MR. ROY'S OFFICIAL REPORT ON THE SUMNER ROAD.

Lyttelton Times, Volume II, Issue 86, 28 August 1852, Page 10

MR. ROY'S OFFICIAL REPORT ON THE SUMNER ROAD.

Wellington, 3rd April, 1852. Sir, —Having been requested by his Excellency to make a report on the Lyttelton and Christchurch Road, I have the honor to lay before you the following, accompanied with a Longitudinal Section of the road. After a careful inspection of the ground from Lyttelton to Heathcote Ferry, I have no hesitation in recommending the line laid out by Captain Thomas, leading by Evans' Pass and Sumner, as being the best which can be obtained between Lyttelton and the Plains. That portion of the road already formed, extending about 90 chains from Lyttelton, will require to undergo a thorough repair previous to its receiving a coat of metal. , From where the above ends to Evans' Pass, a distance of about a mile, is in rock cutting of the hardest description ; 11,720 cubic yards of which will require to be removed to form a proper base for the road. On this portion of the road a considerable expense has been incurred by building retaining walls, only a portion of which are finished. The unfinished portions I propose to leave untouched, and use them only as benches to keep up what stuff may come from the cuttings.

By making the greater portion of the road on the solid, a considerable saving will be effected, and at the same time a much more substantial and less expensive road to keep in repair will be obtained.

I propose to reduce Evans' Pass by 10 feet of additional cutting to obtain a gradient of 1 in 15. The rock obtained from this cutting will be required to metal a portion of the road towards Sumner. From Evans' Pass to Sumner, a distance of 2K miles, a good bridle path has been formed in the line of the road, which is mostly in flat side cutting, and a fourth only of which is in rock, the remainder being in light clay and easy of removal. Three miles of the road between Sumner and Heathcote, (a distance of 3 Smiles) is almost on a level; the remaining % of a mile is in side rock cutting ; all of which will be required to raise the lower portions to the proper level, and along which a well built sea wall extending about 12 chains in length has been executed, and which will require to be extended 10 chains farther. The portions of the road through" clay side cuttings will require slopes of at least \% to 1, with catchwater drains made parallel to the road at a distance of 4 feet from the top of the slope ; the water from these drains to be let down the face of the slope into the through drains by timber spouts: the side drains will require to be pitched in the bottom, and the sides well built with stones. -The whole cost of the road from Lyttelton to• Heathcote Ferry, a distance of 8 miles, will not exceed £12,500, and the time in which the whole can be completed, 18 months. Or from Lyttelton to Sumner, a distance of 4 miles and 30 chains, at £7,770, time required, 12 months ; and from Sumner to Heathcote, a distance of 3 miles and 50 chains, at £4,730, time required, 6 months. The above estimate is calculated for a road 11 feet wide in side cutting, and 25 within the ditches, with 11 feet metal in the centre, along the low level ground, inclusive also of the Necessary Bridges, Culverts, Drains, &c. I have the honor to be, Sir, Your most obedient servant, (Signed) John Roy, C. E. The Honorable the Colonial Secretary.

Independent Voting.—"Make way for a -independent woter," said a man at a recent election in New Orleans. " Why, my good man," said the clerk, " it's not an hour since you deposited your vote at this very poll." " I knows it, I knows it," says the independent voter, "but that 'are was the Dimmocratic ticket; this 'are is the Whig." " But if you strive to vote twice I shall have you arrested." " You will, will you ?" shouted the son of the sovereign people ; " then I says if I'm denied the right of woting for the Whigs, after goin' the whole ticket for the Dimmocratics, there aint no universal suffrage, that's all. It's darned one-sided business, take it all round,"

