GOSSIPPY NOTES.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume 2, Issue 125, 28 September 1877, Page 2

GOSSIPPY NOTES.

+ • (FROM OUR TIMARU GOSSIP.) , In the report of a Christchurch paper of the proceedings of a church meeting down your way, I see that it is mentioned • incidentally that things are in a very depressed state just now on tlie Peninsula. What a remarkable fact! Is the Peninsula the'only place where things are dull at present; I trow not; though your contemporary may not know it. Yours truly sees many persons, from all parts of the , colony, who are in every way qualified to express an opinion, and they are unanimous in Buying.-that things are quite as dull as they were nine or ten years ago. Business its as slack here as elsewhere, though, from what I hear, the dark clouds of financial depression are breaking up rapidly. Not only in Timaru, bnt in Waimate and Temuka things are looking up. The Tcmukaifes are either not so sanguine or not so excited over their Milford harbor scheme as they were, or perhaps the prime mover in the matter does not feel inclined to risk so much as he said that he intended to on a scheme which would, if it possibly were a success, in a few years double the value of all the land which he owns in the immediate neighbourhood of the lagoon. The engineer's long promised report has been delayed, in consequence of the steamer engaged having been unable through rough weather to get near the mouth of the lagoon to take - soundings. Quite a small excitement has been got up in Waimate over telegrams sent, to the Herald by Mr E. Wakefield, the member for Geraldine. It is an almost universal . feeling in South Canterbury that the busi- : ness of the R.M. Courts is not conducted ; in such a manner as to suit our law—respecting community. The Waimate people, sharing this feeling with us, have chosen to petition the House of Representatives on their own account for certain reforms, and forwarded the petition, not through their own member, but through Mr Rees, the .'member for Auckland City East. Mr Wakefield, in his telegram to the Herald, represents Mr Teschinaker, the ' • member for Waimate, as " furious," and i

Mr Stafford a as exceedingly annoyed. Of course the action of the Waimateans was tantamount to their declaring that they could not trust their member in the matter. Our southern friends are considerably riled at the tone Mr Wakefield adopted in his telegrams, and an indignation meeting was held the other evening, at which several resolutions ondemnatory of that gentleman's conduct were., carried. No doubt his feelings will ,be "harrowed" when he hears that he was burnt in effigy. Apropos of the meeting, f lic Tribuna says, " There was not a drunken person noticeable in the crowd!" After that one cannot but believe there must have been some truth in the statement made by a speaker in the House during thed ebaTe on the "Local Option Bill," *'that Waimate was the most drunken place in the Colony." (To be continued.)