The party traversed the Fitzgerald route. This is the first time that anyone has climbed one side of Sefton and descended the other - a most difficult and hazardous undertaking. Compared with Sefton, the climbing of Mount Cook is comparatively easy.
• A public meeting of the ratepayers in Moonlight and Nenthorn in the Moonlight School. The Chairman (Mr George Clark) said the meeting had been called to discuss the need of having the boundaries of the Waihemo and Waikouaiti counties altered. Since the Otago Central Railway had been opened the community of interest had quite changed. All the traffic from the Moonlight and Nenthorn districts was towards either Middlemarch or Hyde. At present the rates from these districts went to maintain roads that lead towards the coast, but in getting to the railway they had to use roads through other counties to which they did not pay rates. After the matter had been fully discussed it was unanimously agreed to petition Parliament to have all those districts served by the Otago Central Railway joined to the Maniototo County and a committee was appointed to carry out the desire of the meeting.
• With a view to refuting the charge promulgated from time to time that Lincoln College was the resort of the sons of the aristocracy, if such a term could be used in New Zealand, the director of the college laid before the board on Tuesday a list of the students and their parentage. The report showed that the students were drawn from various useful classes in the community, and the board unanimously agreed that it was a sufficient reply to the charge that the institution was a class one.
• Interesting figures concerning the average length of life which may be expected at different ages in various States of the Commonwealth have recently been prepared by the Federal Census Bureau. It appears Tasmania is a good place to be born in and a good place to live the long life in. Taking the statistics for males during the decennium 1901-1910, it seems that a child at birth may be reckoned to have a chance of the longest life in Tasmania (57.7 years), and the next longest in South Australia (56.7), New South Wales (55.9), Victoria (55), and Queensland (54.2), and shortest of all in West Australia (51.4). - ODT, 14.2.1913.
Copies of picture available from ODT front office, Lower Stuart St, or www.otagoimages.co.nz
