Grahamstown Gazette fiftieth issue spectacular!!!

Twenty-fives fifties that happened in Thames 100 years ago:

1.  The Thames gold fields celebrated its golden jubilee in 1917.
2. Corn reached the unheard-of price of fifty cents a bushel.
3. Ah Lee was arrested on the steamer from Thames to Auckland, and fined £50 for opium possession.
4. A horse called Wild Nut won by fifty yards at the Thames Trotting Club’s opening meeting in 1920.
5. £50 was given to St. John’s Ambulance, and another £50 was given to the Ladies’ National Reserve, as part of Labour Day celebrations in 1916.
6. Thames Hospital celebrated its fiftieth anniversary.
7. St. Francis Catholic Church celebrated fifty years in their original church building.
8. The Presbyterian Church also celebrated their Golden Jubilee.
9. Fifty couples attended Mr Crawford’s farewell social in Kopu in 1916.
10. In November 1918, fifty to sixty people per day were using the inhalation chamber at Tararu to fight off Spanish Influenza.
11. Fifty kegs of explosives were received by the Thames Harbour Board.
12. The Thames Star’s local correspondent was unimpressed to learn that the average War Correspondent earned fifty shillings a day. ‘What does he do to need such an allowance? One of his greatest difficulties on the battlefield must be to find opportunities to spend such a sum.’
13. A speaker from the RSA told a crowd in Thames in 1920 that membership nation-wide had already reached fifty thousand men.
14. Four hundred and fifty dozen eggs were left at the depot of the Thames branch of the Egg Circle in September 1918.
15. The Women’s Patriotic League pledged to make fifty sanitary singlets per month, to help fight vermin in the trenches.
16. Mr. M. Whitehead wrote a popular series for the Thames Star on his memories of the early days of the Thames gold fields, fifty years earlier.
17. The proprietor of a local drapery estimated that Auckland prices were so high that a household could save £50 by purchasing from him, instead of buying the same items from drapers in Auckland.
18. Thames residents were fed up with the constant delays in the installation of underground telephone lines in the town, despite two other towns within a hundred and fifty miles of Thames already having underground telephone systems.
19. An appeal was issued by the National Service League, to enlist the services of school children for fifty hours' service without reward, in helping the wife and widow of any soldier.
20. Some fifty returned soldiers attended the Thames Anzac Day memorial service at St. George’s Church in 1919.
21. The Thames Star excitedly reported that the diaries of King Ludwig I of Bavaria were about to be opened for the first time in fifty years.
22. Fifty men from Price's Foundry attended a talk during the dinner hour by Mr W. G. W. Fortune, on new proposals being made by the National Efficiency Board. 
23. A five room dwelling on Beach Road could be purchased for £200, with a deposit of £50 and the balance as a mortgage.
24. The Thames Rugby Union needed accommodation for fifty people from out of town for a seven-a-side tournament on the Thames High School field in 1919.
25. The Whangarei branch of the Thames Old Boys Association requested fifty official Association badges to give to its newest members.