WATER SUPPLY.

Gisborne Times, Volume X, Issue 1001, 21 September 1903, Page 3

WATER SUPPLY.

(To the Editor of the Times.) Sir, —Sex the old woman this morning, i “ Did yer read as how the übckquitiea reporter in pryin’ round the slums of tho West End had come upon the 1 lunatics ’ in konklave assembled,” and had told them j as how they might take him off as a Wai--3 hererite, but upon investigate it was found that tho poor fellow, like Soapy Tom, had no vote. Whereupon Mister Whinray said ; that the evening paper reminded him of . that grate story of “ Humpty Dumpty,” who sitting on a rail—or rather a wall — i for many years had had a grate fall, so i that he lay asplutterin on the ground, giving forth ebbuiitions of Waiberere frog froth and not all the Archdeacons, skypilots, medicos, or hair-restorers in tho town or even that great nautikal expert, | after whom the Harbor Board designated their grate vessol could get him back again on to the Mestayon wall. And writing about it afterwards a notable authority on State banks and co-operation, Btated that the Editor must have lost his mental balance and just dropped over.” “ But this water business is a serious affair for tho town,” said I. “You are right, John,” replied my old woman, “ but do yer mind what Soapy Tom told Sergeant Siddols before he was hurriod away to that lunatic asylum. “The Council have gone the wrong way about the whole business,” says he. "Three things they required, first, amalgamation; secondly, a just and equitable system of valuations; and thirdly, an effishunt scheme for the three places. Amalgamation is an essonshel thing,” says ho, “ for Whataupoko and Kaiti Beach require water more than Gisborne, there being closer sottloment there than anywhere. “And the milkman was telling me this morning,” added my wife, “ as how the valuations were all at sea.” “ Sure,” he says, “a man with a few pounds of property in Gladstone road is greatly overrated, having to pay three times as much as a man with the same value of property in another street. And then he related how ho had gone to a number of ratepayers whose properties were valued at £3O ratable, and £350 capital value on the books and offered them nearly £IOOO, but they thought that it was not enough, although that they did not * want to pay rates on more than the lower t amount. The Council must go carefully [ into the questions of amalgamation and valuation before they talk about any scheme, and then the water supply must be a sufficient one for the threo places,” says he. “As Mister Whinray was saying only yesterday that the great harbor works hud already put an inkubus round the neck of the town, and there must be no element of doubt about any water scheme, and ho concluded his remarks with a grate dissertashun on water which quite eklipsed Mr Townley’s famous effort. Water,” says he, “is the fittest drink for all persons of all ages and temperaments, although ► some 1 lunatics ’ do like to qualify it with a little spirit. Of nil tho productions of , nature ui u cornea non can «Uat univer- ’ sal remedy so much searched after by mankind but never discovered. It attenuates tho glutinous viscidity of tho juices of the phlegmatick and the gross h earthiness which prevails in the melancholic temperaments. For old people, especially it moistens and mollifies their rigid fibres, and the Bard of Motu concluded by quoting four lines, which ho said he had found written on a cliff at Waiherere :