What Everybody Says.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2003, 5 June 1875, Page 2

What Everybody Says.

" In multitude, of counsellors there is safety."

—Old Proverb.

Everybody is looking forward with some degree of curiosity to Iho meeting which is to be held to-night, when our councillors are to render an account of their stewardship. If rumour is to bo credited some very delicate explanations will be forthcoming, especially about the much canvassed Goldfields Secretaryship, with which it would appear councillors Have coquetted in a manner which suggests just a little jealousy amongst them-' selves'as to Ivhich' should get the coveted office. The Mayor is not included in this little arrangement, or disarrangement, h s the junior member he has not been mixed up with the matter, the principal and most interesting^revelations expected to be made dating buck to a time before the Mayor aspired to legislative honors. It would not, perhaps, be fair 'to anticipate too much. Already enough has been said both in the press and in'"the street to whet everybody's appetite, and if the meeting does not prove to be more than usually entertaining everybody wilt-be disappointed. If the utterances of local politician's can be made entertaining they should be so to a degree to-night. Somebody has been..writing to the Graphic and sending them a view of our local scientist "at work.". No doubt it was kindly meant, but the contribution might have been just a trifle more accurate, although everybody is under a debt of gratitude for the endeavor to bring before che world- tuch "an outlandish place as the Thames, arid/the fact" that'"it has in it a gentleman of such undoubted attainments as Mr Severn. The Graphic's artist, however, has done but scant justice to the principal object in tlio view sent .home with such praiseworthy inten-tions-Vnamely, ,tho operator. For it must be borne in mind that the operator was the,,chief object of interest—apparatus of the kind depicted being nothing new to? -readers of the i graphic. If the portrait had only , been passable, the slight discrepancies of description niight have beejh. overlooked^ Sueb,;for instance, as that Grahamstown was the chief substation for observing the transit of Venus, and that; " the telegraph wires,shown in the picture were conveyed a distance of 3C9 miles to,.the,, and telescope." These are mere trifles, however, compared with the main object in view— which, however}.some people are unkind enough, to say wasfthe glorifij&tion of Mr Severn fra|herthamithe advancement of science flttlbhe TharneS.;> l^ ; ; Wha&have the Good Templars been abQ,uy|^|fily that they have not even put is|f|«sfes t againstfthe wholesale Hcensing: bl^nf|i;?: Here dm*ing the week some et^iy or ninety licenses have been Ranted without a word of objection from any one but the police, and what the latter had to say against them went for nought. Are the Templars relaxing in their efforts, or is their silence due to some cause unexplained. Perhaps it is that they are looking forward to the general election as their opportunity; no doubt it will be. The Good Templars—if they succeed in keeping together and using a block vote, will be a power in the state when tlie elections come on, but will they be able to effect a combination ? If they can do it, candidates had better bid>fo? the vote, for it will carry weight in turning the scale in any contest which may take place; One of the points of the Templars platform ought be female suffrage, in order to give the '• sisters" a Show at election time. ■„'■■■ .: ■■ ■•. ..■■'■ :'..•:/v,..v - ■ . "

People are beginning to get just a little; anxious about Ohinemuri, and Tairua. The former place has had a probation of three months, and the progress made is not great. Tairua has had- but little chance of distinguishing itself, except£n the w.ay of giving birth to companies on paper; and if something more is not done soon, the enemies of the Thames will have some show of reason for their in-

sinuations that these districts have been opened only for the purpose of perpetrating more scrip swindles. It will be all right in the spring, say some, but in the meantime what's to keep the wheels greased. No gold getting—no work— or very little — being done, and yet money is found to go in for big leases, and fee lawyers to fi^ht the innumerable battles arising out of encroachments and jumping. There must be money somewhere, and it nii^ht be turned to better account than it is at the present time.. People are wondering when the Ohinemuri prospectors are going to have a crushing machine erected, and a few outside shareholders when they may reasonably expect a dividend? Wonder when all the prognostications of special correspondents about Waitekauri are to be realised ?

"Wonder when the Ohinemuri coal mine will be worked and the coal obtainable at a cheap rate to supersede the firewood which is rising in price ? Wonder when the new and powerful steamer for the Auckland and Thames trade may be expected to take up the running? Wonder what show IjTeeves will get in his claim if the individuals who think they have a; better right to it than he succeed in getting it ? Wonder,. if Neeves would consider, himself sufficiently recompensed for years of prospecting by having a mining camp named after him ?

Wonder if an M.P.C. would care about being Goldfields Secretary without salary? i, Wonder when the Commission into the Ohinemuri miners' rights business is going to sit again—on what, and where ? Wonder whether Bullen likes Thompson being sent down to arrange the business, and if so, how much ?