CHRISTCHUKCH.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 4629, 16 December 1876, Page 2 (Supplement)

CHRISTCHUKCH.

(fkom our own correspondent.)

4th December.

You have already been informed by telegram that Mr Carcuthers has propounded his scheme of drainage for the city and suburbs. For the benefit of those of your readers who take an interest in municipal affairs I may as well give the following particulars:—ln the first place, he proposes to sewer the districts comprised within the following boundaries : On the north side of St. Alban's lane, Knightstown road, aad Edgeware road; on the south, Philipstown, and the south branch of Jackson's Creek; and on the west, the Lincoln road, Antigua street, and the Papanui toad, back to St. Albau's lane. The part of the above district which lies to the west of Colombo street and south of the Avon will be drained by gravitation into the -existing outfall drain, The whole of the district north of the Avon, and. that part south of the Avon and north of Tuam street will drain by a system of sewers to the corner of the East Belt and Kihnore street, where a storm overflow will allow the flood waters to flow into the river. The sewage will then be pumped into a high level sewer, which will conyey it along .the East Belt to the existing outfall sewer. at Tuam" street,, and thence to the Heathcote estuary. The remainder of the [sewage district, comprising Waltham, Philipstown, and the low lying parts near the railway station, will be drained by an outfall sewer along the Ferry.load to the ChristchurchQuay, where a storm overflow will be made into the Heathcote. The sewage will be pumped into a cross sewer, by which it will flow into the estuary. The whole sewage of the town will thus be brought to the e3tuary, and the Avon will be kept quite pure and free from sewage. In the coarse.of time, as the town increases in size, there is no doubt that the estuary will become very offensive;.and arrangements are made by which the existing outfall drain will become a storm overflow only, and the whole of the sewage may be collected, at the Ferry road pumping station, where it will be purified by irrigation and precipitation before the water is allowed to flow > into the sea. It is unnecessary to undertake this at present, aa it is a costly process, and hitherto no means have been discovered of profitably using sewage for agricultural purposes; all that is required for the present is to recognise the fact that purification of the sewage of the town will eventually be necessary, and so to arrange the works that, it may be done at the least cost when required. It is found by experience that the introduction of water closets does not materially increase the foulness of sew;age, and it is therefore proposed to permit the use of closets, but not to make their use compulsory. The depth of the sewers below the surface of the street will vary fro ji four to twelve feet, the difficulty of getting suffiebnt fall making it impossible to .place them at a greater depth. Only imagine the chatce of Christchurch being effectively drained aflast!

I mentioned in my last letter that the establishment of a School of Agriculture was on the tapia, and that a committee had been •appointed to consider the question. They have brought up their report, and, by the way, have brought it up with commendable expedition. They think it desirable that steps should be taken for the establishment of an Agricultural School and an ExperiinentnlFarm; that such school and farm should, in the first instance, be not more than 15 miles from Christchurch ? and not more than three miles from a railway atation; and that the school should be adapted for boarders as well as day pupils. They recommend that the farm should not be leas than 150, and hot more than 300 acres, and should if possible comprise land of various descriptions ; that it should be placed under the charge of an experienced and educated person,; who, besides managing the farm, shall superintend the instruction of the pupils, with such assist-, ants as may be found necessary. They also recommend that lectures on. agricultural chemistry should be delivered at the schoal by Professor Bickerton, and that a good portion of the total cost of the chemical department of the College should be charged against the receipts of the Agricultural Trust. The Hon. John Hall, a member of the Committee, stated the other day at a meeting of the Board of Governors at the College, that it waa in the first instance suggested that lectures on agricultural chemistry should be delivered in the various agricultural centres, and that scholarships should be established for the sons of farmers. When, however, they came to look at the in tontion of the Provincial Government in making the appropriation, they found that it was imperative that a school of agriculture should be established, and that they must either go on with the school or give up the trust. The de tails of the working of the system are referred to a subcommittee of three, consisting of the Hon. John Hall, Mr Tosswill, and Mr H. F. Gray. ■

