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Poverty Bay Standard, Volume IX, Issue 997, 10 November 1881, Page 2

The Building Society will ballot for £l5O on November 21st. Mr. Gannon will address the electors in McFarlane’s Hall, on Tuesday evening next.

The Gisborne Public School is announced by the Chairman to be closed until the 22nd of November—the date of the beginning is not specified. We have been requested to state that mails for the South and Australian Colonies will close on Saturday evening next, at 7 o’clock, instead of Monday, as previously notified. The Albion is expected to leave Auckland on Saturday on her return trip.

Mr. J. Somervell returns thanks to the Burgesses for his election to a seat in the Borough Council. We congratulate both electors and the elected on the result, for we believe Mr. Somervell to be a shrewd, painstaking man, and one who ought not to have been previously rejected. A serious accident happened to Mr. Allen’s boy, of about 12 years of age, last evening. It appears that he was dismounting his horse at Makaraka when the animal swerved, and started off at a gallop, dragging the lad, and either treading on him, or kicking him to such an extent as to give but little hope of his recovery.

We are glad to learn that the cattle and sheep shipped to Auckland by the Southern Cross last week, by Mr. L. Mclntosh, took, in both degrees, both first and second prizes. The sheep were from the long-wooled stock bred by Mr. E. Espie, at Makaraka; and when it is considered that the district of Auckland is proverbial for the purity of its stock, it is no small feather m the eap of our settlers, to know that small, poor, little, insignificant Poverty Bay has gone to the front with hands down.

Not much business was transacted in the R.M.’s Court on Tuesday last. Messrs. Wm. Common and R. H. Fisher occupied the Bench, and adjourned the following cases for want of jurisdiction : v. Mullooly, Cooper v. Hepeta, to Tuesday, the 22nd inst.; and Webb v. Rees to to the 15th inst. Judgment was given for amount paid into Court, £2 65., in re Mclntosh v. Winstone. Wm. Adair’s claim against W. Coppel, £1 45., was ordered to be paid by instalments at intervals of a fortnight. P. McGarry v. J. Grady was adjourned to the 22nd, owing to the nonattendance of the plaintiff.

One of the most malicious acts of official vandalism that ever came under our notice, was committed last evening by a gentleman named David Johnston, charged with the duty of collecting Her Majesty’s Customs, and his own salary of £360 a year at the port of Poverty Bay. It appears that the said Mr. David Johnston, Esquire, was paddling his own, or some one else’s canoe down the river, when the rope attached to the ferry punt caught his paddle, a fact which so enraged this civil servant that he deliberately cut the rope asunder, leaving Ledger, the ferryman, to earn his bread and cheese, for the rest of a busy night, as best he could. Mr. Ledger returns his thanks to Mr. Johnston for his neighborly act; and will take steps to represent his conduct in the proper quarter. We trust Mr. Ledger will keep his promise; and we shall give him all the assistance in our power to put a stop to the civil service insolence of which the long-suffering people of this colony have just a little too much of.