LAST NIGHT'S COUNCIL.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VI, Issue 126, 30 May 1871, Page 2

LAST NIGHT'S COUNCIL.

„..„.. . i s\ * Mr. Wastney moved, " That looking to the numerous errors that are known to exist in the surveys of this Province, this Couucil is of opinion that means should be taken by the Colonial Govei'nmefi(| with as little delay as possible, to legalise existing boundaries, aud that his Honor- N the Superintendent and the other members of the Assembly from this Province, be . respectfully requested to bring this important question prominently under the notice of the General Government." The resolution was negatived on the voices. On thlhnotion of Mr. Wastney, it was resolved, "That this Couucil desires to repeat the opinion expressed- in a resolution of the last two Sessions; al to the great desirability of an Act being passed by the General Assembly, constituting Courts of Appeal against assessments of Country Road Boards, or other bodies empowered to levy rates. And that in thanking the Superintendent for his efforts (in his capacity of member of the House of Representatives) to give effect to the wish of the. Couucil as expressed In the Paid resolution, that his Honor he respectfully requested to renew those efforts in the coming session of Parliament. On the motion of Mr. Tarrant, it was resolved, " That, in accorduuee with the report of the Select Committee appointed to consider the best means of managing the Nelson Hospital, his Honor the Superintendent be respectfully requested to cause a Bill to be brought in next Session to provide for the Nelson Hospital Management Committee being increased to five." The Provincial Treasurer moved the first reading of the Appropriation Bill, which was carried. He then moved its secoud reading, whereupon Mr. Gibbs said that the proposed appropriations of the revenue had risen from £87,000 to £95,800, many items having been added since the Estimates were first sent down. There had been a continual increase in the votes for public works without any corresponding reduction in the departmental expenditure. Everything was, at present, in a most depressed state, and yet the officials were more highly paid than was the case a few years ago, and considering that all the necessaries of life had lowered in price, it was equivalent to an increase of something like 25 per cent, in their salaries. The sums voted could only be spent so far as the revenue permitted",, and this, he feared, would only allow of avery small proportion of the proposed public works being carried out. Mr. Wastney thought the effect of the increased votes would be to place the whole of the expenditure at the [ option of the Superintendent. He considered that the whole of the Council's labor had been thrown away, and that they might just as well have voted the revenge in a lump sum. He hoped that another year the members would make up their minds not to vote a single penny beyond the estimated revenue. Mr, O'Conor, judging from Mr. Wastney's proceedings in the early part of the session, could only conclude that such ideas must have dawned on that gentleman's mind but very recently. The members came to the Council with very different ideas from those entertained by the Government, on the expenditure of the revenuer They could not displace the items put on the Estimates by the Superintendent, but they wished to place on them other sums to be expended in the districts they represented. He was only afraid that the\Government would be too liberal to the, settled districts at the expense of the West Coast. Mr. F. : Sellingthought that the works proposed by the Government should be struck out if others were deemed more necessary by the Council, so that the total amount voted should not exceed the estimnW? revenue, as by doing otherwise they lost, to a great extent, their coutrol over the public funds. Mr. Donne said that the expenditure was now left entirely to the Superintendent who was not responsible to the Council but to the people. They had no guarantee that the money would be spent according to their' 1 wishes, but had, in this' matter, handed themselves over bound hand and foot to the Superintendent, and so long as the money .was not actually misapplied,, thfey had no control whatever over the ex-" penditure. At the same time lie' was surprjsed at such remarks falling from Mr. Wastney and others^ who, by the action recently tsikeu by 'them, had released the^ Executive from all'Tesponsibility. The Bill was then read the second time, com■roitted^ read tho, third time, passed; i: The Council then adjourned .until this yemng.

