Masterton can lay claim to fame for what must surely be the record game of euchre ever played, for the stake was nothing less than a bride.
There were only two participants, but they are doughty sons of old Ireland, and were fired with the ardour so characteristic of Erin's children. They happen both to be captains of the labour that entails plentiful swinging of the pick and hoisting of the shovel, and also merry widowers, whose previous matrimonial encounters in no way daunted them for a second bout with Cupid. The bride-to-be was, coincidentally, a merry widow, whose Dublin brogue was only excelled in richness by the suitors who "played" for her hand. The match was fought out in a local boarding-house, an enthusiastic audience watching a point-to-point game with keen interest.
Fortune favoured him of the loud and insistent voice whose melodious greeting has been a vocal landmark of Akura for countless seasons past, whilst the redoubtable Te Ore Ore antagonist walked sadly away from the scene with an inevitable walking-stick alone to console him. Sad to relate, the "stake" had not been previously consulted in the matter, and when the winner went to claim her he was ignominiously spurned, the lady declaring "be the powers" she wouldn't have winner or loser "on her mind".
• During the past month good progress has been made in the bottom heading of the big tunnel at Otira, which has been passing through a belt of graphite. This is good shooting country, and consequently satisfactory cuts have been taken out after each firing. No. 7 breakdown is also showing good progress and is keeping up well with the face. The work of lining the tunnel is proceeding apace, and the men are now up to the excavators. This department of the work has always been most satisfactory, and at the present time it keeps one motor busy bringing in the concrete and packing. A 100-ton hydraulic wheel-press has been fitted up to enable all truck wheels to be repaired at the tunnel works.
• It is said that the kitchens of the Titanic stood in the front of the culinary world. The "cooking hall", as it was called, was a "triumph of modern art".
It was fitted up with a vast "island" range, and connected with it were patent roasters, with glittering spits, electric mincers, batteries of stock pots, steam ovens, electric triturators or bruisers, toasters, salamanders, electric slicers, etc., and elsewhere were automatic egg-boilers, milk-scalders, and so on. Some idea of the kitchen may be gathered from the fact that 100 waiters could stand simultaneously at the "bar" of the cooking hall, waiting to take viands in one flight into the dining saloons.
• A remarkable instance of a long-delayed delivery of a newspaper sent through the post has just come to light.
In March, 1889, 23 years ago, a copy of the Christian World was dropped into the post office at Edinburgh. It was addressed to a young man, then a cadet on a sheep station in Canterbury, New Zealand. In due time it arrived at Lyttelton, when it appears to have been secreted in the tower of the post office.
There it remained undiscovered until the other day, when it was found and forwarded to the address it bore. But the young cadet had become a man of 46, and had "departed" for other parts.
The postal officials, however, made a praiseworthy effort to trace his whereabouts, and at last succeeded in locating him in Auckland,where he occupies a prominent position in the railway service. The paper was accordingly forwarded to him, and has now come into his possession. - ODT, 1.6.1912.
