chain is loosened, and that the holiday rejoicing spirit has its hour to use as inclination and opportunity dictate.
We may smile sometimes at the apparently burdensome business some people make of enjoying their year's few precious hours of leisure, but the law of recreation is emphatic on the point that individual taste shall have indulgence.
• A find has been made by Mr H. Bourne on the hilltops near Pipiriki, and his description suggests fossil remains of an ancient marine monster.
According to Mr Bourne's observations, the bones of the creature are there in their entirety, and cover a distance of 40ft or 50ft, but there is so far no information on which to form any conclusion as to its shape or species.
A tooth is now being exhibited in Raetihi in moderate preservation.
• An enterprising resident bought the floor of the gold office of the Queenstown branch of the Bank of New Zealand prior to it being taken up.
His object (says the Mail) was to lift the floor and wash up the gravel immediately below it in order to save any of the gold that might have dropped during the process of weighing.
As the result of his wash-up he received a return equal to about 25s worth. - ODT, 27.12.1910.
Copies of photos published in the "100 years ago - from our archives" column are available for order from The Star Stationary Shop, Lower Stuart St, Dunedin, or by going to www.otagoimages.co.nz
