AND THAMES VALLEY GAZETTE.

Waikato Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2257, 24 December 1886, Page 2

AND THAMES VALLEY GAZETTE.

Equal and exact justice to all men, Of whatsoever state or persuasion, religious or political.

FRIDAY. DEC. 2±> 1886.

In the course of a few hours the pun will rise upon the holiest anniversary of the Christian Year. Of its spiritual significance it hardly comes within our province to speak, but there is a great deal to be said about its moral and social or holiday aspects without in any way trenching on the domain of the homilist. There are comparatively few people who do not manage to make merry after some fashion in the closing week ©f the year. High and low, rich and poor, young and old, following a custom older even than the tremendous Event we now commemorate, regard Christmastide as an occasion upon which to indulge to the utmost of their capacity, or opportunity, the social faculties of our natnre. Human nature wants something of the kind. We are not so widely different from Mother Earth herself, who must have her fallow time and her seed time, or she will yield no harvest. There are human hearts enough, God knows, lyiag fallow long enough, for which no seed time ever seems to arrive, and from which, in consequence, no golden grain is reaped. Apart from religion — though there is no reason in the world why religion should be kept in the back ground so much — apart from it, the season of Christmas gives us opportunities which no other period of the year can afford us. The reason for this is quite simple and quite obvious. There is something in the air favourable to the healing up of old animosities, something which instinctively prompts us to the commission of good actions, unthought of before. It is all mere sentiment, but life is composed in great part of this same sentiment, and we should not despise it. In its remaining and most worldly aspect, Christmas is a most valuable recuperative force. Plum-pud-dings, mince pies, bon-bons, combined in these latitudes with the small green apple, are not usually the messengers of the Goddess Hygeia, but they are after all only the unimportant concomitants of a time when the mind and body, given freely up to relaxation, enjoy a change, complete and utter, from the ordinary occupations. The cessation of work, the meeting together of old friends, of the scattered members of the family, the renewal of old confidences and the reawakening of old memories — these it is that strengthen and improve body and mind, and send us forth stronger and stauncheralongthe perilous path of another year. Christmas Day exerts a much higher and holier however, influence upon believersthan all this, an influence which long ages have not diminished, butincreased, and which will, we doubt not go, on increasing until the end of the world. The scoff and sneer of the sceptic and scientest can no 'more check the onward progress of Christianity than a penny trumpet can roll back the thunderstorm.

Hamilton has been selected for the exptrimentum in corpore vili by the Auckland Hospital and Charitable Aid Board on \yhich to try the validity of their clajin to contributions from the Waikato seceding bodies which form the new Waikato

Hospital and Charitable Aid District. On Wednesday the town clerk was served with a piece of blue paper at the suit of the Auckland Board for the sum of ,£36 19s Id for contribution to the hospital funds alleged to be due for the term of twelve months ending 31st March next. Now, had the demand been made for the first portion of the year only, say from the Ist April to the 17th of August, the date at which the separation of the Waikato counties and boroughs from the Auckland Board took place, the amount would very probably have been paid ; but considering that since we have become a separate district and declined to contribute, the Auckland Board has refused to meet all demands for assistance to our sick and destitute, it does seem rather too good a joke that they should at the same time demand payment for goods they refused to serve us with. Moreover, the legal advice as yet taken distinctly points out that the Auckland Board has no claim upon the Waikato local bodies, and therefore to pay that which is not legally due would place any one of them, the borough council, for instance, as in this case, in a position which might be extremely a/wkward when *he expenditure came before, the publib auditor. The Mayor of Hamilton, as chairman of the Waikato Hospital and Charitable Aid Board, has, therefore, taken the only course open to* him, instructed the board's solicitor, Mr May, to strengthen himself with further counsel's opinion on the position, and summoned the new board to a meeting to be held at the Borough Council Chambers, Hamilton, at 10 o'clock on Wednesday morning next, by which time counsel's opinion as to the defence will have been received. It was intended to have taken the opinion of Sir Frederick Whitaker, as the highest constitutional authority in the colony, but extreme pressure of business prevented that gentleman from giving immediate attention to the matter, and the opinion of Mr Bell, of the firm ot Gully, Bell and Izard, will be taken. Mr Graham has apprised the Mayor of Cambridge and the chairman* of the counties, who, with Hamilton, entered into a compact to make cause against the common enemy, should anyone of them be singled out for attack of the action taken by the Auckland Board.

