100 YEARS AGO
Licensee fined
THE licensee of the Hotel Cecil, Wellington, was fined £3 and costs on Friday last for permitting gambling on his licensed premises. The evidence showed that in the early morning of July 25 the police interrupted a game of poker which was being played by several boarders in a luggage room in the hotel. The sum of £4 6s was in front of one of the players, £3 8s in front of another, £4 17s in front of a third, and 4s in front of a fourth. Two of the players had no money, and when the sergeant of police entered the room the men
without money said they were very glad he had arrived on the scene. — (laughter). The licensee had gone to bed early in the evening and had handed the keys over to a night porter, who had entered the room when gambling was in progress, had seen that gambling was going on, and had served the men with several rounds of drinks.
Westhaven harbour
Mr Archibald Walker, surveyor at Wellington for Lloyds Register, informed a New Zealand Times reporter that he recently visited Westhaven, 10 miles south of Farewell Spit, on the West Coast, and found it an ideal tidal harbour, which can be worked by vessels drawing 11ft at high water neaps. Mr Walker has been surveying a wharf there for the Westhaven Timber mill. The construction of the wharf is to commence straightaway, and the company expects to be able to ship timber by the end of the year. Mr
Walker says that the company has a tremendous area of timber, comprising rimu, totara, pines and birch, which will last for fully 20 years.
Bapaume entered
Reports from the west front state that the British are entering Bapaume. The Fourth Army including the Australians, between the 18th and the 21st inst, captured over 30,000 prisoners and nearly 500 guns. Since August 8 over 40,000 Germans have been taken prisoners in the British front. The British method of avoiding direct attack on enemy strong positions and attacking weaker points on the right and left of strongholds, forcing evacuation or surrender, enabled them to gain objectives at small cost though the process is somewhat slower.
The United Press correspondent states: Out of scanty reserves, badly needed elsewhere, Hindenburg and Ludendorff are throwing in
Prussians, Saxons, Bavarians, and marines in an effort to check the British progress on the Somme field. They have been thrown in by regiments, not divisions. Some elements of the same divisions are now found as far apart as Biefvillers and Mametz. But, notwithstanding the attempts to repair holes in the line as fast as they develop, the Germans continue retreating, only holding desperately at some points like Bapaume, in order to prevent the complete breaking down of the defence and turning the forced withdrawal into a riotous retreat.
Ploughing bee
Mr William Dick, one of the returned soldiers who has taken up one of the sections in Lamont’s Estate, near Woodlands, was surprised on Tuesday morning to receive a visit from some of his neighbouring farmers. They immediately made preparations for a day’s ploughing. — ODT, 27.8.1918