Some somewhat startling disclosures have been made recently at the Resident Magistrate's Court here with reference to the Assist-ant-Provincial Architect, from which it would appear that he has been practising his profession privately, though in a kind of semi-official capacity. At all eveata, he has thought fit to BU9 9, Government contractor for the following

.forscboolsadditlons, pnd< ;master!BJaouae,,Ll,lis, Mt 'dp.doanother, school, Lllg ; ; spercent. ■commission, on amount of i accepted "tender for !Jabo»ei'.,works,: ,Ll2 ,9'js',6d; ,;bopyin^^billfl.'oi' riqhaatities/.&c.,,,L2,103, less. fee;6i' : Ll l^P,*?'-, vpuslyf charged.; (l fee for, copy '.pf .'biff oij.qtiantK itfescfortwoyrnqre, schools, LI lls ,63; J tqtal,Llß /2s 6d. In evidence,' the plaintaff,. stated, the [■(fork which -he did foFdefendant was strictly jjrivate, i>nd had r notbing-to.dQjwith_.his official .duties. He waano^surelh'atir^'a^r^lthin the (Knowledge of the Provmcial-au'thoritres that he .did the work claimed'for.-The? defendant stated '. tha'thS' had sent his foreman over to the office of the Provincial Architect to look at the plans aWltake out the quantities, and he was told that he could not see them. He found the bill df quantities afterwards on the desk in his Office enclosed in an envelope. ~He had never used them, as they were useless to him. He had not ordered the bills of quantities. The Provincial Architect stated that he was aware that Mr Hubbard had supplied some, quantities to some contractors, but instructions had afterwards been given in the office that no quantities should be supplied. After the whole of the evidence had been taken, the Magistrate stated that theevidence given by the defendant had been corroborated by the foreman, and, had defendant received the bills of quantities as stated, there would have been no necessity for him to have sent his foreman to inspect the plans and specifications and take out the quantities, as he distinctly stated that he had done. The contract between the Assistant Architect and the ■ contractor cannot be sustained, and the conduct of the former throughout, he considered, would not bear inspection. Judgment was therefore ■ given for : the defendant, with costs. There wa3 another case, wherein the Assistant Architect also sued another contracting firm for L 24, odd; 2£ per cent, commission on amount of tender accepted; fee for copying bills of quantities _; total, L 44, less paid on account, L2O. The evidence showed that plaintiff had prepared bills ot quantities for the work, which had been used by defendants. In this case, the Magistrate struck out the item for copying bills of quantities, and gave judgment for plaintiff for the balance. Suicides appear to be very painfully frequent as well here »s elsewhere. Mr Gaul, the wellknown photographer, poisoned himself here under the following distressing circumstances: —On Monday morning last, deceased went into his studio, told his assistant that, as the weather was dull, he did riot think it would be worth •while to prepare anything for printing. appeared at the time to be in pecuniary difficulties. The assistant then went down stairs, and, about ten minutes after, he heard a footstep above, and thinking it might be a customer, went to receive him. When he got upstairs, he saw Mr Gaul sitting in an armchair, and thought at first he was asleep, until he heard him groan, and he ran and spoke to him, but got no answer. It appeared that he had taken cyanide of potassium, a chemical used in the business ; and though a medical man was shortly on the spot and the stomach pump was used, it was all to no purpose, for life was extinct. Another man Was discovered suspended from a willow tree alongside the rivor Heathcote, where he had hung himself by means of a rope, about 14ft. from the ground. He had recently been dismissed from the Hospital, was ft carpenter by trade, and it was thought that some trouble was weighing very heavily upon his mind. There has been also an attempt at suicide. A young man had got into low spirits because a girl to whom he was paying :his addresses refused his overtures, and he thought fit to stab himself while in that uninteresting condition. He has recovered and has been liberated, on the distinct understanding that he make no further attempt upon his own life. Enough of the horrible for one paragraph. Several "very important property