THE Akaroa Mail. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 20.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume 4, Issue 374, 20 February 1880, Page 2

THE Akaroa Mail. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 20.

The friends of Me E. S. Latter, Clerk to the Akaroa County Council, will be glad to hear that lie is now sufficiently recovered from his late serious illness as to again resume his official duties.

The official ministers under Marriage Act, 1854, for 1880, are as follows:— Church of England, 198; Presbyterian Church, 125,- Wesleyans, 86; Roman Catholics, 66 ; Primitive Methodists, 17 ; Independents, 12 ; Methodist Free Church, 11; Lutherans, 8 ; Baptist, 7 ; Hebrew, 6; Church of Christ, 2. Total, 538.

"Th*e "special" whe penned the following must be a gsnius in his way, and an invaluable auxiliary to any journal published where thrilling episodes are scarce:—" What might have proved a very serious, if not a fatal accident, occurred on the Totara Flat last Friday night. A man, whose name I have been unable to discover, was driving a dray and team up the flat, when the near wheel slipped into a ditch and came oil its axle. The dray was upset, but luckily the man was walking at the time, and he was able to stop the horses, and nothing worse happened than having to camp out all night." The imagination of the reader is gently stimulated and allowed to wander at will in an interminable vista of what " might have been." Instead of in a commonplace manner " slipping into a ditch," the wheel " might " have gone over a precipice. The driver might have been thrown down and crushed into a shapeless mass by the heavy load which the dray might have been carrying. The horses might have been Arab steeds, and might have roamed the country till general destruction of the whole turn out ensued. In fact, a three volume novel might easily be constructed out of the possibilities modestly hidden behind the reporter's "might have proved."

By a telegram which we publish elsewhere, it will be seen that the Railway deputation had an interview with the Minister for Public JWorks yesterday morning. The result appears to have been satisfactory to the members of the •deputation.

The ordinary meeting of the Akaroa Borough Council which should have been •held on Wednesday evening, lapsed for want of a quorum. The only members present were Crs Ciillen, Penlington, and Armstrong. As hia Worship the Mayor was absent as a member of the deputation appointed at the late public meeting, several Councillors seem to have been under the impression that the meeting would not be held. The meeting was adjourned till tin's (Friday) evening.

In another column will be found particulars of the times and places at which Assessment Courts will sit to hear objections against the valuation rolls of the various local bodies on the Peninsula.