WANGANUI.

Wellington Independent, Volume XXVIII, Issue 3901, 4 September 1873, Page 3

WANGANUI.

(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)' There was a very large and enthusiastic meeting held in the Presbyterian Church Here, on the evening of Wednesday last, to discuss the question of introducing instrumental music as an aid to the psalmody. The Kirk Session wished to effect the innovation quietly, but the revolt against this course was too strong for them, so they made a virtue of necessity and called a congregational meeting, the result was that 199 votes were given for and 55 against ; those numbers, of course, being subject to future scrutiny. It is contrary to Presbyterian rule to proceed in a matter of this kind until there is a large measure of unanimity. I am not aware whether this majority will be considered sufficient to fulfil the necessary conditions or not. Mr Bryce's Shires Bill has been defeated, but our Wellington friends are not to suppose that the Wanganui aeparationists have thereby bated a jot of heart or hope. Mr Bryce's bill was a very good bill of its kind, and the Independent very properly said bo, but it was not a bill of the Separation Committee, or, as far as I know, a bill that tkey would have approved of, and they are therefore in no way identified with it, either in its inception or its defeat. The first copies of it received in Wanganui only preceded the intimation of its having been extinguished by a couple of days. The Wangaehu Highway Board held its monthly meeting on Saturday, and, after hearing objections to certain new valuations, proceeded to make a rate for 1873-74. The engineering assistance promised by the Provincial Government to this Board has turned out a mere delusion. If the young man who came into the district as Government engineer has done anything, the members of the Board have neither seen nor heard of it, and whether he is now in these parts or gone elsewhere no one seems to know — and, so far as the interests of the ratepayers are concerned, no one need caTe.