CHRISTCHURCH.

Otago Witness, Issue 1324, 14 April 1877, Page 6

CHRISTCHURCH.

March 31st. . The terrible agitation— the 'violent storm' in the municipal teapofc-=caused by the proposition of the' Council to purchase the section of land at the corner now occupied by the Golden Age Hotel, opposite the Bank of New Zealand, for the purpose? of widening Colombo street, has passed away, and the ratepayers breathe. The following is the View taken by the advocates of" the scheme. Their sole, reason, they contend, for initiating the measure was to give increased' facilities for troffic at that particular portion of Colombo street. They considered it ail-, visable that they should avail themselves ]of the present opportunity of acquiring Ithe land for this purpose, before any permanent buildings were erected, because if the'latter occurred any future attempt would be rendered practically impossible, as the com-, pensation then asked would be too^gr^afc for the Council to pay. Negotiations having failed for the purchase of 10ft proposed for the above purpose, they deemed it advisable, in the interests, of the city, to purchase the whole block. ' They had made their calculations, and found that there was. not: tuet slightest probability of the citizens , ever requiring to contribute 'anything towards the, cost. They had no doubt that the' property could be so manipulated as to realise all. , that would have to be paid as compensation," because the Corporation was ia a much mbrej favourable position for borrowing' money than any private individual. The following are the figures upon which the calculations are based :— The section had 99ft. frontage on Colombo street, and 112 ft. 2in. on Hereford street and Cathedral Square. They proposed to widen the street by taking off the 12ft. 2in. from the Hereford street and Cathedral Square frontages, leaving the section 99ft. by lOOffc. The land had been, , carefully valued, irrespective of the buildings t at present upon it, and offers had been re-, ceived to lease the Colombo street frontage at £7 per foot, with a depth of 37ft.; the lessor to spend £4000 in budding in accordance with an approved design. , This would have left 63ft. to let on Hereford street, which was also valued at £7 per foot, and 63ft. on Cathedral Square, which, owing to the close proximity of the intended" new Government Buildings, they valued at £5 per foot. The total would consequently have been as follows :— 99ft. frontage on Colombo street by a depth of 37ft., at £7 per foot, £693 per annum ; 63ft. on Hereford street by 494 ft., at £7, £441 ; 63ft. on Gathedral Square by 49£ ft., at £5, £315; total, £1449. From this amount would be deducted the interest on £20,000, ■ the highest estimated cost, at six per cent, interest; and one per cent, sinking fund, £1400, leaving the magnificent balance of £49 to the good. The property would have redeemed itself in forty years at the furthest, and cost the ratepayers nothing. If £30,000 were borrowed— £20,000 for the land and £10,000 for building the new Municipal offices— the result would, they contend, have been satisfactory. The income from the property would have covered the annual cost for interest, &c, £2100, and the Council would have been plus the proceeds of the sale of the present buildings on the new site, and also have their present offices to let or for sale as another asset arising out of the investment, and the ratepayers would have had 12ft. 2in: added to the width of the street. So much for the viewof the advocates. The opponents to the scheme de. I nounoed the idea of the Corporation entering into any speculation whatever with the

ratepayers' money as infamous. A public meeting was called, and the scheme unanimously condemned. The Council then decided that the question of acquiring the section in question should be carried to a poll of the ratepayers, and the polling came off to-day with little or bo excitement, with the following result : — Against the proposition, 616; and for it, 114.

My prognostication was correct with reference to the attempt made by the Acclimatisation Society to defer the date of the opening day for shooting ducks and pheasants respectively. The authorities have refused to listen to the voices of these charmers, and the consequence is that they are funouh. At a special meeting of the Council of this august body a sweeping resolution was passed, accompanied with the resignation, then and there, of three of its members. The Council feels that it has been treated with great discourtesy and placed in a very humiliating position in the eyes of the public by the Government in the matter of the opening of -the shooting season, inasmuch as the Society for years past has always practically dealt with the question, and the adoption by the Government of the recommendations concerning it has always been a matter of form. In this particular case great trouble was taken to ascertain the views of sporting and other observant men before the decision attending the date was arrived at ; and the evidence of several important rangers and others strengthened the Council in its conviction : That this being a specially late season, and there being in consequence large numbers of ducks that will ba too young to shift for themselves, and thereby too young to shoot, the alteration for this year became desirable. The Council — composed of men who have given a great deal of attention to the matter — feels that the great bulk of those who are opposed to the change are men who are not disposed to promote the preservation of game, and the members think that they had a reasonable right to expect that the Government would, in this matter, have seconded their efforts in the direction of saving the game from being slaughtered at too early a period. The Council thinks that a recognised body, such as it is, should have been consulted before the Government decided to disallow its recommendations, and it cannot help feeling that it has been subjected to special discourtesy, in that the opinions of a few people who have not given the matter the same consideratioa as the Society has, have been accepted, without an opportunity haying been given to the Council to consider its recommendation. As far aa the alteration tending to invite breaches of the l»w, the Society had arranged to make the matter so public through rangers, innkeepers, circulars, and advertisements, that it had no reason to believe that there were any fears on that head. The Council therefore deeply regrets that the Government without consulting it, but ignoring the functions which by prescriptive right attach to its position, has adopted the suggestions of a few outsiders, and disallowed its recommendations. This was the resolution, but I may be allowed to inform the Society that the Government were not influenced by a few outsiders, bnt by the unanimous opinion of every true and experienced sportsman in Canterbury.

