THE LONG BAY ROAD.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume 2, Issue 187, 3 May 1878, Page 2

THE LONG BAY ROAD.

To the Editor of the Akaroa Mail.

Sir, — You are the boy to put a patch on a sore place ; sure could you patch up the sores on the new Long Bay Road. One fellow got thrown from his horse the other day, where Chappell says the contractors made a confounded bungle, and to all appearance he was sore enough. If you had heard the stress he laid on the adjective engineer and contractors for making their batter perpendicular. Down came half a cartful of rotten stone into the middle of the road ; he cannoned off the rotten rock on to a sound birch post; he laid quietly there till his senses returned sufficiently to allow him to proceed on his journey. So much for the top part.

Now, Mr Editor, let us have a look at the nriddle. Mr Kenny has reached Mr E. Lelievre's land in first-rate style. " You must stop here or take the survey line for the bottom of the road," says the Frenchman. ,l Adjective if I do," says the Irishman, "my specifications say the pegs are in the middle of the road." " Read that," says Frenchman, " I got itfrora the Board, and it says the pegs are on the lower side of the road through ray section, and not in the middle, as they are on every other road. 1 ': ' '

Now, Mr Editor, who ought to pay the contractor's loss of time—the engineer for making a muddle of it, or the Road Board for allowing him to do so ? It is no joke to knock a contractor off that has nearly twenty men employed,' especially at this time of the year, when bad weather may he hourly expected. That was a fine idea I saw in the Mail the other day about keeping contractors tip to their specifications in the future, if it was the Board's wish. ' Now, Mr Editor, as a ratepayer, I should like to know what is the use of paying an engineer to go to a lot of trouble to draw out specifications, if the work is not done according to them ? And not that aloneit is not fair to other contractors to pass a job half done because they have made nothing out of it; that i_ their fault—they were no novices in the game they were playing. If I could have my say in it, if the contractor would not finish it, the engineer should not get his percentage, and he should be held liable for passing a job that was not completed according to his own specifications. In my opinion, he gets the lion's share of the ratepayers' money for taking a little constitutional exercise on horseback. I must say ta-ta now, Mr Editor. I won't apologise for taking up your space this time, as I expect L shall have to advertise for a good dose of sticking-plaster -.to mend the sore places on that road.

Yours, &c, OLD RED SANDSTONE,