The Kumara Times. Published Every Evening. FRIDAY, APRIL 26, 1878.

Kumara Times, Issue 493, 26 April 1878, Page 2

The Kumara Times. Published Every Evening. FRIDAY, APRIL 26, 1878.

In our report of the meeting of the Arahura Road Board, in yesterday's issue, a misprint occurred which materially alters the meaning of the context. In the sentence "Mr Hannan moved 'That inasmuch as the members of the Bof.rd have individually expressed an opinion that it is injudicious to merge the Arahura Road Roardin the County &c.,'" the word " injudicious" should have been judicious. We have been favoured by Mr Bulstrode with the result of the Hokitika Handicap which is as follows : —Falcon, 1; Native, 2 ; Jasper, 3. . The following from the Grey River Argus should be endorsed by every journalist who possesses a proper cense of the dignity and importance of his profession : " When a public journal takes up a public question, it does so without fear or favoritism, and so long as it performs its acknowledged duty as the watchman of public interests honestly, it does good, solid service to the State. hot made with rose water, and when a public journal attacks a public wrong it should riot be mealy-mouthed. If it has the truth; to tell, let it tell it in the most unmistakeable language." Commenting upon a recent trial at Auckland, the New Zealand Herald of the 12fch inst. remarks:—" The trial of Andrew Smith, upon a charge of indecently assaulting his daughter, a child of twelve years, ended in the acquittal of the prisoner in a manner which left no doubt that the jury did not believe a word of the Btory told by the prosecutrix. The horrible tale, she narrated cannot be repeated, but the nature of it can be gathered from the report of the proceedings. The medical evidence was positive as to the impossibility of her story being true. The depravity which the trial disclosed is unspeakably sad as well as horribly revolting. The mother of the child was described as a common prostitute, and the theory of the defence was that she instigated the prosecutrix to trump lip the charge against her father. What is to be the fate of a child under such depraving influences 1 There is some work here for true charity to attempt." The Wellington Post contradicts the reports of a disagreement between Ministers and Mr J. E. Fitzgerald, one of the Commissioners of Audit, and says : Recent legislation has a tendency to increase the power of the Audit Commissioners, until quite a formidable bureaucracy has grown up claiming the supervision of the accounts of every public body in the colony. The present Ministry do not approve this tendency to excessive centralisation, and have resolved to check it so far as practicable. Hence it will be sought by every legitimate means to limit the operations of the Audit Commissioners strictly to what Ministers believe to be their proper sphere of duty—the control of the general colonial revenue and expenditure, making all local bodies such as County Councils, Road Boards, Harbour Boards,' &c, responsible for their own audits, and causing it tobe-distinctly understood that it is no part of the duty of the Audit Department at Wellington to-send down a commissioner to audit the accounts of a Harbour Board or - County; CounciL in. Auckland or Otago. From a special telegram to the Wellington Evening Post we learn that the notorious -MIBoaa" Tweed, the leader of the Tammany Ring swindlers, died at New York, on April 12. Tenders are invited for fencing the State School Reserve, full particulars of which appear in another column. The date of closing tenders for the Kawkaka head works is altered from the 27th inst. to the 4th of May next. The Hospital is one of the first things that the population of this district have a perfect right to support. No other institution deserves to be better patronised! But, in order to have no complaint originating from this most inclement weather, the best thing for the people to do is to [clothe.themselves with good and useful . articles ; and where better to procure jthem than at D. Davidson and Co.'a?

where the largest assortment can be procured, cheaper much than elsewhere.— D. Davidson and Co., Berlin House. Kumara. —[Advt. ]