BOROUGH COUNCIL.

Globe, Volume I, Issue 16, 18 June 1874, Page 4

BOROUGH COUNCIL.

KAIAPOI. Tuesday, June 16. At the ordinary fortnightly meeting there were present, the Mayor, Crs Parnham, Beharrell, Blackwell, McDonald, Wearing, Taylor, and having made the necessary declaration required of newly elected councillors, Cr Funston took his seat. The town clerk reported that he had seen the secretary of the Insurance Association in reference to the contribution to the maintenance of the fire brigade. A letter from Mr H, Wynn Williams, solicitor for Mr W. Langdown, assignee of Edward Thomas Revell, was read, stating the letter of the Council to Duncan -and Jameson had been handed to him, and requesting the Council not to assent to a transfer of the river reserve sections, let to Mr Revell, to anyone, till the assignee had been allowed time to look into the matter. The letter of the agent of the Bank of New Zealand was again read. The Mayor read the copy of the lease and regulations affecting the letting of the river reserves, from which he inferred that the transfer ought to be applied for by the leasee. It had been explained to him that the leasee had given the lease to the bank as security for an overdraft, and now repudiated any intention of transferring it. He submitted that the Council might pass a resolution to put an cud to all this correspondence to the effect that “ if the present leasee of river reserve sections 69, 70 and 71 has assigned his lease to the bank, the Council have no objection to accepting the bank as tenants.” This would not commit the Council at all. After a desultory discussion, Cr Taylor moved, Cr Funston seconded, the resolution drafted by the Mayor, which was carried. Cr Wearing, chairman of the works committee, repoited that the foreman and day labormen were still engaged in carrying oat the works in the town in a satisfactory manner, and it would be necessary to keep them employed till all the paths were nut in good condition. The committee recommended that the roadway of Hilton street should be formed, clayed, and metalled for a distance of twelve chains, from North road to Black street and a 10ft footpath made along the south-west side ; that a 10ft footpath should be made on the North road from Sewell to Cass street, and that three chains of Sewell street, at its junction with the North road should be clayed and metalled. The report was received, considered, and, on the motion of Cr Funston, seconded by Cr Boharrell, adopted. Cr Parnham considered the attention of the Provincial Government should be called to the state of the approaches of the footbridge. The Mayor said he had represented the matter to the Secretary of Public Works, and also to the member for the borough. A list of persons in arrear with rates and rents was laid on the table, and on the motion of Cr Parnham, seconded by Cr Wearing, referred to the finance committee. The cash-book showed the receipts of the fortnight to have been —by rates, £36 ; Court fines, £2 5s ; and the balance at the credit of the general account to be £l9B 13s lid. Cr Wearing moved, Cr Blackwell seconded—“ That the accounts—F. Pearce, £1 16s; foreman of works, £3 16s lid; R, Woodford, £1 11s 6d ; pay-sheet, £lO 13s ; and J, Linklater, £5 Ids 4d ; amounting to £23 2s 9d, be passed for payment.” Carried . Cr Wearing moved, Cr Parnham seconded —“ That the Council now make and levy a rate of one shilling in the pound on all rateable property in the borough for the ensuing year, to be payable on or before August Ist.” Carried. The Mayor reported that copies of the fire brigade rules had been distributed among the members. Cr Wearing gave notice of motion that the works included in the works committee’s report be carried out, and tenders invited.

A venerable lawsuit is approaching the end of its 241st year without being apparently any nearer to settlement than when it began. A boundary question between the States of Virginia and Maryland, relating to the riparian rights of the Potomac, to fifty square miles of land, and to 300 square miles of valuable oysterbeds was originally brought before the King’s Privy Council in 1033, Lord Baltimore, to whom Maryland had just been granted, being one of the parties. The Privy Council having shelved the matter by leaving it to the course of law, the controversy became in time complicated and embittered by quarrels, and sometimes battles, between the Cavaliers and Homan Catholics of Maryland on the one side, and the adherents of the Commonwealth on the other. Partial adjustments of boundary were made in 1666 and 1668, but the main question extended from generation to generation, giving rise to a multitude of conflicting cases, until fresh legislative attempts at a settlement were made in 1858 and in 1860. These, however, were also but partial, and a commission, appointed in 1872 to make a final adjustment, had, after much research and argument, to abandon the task as hopeless, and to leave the matter just as it stood in 1633. Aged witnesses were heard who had been “ducked” or “ whipped” in their boyhood to make them remember disputed bounds, deeds were examined that had been recorded in both States, and taxpayers who had paid taxes in both or neither. A proposal has just been made on the part of Maryland to refer the whole dispute to a single arbitrator, or else to a new joint commission. It is stated, however, that neither proposal will be accepted by Virginia, so that this venerable dispute is not likely to come to a speedy end. The Melbourne “ Telegraph ” supplies us with the following amusing item :—A good point may be made by an interruption. The Chief Secretary on Monday night denied that he had sent to England for the furniture for (jovernment House without calling for tenders there. “ But L. L. Smith, says so,” exclaimed an excited elector. “ Then,” replied Mr Francis, “L. L. Smith lies—” Enthusiastic cheers followed the word, and i was not for a full minute that the Chief* Secretary was able to go on with—“ lies under a mistake.” The captain of a coasting schooner, finding a Yankee boy, who was a green hand, eating some ham and eggs which he had stolen from the ship’s stores, called out to him, “Heie you lubber, I’ll have none of that,” “Waal’ cap’en,” quietly responded the boy, “ that, suits me. I don’t think I could spare you any of it, anyhow,”