Taranaki Herald 27 Mar 1896

Tataraimaka

An accident that happily did not terminate with any very serious
results occurred on the Timaru Bridge on Saturday night. A carrier
who was proceeding to New Plymouth with a load of butter for the
Crown Dairy Company, when driving on to the bridge kept too much to
one side, and one wheel went inside the foot rail and struck
violently against the side of the bridge. The sudden jerk threw the
driver among the horses, but he escaped without injury; the pole of
the waggon was broken, and one wheel was smashed pretty badly. There
is a sharp curve in the road on this side of the bridge, and drivers
of vehicles require to be careful when approaching, especially at
night.

Several cases of fruit stealing have come under my notice lately. One
man who has an orchard close to the Main Road had a pear tree that
was well laden with fruit completely stripped. It is very trying
when owners of orchards that are in close proximity to the road
cannot let fruit remain on the trees until it ripens, without
receiving visits from those who make it their business to prowl about
at night on foraging expeditions, when owners of the fruit are in
their beds; and where they (the prowlers) certainly ought to be.
However, the owner of the orchard in question evidently looks at the
bright side of things, for he assures me that he is very thankful they
did not take the tree too; and expressed a hope that they would not
feel at all indisposed after regaling themselves on green pears.
But the probability is that if their digestive organs were not in
first class order, they would feel a bit uncomfortable.

My attention has been called to the action of the Chairman of our
Road Board in employing his own team to cart gravel from the beach
to near the main road, a distance of three miles, when equally good
gravel can be obtained from the Timaru river, a distance of only
half a mile from the road under repair. For the present I am
satisfied to let this fact speak for itself.