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New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4217, 25 September 1874, Page 2

A .special meeting, of the. City Council, was, held, yesterday afternoon for the purpose of considering tenders for the valuation of the City for tlje general and water rate. There were present the Mayor, Councillors Mills, Moss, McKirdy, Burrott, George, Rainie, and Greenfield. Six tenders were received, varying- from £SO to £2OO. On,,the motion pf-Councillor Moss, seconded by Councillor Burrett, the tender of Mr. J. M.; Taylor for £65 was accepted. This was the only business before the meeting'and the Council thou adjourned. . , At the Resident Magistrate’s Court yesterday, Thomas Langton was sentenced to three months’’ hard labor for stealing two pnirs;df socles from the shop of Messrs. McDowell and Co., and on a second charge of- stealing two ;brass taps from Mr. J; E. Hayes, received a, similar sentence. : The prisoner, seems'■ to-be. troubled with kleptomania, as he had only just finished a sentence for stealing a decanter of rum from the Duke of Edinburgh Hotel when the socks and taps took Ida fancy. A Maori named Hone Te Rutuangnanga was sentenced to one month’s imprisonment for a petty theft. In the civil cases, the following judgments' were given, with costs Staples v. Stevens, £8 95.; Livingstone v. Hausen, £5. Several others were settled out of court. - The weather on the West Coast duriugthe last two or throe days;. Seems'to have been exceptionally severe. The Tararua. could not he tended either at Hokitika or Greymouth, and the news by her—in another column—was -telegraphed from Nelson, where she arrived yesterday afternoon., - -i v ; : If Only a third of what “Ratepayer,” states in; his letter ,be true, the’ people of Martin Street have.good reason to complain. ~ It is to the interest of the- whole City that its main thoroughfares should he kept, in good order, even if tho streets in the outskirts should not receive that care which-their residents might; think necessary; but no system ought to be ’tolerated that would altogether’negleotauy or 'all of them; and there-aro too [good -grounds for ' complaint, when the only attention they met with from the Corporation, is tho periodical demand for rates, as appears to have been the case for the last eight or nine years with the residents of Martin street- -It would also appear from our correspondent that municipalism in some respects takes after Provincialism. The suburbs of the City correspond with tho out-districts of Provinces —the extremities 'in- each case being starved for the-sake of the centre. It is to be hoped that the cure which is about to bo applied to remedy the evils of Provincialism in this Island may be 'suggestive of some mode of lessening- the, neglect ami -unfairness evinced by the Corporation in regard ; to suburban streets. In any case, it is about time that the Council ap-

preached the ' l o6nsidefh'tidh of thepivays ”and means for putting the whole of the streets 'of the City into a’:; state becoming the-position and prospects of-this City. • - ■ The opera of “Martha” was performed last evening at the Theatre Royal. The house was -crowded, and the performance was, in every most satisfactory. The opera to he produced this evening is “ Maritaua.” “ _ Some ' descriptions of mining property in the Dunstan district continue to demand good prices. A sixth share in the XL water-race at Tinkers, sold last week under a warrant of distress, realised £723, and a fourth share in.’ a water-race and claim at Devonshire Gully was sold f0r,£325. Messrs. McKenzie Brothers, the contractors for the Deborah Bay tunnel, are said by the Daily Times to be making satisfactory progress with that section of the Dunedin’ and Moeraki 1 railway. Work is being pushed ahead on both "sides of the range, and keeps between eighty and ninety men employed. On the Dunedin side the tunnel has been driven some eight "chains, and the face of it is now in hard bluestone, that has, been penetrated'about thirty feet, and is stilF very compact and refractory. .On the Moeraki side the tunnel U in a chain and a-half or thereabouts, and is advancing apace through the ordinary conglomerate formation of the locality.' On both sides of the range the approaches to the tunnel are completed, and ready for the laying of the permanent way.