GORE.

Otago Witness, Issue 1915, 3 August 1888, Page 17

GORE.

July 31.— The Eev. John Hobbs gave a lecture to the members of the Young Men's Christian Association last Tueeday on "My Bible." The attendance wa3 unfortunately less than the merits of the lecture deserved.

" Mobe Light."— The Gore Athenamrn has made a f resli start ; 200 volumes of books and periodicals have just been added. The magazines of the higher order have long been wanted, and will now help us to see what is occupying the thoughts of the best writers of the day,

A Noblk Si'HUCTUHE.-The Government are adding on to the post office what they are pleased to call an " insurance room." It is about as big as a superior rabbit hutch, or an inferior dog kennel, and there certainly will not be room to swing a cat in it, even if one wanted to (which, by the way, one doesn't often want to do, as Sydney Smith used to say* The Borough Accounts.— A fairly healthy state of things exists in the matter of our town finances. Total income, £1150 odd ; total expenditure, just £30 more. It must not be forgotten that the borough is well endowed with various sections dotted about here and there within its own limits— a vory wise and fair provision. The rents of these endowments— arid some are a good deal in arrear— bring in £315, or iust about as much as the rates. Licenses of auctioneers, £100; publicans, £223; receipts' from letting Town Hall, £68; and minor ices make up'the rest. The total expenditure of £1180 includes interest amounting to "£l7q on debentures issued to the extent of £2500, and £112 interest on overdraft. Salaries, &c, £175 ; lighting, the same ; construction of streets. £240 ; maintenance, about the same ; Charitable Aid Board, £57. All this can bo looked upon as tolerably good if wo could be sure of the town being as healthy in summer as in winter, but one spectre will assuredly reappear as the summer comes roundtyphoid fever— that insidious and death-dealing spectre which can only be kept off by scrupulous and persistent obedience to simple sanitary laws. That means expense, and a further loan is inevitable if the drains we are supposed to have, but have not really got, are to be made of any use. Surveys made la-t summer proved beyond doubt that the job of laying down drains some time ago was shamefully scamped. Some of the drains were proved to slope the wrong way, and of course all the drainage that is now supposed to run through them merely saturates the soil beneath our dwellings. Let us'liope that the council will not put off, and put off again, this all-important matter till after some lives have been unnecessarily lost, or at least wrecked by typhoid. Possibly some member of the council, or of some councillor's family, will be the first to pay the penalty