Poverty Bay Standard. PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY, THURSDAY AND SATURDAY MORNINGS. Saturday, April 1, 1882.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume X, Issue 1056, 1 April 1882, Page 2

Poverty Bay Standard. PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY, THURSDAY AND SATURDAY MORNINGS. Saturday, April 1, 1882.

At the meeting of the Cook County Council last Thursday evening, Mr Woodbine-.Tohnson, in the absence of Mr Chambers, introduced a motion to the effect that the Government be requested to prohibit, if possible, by an order in Council, the importation of sheep from Auckland into the Gisborne district until the Auckland district be proclaimed free from scab. Mr Johnson at the same lime expressed his fears that the Government would not listen to the proposal, leaving the Council simply the Scab Act to rely upon for their protection. Now the Scab Act, w bile providing heavypenalties for landing sheep under circumstances bringing the landers within the Act, depends solely on those penalties as a preventive, but affords no assistance to the Council so far as an absolute prohibition of importation is concerned, nor can such prohibition be obtained by any known means save that of an Order in Council. This becomes a serious stumbling block. Gisborne has not long, and not without much trouble and large expenditure, to sheepowners, freed itself from the disease with which it now stands again threatened by the importation of sheep from Auckland. That district being to all intents and purposes an infected district, where the disease is more difficult of detection and of cure than elsewhere owing to the large number of small sheepowners and dealers within the district, the difficulty of keeping sale yards, through which their sheep are constantly passing in changing hands, thoroughly cleau, although endless time and trouble may be, and is, taken to do so, and the fact that large numbers of sheep travel up and down in railway trucks, which are certain to retain portions of wool containing accari from any diseased sheep which may travel by them. Thus a few sheep leaving their native homes to all appearance clean, and landing at Gisborne with a clean certificate, and being, even to the practised eye of an Inspector, then free from disease, may still actually bear on their backs sufficient of it to infect the while district, and entail upon sheep owners an almost ruinous expenditure, all of which may be averted by the judicious exercise of the powers of the Governor by the issue of such a prohibitory Order in Council as that referred to by Mr Johnson in his motion under consideration. The question remains—can the issue of that Order in Council be procured? We fail to see any reason to the contrary, while reason, common sense, and prudence certainly combine in an all-powerful advocacy of it as an urgently necessary measure. Surely no Minister could refuse to listen to so very moderate a proposal, when made in the truest interests of preventive and prudential economy by a community who have been large sufferers at one time by the presence of the disease from whose advent they now seek to protect themselves. If we remember aright, when the District of Auckland was threatened with pleuro-pneumonia from Australia, such a prohibitory order was obtained, and a Cattle Board, vested with extraordinary powers, was created, whose prompt and decisive action soon stamped out the dreaded disease. Surely if an Order in Council were obtainable in the one instance, it could only be refused with a very bad grace in the other. Gisborne has not been over-burthened with consideration at the hands of the Government ; surely a modest and sensible request, such as the protective order referred to reasonably and justly claims to be, may look for a satisfactory reply from the Governor and his responsible advisers.

The Fire Brigade will muster at the Engineshed for practice 4.30 p.m., this (Saturday) afternoon.

A Gazette notice calls Parliament together for despatch of business on the 18th of May. Dr. Burton, we are happy to be able to state, continues to progress favourably towards recovery.

