BOROUGH CONTRACTS.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume X, Issue 1242, 9 January 1883, Page 2

BOROUGH CONTRACTS.

TO THE EDITOR. Sin,--Your leader in the Standard of the oth inst. explains the Carnarvon Street grievance very clearly regarding the Councillors and the Engineer. There is, however, the insinuation still left that I scamped the work and squared the Engineer. Mr Drummond has very ablj- and fearlessly replied to and confuted the charges, and time will show that he did his duty honestly and that I performed the work faithfully, but yet in the meantime I am liable on tendering for any work to have—“ Remember the Carnarvon Street contract”- - thrown at me, and my character and business injured through the stealthy action of certain parties who are doubtless striving to get their “pet man” a billet, no matter at whose expense. Even at the last meeting of the Council my small account (about £2) for gravelling the footpath opposite Councillor Clarke’s new house was, though the work was urgently hurried on at the request of the said councillor, cavilled at before being passed for payment, because the Engineer had passed the work before it had had the honor of being inspected by those heaven-born Engineers in the Public Works Committee. Councillor Clarke saw the work (daily, and as one of the committee might have expressed his opinion* one way or the other, but there now that he is just on the wallaby, perhaps the thought of seeing his old friends in Sydney put the matter out of his head. San Francisco has a vast field open for smart business men, and the ratepayers, no doubt, will agree that as “our streets are lighted with gas,” “our premises well supplied with water,” “and the promised oil struck,” that a man who has succeeded in accomplishing all this should surely go there, where his energies would speedily insure him a large fortune,—Yours, &c., Charles McDeavitt. Gisborne, January Oth, 1883.