French Satire upon the " Invasion Panic"— Charivari gives a series of letters which it asserts have been addressed to the editors of the London daily papers by various citizens afraid of an invasion. " John Richardson, Member of the Peace Congress," is made to suggest in the Morning Advertiser that the French be allowed to disembark and be invited to the Crystal Palace, when they may easily be disposed of by fifty barrels of gunpowder, collected in a mine underneath the building; «' Job Thompson, Professor of English Grammar and Grecian History, 95, Oxford-street," informs his countrymen, through the Morning Chronicle, that it is very easy to set fire to the enemy's fleet, by " placing along the coast a number of burnished mirrors, so as to concentrate all the rays of the sun upon the French vessels, and thus most indubitably ignite them." He has no doubt that our patriotic countrymen will hasten to send the Duke of Wellington all the mirrors they do not absolutely require. "I, Mr. Editor, at once place in your bands the little mirror by which 1 have shaved for seventeen years. It is the only glass I possess, but I surrender it with joy. Whilst the French menace Old England, I shall go to be shaved at the barber's. It will cost me a penny every time, but I shall easily be consoled for this expense, by the thought that I have saved my country.—' Rule Britannia!— God Save the Queen.' " One Nicholas Blagson is made to write to the Times as follows: — " Sir, —For three nights, my wife and I have contemplated the means of destroying these French dogs, and we think—my wife and I—-that we have at length discovered it. When these French dogs disembark, we must starve them to death. Every Englishman knows that Frenchmen feed entirely on frogs. Their stomachs are incapable of digesting any other aliment. Well. Is there not time for the English to commence a frog fishery, to be continued until the very last which can be found in our marshes is carefully destroyed ? The French, once having disembarked, will soon have consumed the millions of frogs which they will bring with them, and when they try to procure others, they will hunt in vain for them in all the marshes of the three kingdoms. As to those among them who dare to feed on beefsteaks, they will die of indigestion in less than twenty-four hours. Death to frogs and Frenchmen ! —This should now be the cry of every true Englishman. Mr. Editor, my wife and I present our respects to you."

A person has lately died in Paris whose history is indeed a curious one. This person is M. Breton, who was one of the principal reporters of the Moniteur and Journal dcs Debats for more than 35 years. His occupation as a reporter began, however, long before 1816. M. Breton reported the Legislative debates of all the Assemblies of the first Revolution, and was attached to the corps of short-hand writers so early as the 26th August, 1790. During the Convention he had for colleagues with him in the reporters' gallery two young women, who, it is believed, afterwards perished by the guillotine. He was present when General Buonaparte dissolved the Legislative bodies during his coup d'etat of the 18th Brumaire, and in the confusion of the moment the General trod on his foot as he was leaving the hall of debate. He continued at his task during the whole period of the Restoration, saw Manuel expelled from the Chamber of Deputies, and witnessed all that immediately preceded, accompanied, and followed the fall of the dynasty of the elder Bourbons. He was still, as ever, at his post when the Chamber was in-^ vaded by the mob on the 24th of February, 1848, and was present at the last debate of the Assembly dissolved by the decrees of the 2nd of December. M. Breton was a distinguished philologist, and knew nearly all the languages of Europe. He was attached as sworn translator to the Tribunal of the Seine, and was frequently intrusted as such with important and confidential duties. Few men of the present age have witnessed so many interesting events as M. Breton. His being an eye and ear witness of all the terrible proceedings of the Assemblies of the first Revolution would alone give value to the memoirs which it is stated he has left, and which, it is added, will soon appear in feuilletons of one of the Paris morning papers.

The Finishing Touch.—We read in a Sheffield paper that " the last polish to a piece of cutlery is given by the hand of a woman." The same may be said of human cutlery—that " the last polish to a young blade is given by his mixing in female society."— Punch.

