Second Edition

Patea Mail, 28 July 1882, Page 3

Second Edition

The annual meeting of the Patea County Land and Building Society takes place on Saturday night. Tenders for building an engine shed at the Patea Station close on Monday. Tenders for Hospital supplies are invited up to Tuesday next at four o’clock. They are to be separate tenders for meat, bread, groceries, firewood wines &c.

The Patea Club’s annual meeting will be held on Saturday evening.

An unusual operation was performed at the Hospital on Wednesday, upon a poor fellow named Keohane. He bad fallen into a fire during an epileptic fit, and was frightfully burned whilst he lay unconscious, and so injured that his head and chest and left arm are drawn together in a way that cripples him. One of the contracted hands has been divided, and a large flap of skin was transplanted from another part of the body, in the hope that it would grow in its new situation, and thus give him greater freedom of movement. There are unusual risks of failure in operations upon such unnatural tissues as cicatrices ; but if this attempt is fully successful, it is possible that an operation on the neck may afford this poor sufferer still farther relief. His epileptic fits recurred twice during the afternoon after the operation. The coroner’s inquest into the suicide of John Ayleward, by drowning in Wanganui river on Wednesday night, has resulted in a verdict of temporary insanity. There had been an arbitration between himself and partner, and he appears to have borrowed about £26 shortly before drowning himself. The County Council meet on Wednesday to confirm the, proposed ninepenny rate. The state of the roads this winter is bad enough to justify a serious effort to put them in better permanent repair, by means of a sufficient rate.

Mr J. W. Ellis, in a letter to the Auckland Weekly News of 22nd July, says in a descriptive account of his journey from Kauhia to Welllington overland:—“ln fact the West Coast from Waitara to Foxton is so abundantly supplied with road-making material, that nature’s liberality in the matter will have an important influence on this fine district.”—What a benefactor Mr Ellis would become to several local bodies if he would point out where his keen vision discovered these treasures of road-making materials; presumably under ground.

The Wellington correspondent of the Taranaks Herald, commenting on Wednesday’s parliamentary work, says “ The Opposition do not conduct things with that good judgment they are given credit for, and it is evident their hopes of victory are now very much below par, and they act as if they themselves thought so. It may therefore be taken for granted that the want of confidence motion will either not be tabled, or, if tabled, will be rejected by a good majority. This means the quick despatch of business, for when party fight is dropped the work goes on with despatch—too quick despatch occasionally for good legislation.