The Globe. SATURDAY, JUNE 3, 1876.

Globe, Volume VI, Issue 611, 3 June 1876, Page 2

The Globe. SATURDAY, JUNE 3, 1876.

Who has not heard about the impossibility of the camel getting through the eye of a needle? This is generally put forward as the grossest of absurdities, but we are of opinion that we have in Christchurch a still greater improbability, which consists in being able to get some of those razor-edged boulders, which the City Council are permitting to be laid down in our streets, through a “ two-and-a-half- “ inch ring.” It must be a grand thing indeed to be able to say that “ I am one of the august body that has authorised the coating of the streets of Christchurch with metal, some of the pieces of which are six inches in length.” Of course no one is to blame, and the streets must be metalled, and the City Council are doing it in the most economical method for the ratepayers: no doubt of it, they are trying to keep all the traffic they can out of the city, by rendering the streets thoroughly unsafe. As witness the new side drains, which, whilst in the course of construction, have been left in every conceivable condition of danger, without even a lantern to show that any improvements were being made, and the little wooden covered traps at the corners of the streets, which are frequently left open. What can be worse management than this! And then the metalling of the roads, we can only characterise the manner in which this work is being performed is wanton cruelty to the animals that have to walk upon it, without calculating the wear and tear of the vehicles that they have to draw. We are fully aware that the City Council could get the metal broken to the proper guage if it would only insist upon this being done, and we are also aware that the City Council of Christchurch are in a position to get a roller for the purpose of properly surfacing the streets ; they have either money or credit sufficient for this, and to go on Jetting the rnotal be pounded into dust by the grinding process of the different width tires of the vehicles which pass along them, is simply wasting public money. With the miles of straight and flat streets which the City Council has under its control, no time should be lost in procuring a powerful roller. We do not see why Christchurch, which will be as heavily rated as any place in the colony, should have worse streets. We wish we could put into print some of the remarks that would be made by those horses that have to drag heavy loads over these lengths of metal, if the poor beasts could speak, but we have heard what their drivers have to

say, and although we believe in the sentiments they give utterance to, the language they use is not sufficiently polite to print, however applicable it may be. We hope however shortly to learn that the Corporation, if deaf to the appeals of man, will list to that of the dumb animal that serves him so faithfully.

There are certain persons in all classes of society who have as singular notions of the “ eternal fitness of things ” as Fielding’s philosopher himself. In the Press of this morning we read that, previous to the commencement of last evening’s business at the Theatre Royal, Mr Hoskins is reported to have said to the audience, in apologising for the sudden indisposition of the principal lady of his company, that he “had received * ( the intimation too late to notify the fact “in the evening papers.” Now, considering that this gentleman in his business, so com pletely ignores the existence of these largely circulated journals, we can only characterise his allusion to them as a piece of gratuitous impertinence, and quite unworthy his high position in the “ show ” line. The papers would indeed be in a bad way if they had to rely for support on such liberal patrons as Mr William Hoskins.