In my last letter, I gave you a list of questions that the Drainage Board were to be asked with reference to Mr Carruthers's new scheme, as passed at a public meeting called to express the views of the ratepayers upon this important subject. The Board has answered these questions. In the first place, they affirm that it has never been proposed by them, nor is it their intention, to discharge solid sewage matter either into the rivers Avon and Heathcote, or into the estuary. When adopting Mr Carruthers's plan, the Board, furthermore, were careful to ascertain from that gentleman that the cost would be well within the limit of the amount which they are authorised to raise ; and, before accepting tenders for any portion of the works, they have been supplied by the engineer with an accurate estimate of the total cost, abont £170,000. A period of at least three years wonld be required for the expenditure of the above amount ; and thit outlay might be reduced to about £100,000 by omitting many of the branch sewers, where, from paucity of population, or from an abundant eupply of water in the side channels, the immediate construction of the sewers might be delayed, without detriment to public health. While the Board are fully alive to tne merits of the dry system, under proper supervision and in its most approved form, it is obvious that some other provision must be made for carrying away the house slops. In many parts of the district this cannot be accomplished by oidinary surface drainage, and the Board are of opinion that the adoption of sewers in such cases is indispensable. Lastly, the Board have no desire to hurry on the completion of the works in advance of the ascertained necessities of the various localities; and had public opinion not been so strongly expressed against the pollution of the rivers, they would have been prepared to have dispensed with the pumping stations for six or seven years, and have allowed the ordinary house sewage to be discharged into the rivers, as at present.

Rather a curious case of a breach of the Diseased Cattle Act has recently been tried at Rangiora. It appears that a man of the name of Kells h<wl driven 18 head of cattle from the Kaikouras into the Canterbury district, the former being infected. From what the Crown Prosecutor stated, it would seem that a proclamation appeared in the New Zealand Gazette of February, 1871, Bigned by Mr Rolleston, bupenntendent, declaring that all that district of the Province of Marlborough lying between the Clarence river, the Conway river, the seaward Kaikoura range, and the sea, the Province of Otrgo, and the County of Westland, were deemed infected districts within the meaning of the Diseased Cattle Act, 1861, and the Diseased Cattle Amendment Act, 1865. The counsel for the defence maintained that this proclamation was invalid, inasmuch as a similar proclamation had been issued in October the same year. There was no proof that the Superintendent had power to make such proclamation, and before a conviction could take place upon it, it was necessary to show that the delegated powers from the Governor to the Superintendent Had been granted. The Diseased Cattle Act, 1861, provided that the Governor might

define districts and proclaim them ; but there was no proof that the Governor had proclaimed districts. Districts had been proclaimed by the Superintentent, and they had been declared' infected within the meaning of the Act in the same proclamation. The district should have been defined and proclaimed before it was declared infected, and as there was no evidence of it being so defined, it could not be proclaimed infected, as legally there \ras no denned district is existence to proclaim. Further, before a conviction could be obtained, it would be necessary to prove the Governor's assent to the proclamation under the hand of the Superintendent. The assent of the Governor had not been proved by the Crown. The Crown Prosecutor, on the other hand, maintained that under the Act the district to be proclaimed was any district that the Governor, or anyone acting under him, chose to proclaim when disease had broken out. Any district— either County, Road Board, Judicial, or Electoral— however accurately defined, wonld be useless in the event of disease breaking out in portions of two or three ad joining districts. The real intention of the Legislature was that districts should be proclaimed under the Act as necessity arose, and that the boundaries might be stretched beyond the places where diseased or infected cattle were depasturing. The Official Documents Act of 1860 rendered it unnecessary for him to prove the different Gazettes or proclamations contained in them, as the Court was bound to take cognisance of all proclamations contained in the Government Gazette. The Court considered that the defence made with regard to the proclamation would have been fatal to the case had it not been that the defendant was only trying a right, and by his defence and statements had tacitly admitted the proclamation, as also the removal of the cattle from an infected district into another. As on defendant's own confession a pr ima facie case had been made out, he felb it his duty to inflict a penalty, which would be £5 per head, or £90 and costs. Leave was granted to appeal — the Bench expressing their ap. proval of the course, so that once and for ever this important question might be decided. It certainly appears rather hard that stock-owners resident in the so-called infected district should have no outlet for their cattle when it is clearly proved that no disease has existed for years.

