NAPIER NOTES.

Hastings Standard, Issue 98, 19 August 1896, Page 2

NAPIER NOTES.

[From Our Own Correspondent.]

Napieb, August 19

War has been declared against the opponents of the breakwater, and town and country alike must back the people who properly hesitate to suspend operations to suit the stupid and selfinterested notions of the owners of the Spit lighters and tenders. Every man who desires to see Hawke's Bay prosper will press on to completion the work now in hand, and there will be nothing but discredit attach to the names of those who now talk of putting a stop to the work and saddling the ratepayers with taxation for an incomplete structure.

I have read the last effort of the Eev J. Hosking in the direction of advocating Prohibition, and I cannot help but marvel at the density of the man and the twist he has got in his understanding. Any one can sit down and reel off quotations on either side. We all know that drink—the excessive use of it, rather—has its attendant evils ; so has gluttony, the love of dress, gambling, tight-lacing, immorality, and other viciousness. There are more people in our lunatic asylums through immoral practices than through drink ; there are more homes blighted, more lives cursed, more ruin worked through immorality than through drink, and I have yet to learn that because of this we are to prohibit the gentle sex—as the Hon W. P. Reeves said otice in a debate in the House. But even if all be true that is said of the drink evil, will prohibition right the trouble ? Will men cease to do evil and learn to do well because a minority of men of the colony wish to coerce them ? I don't believe it.

I have rather an alarming statement to make. It is to the effect that enquiries set on foot by a practical man prove that every one of the connections with the sewers from closets are so many fever traps, and that unless something is done before next summer Napier will be visited by a fever epidemic. Ido not make this statement without warrant, and I appeal to the Council to take the whole question into immediate consideration.

What may happen to a man who is cleaning his bicycle. A resident lost two fingers though getting them into the driving-gear while using a duster on the machine. Prohibit all bicycles at once!

I have just been wondering over a matter that has been brought to my notice by a townsman. I refer to the entertainment by the Camera Club in aid of its funds. Now, why should the public be appealed to for such a purpose ? Has a Camera club —established for the amusement, and profit, of private individuals —any claim at all on public sympathy ? There is too muGb of this giving of entertainments for the raising of funds for private amusements, and the sooner the thing is exposed and put a stop to the better. If the Camera clubls hard up, let its members go round with the hat, I am informed that a number of boys will be brought up at the Magistrate's Court in the course of a day or t-wo, with breaking windows. The young scamps have not been deterred in the least from their work of .destruction, but rather encouraged, by thss dismissal of the gang brought up the other day. Th.e amount of money loss entailed through the e*il conduct of these boys is very great* indeed, and it is a good thing that the police have got fairly on the job, even though, the jxjcal Justices have failed in their duty, In conversation with a gentleman who hag been on a visit here from Auckland, I learn that go far as the unemployed miners and mechanics of the colony are concerned, the goldfields of the north are rapidly solving, the problem. There are some t nvn who go seeking work in the north who ure not capable, but every really handyman can get work in or about the mines,« in tog work for 'ivf >u v * " , yrillV , ♦ / .v* * r—-•

and prospectors. A good joke is told of two men who were engaged as " miners." These two had to go on in a shift by theinselves, and they knocked down quartz and everything else and sent it out over the tip-head. The discovery of some specimens in the mullock-heap bejpw the tip aroused the suspicions of the manager, and he found that the two " miners " thought that everything had to be cleared out of the drive in the one way! They were paid off and knocked off. They don't call themselves miners now. The foundations for the new portion of the Masonic Hotel are going in, and it is noticeable that the base is a very broad one, capable of sustaining the immense superstructure which is to be reared. The other day a local knowall said to the clerk of works, " Them foundations is -too strong." " How do you know ?" was the query " Why they're stronger nor the ones for the Cathedral was, and well, they're too strong." " You just mind your own business or get away out of this," was the answer he got this time. " But, I say, look here ; them foundations is too strong, and there's too much cement, and" but he finished his other comments on the kirbstone outside the enclosure !