The Kumara Times. Published Every Evening. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 1882.

Kumara Times, Issue 1675, 10 February 1882, Page 2

The Kumara Times. Published Every Evening. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 1882.

A correspondent asks us to publish, for geneirtl information, clause 38 of the Licensing Act, 1881, having reference to the accommodation requited in public houses within the boroughs. It is as follows : 38. No publicau's license shall be granted in respect of any house in any borough unless such house shall have a front or principal entrance separate from and in addition to the entrance to the bar or to the place whete liquors not to be drunk on the premises are sold, and shall contain, for public accommodation, not less than six rooms, besides the billiard-room (if any) and the rooms occupied by the family of the applicant; nor unless such house is furnished with sufficient doots or facilities for escape therefrom in case of fire ; and such house be provided with a place of convenience on the premises for the use of the public, and also, where necessary, in the opinion of the Licensing Committee, with stahlin« sufficient for the accommodation of not less iban three horses. Another correspondent wishes to know if the several candidates for membership of the Licensing Committees for the Borough and Arahura districts are going to address the ratepayers and electors, as he desires to hear their views before he can satisfy himself how to vote.

The s.s. Penguin, with the Westland portion of the San Francisco mails, was to arrive at Lyttelton last evening, so that the letters and newspapers for Kumara may be expected by coach to-morrow afternoon.

There was not a sufficient number of members of the Borough Council present at the Town Hall last evening at eight o'clock to constitute a quorum, and the meeting was consequently postponed till two o'clock to-day. The nomination of candidates for the Licensing District of Hohonu took place at Murphy's House, Westbrook, to-day. The Returning Officer (R. W. Russell, Esq.) has kindly furnished us with the names of the candidates, seven in number, who were proposed and seconded. They are as follow: Donald Shaw, John Corrigan, John Hayes, Felix Fearan, Michael F. Kenny, Patrick Macnamara, and James Blewman. The election will take place on Wednesday, the 22nd inst. There were just sufficient nominations yesterday for the Licensing Committee for the Greymouth Central Licensing District to necessitate an election, which will take place on the 22nd. The gentlemen nominated were—Andrew Matheson, John Walton, Thomas Keenan, Michael O'Brien, William Herbert Perkins, and John Arnott.

The Hon. T. Dick has telegraphed to a gentleman in Clinton :—"I do not think the revenue from auctioneers and publicans' licenses will go to the town districts. They are county revenue." Mr Tait, the photographer, purposes to continue at his Studio in Main street, till Monday next. Mr George Gilmer, the eldest of the large family of sons of Hamilton Gilmer, was the guest at a banquet given by his friends last evening, at Gilmer's Hotel, Greymouth, as a slight mark of the appreciation and esteem in which he is held by everybody in Greymouth, prior to his departure to Wellington. The Hon. H. H. Lahman, M.L.C., occupied the chair, Mr Martin Kennedy the vice-chair. An unusually large number of gentlemen sat down. Probably (the Argus says) there never has been such a large party assembled on any similar occasion during the history of Greymouth. This little demonstration being over, Mr Gilmer mounted his horse and started off for Kumara, in order to be able to catch the Christchurch coach in the morning. The takings of the English cricketers at Oamaru during the two days they played there was just £SO. A Taranaki blacksmith has added to his machinery a patent fan to blow the forge fires. It is a simple contrivance, but of great use, and illustrates in a remarkable manner the superiority of machinery over manual labor.

Messrs Burton Brothers, photographers, Dunedin, are not satisfied (the Times states) with their adventures in the wilds of New Zealand in search of the picturesque, of which their trip to Lake Manipori is the last, and hitherto the boldest; but they are about to "open up the country" in a new direction. By the Rotomahana, on the 2nd inst., a member of the firm in question proceeds as far as Milford Sound, and once there pushes into the interior of the country under the guidance of a party of prospectors who have made the Sound their headquarters for the last two or three years. They promise to introduce him to scenery in comparison with which all he has as yet seen and photographed is as commonplace as an English meadow. When Mr Burton returns, we trust that, through pen and camera, the public will also be introduced to the scenic glories in question. The Wellington Evening Post reports the discovery at Kapiti of beds of sponge. A good deal has been said from time to time in disparagement of the character of the land on the West Coast, but (the Inangahua Times reports) the Hon. Mr Rolleston, when at Reef ton the other day, stated that he had travelled pretty well over the whole of New Zealand, and he had found people settled on very much worse land on the other side of the range, and that much of the land he had seen on his way down from Foxhill to Reefton was snperior to the land in Central Otago and other parts of the colony: Speaking of the description of the land at Manna— Bull's Flat—Mr Rolleston said that though it was rather elevated he had no doubt it would be well adapted for cultivation, but the land in the neighborhood of Hampden and the Upper Bullerhe extolled as up to the highest requirements for husbandry. Some idea of the magnitude of the Timaru harbor works may be gathered from the fact that the Board have just paid £250 for the storage of cement for two months.

A great sensation was occasioned at Albury, New South "Wales, lately, by the drowning of three sisters, named Eliza, Mary Ann, and Catherine Pastorello, aged 22, 19, and 13 respectively. They had been living at Albury by themselves for some time past, earning their living as dressmakers. They went to the river one evening in January, about dark for a bath, and it seems did not return. Their absence was not noticed, however, until next morning, when their clothes were discovered on the bank of the river. A search was promptly instituted, and it resulted in the discovery of the bodies. The parents of the girls live at Stanley, near Beechworth. The heat there was terrific, and the girls were no doubt tempted to bathe in order to refresh themselves. They could not swim. At the inquest it transpired that a young man visited them during the evening, and tried to dissuade them from bathing in the river, but they persisted. The bodies presented a perfectly placid appearance. The deceased were finely formed, and amiable young women. The jury returned a verdict of accidentally drowned. The place where the girls lost their lives is a notoriously fatal spot, being a deep water-hole with a rapid eddy. v