Correspondence.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XI, Issue 655, 16 February 1859, Page 4

Correspondence.

THE WAIAMAKARIKI.

7o the Editor of the Lyttelton Timvs.

Pi it, —Having passed some time of my life in the Fens, where the waters of the rivers sometimes take it upon themselves to get through their banks, flood nil the crops, drive the snakes up the trees for dry lodgings, and flood folks' houses a few^ :feet deep, feel some, little interest in the doiugsof •the cold water river—l can't spell outlandish names —which now appears to have a great; mind to imitate the frolicksome fancies of our Lir.coln- ■ shire and Cambridgeshire rivers at home. Very kind of it to remind us of old times. But, sir, though our rivers there did and do take these parts upon them, our bankers know how to master them. But you must know that our bankers are not dealers in bits of paper, but strong users of spades, shovels, and wheelbarrows, and are the forefathers of the navvies. They first stop the lioles in the banks if a hole be made, or if they catch it while the river is trying to make it •they lay, according to the art and mystery of their trade, a quantity of brink faggots. These, sir, are faggots about three feet and a-half each in -length, strongly tied with two wythes each, the wood in them being hooked —that is, cut at the bends, so as to lay as straight as possible, and they are cut off level at the end, being as large as a stout mail's thigh or a small man's body. I have v troubled you with this long rigmarole about a . brink faggot because.l saw it in your paper that a . rgentleman proposed to stop this river from eating - through its. banks by laying fascines. Now this : hard \word is above me. >I heard a man saying at .-Mr. Hart's Hotel that it was French, and that it - rightly meant a particular sort of a faggot that is ■used to make batteries with. But the man was

drinking, anil I fancied wanted to. humbug1 me

;-with his gammon. For I cannot believe but ~ that people who are paid with English money, as they say the gentleman is who wrote that, will write English. Besides, .when I was .working1 .in another part of New Zealand, a gentleman, a very civil man, was having a piece of hard road covered with long brush faggots twelve or fourteen feet each, and these he called

.- .fascines. Now, from what I have seen of bankers' -work I know that these would not stop the water. Bat, sir, if it isreally intended to lay brink faggots, why there is no doubt that they may be so managed

as to bridle this rampacious river

Now, sir,. I can- compare these high galloping risers to nothing so well as to a strong illtempered vicious horse. If your horse must have a sport of kicking and has rofching but the air to kick against, •--he qmekly gets tired and leaves off-of'himself. But •'let his feet but rattle.against the front of your cart -or the footboard of your gig, and oh how delighted he is with the music of his own heels. He repeats

it over and over again till the splinters fly high in the'air; the driver hoping to stop the game a bit is /jerked forward by the reins and tumbles under the -wheel, happy-if his new four-and-twenty shilling •<hat keeps on his head and sacrifices itself to save "its skull; meanwhile, the good woman tumbles

onfc behind-and breaks her arm and spoils the shape •of her new bonnet-; the little one at the same time is projected ove rr the other wheel,1 and-ro'lling in the sludge gives cry.in treble to the bass sounds about. I have been in such a case or very like it, and remember something of doctors' bills, wheelwrights" bills, scoldings, and the kind condolences of my friends upon my superior driving. Well, sir, so let these vicious waters have their full play upon a boarded fence. They first playfully creep in behind at the little creases, and, when ■they have made some room, there come, some queer unpleasant time or* other, drive after drive, kick after kick, till up go'the sticks—lork! I mean ■piles—away go the boards, and through comes the '.water jumping and tossing the wood about, as a runaway horse excites himself'by the jerks of a couplft of broken gig shafts. I have seen also something like these things. So, sir, don't be anjjry with a fellow for writing about them. JJut I suppose that every body knows how bita of almost loose sticks, or a kind of fences, are' laid to stop the force not only of the waters of rivers but of the misfhty ocean, and the great waters, Uiavin^ theirweight broken by the sticks or faggots, •ftTe forced to give up thousands and thousands of stores of the land that they have fjisked and gambolled over for centuries in some cases, and from the -begining of time probably in others, and it is Tare fun to see these said waters how they rage and bluster and. splutter about it, but they leave the land after all, aye and rare good land too. Some tens of thousands of acres are now, I have been told, reclaimed from the sea at -the northern part of Lancashire, I think they call the place Whitcombe B-iy. The plane where King John, I thinkit was, lost his army in the quicks and is now line rich land; and the wide sea called the wash is,they say, to be made dry land You know, sir, I was not there •when Kin^ John lost his army, if he did lose it, so T don't stand for that.

Now, as a vicious horse works off his passion and tires himself with kicking at nothing, doing no -harm to anything, but. frequently gentling himself and becoming useful, so the massive force of the {jreat waters, broken into harmless fragments by

the sticks or fences, becomes tractable and subservient to the will of man.

•There, *ir, the thonjrhfcsof the old Fens—where the fropschorus in the " Willow Glen," the peat smoke stinks, fever once reigned, and now wealth and rapid progress triumph amid dykes draining 'bogs, turned thereby to the richest land—have drawn out of me a very long letter : make the most of it, for I don't think you will <?et another from

A BIT OF A FI3NMAE. Valentine's Day or February 14th, 1853.

7o t/ie Editor of the Lytielton Times,

■ Sth,—Some few weeks ago, at a public meeting iield in this town, resolutions were passed \u this fflVcfc—"That; tlie inhabitants of Christehureh ■should enroll themselves as a volunteer fire bri4<:iric\" Now sir, it is much easier to pass a resolution i.ha.n to carry it into practice, for even a "' volunteer' ftoi-p.-i cfiijiiot b« organised without expense, niu;-h less oouid we prepare engines &c , &c, to render the corps effective without considerable '■ouMuv.

Having on a former occasion discussed this part of the .suii.ji.Mt, I would merely on the prese.-ifc call tin! att.'int'iMii of your readers to a..very inexpensive iiiude of removiriii; gr?.nt-(\nHgtf\\. ' ■• . ■>

Jlost of my. fellow colouists..are aware, tlr.it a •fji'eat portion of. the town lands are.fenced in with -ffoive heiil^fe rows, some few of which tm> pershittcd in yvo.V -wilil tiild wide, vefyiDcouv'en'u.'ikly re'duiiinj^ the widtii, ol'-our i'fiotpaths; (liese. are Vniusanfie^ and .s-ujjie'i'ently d;ir.<jerous ; hut those 'more .neat and'trimly, liept ara'in.yn'otA cases'still more .dangerous.. ThV-Jops or cuttings are left, like muneliits wmiriorji, to perish where they fall; conse-

quently uiulei1 every hedge a large quantity of inilunmablo matter is collected, into which should any luckless wight drop ;i few nshos from hia pipe or toss the end of his cigar, ho "might sot Unit1 Christolmrch in a blaze.—' Prevention is butter than cure.' And touching tins matter, even when the rains of winter shall have removed the more imminent danger, the existence of so much vegetable matter rotting in the trenches formed by our present systom of fencing is not calculated to increase the healthiness of the town. Though far from being the advocate of arbitrary power, I certainly think the police should have authority to compel (when necessary) the removal of- such nuisances from our streets and thoroughfares. I a n also fully aware of the value of time and the scarcity of labour, but if removed at tirst the cost would bo but trifling, and we must all admit that the public health and safety is of far more importance than private convenience.

1 remain, sir. Yours very respectfully,' CENSORIOUS

Christchurch, Feb. 11, 1859