A Chat with Mr Kirk.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume III, Issue 337, 13 August 1889, Page 3

A Chat with Mr Kirk.

THE PARIS EXHIBITION. As most people in the district know, Mt Enoch Kirk is one of that class of business men who arc always respected tor their fair and upright dealing. He is not a townsman, for hU home is in Tologa Bay—a nice, quiet little place in which a man’s good or bad traits are much more easily discernible than when the same individual has a larger scope for his operations. Mr Kirk has always been popular and much respected at Tologa Bay, and equally well liken by the large number of people who know him in Gisborne. He is, of an observant nature, and a representative of this journal felt that he would be throwing aside a golden opportunity if he did not have, a ohat with Mr Kirk on what that gentleman! had seen during his recent trip to the old country. Our representative did not get 1 great deal of information, for in the firsl place both were pressed for time, and in thP second Mr Kirk Is not the man to tall again the oft told tale of life in the old country, a knowledge of which ia bow, by tha eld of an efficient'system of iutercommUßloatioa and the newspapaper Press, pc-seossed by a.;.

people who pause to think over such matters. Really, said Mr Kirk, I have nothing particular worth telling you. No incidents of the voyage to relate ? —or nothing particular that struck year attention ? Oh, no; there is nothing really which has not often been toll before. Of course there are many new things to bo seen, but the colonies arc well informed on all such matters. Well, tell me how you enjoyed yourself. I had a fine trip of it, and things were very pleasant. You were at the Paris Exhibition, were yon not ’ What did you think of it'? Yes, I went over to Paris. As to the Exhibition, it is of course much the same as other things of its kind. It Is a good deal after the style of the Melbourne one, though on a grander scale, The Eiffel tower is a wonderful affair, and Is the great feature which distinguishes this Exhibition from all others, I went up it as far as it was then possible to get, about 200 feet, but the lifts and apparatus were not completed, and I had to content myself with going no further, except at great trouble, which I did not think the thing worth. After all it is not a thing which strikes one’s fancy very much ; the novelty of course is its only redeeming feature. There was a large number of people on their way to witness the Exhibition besides those who were there at the same time es myself. They were coming from ail parts of the world. In the course of further conversation Mr Kirk eaid he had on both occasions gone by the Sydney route, On his return to that place he had, he mentioned, seen a young man with regard to whose movements some curiosity has been excited in Gisborne, tha young man alluded to having been an officer in the recently disbanded J Battery corps, Referring to the steamers in which he had travelled, he said that though so much had been made of their magnificence and marvellous qualities he considered that the New Zealand Union Company's boats were better, in every respect that was considered from a passenger’s point of view, than the great international boats of which to much has been heard. The N.Z, boats he said, give far greater comfort, and you ean rely on more civility and attention. The charge for travelling is high in New Zealand, but we have the advantage in other respects. On being asked il he would not find Tologa Bay dull after having viewed the most magnificent eights in the world, Mr Kirk laughed, and said he would no doubt find things quiet for n time, but, he philosophically added, that came in the natural order of things, and there is something agreeably pleasant in returning to the “ dull tenor of our way," after passing through the busy scenes in Australia, in England and on the Continent. Mr Kirk has had ths advantage over most of us in being able to see the greatest Exhibition the world has known, but he talks of these things very modestly and ssems to think that after all there is no country to beat New Zealand—and we might take the liberty to add, no city that can best Tologa Bay !