South Canterbury Times. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 22, 1896.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 8658, 22 October 1896, Page 2

South Canterbury Times. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 22, 1896.

The Timaru Garrison Band has not done so well in the Quickstep Competition as was expected here. We understand that the Band was not expected to take a high place for playing the “ contest selections,” but the Quickstep was supposed to be almost a certainty for them. It was rather a bold venture for a band so lately reorganised and containing so many recruits to attend the contest at all; but the preparation for the contest and the contest itself were the best possible training for the members, and starting with so high a standard of attainment the practically new band ought to be able to get high marks next year. We hope that they will not be disheartened by their low place in the Quickstep test, but will be aroused by it to a finer determination to be at the other end of the list at the next trial.

The letter of the Chairman of the Harbour Board which we publish in another column, ought to give more immediate importance to the correspondence on the shingle question which we have lately had. Mr Marchant has recently made a resurvey of the shingle accumulation, and he has reported to the Chairman that there has been an addition of 125,000 yards made to it since July 1895. This will probably surprise most people, because there has been so little advance in the face of the bank at the breakwater. It is explained that the accretion was not noticed because it has been lodged a little further south. It has been noticeable enough that there is a large deposit opposite Mill and Go’s, store and the Rock Island, the latter especially, as the gap between the shingle and the rock has become so narrow that at times it has been almost possible to reach the rock dry shod at low tide. The amount of the accumulation of course could not be estimated, and a survey shows that it has been somewhere near the calculated annual average. This report will answer those who ask where the shingle has gone to if it has not “gone past.”

The public is umpire in the quiet little epistolary duel between “ Reader ” and “ Gentle Reader ” on the shingle question, and it is to be hoped that it is paying close attention to the points made in the game, and is awarding them correctly. it is not a mere pleasantry between “ Reader ” and “ Gentle Reader.” They are the champions (self-appointed, but none the worse for that) of two opposed opinions on the question, and the stake in the game is a big one, tens of thousands of pounds to nothing. The umpire ought to be closely observant and severely critical of the progress of the game, because he has to pay the stake if it is lost, not with borrowed money, but by cash down in increased prices for everything he wants to buy from abroad, and by losses in increased expenses on everything he wants to send away. The public as stake provider does not seem to care much about its risks.