During the fresh that ran in the Wairau a couple of weeks ago, he said, he noticed a place where there was quite a stretch of backwater. He marked this spot, and on Saturday, while Hannan was struggling against the current, he himself was borne upstream with hardly any effort on his own part.
Criticism of Parliament rebutted
The criticism which Lord Bryce is reported to have made regarding the Parliament of New Zealand was referred to by Sir Frederick Lang, Speaker of the House of Representatives at the Farmers’ Union dinner on Thursday evening (wires our Wellington correspondent).
Sir Frederick said he was surprised to see the cabled statements, which somewhat belittled the members of Parliament. Visitors to other countries had described to him the conditions in the Houses of Parliament there, and he was satisfied the New Zealand Parliament compared very favourably with parliaments in other countries. During the 27 years he had been in Parliament he had never known anything approaching an uproar or disturbance in the House. The members carried out their responsibilities and duties in a manner of which the people of New Zealand might well be proud. Another of the charges was that the members were too epresentative. It had been said that some members did not represent the people, but never that they were too representative. He had read of free fights occurring in the British House of Commons, and at another time a Minister was unable to speak for two hours because he was howled down. That sort of thing did not happen in New Zealand.
Old Dunedin storekeeper’s death
The death occurred recently of Mr Lewis H. Marshall, a very old colonist. The deceased was born in Falkirk in 1845, and came out to New Zealand in the Cornwall in 1849. As a boy he attended Mr Robert McDonald’s school, which was afterwards known as Livingston’s school, and went later to Grant’s Academy. He was a prominent member of the Waikari Rifle Volunteers, and became a lieutenant in 1869. He was a crack rifle shot, winning many shooting prizes throughout the dominion. In the early days he was engaged with his father in Smith and Marshall’s grocery store in Manse street, which was well known at the time of the gold rushes. Later, the deceased’s father opened the shop now known as Bunting’s store at Halfway Bush, which was the centre of much business in the early days. When a young man, the deceased opened a store on his own account in the Kaikorai Valley. The late Mr Marshall had many experiences of the arduous trekking over the hills across Flagstaff towards Waikouaiti and Canterbury. He leaves a widow, five sons and three daughters. — ODT, 18.6.1921.
