NEWS OF THE DAY.

Globe, Volume VI, Issue 662, 3 August 1876, Page 2

NEWS OF THE DAY.

Madras Street North.— A meeting of persona resident in Madras street north is called for this evening, at the Foresters’ Hotel, at 7 o’clock, to take into consideration the bad state of the road and footpaths. Drainage.— Owing to the heavy fall of rain during the last forty-eight hours, the chairman of the Christchurch Drainage Board, accompanied by the Engineer, inspected the drainage of the southern portion of the city yesterday. Taking the extent of the boundaries, it occupied some hours, and from the careful and minute inspection made, satisfactory results may bo expected to ensue. The Late Heavy Rains. —The result of the late heavy rains, and especially the continuous rain of Tuesday night, was seen yesterday morning in the flooded state of the South and East belts, and the low lying lands beyond, and also in the northern part of the city. From the line of railway looking south the sight was a deplorable one, and Waltham appeared to be in tbe midst of a lake with the gasworks on its edge. Access to town could only be obtained by means of the top rails of fences, and many families suffered very great hardship and inconvenience. Nearly the whole of the Bast belt and contiguous land was covered with water, and very great inconvenience of a more than ordinary unpleasant nature was experienced by the residents of that neighborhood, one storekeeper near the river end having to construct a ladder staging from the centre of the road to his doorstep for the convenience of his customers, His Worship the Mayor, with Mr Bell, engineer to the Drainage Board, and Mr Walkden, city surveyor, visited the belt early in tbe day with a number of men, and caused a grip to be cut across the road into the outfall drain to reduce the water as quickly as possible. The outfall drain and catting were doing their work well, consistent with their capacities for taking away the water. It is said that Mr Bell, after seeing tbe accumulation of on the belt, stated that in .his opinion it would require a culvert of considerably larger dimensions than the outfall drain and new cutting put together to take away the quantity there in the same space of time that it had taken to accumulate. Precautions were taken last night to prevent accidents until the water subsides. The road at the junction of St Asaph and Antigua streets was flooded for some distance ; the large drain running by the hospital, though full, was not of sufficient capacity to carry off the overflow quickly. Durham street was flooded from Peterborough street past Conference street. The new drain in Kilmore street did its work capitally, no water being seen in that neighborhood, where once one day’s rain would cause a large accumulation. The new drain on the north town belt also proved very effective, not only preventing a flood in that direction, but also relieving to a great extent the Avon district, making land passable yesterday, where once it used to be flooded. A tour through the city yesterday morning plainly showed that many oi the new culverts will have to be enlarged—say to the size of the iron ones recently laid down in Cathedral square and Barbadoes street, to afford a freer passage for the water, which so soon accumulates after heayj rains at tbe intersections of streets,