The Patea Mail. PUBLISHED WEDNESDAYS AND SATURDAYS SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 1877.

Patea Mail, Volume III, Issue 250, 1 September 1877, Page 2

The Patea Mail. PUBLISHED WEDNESDAYS AND SATURDAYS SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 1877.

At the Resident Magistrates Court Carlyle, on Wednesday last, F. E. Hickson, Esq., Sheep Inspector for the district; charged a flockowncr with a breach of clause 23 of “ The Taranaki Scab Ordinance, 1866.” The clause reads as follows“ Whenever the owner of any sheep shall become aware, or shall have reasonable ground to suspect, that the same are infected with scab, be shall, within ten days thereof, give notice in writing to the Inspector of sheep acting for the district in which, such sheep are, either by delivering the same to him personally, or by leaving the same at his office or usual place of abode; and every person who' shall fail to give such notice, shall, for each offence, he ■ subject to a penalty not exceeding fifty pounds.” As the charge was admitted the mitigated penalty ■■of. ,£25 was inflicted. Considering the ill repute this district has lately acquired through scab having been discovered in some flocks, it is not creditable to the flockowner that the Inspector should have been compelled to bring the above case to Court. Taking the circumstances of the case into consideration, there was no help for it, and except that the charge was frankly admitted, there is no doubt but the full penalty would have been inflicted. The remissness of the former Sheep Inspector has sufficiently harmed the district, without flockowners, through neglect, indifference, pr worse, desiring to add to its ill repute. The Scab Ordinance is very clear, and the penalties for neglect of its provisions are heavy. There can be no excuse for any sheepowner on the score of want of knowledge of the law. The following are some of the penalties for which sheepowners are liable: neglecting to brand iofecte<l sheep witli the letter S with pitch or green paint, £10; for wilfully of maliciously communicating disease, six months imprisonment; for abandoning infected sheep, a penalty may be inflicted ranging from £5 to £100; for neglecting to burn or bury the carcases of sheep which may. have died through scab, £1 for every carcase. There are many other equally stringent regnlations for the breach of which heavy penalties may bo inflicted. The certified list of-infected flocks, published in another column, will be a sufficient answer to the many sheep owners who /have been anxiously enquiring about the matter, and who desired to be informed of the exact localities in which the disease was known to exist. There can now he.no question about scab being in the district to a considerable extent, and all owners of sheep should aid the Inspector in his endeavour to stamp out the disease. A flock owner on, the East Coast, Wellington Provincial District, named Samuel Cox, was lately fined sixpence per head on one thousand sheep, for failing to inform the Inspector that scab had broken out in his flock. Though strenuous endeavours had and were being made by the owner to clean the flock, he had failed to inform the Inspector and adjoining funholders that scab had appeared, and was therefore fined. We trust the case just decided upon at Carlyle will bo the means of showing flockowners the responsibilities under which they lie, and that there will be no further attempts to hide the true state of affairs from the Inspector. The district has already been sufficiently injured and disgraced, and all interested should aid rather than retard endeavours to eradicate the disease.

A special meeting of the Wanganui Harbotr Board was held on Monday last, when the report of the engineers (Messrs Barr and piliyier) was read -and adopted. The report is very clear in its, descriptions and recommendations.A' depth of five feet low water, or thirteeri'feet high water, of spring tides, is the capacity of the bar outside the Heads. On what is known as the shallows, it is proposed to deepen the river by erecting training walls on either side with a view to scouring but a channel. The extreme depth of earth, &c., to be removed is 4 feet 2 inches at that part of the river, the average being about two feet. It is considered that as the bottom is sand over a bed of clay the harrowing process, with the aid of the guided currents, will be sufficient to scour out a channel deep enough to allow of any vessels, which can safely cross the bar, to pass up the river. Possibly a small dredge might be required, but it is expected as the material to be removed is of a softish nature, the harrowing will be sufficient. Sand which is washed into the river by Churton’s Crock, and blown into it from the sand hills, is no inconsiderable impediment to river improvements. Measures to combat that difficulty are, proposed. The estimated total cost of the works is set" down at £87,527. The Engineers conclude their report by saying ; —“ We may state that the river possesses great natural advantages, it having a low water flow of fully fourteen times that of the Clyde. The whole of its difficulties are

comprised within the area embraced in .my survey, and are really very small, compared with-such as have been successfully' encountered in many other cases. With those overcome, a line of first-class water carriage would be established, and large tracts of country brought into easy and cheap communication with the coast and other parts of the colony.”