WELLINGTON.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XLVII, Issue 4986, 10 February 1877, Page 3

WELLINGTON.

(feom oue own cobbbbpondent.) February 6. After an unusually long spell of dry weather, some fourteen or fifteen weeks without a thorough wet day or any serious rainfall, wo are at length satisfied in the way of moisture. On Friday night last it commenced to rain in earnest, and it has continued to do so since with a few brief intervals. The quantity of rain which fell on Saturday morning and throughout Sunday wse enormous. Our reservoirs are now both full, and there is little danger of any further scarcity of water this season. The new reservoir has stood the test admirably. Welcome as the rain was for very many reasons, people would almost have been willing to have done without it for another week, as the present one is devoted almost entirely to sport, and of course the rain spoils this. The All-England match was to have commenced on Saturday, bat two reasons prevented it. In the first place, the Wellington did not arrive till nearly five o’clock in the evening; and, in the next place, the day was so wet that they could not have played had they been hero. There was a great crowd of people in macintoshes and umbrellas down on the wharf to meet them, and the Artillery Band turned out to the shipping place, fired guns, &0., and Mr Andrew Young, in a coach and four, drove the team to their hotel. Yesterday morning the prospects looked bad. It was raining steadily, but lightly. Towards, noon, however, it cleared up a little, and it was determined to make a start, but it was nearly 3 o’clock before the wickets were pitched, and then the ground was fearfully wet and sloppy, and play had several times to be stopped, owing to heavy showers. These have continued through the night, and the weather this morning is anything but promising, How quickly 15 of the Wellington wickets fell you will have already learned by telegraph. In every way the weather has killed the cricket match. The attendance yesterday was limited to a few hundreds. Mr Bennett, a week ago, refused £525 for the gates for the three days. The man who offered it must now bless bis stars it was not accepted. The races follow on the heels of the cricket match, being on Thursday and Friday. The weather is, of course, interfering greatly with the training of the horses, but the course is said to be in splendid order now. Much more rain will, however, spoil it for the heavy weights. The appointment of Dr Giles to the vacant Under-Secretaryship, that of Crown Lands, has caused a good deal of surprise, as, although Dr Giles is known to have been a very good Goldfields Warden and Resident Magistrate, he has bad no experience whatever in the matter of the Waste Land laws of the Colony, and neither from length of service or in any other legitimate way, has he any claim to one of the highest and most important offices in the Civil Service. His chief claim is said to be, that some years ago he edited one of the Nelson papers in the interests of the Rich-mond-Atkinson family, at that time not in particularly good odour throughout the Colony. The Civil Service is, of course, annoyed at on outsider being thus brought in, and it is pretty freely said that Resident Magistrates are now considered the only men eligible for anything good. Of all our Provincial Government officers, only one has entered the General Government service. One or two others were offered employment at reduced salaries, but preferred accepting compensation for loss of office, and then shifting for themselves. Singular as it may appear to outsiders, the Civil Service is not popular in Wellington, and its ranks are not to any largo extent recruited from Wellington youths. People here boo too much of its petty jealousies, &0., to like it, and nothing is more common than to hear parents declare that they would rather see their sons working us labourers than in a Government office. To those who know the Service and the position and prospects of most of the officers in it, this does not seem at all extraordinary. It is nob therefore to be wondered at that the officers of the late Provincial Government showed no desire to be transplanted to the enormous hive where some 250 clerks are daily employed doing what something under 100 good men, properly paid and working on a proper system, could easily do much better. All the talk made last session about reorganising the Civil Service will end in smoke I expect, for the members of the present Government, Mr Reid, perhaps excepted, are not at all the sort of men to undertake a work of this kind. No reorganisation of a practical character will be possible unless it begins with the heads of departments. They ure the real obstacles in the way of a reform in the service, which would alike be beneficial to the members and advantageous to the Colony. Our aquatic champions, the Dolly Warden crew, maintained their position against their former competitors, the Timaru men, in a fresh trial of strength, on Tuesday morning last, when the outrigger race of the Regatta programme was pulled, the weather having previously been too rough. The previous morning, however, the Timaru men won a race in whaleboats for £3O a side, their opponents being a crow of “ lumpers,” who, ir u new bout appropriately called the Black Diamond, had pulled against them on Anniversary Day, when the respective merits of the two orows was loft a matter of doubt through a foul having occurred. On Monday morning the question was settled by the Timaru orow winning as easily as on the following morning they were, in the outriggers, bouton by the champions. Another case of infanticide, or something of the kind, hue occurred hero. Iho body of a new born infant, enclosed in a sack, has boon found ; some chloride of lime, evidently used by mislake for quicklime, had been pnfc in with it. Apparently, the body had been in the sack for at least a couple of months, and there is no trace whatever of the perpetrators of the crime. Following so closely on Iho ease of the Smiths, which ended so curiously at the last sittings of the Supreme Court, this ease is calculated to create a rather uneasy fooling. The defendant in the recent ooaoh accident ease of Toxward v. Hustwell, has behaved in a singularly generous manner to his late gonial. Iho Jury found for him on all the issues, and of course the suit had put him to much annoyance ond no slight expense, outside of course of the regular plaintiff will have to pay. Still Mr Hastwe has given his solicitor instructions to pay Ur Diver’s bill for attending Mr Toxward, when suffering from the effects of the accident. This bill the Doctor stated m the witness-box would boa hundred guineas. Mr Toxward would have been far wiser to have, in the first instance, trusted to Mr Hastwell s generosity instead of going to law with him. The City Council shows no intention of departing from its determination to erect the Town Hall, despite all the ignorant clamour

raised against tho proposal. The matter came up in the Council the other day on a motion to withdraw the offer of premiums for designs, but this was at once negatived, and without any discussion, only the mover and seconder voting for it. Borne little stir has been created here by a proposal of the Mayor’s to charge £2 10s a yeor for baths in private houses, in addition, of course, to the ordinary water rate. This extraordinary proposal, however, meets with no favour, and is sure to bo rejected when it comes before tho Council. At the Theatre Royal the Lingards are now in possession, under Mr Sam Howard’s management, but they are not doing very great business; in fact, they came at rather a bad time, immediately after Mr Emmet (who, in six nights, with " Fritz," took more money than at the same prices has over before been taken in the Theatre), and just before tho All-England cricket match and the races, for which people have naturally been saving up their spending money. This week, however, the Lingards will probably do bettor. The American Overland Route Pantascope has been doing pretty well in the Oddfellows’ Hall, but, owing to the causes already noted, not so well as it would otherwise have done, especially considering the prizes which are nightly given away.