The Globe. SATURDAY, MAY 19, 1877.

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 905, 19 May 1877, Page 2

The Globe. SATURDAY, MAY 19, 1877.

The unanimity displayed at all the meetings which have bee a held during the week on the drainage question, must by this time have convinced the Board that a large portion of the ratepayers are really in earnest in their opposition to the scheme, and that it would be injudicious in the highest degree te attempt to begin the works now under tender. When the meeting takes place on Monday we shall probably find that it has been decided to withdraw the tenders for the Ferry road sewer altogether, and to submit the whole scheme to a final test. As we pointed out yesterday this test can be secured either by the immediate resignation of the Board, or by inviting the ratepayers who are opposed to Mr. Carruthers's plans to sign a requisition calling on the Board to resign. Of course it has been well known for a long time that the members are about equally divided on the question atissue, aud that but for the casting vote of the chairman, these public meetings held during the last few days would have been rendered entirely unnecessary. Unfortunately for those in the minority, too many private meetings of the Board have been held. The public are consequently unacquainted with the individual opinions of each of their representatives. But the time has now arrived when each individual member should make his constituents acquainted with his views. As a representative body, dealing with public funds, the Drainage Board has no right to carry on deliberations in private, and the sooner that the members understand their true position to be but the representatives of the ratepayers, having no interests apart from theirs, the better it will be for all concerned.

We are getting heartily sick of the sayings and doings of Mr. Hobbs. His name has scarcely ever been out of the mouths of the speakers at the late public meetings. Mr Hobbs is not the Drainage Board, or even, we hope, its representative man. Yet we have his public, nay even his private, utterances, most carefully preserved, and solemnly reproduced by speaker after speaker. Last evening Mr. Wynn Williams directed the greater part of his address to an analysis of the qualifications of Mr. Hobbs as a public man, and of his prospects of higher political advancement. This may be an interesting study for Mr. Wynn Williams, and for those who seek by flattering or bullying, to secure political influence among their fellow-citizens; but the majority of those present in the Oddfellows' Hall last night must have felt that their time was sadly wasted. Mr. Hobbs has no doubt proved himself a very useful citizen, notwithstanding the position he has taken up on the drainage question; but we almost wish, for reasons somewhat similar to those which compelled the Greek of old to ostracise Aristides, that he would for a week or two, as Mr Williams suggested, fling away ambition. We are weary of hearing of :Hobbs the Justifier of the Drainage Board.