PISTOLS AND COFFEE.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 5026, 3 May 1877, Page 3

PISTOLS AND COFFEE.

TO JBS EDITOR OP. THE NEW ZEALAND TIMES. Sra, —Your correspondent “ Umpire ” asks, “ Who, that has lived at Grey town for the last ten or twelve years, and has seen the main road a sheet of water from the Rising Sun. at the south end to the Clack Bridge, a distance I should say of three miles, unless for really selfish purposes, would agitate laying a railway anywhere near there ?” “Umpire’s” forte is apparently not to decide evidence, but to invent it. The heaviest flood within the memory of Greytpwn’s oldest settler, occurred eighteenmonths ago. When it was at its height X had to walk from the extreme end of South Grey- ' town to the,north end, and although I had. to wade through one or two bad places, the portion of the main road was high and dry- ‘‘.Umpire’s” three-mile sheet did not cover it, and never has covered it. How is it that the advocates of the Rochfort route are all anonymous? Cannot it find one champion to do battle for it openly ? Are they all ashamed to confess their names, lest selfish motives should become apparent. X- 1 do not object to pistols and coffee with either “Scribendum” or “Umpire,” but may I not know mine adversary’s name .and be satisfied as to whether he is worthy of powder and shot. I presume the; garroters’ mode of attack is more congenial to these gentlemen. But to come back to the great flood, which for four hours held three old women in mortal terrbr, and carried away five panels of fencing. I was in the thick of that flood, and claim to speak of it with authority. If a railway properly constructed had then run through the heart of Greytown, I feel certain not a foot of it would have been covered with water, and not a yard of it washed away. The river then was barred by the main road, and for want of a passage across, ran alongside of it. Now, with a proper bridge and a proper channel (due to the labors of the local Board of Conservators), a heavy flood is a thing of the past, and only remembered when such a man as “ Umpire” desires to prejudice the township. Why is so much said about the Waiohine, that little stream, and nothing about the Featherston Creek, : the Tauhcrenikau, and the Waingawa rivers,, all three of which have done far more to stop traffic between Wellington and Masterton than the poor little Waiohine ? A comparison between the Carterton, the Greytown, and the Featherston Bocal Board books will show that the rateable value of Greytown is far greater than that of the two other townships. Its trade is greater, its resources are greater; and if “Scribendum” and “Umpire” live till it is washed away by the Waiohine, they will have ample time for repentance, and perhaps attain in the next century that aptitude for fair dealing which they have failed to secure in the present one. —X am, tec., J. Patton. Greytown, May 1,