USING THE BOROUGH WATER.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9694, 19 January 1910, Page 5

USING THE BOROUGH WATER.

THE RECENT COURT CASES. At the Borough Council meeting last evening Cr Temple referred to the recent Court cases wherein a number of ratepayers were fined for using the Borough water in contravention of the Borough bylaws. He asked if Mr Pownall was retained as tbe Borough Solicitor. The Mayor replied that he was. Cr Temple, continuing, asked it it was necessary that he (Mr Pownall) should be engaged in each of the recent cases, wherein each defendant was mulcted in the sum of 10s 6d for solicitor's fees. The Mayor: You must ask the Magistrate. The Town Clerk stated that it defendants had intimated that they were not going to defend their cases Mr Fownall would not have been engaged. Cr Temple held there was no necessity to put the ratepayers to the expense referred to. Cr Pauling said there was a good deal in what Cr Temple had stated. He had seen Mr Cairns take more serious cases and win them easily. Or Elliott thought it should be an instruction to the Town Clerk not to engage the Borough Solicitor on every small case. The Engineer stated that before Mr Pownall went into the Court he had instructed him only to ask for a nominal fine in the event ot a defendant pleading guilty. It finally decided that in all prosecutions where the Engineer is notified that the defendants do not intend to defend, no legal assistance be engaged, but otherwise legal assistance be engaged.