We avail ourselves of this opportunity to wish our numerous readers A Merry Christinas and A Happy New Year.

The Anglican service at Ohaupo on Sunday next will be in the evening at 7 o'clock, instead of in the afternoon.

The name of Mr W. Powell. Auckland, has been removed from the roll of the Justices of the Peace.

In order that the staff of this journal may enjoy the holiday next Wednesday, The Waikato Times will not be published on Thursday, the 30th mst.

To morrow (Christmas Day), there will be services at the various Anglican and Roman Churches in Waikato. There will also be a morning service at the Presbyterian Church, Hamilton. Particulars will be found in the usual column.

A meeting of the ratepayers of the Kihikilu Town District Board will be held on Thursday evening, 30th inst., in order to take into consideration the advisability of borrowing £'300.

Mr A. Connolly, cabnetmaker, Hamilton Eist, had the misfortune to sprain his ancle last evening. The bones were much displaced. He was .attended by Dr. Murch,by whom the dislocation was successfully reduced, and he is progressing favourably.

The annual fete in connection with the Church and Sunday School of S. Andrew, Cambridge, will this year be held in some of the paddocks close to the Church. This decision has been arrived at owing to a difficulty in obtaining sutfiennt waggon and trap accommodation. The exact locality and other particulars will be advertised next week.

We are desired to request those who have promised contributions to the Swiss and French stalls at the Hamilton F«Ste to be so good as to forward them to the ladies having charge without delay. Mrs Hume and Mrs R. F. Sandes have charge of the French, and Mrs Jolly and Mrs W. A. Graham, the Swiss stall.

Most of the inhabitants of Cambridge were not aware that a very exciting election was taking place in their midst, yesterday. The election was for the Maori Weste'rn*Division. Cambridge will add four votes to the list, at a cost of 10s each, all of which were given in favour of Major Te Wheoro.

The newuniforms for the Hamilton Brass Band are completed, and reflect great credit upon the tailor, Mr H. M. Salmon, who has completed his contract under most adverse cii'cuinstances well within the time allowed. They will be handed over to the members this (Friday evening by His Worship the Mayor, who takes a warm interest in the band, at their practice-room at 8

o'clock. Trout-fishing (says the Christchurch correspondent of the Dunedin Star) this season promises to be very good if the dry weather does not deprive the fi>h in our shingle-bed rivers of their necessary element. Dr. Moorhouse and Mr. Flint made a trip to the higher waters of the Opihi last Saturday and in one evening's fishing in the gorge of that river landed nine tish scaling Ollbs ; the doctor and two friends the day before took nine fi«h, weighing 45lbs, in the Temuka and Opihi; and some other gentlemen in the same streams and the Waihi had much larger takes numerically, though the fish were of smaller size and rising well to the fly. The baits used by the first two gentlemen in question were "bully and Devon minnow." Mr. R. Aspinall, in the Lower Opihi, had some good sport, and among his basket was one fish which 111b. I have also heaid of some capital fishing in the upper waters of the Selwyn, where trout are celebrated for their fighting capacities. A well-known Christchurch angler had a big fish on his line there for all but two hours and a-half before he was sufficiently played to permit of the landing net being used. Some of the southern rivers, the Pareora and Otaio, near Timaru, for instance, are going dry, and it is feared that the loss of fish in these streams will be very considerable. Some 205 licenses to fish have been issued this season.

Two services will be held in the Hamilton Hall on Sunday next. A select quadrille party will be held in the Public Hall, Hamilton, on the 20th. Mr Lewis O'Neill advertises in another column that his office will be closed till 10th January. There will be no sale at the Hamilton Auction Mart on Saturday, January Ist, being New Year's Day. The date of Messrs W. J. Hunter and Go's Morriuaville sale, given as the Gth January, on the 4th papfe has since been altered to the 30th inst. FAOS.—Close confinement and careful attention to all factory work gives the operatives pallid faces, poor appetites, languid, miserable feelinus, poor blood, inactive liver, kidneys, &c, and all the physicians and medicine in the world cannot help them unless they get out of doors or uso American Co's Hqp Bitters. None need suffer if they will uso It freely. See Drunkkn Siuik— How many children and worsen are slowly and surely dying, or rather being killed, by excessive doctoring, or the daily US.C of some drug or drunken stuff called medicine, that no one knows what it is made of, who can easily be cured and saved by American Co's Hop Bitters, which is so pure, simple, and harmless that «he most frail woman, weakest invalid, or smallest chil4 can trust in it ! See