sales have transpued lately. Among these were eight building plots near the Addington station, which fetched L 33 each; 200 acres at Ashburton, L 3 an acre: the Allandade Estate, Waikari (1147 acres), at L 4 15s an acre; while 220 acres of the Avonhead Estate were withdrawn at L3O an acre; and a section of land near the railway station, with four cottages thereon, was passed in at L 950. In Lytteltcn a plot of land, having 66ft. frontage on Norwich Quay, with a depth of 79ft. in Canterbury street, on which the Eoyal Hotel stands, was Bold for L3OOO ; and a plot of land in Canterbury street, 28ft. by 66ft., fetched L 25 0; and three plots of land fronting on a right-of way, L7O each. At Sumner one acre laid out as a garden sold for LSOO, three-quarters of an acre for L 350, half an acre for L 360, and 60 quarter acres fetched from L 42 up to L9210s each. At a meeting of the Board of Directors of the Canterbury College held last week the chairman stated that he had written to Mr Rolleston asking that the late Provincial Library might be handed over to them. Mi Rolleston replied that he did not feel justified in handing over absolutely such a valuable property as the library in question; but it was proposed to allow that body to take charge of it on giving a receipt for the same, the library to be returned in the event of the proper authority for the transfer not being obtained. .These books will make a valuable addition tc the College Library. And while on the subject of libraries I may here mention that the new public libiary is nearly finished, and wiil be a vast improvement on' the present hole—oi Calcutta, if I may use such a hyperbole. A meeting of members uf'Rowing Clubs is called for to-morrow, at Warner's, to obtain representatives to compete in the forthcoming Nelson Regatta, to be held on the 17th of next month. Ido hope that we shall be able to cut a respectable figure, and I am glad to notice that boating affairs just now appear to be a little more lively than.usuaL What do you think of the weights of the following fleeces, the sheep belonging to Mr Marcroft? Those from 38 ewe hoggets— Pantons—averaged lolbs of first-class wool; those from three ram hoggets weighed 22|lbs, 20£lbs, and 19Albs respectively; and a fourtooth ram, Lord Nelson, produced a tenmonths fleece weighing 2]£lbs. • The barque Queen of the South has arrived straight from Calcutta, and is consigned tt Messrs P. Cunningham and Co. She brings 1243 bales of corn sacks, 20 cases preserves, and ,500 bags rice. A sad case of sunstroke has occurred here, and terminated fatally. A poor man was working as a labourer in Hagley Park, where he wa* seen to fall down suddenly as in a fit. He waf taken at once to the Hospital, but he never recovered consciousness, and there died the same day. The following were the takings upon the Agricultural Show grounds at the last Exhibition :—Entrance money, L 29 7; gate money, L 575; sale of catalogues, L3B; sale of booths, L 132; total, L 1043. It is expected that the next ram fair, under the auspices of the Association, will be held about the end of March. The Rose Show on Friday was very successful, and the various classes well represented. Strange to say, among the extra exhibits were a number cf kerosene lamp stoves for heating small greenhouses, , The Anniversary sports, as U3ual, will take place in Latimer Square on the 16th inst., and, judging from the programme, the various events will be well contested—if the value of the prizes is any criterion. But I never could un derstand what there is in these sports to drag some 8000 people together, when about ninetenths have no more idea of what is going on than the man in the moon. What splendid fun fora stout old darne^ for instance, weighing something under 15 stone, standing in a broiling sun to watch some half-a-dozen hobble-de-hoys in the insane throes of a walking-match, going eyes-out as if for bare life ! I am sorry to say that decent houses at the new Theatre Royal are not the rule, but the. exception. I should not wonder if by this time. the fact has become apparent to the management that"' stare" do not draw as a rule unless: they are backed up with at least a moderate array of talent. Mrs and Mr Walter Hill are, as always, as good as gold, and as great favourites as ever, but unfortunately they are not übiquitous, nor have they any supernatural powers of transformation.