From cattle to sheep is no great stride. A dealer the other day sued a northern firm for £100, under the following circumstances. He had purchased 2000 merino ewes of them at Is 6d each. He inspected the flock, and found that out of 35 sheep only fcom 10 to a dozen were sound mouthed. He bought them as he saw them. When he took delivery, the defendants gave him only 900, and of this number, only 200 or 300 were sound mouthed. When asked what had become of the remainder, they said they had either died or had been lost. He subsequently ascertained that 100 had been sold to a third party. Those plaintiff got delivery of, he sold at 3s, and he, moreover, had a market for 1000 full-mouthed sheen, for which he expected to get 3s Gd. Plaintiff pat down his loss at 2s each on 1000 sheep short delivered, the agreement being that he should receive 20G0, with 100 allowed as' a margin. The defendants proved by their stock-book that they had sold 2000, but 300 had died in one night from stormy weather, and several others had strayed. The agreement was to purchase "all the merino ■heep," not naming any number. In consideration of the sheep being short in number, they agreed to let plaintiff have 400 croas-breds at Is 6d, they being worth from 2s 6d to 3s. He agreed to this, and gave them a cheque for the 900 and the 400, and took delivery. The 100 mentioned above were sold prior to the agreement to purchase. The Magistrate in giving judgment said that, if the first point laised was really a part of the case, he would have required the evidence of experts as to the usages of the trade, and the margin allowed in the sale of 2000 sheep, more or less, but it was his opinion that plaintiff accepted the cross-breds in satisfaction of the loss of the merino ewes, and that the cross-breds sold to him at Is 6d were at that time worth from 2s 6d to 33 in the market. The plaintiff did not protest at the time of giving the cheque for the sheep, therefore he took it that he had accepted a waverer, and the contract was terminated, and the oross breds taken in lieu of the merinos. He consequently gave judgment in favour of the defendants, with costs. I must confess that the whole case appears to me a puzzlo, and that evidently there is something wrong somewhere.

There was a special sitting of the Supreme Court last week, held under the Lunatics Act, to decide whether a certain gentleman wa3 in his right mind or not, and whether he was capable of managing his own affairs or not. The case was a very wretched one, and two letters were put in as evidence of insanity. Your readeis shall judge for themselves. The first is addressed to the Commissioner of Police, and is as follows :— " I was speaking to Mr Duncan this morning, asking him to write to the Police in Hawkes Bay. But he does not know the name of the Commissioner. Mr Buckley tells me you would. Would sou be good enough to write to Him and tell Him there were a party by the name of Powson went to Auckland from Canterbury in the years 56 or 59, a Boy, a girl, and a Mother-in-law. The Boy is descendend from admiral Powson. _ He understands all kinds of Tricks. He is opening the air all day long, and effecting peopie in this Province and keeps up all day and night wiapering, and is not at all particular in what he does or says^ and goes on in a shocking way. Something Horrifeying how he acts. He appears mad, Has no feeling at all. He tears people's troats, and compresses the air upon them, and His mind appears so upon, that he is scarcely by of day or night a Mesmerist. Has a very strong will, and He appears to be trying to will a person to do things and ho can put feeling into a person the last three nights he has gone on in a shocking way, persecuting people &c naked ness— drawing people together and He can open clothes and view the Bodies. He went to live on in proclaimed terribly about 20 yeara ago, near Hawkes Bay, and served the Maons with Butter and Milk. He effects people's Breath and almost kills people. He should be put to a Lunatic Asylum." The

next is addressed to the editor of the Press, and is written in a somewhat more connected style. It is as follows :—": — " Could you call the attention of the Government to a person by the name of Powson' who was at the Caversham Hotel some years ago. When a boy, Mr Bickerton, of Bath, wanted him to join in getting up a company to practise tricks in legerdemain and magic and spiritualism. He was at the Caversham Hotel with Mr William Scott, and when there, Mr Scott said he was cutting the air with his voice, and imbibing air, and compressing air. It is done by imagination, I believe, and what is called magnetism or mesmerism. How far his practising has reached I do not know, but his voice is heard everywhere. Dr Carr and Mr Thompson, in C'ashel street, were passenger, I believe. They are a Bath party. They went to Auckland in the Powson party, and when there, Mr Bickerton was sent for to come down from Canterbury. They settled upou unproclaimed territory in Auckland. He keeps up night and day, and his voice is heard everywhere. He mesmerises and keeps up for a time, and, after he gets tired, drops and causes persons to become drowsy, and causes a death-like swoon to come over a person. I shall be obliged if you will make this known." The verdict was that the subject was of unsound mind, and incapable of managing his affairs. It is stated that from henceforth he will be confined in a private asylum. His name is W. A. Gray, and he is brother to the Hon. Erne3t Gray, M.L.C.