BOROUGH COUNCIL.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume 2, Issue 161, 1 February 1878, Page 3

BOROUGH COUNCIL.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE AKAROA MAIL. Sir.—From what has eked out since the last meeting of the Borough Council, it is pretty evident that your report, and the letter from "Eavesdropper" have fallen -very far short of a verbatim report of what really transpired on that memorable occasion. Now I don't know what could be more instructive and more calculated to show the genera] public what utter farces their municipal institutions are, than a faithful report.of what every man says at their meetings. No wonder that one sapient council lor objected to the presence of the Fourth Estate. He was a wise man I in his generation. He evidently went, there with malice prepence. He had clearly laid himself out for certain refer- I ences known only in the Billinsgate vocabulary. I like that man—no, I should have liked him, but, at the last moment I he jibbed and objected to the presence of the engineer. From a fact like this, one is irrisistibly led to the reflection, viz.: What do these gentlemen consider they are elected to represent ? Is it that they are placed on neutral ground where they can say any amount of nasty things without fear of consequences, or again is it in. their blind state of ignorance—a sine qua non to show their proficiency for the position — that vituperation and vulgarity shall be their motto ? I ask any impartial individual to read over that discussion about the Hospital pans, and state publicly his conclusion. One gentleman asks on what authority these pans had been ordered. It turned out that the ■Council had not to pay for them, but, for convenience sake, they had been ordered through the Council. Y«jt this explanation was not. sufficient, and up juinys another gentleman, who thought so and so. The first speaker on the point, I looked upon as interested —pan making might be in his line, but clearly the second could have no such motive, for close*- pans are not made of leather. The result of a long discussion on this savoury subject was that these dreadful pans were to be countermanded. The winding up was heroic, to wit—That this logical representative body were not to allow themselves to sink into mere hucksters of; closei pans. These gentlemen, whose functions are supposed to be pre-eminently directed to sanitary matters, absolutely decline to entertain a question that affects the, health of every soul in the borough ; because why—simply that they have taken into their abtuse noddles that they are going into the huckstering line. 0 temporal 0 mores! But from the ridiculous, how quickly and easily they slide along into the sublime. The Clerk —oh, that poor Clerk—is asked to retire so that he may not, in propria persona, hear how beautifully and artistically they are collectively going to lay bare every tender point or feeling this unfortunate gentleman may possess. I think, considering that all the inuendoes affecting this question were to appear in print, the request to make his presence conspicuous by his absence, was one of the most cruel pieces of refined torture that has come under my observation for many a long year ; he was to wait and see how it looked in print. To commence with, no one seemed to know what

he was about—one proposed one thing, and one another, until naturally they arrived at that staff of (hnos and confusion that, in the tlii'-k .smoke, nothing could be discerned Inn jxmdtinwiv.nm —no pun intended on the pan question (?* I have since made enquiries what this unfortunate Clerk receives in compensalioii for this bi-weekly process oL" skinning ; lam told the salary reaches the princely sum of £100 ;i year.

Now, Harry, my fiipiid. a word of advice to you —You must invest in a pair of mittens, and you must take lessons in the noble art of self-defence ; th«. only plan I assure you. . The vi et armis principle is the only one that ever reached the heads of your noble nine. For present purposes just address me at the Mail office, and I will lend you a pair of knuckle dusters—you will find them very effective if you can only trust your arm to direct itself "straight from the shoulder." Take my name and call upon our old friend George, and he will give you instructions how to use and apply them in the management of those festive gentlemen ; he has been used to it; his education liw been largely amongst the rude and obstreperous ; a word and a blow with him, only the blow first; see how he kept the intelligent nine in order ; they knew very well that the master mind was amongst them, and they shaped accordingly. Look at our late continental wars and the present one ; don't they show you the principle in language [unmistaksahle where in large communities force of arms is the only logic to bring nations to their senses ; surely the lesson might be well imitated in small ones. Try it, my boy, but if you feel that with all the science of the art the physique is deficient, throw up the sponge, and place yourself on the generosity of the burgesses, and you may take the undersigned's word that they will, out of their own pockets, supply you with a superannuated bruiser ; I say superannuated, for measuring the metal you have to deal with, I think anything under threequarters of a century old will solve all the difficult problems likely to emanate from the gallant nine. More anon on same subject.—Yours, &c, FOSCO. P.S., No. I.—l hear a patient public are about memorialising for the abolition of the Akaroa Borough Council—more power to them. Verb sap. F. P.S., No. 2.—My friend at my elbow suggests that "they all want scrumping." Will you, Mr Editor, kindly give me the meaning and derivation of this term ; my friend acknowledges it as a mere repetition. F. P.S., No. 3.—1 see that our old friend Daly has thrown up his commission. " Noscitur a sociis," a reason that cannot be impugned. F.