GRAHAMSTOWN CULVERTS.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2529, 13 February 1877, Page 3

GRAHAMSTOWN CULVERTS.

(To the Editor of the Evening Stab.)

Sic, —Will you permit me to observe through your paper that I consider the culverts in our streets a disgrace to the Thames considering that so much money has been squandered over them by the Foreman of Works. The storm water of late has proved the necessity there exists for the Council employing a competent person to construct these culverts, as also to plan other works of equal importance, and not to leave them and the expenditure (or properly speaking waste) of our money in the hands of an incompetent person. It is highly amusing to see Tom Rawdon, when there comes a shower of rain, standing at the mouths of these badly constructed affairs with his mackintosh on, and two or three men whom the ratepayers have to pay for poking sticks or poles down these holes (which have cost" more thau enough to construct them properly) to assist the water to escape. Of course each shower of rain adds to the value of the culverts, therefore I think that the Council would be wise to at once employ an engineer or some other competent person to look after these works, and instruct the Foreman what to do, or at any rate some one who can look at the probable results of works a few months ahead, and not one who spends large sums of public money laying down drains adapted for to-day only, by not allowing sufficient fall for silting up, <fee. We have a standing-proof of what I say in the Waiotahi culvert, which has been the pride and pet piece of work of Tom Rawdon (the carpenters carried out this work). This piece of expensive folly is already useless after .it crosses the road.. Ere long the whole affair will have to be taken up and raised, for it is already choked-at the lower end, so that it is flooding the whole of the houses and lands at its estuary.—l am, &c,

. A Ratepayer. Shortland, February 12th, 1877. [" A Ratepayer " does the Foreman of Works an injustice. From what we can learn the culverts and water tables laid down by Mr. Rawdon have proved to be satisfactory.—Ed.] - /