THREE EARTHQUAKES.

A prominent European authority on earthquakes predicts a large upheaval in the neighbourhood

of Cooks Straits in 1911. Press item.

When the hefty earthquake finds us in the happy year eleven,
And the folk that lived in Wellington have winged their way to Heaven,
Then the places that aint rocking round about our windy shore
Will perhaps discover something that they might have learned before,
Just to build on steady ground,
On foundations good and sound,
And to keep their aspirations within bound, bound, bound.

When the money market tightens as we thought it never could,
And the cash must go to Cohen that the people want for food;
When our staple products fail us and the seasons come and go,
Each one worse than all the others, then, perhaps, well get to know
That a heap of borrowed cash,
And a large financial splash,
Are the very certain heralds of a smash, smash, smash.

When the guns begin to thunder, and the skies are all aflame,
And the seas are black with anger, and the hearths are dumb with shame;
When the black-and-tan are masters, and the white man at the wall
Has begun to learn the flavor of the wormwood and the gall -
When weve most of us been shot,
Then well think , as like as not,
The military training isnt rot, rot, rot!

David McKee Wright
Nelson
The Bulletin, 8
th
April 1909