The Thieves at the Great Exhibition — The total number of charges made at the police station at the Prince of Wales' Gate relating to offences within the building is 25, of which 9 were for picking pockets, 6 for attempts to do so, and 10 for petty larcenies at stalls. This remarkable fact has been accounted for by the Lord Chief Baron, who, in a speech which he delivered at the anniversary dinner of the Middlesex Agricultural Society, made the following statement: —« They had heard," his Lordship said, "that although between six and sevea millions of people had visited the building, only twenty-five offenders had been taken by the police within it. He would tell them the reason. At the first opening there were only three doors opened for entrance, and the persons entering were supplied with cards, which directed them to the places reserved for their accommodation. There were police officers skilled in the knowledge of the persons of the most remarkable thieves in. Europe stationed at the doors, and when the members of what was called ' the swell mob' presented themselves, they received cards which sent them all to a particular box where some 37 members of the confraternity found themselves assembled, to practise upon the pockets of one another (great laughter), whereupon they came to the unanimous resolution that the police regulations were too perfect for them, and so they had better go home at once" (laughter). Town Talk and Table Tamo—So California has a rival. Great Britain possesses as golden a territory as the States. The Far East turns out to be richer than the Far west; and if all tales be true, we may shortly expect to see a diversion of the stream of adventurous emigration from the route by cold Cape Horn, to the route by warm Cape of Good Hope. Odd that we should for many years have been pouring forth the scum of our society upon what seems lively to turn out the most auriferous of our possessions. Never was there a clearer case of —— " Fortunatos nimium sua si bona norint Convictos" " The sentence of the court is, that you he transported beyond seas for ten years," and the unconsciously happy dog is forthwith carried off and turned in a great measure loose upon a region, where, according to the last Australasian advices, you have only to get on your knees, rake up the mould a little, pour it from hand to hand, blow away the dust, and behold the sparkling precious metal glittering between your dirty fingers. Why, if the true state of the case had been known, juries would have rushed impetuously into the dock, and prayed to be allowed to take the culprit's position : the bar, with a horrid vision of the County Courts before their eyes, would to a man have left their country —I am far from saying for their country's good, but for their own ; while, instead of condemning criminals to be carried across the Southern Ocean, to Tom Tiddler's ground, where people pick up gold and silver, we would have ruthlessly sentenced the rascals to remain at home. Well, it remains to be seen what may be the real value of the accounts just received. They have certainly an authentic appearance, and will, if they be confirmed, fling a new and tempting bait before doubting emigrants. The fleece was the old riches of the Australian land ; but now the fleece to be pursued will be of the same material as that hunted after by the adventurous Captain Jason. May the new Argonauts meet with as much success as the old ones, and not half so much trouble.— Angus B. Reach. New Zealand Gossip.—An emigrant from New Plymouth, writes home to say, " we are becoming quite gay here. Last moon I procured a good woman to come and mind inj' baby, and rode to a dance on a bullock cart. I wove the gray striped silk you gave me with the short sleeves. Some of the new comers were most elegantly dressed. The ball came off in the large room of the Mesdames Kings Ladies' School, which was lighted up with sixteen wax tapers besides lamps. My dear Aunt, only three unmarried women were present and fourteen miserable young dancing gentlemen lacking partners." Both Ways.—The Washington Correspondent of the New York Evening Post remarks on the largeness of the members' heads in t|ie House of Representatives, while the Boston Chronotype thinks them as remarkable for thick' ness.

A brochure has been published, with illustrations by Cruikshank, entitled " what is to be done with the Chrystal Palace ?" After many humorous suggestions, all of which are, however, discarded, the Author affirms that the great Jullien is alone capable of satisfactorily coping with the "vexed question:"—" On the whole, we conclude that the best proposal is to hand over the building to the indefatigable Jullien. He alone is capable of filling its area with the grand devices of his fertile imagination, with a colossal orchestra, cove-like, in the centre, and exaggerated casinos in the nave and transepts. A cosmopolitan concert, with a gigantic quadrille of all the nations of the earth, —herein would be scope for the breadth of style in which he delights. A symphony on the solar system to commence with—a quartett of the elements—a romance describing the history of the past—an allegro movement for the present —and an. interminable fugue expressive of the future. With what a consciousness of omnipotence would he draw up the programme, and what a bill he would have out —in black, white, and red—a Krrjfia eg aei —a poster for all time. We imagine him swaying both the music and the-figure* lord of time and of space, parcelling out the latter with sublime condescension, an aisle a piece to each quarter of the globe> " Asia as the oldest, you will take the top—Africa to the bottom—Europe and America vis a vis." And then the inconceivable burst there would be of cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, and all kinds of music, with now a roulade by European drummer-boys, and now a symphony of bones and banjos—anon a crash of Chinese gongs, or a choir of South Sea Islanders with blowing of Conch-shells. And then the gallopade—the rushing myriads—-each step in the dance the migration of a race. Imagination falters, and reason leaves its seat, while Jullien aloft is dominant and serene. In the spirit of this vision then let Jullien have the edifice. Others would convert it to a cucumber frame or a chaos, —he alone can occupy it and triumph. And, indeed, unless he is permitted to come to our rescue, who shall say what is to be done with the Crystal Palace ?"