JOTTINGS FROM ASHBURTON.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LIX, Issue 6898, 9 April 1883, Page 6

JOTTINGS FROM ASHBURTON.

[SBOSt ODB OWK COB&gSVOKBBKT.] April 4. The holidays ere over, and after the usual jollity attending a succession of merry-making days, people have sottled down to every-day life. During Eastertide tho more staid and God-fearing of the Ashburtonians went loyally to church; thoso whose minds ran mere on mundane things and in a livelier groove, drove into the country, or otherwise enjoyed themselves. Still another class abode by the pumps—the 6d a glass pumps —and slept at the Pdlioo Station. Huuian

nature dor* not change very wuob as the World grow* older, ana if is, I presume, the same in Aehburton u it it everywhere else, and the tamo to-day M when Burns, describing the " Holy f.ir," "id- " Home wore ton o' lo*e DliSne, And Homo «eie ton o' bi»mJ;r," but it is very satisfactory to koow that the holidays went past without the capacity of the police-station being overtaxed, and that dutiog the Hiwtor season the churches were well attended. Homo little time ago the Licensing Committee elected by the ratepayers were turned out of office because they had not been nominated according to the strict lawyer's reading of the law. It wae »»id to bo a case of Teetotaller r. Publican, and the teetotaller* hod sot iu their men, while thi> publicans hadn't. Believing that the publioane' crowd were properly nominated, and that the cold* water moo would be out in the cold if a protest wore made, the alcoholic party took the mutter before the A.M., under Lawyer Purnoll'i able advocacy. The cold-water people were championed by Lawyer Button, from Chris! church. Mr ParneH'* etory went all very straight right on to the end. She | elected men had been inaccurately and inoom- j plotely nominated thoeo who were mot elected had preionted immaculate nominations i therefore, those who were not of the chosen should be exalted to the Bench, and thoso who had topped the poll should take a book seat. Bat Mr Button had a story to tell too. His men were not properly nominated. Ho owned that oorn at once. It wai a charge that even a lawyer could not deny —for less a lawyer of Mr Button's cast. But he was surprised that the other eide should try to extract the beam from the eye of the cold-water men before they hod got rid of their own mote. There wot not a really legal nomination paper in the list, and every one of them was bad! Mr Furnell offered a faint resistance, and made a final struggle. Bat Mr Button had won the fight. The B.M. upiet the whole eleotion, and the result was a new one some days ago. Strange to say, there was no fight, and five gentlemen, two of whom were unknown amongst the ten first candidates, walked in unopposed. And so ended a storm in a teapot. It is all over for ft season with the proposed Aehburton traffic bridge. The usually enterprising County Council, now that they have no funds at their disposal except what they raise by rates, have backed out of the undertaking, and the Boad Boards interested scarcely see their way to fork out the needful. Wakanui Hoed Board doesn't see it at all, and tells the County so in a note of six lines —short, sharp, and decisive. Longbeaob, rigidly formal, sends a foolsoap of resolution, and thinks the work ehould be a County one, while only the Upper Ash burton has any idea of paying a small share of the cost. Meanwhile a motion, given notice of by Mr Wright, to bring the matter to a head, by a direct order to the engineer to take the preliminary-steps, lapses beoause of its mover's absence. The motion had not the ghost of a ohanoe of passing in any oaie, and if it had passed there are thoeo in the Council who would have fonght hard against it But the time was, when the Counoil rolled in wealth, that had the idea been as enthusiastically advocated by the local Borough Council as it is now, the bridge would havo been built as a County' work, and no fuss made about it. In any oase, it is quite as much a County work as the bridge over the Bangitata, would have cost no more money, and there would have been less persistent enemies to fight over it than the hard-headed leaders of the Oeraldine County Counoil. Besides, half the cost would have been found by the Government.

There has just departed from the County for the North Island one of the oloest settlers in the distriot—Mr isaao. E. Taylor, of Buccleaoh. Mr Taylor has been in the hills district for nearly a quarter of a century, and ought to know something of Aehburton County matters; and he does, for ho knows them all by heart. He was entertained to dinner on Saturday last, at Hood's Hotel, Mount Homers, and presented with a silver inkstand and a purse of fifty sovereigns—a very substantial token of his neighbours' goodwill. Over a score of gentlemen were at the banquet, and if anything wae a test of their enthusiasm, I should soy their presence at the hotol was on such a "sneezer" of a night es was last Saturday. The opening of the new Oddfellows' Hall at Aehburton will eventuate shortly, and be duly celebrated and chronicled. Of course it is believed that the new hall will eclipse and over-shadow the old Town Hall. Not if the old Directors know it 1 Alterations and improvements, involving a cost of about £4OO, are intended to be made, I hear, upon the old building, so that an extended and more convenient stage and fittings, better seat accommodation, improved ingress and egress will be the result. In that case, with the undeniable site of the old hall, the Oddfellows will not have it all their own way. But one advantage must necessarily result to the public by the new building—rents will be reduced, so that entertainments and other meetings will now be more frequent} and from the improved accommodation, the chances are that companies of a higher order than usually honour the township with a visit will more frequently look in at us on their way north and south.

The muoh-fought-over Bangitata traffic bridge is to be formally opened and its " health drunk" by the Aehburton County Counoil and cronies on April 23. This is the bridge the gifted Wakefield waxed so eloquent ever just beforo the last election. The pictures he drew of the broken piles strewing the river-bed, and the impossibility of ever building a bridge in the way this one has been built, have been—well, they will all be obliterated in bumpers of ohampagne ifter the builders and the word-painter havo shaken hands on the finished struoture.