WAIROA.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 2990, 25 January 1881, Page 2

WAIROA.

(fhom our own correspondent.) ' * January 22, 1881

The intense heat that has prevailed this week has afforded many with a good excuse lor doing a siesta after the races, baz iar, &c, and other pleasant excitements appertaining thereto, causing business to be rather dull at present. We had a most enjoyable dance after the bazaar in the County Hal!, at which I hear bur chairman waxed wroth. I wonder whether the building belongs to him or to the ratepayers. Our Court House, that has stood half a mile out of town for the last fifteen years, is about to be moved to a site next the Post Office. This will be a great convenience, and should have been done long ago. The job has been taken at a low figure, £27 10s., and, it is surmised, will hardly prove remunerative to the contractors. When the statutes are moved nearer the County Council Chambers, it will be handier for the Council to borrow a volume when required than pquander £20 in buying a new set. What they want with them at all is a mystery, unless the Councillors are all to be made Justices, and the district a Petty Sessions district, from which the Minister of Justice preserve us. The business of the Court for the present will be carried on in Messrs Mayo and Co.'s store. I noticed in a newspaper lately that the recent sales of land on the Waimate plains have juet about covered the cost of maintaining the army of occupation. So far so good. If there has been no profit, there has been no loss. But I wonder bow much the Government has epent in surveying the waste lands in this county, and whether, when these lands are sold, the ledger will not show a considerable 10.-c. It would be far better to sell this land at half-a-crown an acre than keep perpetually measuring it. An election of a committee for the Wairoa public school takes place next Monday evening, and will be rather interesting. The question at issue seems to be whether there Bhall be a schoolmaster or a schoolmistress. Some years ago we were told if we could only induce a clergyman to settle here the place would go ahead wonderfully. The same little fiction is now being put forth about a schoolmaster, but I never could follow the argument. A good doctor is actually wanted more than either of them. The Rev. Mr Riddle has been duly inducted to the pastoral charge of fct. Andrew's congregation, and the Presbyterians held a soiree in celebration thereof. Not being a member of

that church, and not having been invited, I did not go, which I am now rather sorry for. as it appears some allusions were made to newspaper correspondents. I think, as a rule, religious bodies do not like to have their proceedings reported by an outsider. It is so much pleasanter for a clergyman to report his own speech than bave it mangled by anybody else, who possibly may not have clearly understood it.

Grumbling to a Councillor the other day at the Conncil having- given the registrarship of dogs to a man who already had enough to live on, he asked me why I bad not tendered for the office my6elf ? Now, as I bad tendered for it, and as this councillor was one of the committee who professed to have considered all tbe tenders, methinks there must be a scew loose somewhere. One fact I can swear to is that some of the tenders were opened eight hours before the committee met to consider them.

Another mob of horses has passed through from Poverty Bay, en route for Waikato; a mob of cattle has arrived here from Waipawa for a local station.