WANGANUI

Patea Mail, Volume III, Issue 301, 6 March 1878, Page 2

WANGANUI

( fito3l OUU OWN COURESPONDENT.)

One of our local literati has been for sometime engaged on the production of a work, to be entitled “ The Devil South of the Line.” Its appearance is anxiously looked for. A wag lately rallied the author on his over-respectable appearance something: after this fashion. “-Why, you gammon to be a recluse and to he writing a work 1 Your set-up is against you. Not being seen for two or three mouths at a tune will not get yon a name as an author. \on ought to go about in rags and tatters, with an old slouched hat, and long unkempt locks. And you are too clean looking. If you want to be a success in that line, get lousy, man, get lons}-.” My sarcastic friend then proceeded to enumerate to hislistener a long list of men who, he said, had been prominent authors of prose and poetry in their day and generation, and none of whom, he said, had lacked (lie first essential to success, viz., getting lousy, I have not heard whether the advice lias been attended with any practical results. For a new way to pay old debts allow me to commend the following. An erstwhile Wangannite, not unknown in Patea also, lately outrun the constable in Wellington, and' certain N.S.F. documentsbearing his signature were flying about. The holders 'were pressing, but _ the iv-Jier-civ-itlial was difficult t<j- be obtained. At length £5 was scraped up .somehowborrowed in one case —to take up a promise to pay of the description referred to. Walking confidently into the presence of the anxious holder, “ Look here, Brown, you hold a cheque of mine for £5, which the Bank has made a mistake with. I want to take it up.” Cheque herewith gladly produced. 1,1 Well, I see I am a pound short, but I will give you the other tomorrow. Give me the cheque.” Glad to get anything for the paper it is readily handed over, but that to-morrow is “Jang, lang, lang a-comin’.” I don’t know bow often the same fakement will wash. lam told it is not half a bad wrinkle to travel on, provided you don’t try it twice on the same party. Barton has made his splash just at the right moment, and is now reaping a martyr’s reward. Poor old Hutchison got licked agaim That is the sixth in my recollection. I hear he is to wade in again for Bunny’s seat. What in fatuations seize hold of some men. He has perseverance enough for a politician, but somehow he can’t persuade people to buy him at his own price. He had Ins fluke, when he was elected Mayor of Wellington, and with such a start, still to ho behind in the race, is, to say the least, suggestive.

I hear that diphtheria has made its appearance in Wanganui, but none have yet fallen victims to that dread scourge of youthful life. I am glad to learn that it is not a very virulent type that has made its appearance. The fourth of the month will bo on Monday, a terrible day of reckoning for some of our mercantile community. These monthly fourths come far too quickly for many of the merchant princes. “ Thank Heaven,” said one to me last time, “ that pinch is over, but how I am to squeeze through the next one, goodness knows.” I reminded my down-cast friend of the wind being tempered to the shorn lamb. “ By Jove,” he remarked, “ and I am just a shorn lamb. And I am not alone in misery, either.” “ Things are not that bad, surely,” I replied. “Aren’t they, though,” he answered. “Look here, I’ll bet you a bottle of fiz to a post-card that you could not borrow a five pound note on the afternoon of any fourth of the month to save your precious soul. You might beg and pray and offer your whole personal effects as security for repayment in a week, and you could not squeeze it out of any of them. They would bo stone broke with meeting their own engagements. I tell you Wanganui is rotten to the core, financially speaking.” I reminded him of the £30,000 to be spent in harbor works, but will not here repeat his brief but telling summing, up of that matter. Ho explained to me some of the mysteries of “ rings” and how the wires are pulled. But I must get a little more out of him, before I can reveal. He ended by bewailing the short month of February, by which he remarked “ that blessed fourth would be here before it ought.” I advised

f»;m to make the same application to liis hanker that the Scotchman did to his. “ You might renew the bill for forty instead cf thirty days. Eh, man, they re short days now.”

MOUNTAIN HOAD. The following letter read at the County Council yesterday was forwarded from Wellington with plans, claims for compensation, &c.: Public Works Office, Wellington, February 22nd, 1878.