A Monster Meeting of miners was held at Arauluen, to take into consideration the heavy losses sustained through the recent sudden floods. It was resolved to ask a loan of £60(a> from the Government to enable the 1 miners to re-open their claims, the mining plant to be given as security. Two engines have already been dug out, but there are no signs of six others that disappeared on the night of the floods. The actual loss of property is estimated to exceed £20,000. Dunedin. — The Provincial Council met on Friday last. The Superintendent congratulated them upon the progress of the Province, which, he said, would be greater if made a distinct colony, and left to its own resources. Whilst advocating v great retrenchment, he thought it would be incomplete unleßS the General Governs menfc reduced the number of its civil servants by amalgamating the offices. M . Gillies was elected Speaker by the Opposition. Mr. Reynolds, who was defeated, was supported by the Government, The " Rambler in New Zealand '' in the Wellington Independent, gives the following description of commercial travellers : — " There are several important looking personages, who I afterwards learnt are commercial travellers. Heavens ! what a flourishing thing the commerce of New Zealand must be when it can afford to keep so many people constantly travelling about in first-class stWe. Here half the saloon passengers -Are commercial travellers, and at least, one-fourth captains, or are addressed as captains which amounts to the same thing now-a-d'oys, when captains and even full-blown colonels are as numerous as blackberries. It was a great relief to me when one of these awful, personages was put ashore; I felt as though the ship bad been considerably lightened. Touching the commercial travellers. Who pays the enormous expenses of the multitude of them one meets everywhere? Is it the unfortunate consumer? aud if sV,' cannot the mercantile houses find some better mode of communicating with customers, and so reduce the price of goods to the consumer ? " The Launceston Examiner reports : — "A boat has just come in to Circular Head, belonging to a man known as Johnny the Frenchman, who, with two other men, has obtained in nine weeks no less than 9000 mutton birds, two casks of mutton bird oil, and several bags of feathers from off Trefoil Island, opposite Cape Grim. They are selling the birds at £1 per hundred; the oil has been sold at 4s per gallon." Our correspondent adds: — "This is better than farming." They are of a practical turn of mind in California. Instead of spending £35,000 per mile, or even £9,000 per mile, on railways, they build their lines at such a price that they can make a great many miles. The latest railway news is that important branch line's feeding their main railroad are to be made, which will cost, including rolling stock, 10,000 dols,, or £2,000 sterling per mile. If they had delayed making the Pacific railway until they could have found the money to spend per mile which we waste upon needlessly 'costly railways, the American continent would not have been bridged for the next half-century. — Australasian. Adulteration. — From the press, the pulpit, and the playhouse proceed protests against the. poisoners of our potations and the adulterators of our daily food, but it appears to be nobody's business to analyse what we eat and drink, and to bring our trading toxicologists to justice. So the deadly work goes on, and there is more employment for the gravediggers at the cemetery, and there are more candidates for admission to the lunatic asylums supported by the state. "Why does not the Corporation of Melbourne copy the example of the Corporation of Dublin, which recently caused an officer of the Public Health Committee to purchase a quautity of confections at .13 establishments, and to submit them forthwith to Dr. Cameron, the city analyst ? Three only of the number were found to vend pure and wholesome articles. The collections obtained at the other ten shops contained poisonous pigments and other impurities. Common sugar-stick was found to contain chroraate of lead in considerable proportions. Other confections lerived their ' colors from vermilion or mercuric ; sulphidej aniline dyes, and dhromine. S me of the articles contained as much as four grains jof poison to one ounce of confections j and it is stated upon . high rnedicfeL authority ;■ that the use of confections colored with chromate of lead produces a large amount of infantile disease. MostiOf,the ©Senders were fined, and all of them undertook to abandon the use of poisonous pigments. We are far from '..wishing^ IjP; jSii^gle > |ut the lpllipoproakers of this city arid its special suburbs as the special objects ,of r a raid .Of this kind, but what the Dublin Corporation has done with respect to the Tsonfeotioness of

tbat capital, our own corporation, and the corporations of the adjoining municipalities, might advautageously perform as regards the vendors of all articles susceptible of sophistication, begiuning with the keepers of threepenny taps. — Australasian. Clearing- Bush Land. — The followiug hiut, from oue of our Australian contemporaries, may be of service :— - Some one in the Bullarook forest who was clearing his land of stumps, finding it expensive and tedious work, thought he would try an experiment. He bored holes with an auger in several stumps and filled them with kerosiue, which after a few days disappeared, he then set fire to the stumps and they burned entirely up roots and all. Thekerosiue, singularly enough, penetrated every portion of a stump, and could be detected in the largest stumps by merely chipping with an axe. The plan is being tried now on a large scale, and it is the cheapest and most expeditious method of clearing land that has been, heavily timbered. The Great Organ erected in the Royal Albert Hall, Kensington Gore, under the snpervision of Sir«Blichael Costa, will cost when complete ijIO.OOO. It will be the grandest ananioEiJi complete instrument in the world, fft J3fands ?Oft high, 65ft wide, 40ft deep, weighs more than 150 tons, and has nearly 10,000 pipes~ln it. Thi organ is supplied with wind by **tvv.Q4 pairs of steam engines made by Messrs. vJeha Perm and Son Greenwich ; there being six pairs of bellows, and also a pair of blowing engines. Telegraphic Victory. — The European Mail says that on Thursday, February 16, at 9.8 p.m., a Loudou establishment received a message which had been sent, via Teheran, from Kurrachee, India.on Friday morning, Feb. 17, at 12.43 a.m. The message was, therefore, received in London the day before it was sent from ludia. The time actually occupied by the message in transmission was fifty minutes ; the sun would require four hours and twenty-six minutes to do the same distance, and as the message was sent so soon after, the extraordinary effect is produced of its arriving the previous evening. A Merchant Tailor of Boston,recently deceased, li as*^. bequeathed the sum of 3,000,000 dollars—^out £600,000 for the foundation of " an\iustitute for the education of women to qblain their own livelihood." Mi. Simmons^ the testator, has had iv his employ many >eajnstresses and oi-her women, and so was made painfully aware of the need which he has endeavored to supply. A Queer Compliment. — A young lady with a very pretty foot, but a rather large ankle, went into a San Francisco shoe store to be measured. The admiring clerk, who is of Gallic extraction, complimented her in the following queer way : •'Mad-am you h'to\e one bootiful foot, but ze leg commence wo immediately ! " A Young Woman, delegate in the recent Ohio Convention of Woman Suffragists said: — "For my own parti love man individually and collectively, better thau woman; and so, I am sure, does every one of my sex* ,if they, like me, would utter their real^entfiments. I am more anxious for man's\ el&vation and improvement than for - woman's, and so is every true woman." The advertisement receipts of the London Times have sometimes reached £25,000 in a single month. A Poetical American describes ladies' lips as " the glowing gateways of pork and potatoes." At a recent meeting of a parish, a strait-laced l&ad most exemplary curate submitted a report of the destitute widows and others who stood in need of assistance from the parish. " Are you sure, revereud sir," asked another solemn brother, " that you have embraced all the widows ? " He said he believed he had.