Messrs Carlaw Smith and Co., hold their Monthly Cattle sale at Waerenga-a hika. on Monday next, at 2 p.m., when some very good lots will be offered, including a splendidly bred bull, 2t years old. Messrs Carlaw Smith A Co., will as usual hold their weekly horse sale at the Masonic Stables, the hour being 2 p.m. To-day they will offer a lot of good light and weight carrying hacks, and a tip dray and harness. Mr. W. P. Finneran, Architect, calls for tenders for the erection of a six-roomed house in Gisborne, such tenders to close at noon on Friday, 7th April, 1882, at his Office in Childers-street, where plans and specifications may be seen. Messrs. Pitt and Bennett advertise elsewhere that they will offer for sale at Mr. Maynard’s yards, Ormond, on Thursday, 6th April, 200 crossbred ewes, some good stores, from W to 15 head of dairy cattle, and a few head of beef. The following tenders were received on Thursday morning last by Mr AV. P. Finneran, Architect, for the erection of a fever wWi“A for the Poverty Bay Hospital GYU Berrv, £ll5 ; K. Houlden, Ids ; T. Willshire, £132 ; J. Somersetf, £426 ; J. Forbes, £415. The tendej/Tif Mr John F urbes being the lowest^was accepted. Mj*. Hart, agent for the Union Steam Ship Company, calls attention to their issue of special return tickets from this port to Lytteltoiy, at reduced rates, during the months of April and May, available for return till 30th Jufie next, for the facilitation of the views of Persons wishing tu visit Christchurch during /tne open season of the International Exhibition. KaraitianaTake, a young Native lad of rank and grandson of Butene, died on Thursday morning, at 9 o’clock, and the Natives have been holding a great tangi fur his loss. Even us we write the prolonged notes of the tangi reach our ears, reminding us strangely of the unearthly “ croon ” of the women at an Irish death bed in the Galway mountains.

Some of the Wanganui Natives, says the CkronirXe, have received invitations under the King’s signet—an elaborately got up stamp —to attend Tawhiao’s great, gathering, to be held at Alexandra, in the Waikato, on the Ist of May. At the meeting Tawhiao will expound his “ policy.” The stamp referred to is about one inch and a-half in diameter, and has a beautifully-engraved fern leaf in the centre, surrounded by the legend, in Maori, “ Pray to Tawhiao, King of Canaan.”

The Te Arai School District is to be again without a master, Mr. Toms having resigned owing to the scarce attendance of children at the school. Mr. Toms, who is well liked by the children and parents in the district, returns to Taranaki where he is offered more lucrative employment. This school, it will be remembered, was vacant for some time prior to Mr. Toms appointment, some seven months back. The inspector seems to think Jthat the inconvenient situation of the school-house is the cause of the paucity of attendance. Mr. G. Humphries, Farrier, Shoesmith, and General Blacksmith, notifies to the public generally that he has opened a branch establishment at. Matawhero, opposite the Royal Oak Hotel. Mr. Humphries’s residence in Gisborne in the vocation of a General Blacksmith, affords too substantial a guarantee of his workmanship to need any encomium from us, but we do not exaggerate when we state that it will be indeed hard to find any able to teach Mr. Humphries more than he knows in the Farriery and Blacksmith line.

The water supply question gets more and more remote from our view, every day receding a little in the distance, getting ‘‘small by degrees, and beautifully less.” It can’t be the Town Council’s fault, because their Engineer says it isn’t, in an egotistical letter to the Herald, laudatory and adulatory of that body’s action re water supply. Councillors, in gratitude for Mr. Drummond’s defence of them, are exuberant, and on the principle of “ Ca me, ca thee,” extol the merits of their Engineer, or metaphorically speaking “ scratch his back,” until all that is not is, and all that is, is “ gas and gaiters,” but no water yet ’ !!

It is almost incredible to believe that the local authorities should be so inattentive to their duties as to allow a large heap of unbroken stones to remain in the middle of Gladstone Road, without a light affixed thereto, or some other .signal warning passengers, after dark, of their danger. Last evening Mr. Albert Penford had a very narrow escape from a serious accident through his horse shying at the large unprotected heap of stones opposite the Royal Hotel, as in the moonlight it was impossible to see the danger until too late to avoid it, the horse stumbled over the heap throwing Mr. Penford heavily, who luckily, however, escaped without broken bones. We think it is high time that matters affecting the lives and limbs of Her Majesty’s subjects in Gisborne should be looked into, and the possibility of the recurrence of such accidents as this prevented.