THE POWDER MAGAZINE.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 4773, 10 July 1876, Page 3

THE POWDER MAGAZINE.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE NEW ZEALAND TIMES. will thank you to allow m» through your journal to call the attention of the authorities to the following facts in connection with the magazine situate by the upper barracks. Directly in the line of the most prevalent winds, N.W.. within a short distance from the magazine, stand two large immigration houses and a smaller one. The latter has been on fire, as may be seen; the two large ones have each a piece of pipeing protruding but a few inches only through the bottom part of each in which fires are burning daily. The roofs being covered with shingles, close to the chimney pots, with the sparks occasionally dropping upon the shingles, the same taking fire during a smart breeze could but inundate the magazines with sparks and pieces of burning shingles, to the alarm of the whole neighborhood. Attention is also called to the lightning conductor, now lying at an angle suitable to conduct the electric fluid within rather than without the magazine. Whether it is desirable that a magazine, containing large quantities of powder, exposed to a public footway used for passing to and from the barracks at all hours, as well as being used for pleasant night engagements, or made a playground for boys when they desire so to do, should remain unfenced and exposed to the risk of a now populous neighborhood daily, increasing, time may prove.—l am, &c,, Citizen.