A small party of officials, with buckets and garden hose, endeavoured to stay the outbreak, but a high north-west wind hurried on the doom of the building, which was soon alight at all points. Glass smashing under the heat maintained a crackle like machine guns in action. Crowds of people were driven from the vicinity of the totalisator and the eastern end of the big stand, and smoke, sparks, and flying cinders were everywhere. The Cup horses, which were just going out, were recalled, racing being for the time impossible. The Christchurch Fire Brigade did not turn out at once, as the Addington course is outside the city fire district. All efforts to get the brigade failed, and an appeal to the Mayor (Mr Holland) was made without success.
Everywhere people were clamouring for the brigade and upbraiding the Trotting Club for not calling it. The indignation was general when it became known that the brigade would not go out. Presently Superintendent Warner arrived on the scene, and, seeing the seriousness of the position, he ordered the brigade out, and a motor engine arrived. The crowd hooted the brigade, and assailed it with derisive howls. As far as doing anything to save the building was concerned the brigade might as well have stayed at home, but its efforts were useful in saving the large people's stand, which but for the presence of the brigade might have shared the fate of the stewards' stand.
As Minister of Marine, the Hon. Dr. McNab is carefully watching the establishment of fish markets in the dominion. Though other centres have bought trawlers or provided retail shops, nothing of the kind has been done in Dunedin. It is an undertaking, however, that is wholly in the hands of the governing body of a city. The Government does not assist local authorities in any way, nor does it propose to do so, but it is its intention next session to bring in legislation empowering it, in the event of a market being properly organised, to encourage men engaged in fishing by advancing them money to procure boats or, in the case of those already in the industry, a better class of boat.
This will only be done, of course, if the fisherman has a free market in which to sell. It is hoped this will provide another avenue of employment for returned soldiers who, previous to going to the war, had led a seafaring life. There are many returned men who might turn their attention to this means of earning a livelihood in preference to taking up land. A boat and its equipment would not call for the comparatively heavy expenditure that is necessary on the part of the man who buys or leases a farm. The scheme, at any rate, is one that the Minister has under consideration, and later on, as the necessity arises, it will be further developed.
Head hunting still continues to be the popular sport with the natives of Choisel (writes the Suva correspondent of the New Zealand Herald). That they do not lack for entertainment of this sort is very evident to any who happen to have reasons for visiting this island. Villages are practically wiped out, old men, women and children slaughtered to satisfy the blood lust, gardens stamped flat, mission stations that have taken years of strenuous wearying work to establish are made untenable or kept going under conditions that are not at all peaceful. No official action has so far been taken to bring peace and goodwill towards men on Choisel. - ODT, 8.11.1916.