>Sir, —Hu reply to your telegram of the 20th instant I am directed by the lion the Minister of Public Works to state that the road afiuded to has been proclaimed and a Gazette containing the 1 reclamation is enclosed. None of the land has been acquired, lut will have to be acquired by the County out of the money placed at its disposal. I send you copy of memoranda by Mr Carrington thereon. in making a three chain reserve for Railway and Uoad as in this ease the ordinary course is to place the Railway in the middle to prevent any possible misconception. However, I may stale that the railway route is not yet fixed and the survey or may- not utilise anyportion of the reserve.—l have, &c.,

John Knowles. Unduy-Secretary for Public Works. Chairman of the Patea County Council, Carlyle.

The memoranda referred to comprises applications for compensation made on the line being gazetted in 1870.

COUNTY COUNCIL AND PATEA HARBOR BOARD. At last month’s mooting of the Comity Council, a discussion arose as to whether it was competent for the Council to elect representative to sit on the Patea Harbour Board, in consequence of legal notice of intention to meet for that purpose, not having been given. Members being unable to agree, the matter was referred to the Government. It was contended by some of the members that it would be competent for the Governor, under section 211 of the Counties Act, to extend the time for holding the election. The Amended Harbour Act fixed the second Monday in February as the day on which elective members should be elected. A reply was received from the Under-Secretary stating that section 211 of the Comities Act was not applicable re election of Harbor Board members, and attention was called to paragraph in section 3 of the Harbor Act. A inrthor application was made which elicited the following reply. The letter was amongst correspondence laid before the Council yesterday : “ Colonial Secretary’s Office, “Wellington, Fob. 2a, 1878, “ Sir-— 1 have been directed by the Minister acting for the Hon the Colonial ■Secretary, to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the bth instant, in which yon ask that the question of the applicability of section 211 of the ‘Counties Act, 187(>,’ to the election of a member for the Patea Harbor Board, by the County Council, may be reconsidered, and in reply, to inform you that the Government are advised that the ConnRes Act has no application in this case, t«;ie power of extension given in the section quoted, being for matters rising under the Counties Act.—l have, &c., “ G. S. Cooper,” “ G. S, Bridge, Esq., “ Chairman Patea County Council,”

was by opening up the country and settling people in it. They also saw that to most profitably occupy the land in both the North and South Islands, it was necessary not only to construct roads and bridges, but it was (Tso necessary to build railways. They did very great ami import ant service to tin’s country, not on y in the matim of public works, which I have briefly referred to, but in can-yin many important reforms To them we owe the ballot; to them we owe the Land Transfer Act, the extension of the telegraph ; to them we owe manyother important matters ; and last, though not least, to them we owe the abolition of provinces. For one Cabinet, one administration, to have done all that, is no small work ; and if credit is due to them we should not forget the very large amount of credit that is due to our absent friend, Sir Julius Vogel; a man than whom there never was a more unselfish and a more self-sacrificing statesman.” Strangers and country settlers coming to Carlyle, arc very often at a loss to know which is the best and cheapest General Drapery and Clothing Establishment in the' district. K. A. Adams’ Cardigan House, offers special advantages that can be met with nowhere else in the district. He keeps the largest and best assorted stock of every description of draperygoods, imported direct—and from the best colonial bouses ; which, being bought on the most advantageous terms, and having thorough knowledge of the business, enables him to offer goods of sterling quality at prices that cannot be improved on by any other house in New Zealand. Every article is marked in plain figures, from which there is no deviation ; so that inexperienced people are as well served as the best judges, the terms being net cash, without rebate or abatement of any kind. Note the address—H. A. Adams ; Cardigan House, nearly opposite Town Hall, Carlyle.— advt. Holloway's Pills. —Cure for Indigestion. —lndigestion, with torpidity of the liver, is the curse of thousands, who spend each day with accumulated sufferings, all of which may be avoided by taking Holloway ’s Pills according to their accompanying directions. They strengthen and invigorate every every- organ subservient to digestion. Their action is purifying, healing, and strengthening-. They may bo safely taken without interfering with ordinary pursuits, or requiring much restriction in diet. They quickly remove noise in the oars and giddiness in the head, and dispel low spirits and nervous fears. These balsamic Pills effect a cure without debilitating or exhausting the system; on the contrary, they- support and conserve the vital principle by substituting pure for impure blood.