EAST COAST LETTER.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume III, Issue 402, 11 January 1890, Page 3

EAST COAST LETTER.

[FBOIt OUH OWN CORRESPONDENT. J Pray you sit by us, and tell’s a tale, Merry, or sad, shall it be ? As merry as you will. —WINTEB’s TALB. Shearing finished at Takapau, and nearly completed at Matahia, which means the subsidence of work from the acute into the chronic form at Waipiro Station. I suppose there will be some tramping over 20,000 acres which are going to be grass sown, and then, Hurroo 1 Mr Editor, for the postponed festivities and three days’ holiday. There is an attractive pregramme (which however, the committee do not, I believe, intend to print) of both athletic and equestrian events, the former open to ths world—ahem I—the latter to untrained horses having their habitat between Tologa and Hicks Bay only, ‘So mote it be,’ a decided improvement on race meetings, infinitely more pretentious, but probably less honest, which have taken place on the Coast before now, As heretofore, a ball concludes the holidays, at which all the Coast elite—and not a few from your town—are expected, Many people who knew Mr and Mrs Laverock aud family were much shocked to hear of the fatal illness and death of their daughter poor little Effie, who was well and favorably known in this locality. Verily, in the midst of lite we are in death, youthful vigor and unimpaired constitution affording no protection against the tell scourge ‘ typhoid ’ and its lethal concomitants. Mr Scott, Native Medical Officer here, met with a nasty accident when returning home from Purehau to Waipiro on Christmas eve, whereby he injured one of his old fractured legs. Dr Hovell (of Coromandel), who happened to be at Waipiro at the time, pronounces the hurt to be serious inasmuch as the bone (tibia) has been damaged more or less extensively. _ • Hogmanay ’ came off immensely on New Year's Eve. I had turned in as usual about ten p.m., quite unconscious that anything extra was on the tapis, though from an unusual influx * o laddies fra the land o cakes,' I guessed that some event would signalise the advent of the New Year, and forewarned by similar Caledonian exarcerbitions ‘spotted my oak,’ about 11 p.m. Well, sir, every thing remained in statu quo till the tosvn clock struck twelve (at Auckland, or any where else), when there arose upon the trembling l.'mpanum of night, a single dab, suggestive of kerosens tin, a blood curdling yell from an instrument unknown to the Narrator, and happily to the world at large; followed by an ear-splitting roll of drums, shrill fifes, laboring concertinas, vibrating jews'harps, and raucous mammalian organs of exasperating timbre, No wonder the midnight sky became c'oudy, the dogs howled, and a stone deaf Maori at the pah asked if anybody spoke. No wonder Narrator, upon his uneasy couch, gently apostrophised the accomplished serenaders of the Hogmanay, and blessed Providence that there was only one New Year's Eve in a twelve month, By and by the hurly burly slackened down to gero, and one voice alone broke the stillness at the nigh*, Sweet Chris'mis carols trolled in gentle harmony 1 Devil a bit, but 1 McSorley's twine,' chanted by a black north caster, with a thunderstorm thrown in by way of chorus, Oh 1 Bulliky 1 Bulliky I how oou'd you so profane the ears and testhics of your unseen, but alas I perforce very attentive audience ? ‘ Tramp I tramp I the bgys are marching,’ night made hideous, qnd'revgrberept kerosene tins mocking the echoes;—a pause, 1 For he is a jolly good fellow—with a hip I hip I hurra I'—Lord help Mr Wallis I—he is surrounded by cacophonous Philistines now if ever he was. Boom, boom, boom ; squeak, squeak, equeak ; rattle, rattle, rattle ! Hulloa I another song, nicely sung during a brief period of silence (I), by Mr Geo. Lepine, whose clear resonant voice I recognise. Bang 1 crash 1 toot, toot, toot I * Old John Brown ’ by the full strength of the company (from 50 to 60) with musical (?) accompaniment I Great Scott 1 “ Will they ever go home— Hulloa I rattle, bang at my own door this time—what a blessing I’ve sported the oak I * Will ye nae tak the aith,' quoted a stalwart Celt on hospitable thoughts intent—and I tak the aith. Hurrah I bang, bang I rootle, tootle I fall in 1 ‘ For to night we'll merry be I for to-night we’,l merry be !' • For his funeral takes place to-morrow I’ • Och hone, widow Maohree.’ ‘Take ms to my little bed,’ all gradually dying away simultaneously, and hy degrees, in the beneficent distance, about 2 a.m. !

Dr Hovell (Coromandel) and Mr Watts (Mutual insurance agent) left here (Waipiro) on Saturday last, for Auckland, proceeding overland along the Qoast,