The Kumara Times. Published Every Evening. TUESDAY, AUGUST 16, 1881.

Kumara Times, Issue 1524, 16 August 1881, Page 2

The Kumara Times. Published Every Evening. TUESDAY, AUGUST 16, 1881.

There was a special meeting of the Borough Council held last evening, at which several accounts were passed for payment, and the tender of Mr Frank Keenan for improvements to the Cemetery, £32 10s, accepted. In the Estimates of the Expenditure of the Government of New Zealand for the year ending 31st March, 1881, a copy of which has just reached us per favor of Mr Seddon, M.H.R., we find under the Mines department heading the following Hems :—“Maintenance and management of water-races—Nelson Creek, £IBOO ; Waimea-Kumara, £2900 ; Waimea-Ku-mara, repairs of damage caused by flood, £ISOO ; Argyle, Charleston, £450. The Waipara, from Hokitika to Greymouth, was the only shipping business at the ports yesterday. The official notification of the closing of the Kuntara and Waimea Agencies of the Union "Bank now appears in our columns. All unpaid balances and outstanding deposits will, after the 31st irist., be paid at the Hokitika Union Bank Branch. The Stafford Agency of the Bank of New Zealand will be closed at the end of this month, after which date all outstanding balances and deposit receipts will be payable at the Hokitika Branch, to which all the Stafford business will be transferred.

The Hospital Committee will hold their usual meeting at the Secretary’s office this evening, at 8 o’clock.

The telegraph office at Tokatea, provincial district of Wellington, has been re-opened.

The attention of the Borough Council is called to the very peculiar style in which a junction has been effected with Seddon street, and the newly constructed road leading to the Teremakau bridge. As soon as vehicle traffic commences down First-street, some serious accident will happen, unless the turn is made less abrupt, and the water channel covered over for a length of ten yards or so. By an amusing legal fiction, pigeonshooting is supposed to have closed on the 31st of last month. At the present time the law stands thus :—“Any person buying or attempting to buy, or selling, or attempting to sell any native game out of season, may. be prosecuted, and fined but the Statutes Revision Commission omitted the penalty clause with reference to killing native game, or having it in possession. Thus pigeon-shooting can still go on. While making a few remarks on this subject, it may not be amiss to refer to the very palpable blunder of fixing the open season for the months of April, May, June, and July, when every one except those who have a voice in de : ciding the matter knows perfectly well that the season should commence a month later, and end a month later. The birds are only now getting in anything like decent condition, and as the breeding time will not begin for a couple of months, at all events, there is no harm in suggesting that, in future, the close season should be altered in the direction we have indicated, more especially as there are always plenty of persons who kill birds all the year round, whether there is or is not a penalty attached to it, leaving true sportsmen to content themselves as best they may with the commencement of what should be the real season.

The much-needed repairs to the roadway in Tui street, have been commenced, and gravel is now being laid down, so as to cover the unsightly stumps and logs which have disfigured the thoroughfare for the last two years, and rendered it positively dangerous to limb, if not to life, to travel after dark.

The body of the late Mr T. S. Ward, of Paringa, was found at ten o’clock yesterday morning on the beach of the Arahura river. The West Coast Times reports ; “ The, head, which was severed from the body, wr.s found a short distance to the south of the spot where the body was discovered. All the flesh and clothes were off the body, except the boots, leggings, and portion of the trousers. The remains wefe identified by Mr A. L. King as those of Mr Thomas Samuel Ward, of Paringa.”

At Wife specially convened meeting of the Grey County Council held last evenat Greymouth, for the purpose of considering the question of the abolition of the gold duty recently raised in Parliament, the following resolution appears to have been carried, by a majority of the Council negativing an amendment u That unless the Government subsidise this Council, and all other goldfields counties by an amount equal to that received as gold duty, this Council is not in favor of the abolition of the gold duty,” The amendment was as follows : “ That in the opinion of this Council, the gold duty is an exceptional tax, and ought to be abolished.” The amendment was negatived by sto 4. Ayes—Crs. Madden, Ellis, Clifford and Foley. Noes—-Ora. Boase, Reid, Marshall, Taylor, and the Chairman. It was then ordered that the result of the meeting be forwarded to the Premier, the representatives of the district, and the Hon. H. H, Lahraan.