SHARPS, FLATS, AND NATURALS.

Inangahua Times, Volume IX, Issue 1478, 3 December 1884, Page 2

SHARPS, FLATS, AND NATURALS.

(To the Editor, Ina.vuahita Times.) Sir.- On my last visit to lleefton, I was agreeably surprised at the thriving j aspect of the town. There was mighty j big works entirely going on there at the j time, at least we poor back gully rakers .j would be ltd to think so. if costly official supuriuten leiicu bo any criterion to be guided by. Thure was, as n<.ar as I could judge, about half a mile of a drain or race in course of construction, to receive pipes to convey water from reservoir, down to lower end of Broadway, and there was, I think, about ten men employed by the Council to cut said race, whose wagea in the aggregate, I suppose, woul 1 amount to £30 for the week. But that is in it what constitutes the magnitude of the works and the apparent engineering difficulties attending such a great undertaking. You must bear in mind there are two engineers and one oversjur to superintend these 10 men, whose joint salaries amount to €18 pur week, or thereabouts, and Tarn to! -I that it is not for thu time being only, as I thought, but permanent, for all the yar round. Why then do the Reefton people create a bugbear about such trifles as County bills and Biink overdrafts while we are only paying £18 a week to superintend works bristling with such engineering difficulties? True. I have seen miners successfully bring in water-races for several miles to their claims or water wheels without the aid of salaried engineers, and subject to a trifle more engineering diifiolti.-s then cutting a race down Broadway. Hut then you must remember it was not County Council work, but simply the undertaking of a few private individuals who did not consider the engineering difficulties required any special qualiricatinus beyond what they themselves did possess. More- i over, when they had an axe to grand they did so at their own expense and individual exertions. But it is different altogether with County Councillors ; they got axes to grind for themselves, their friends, and their patrons, and we flats aye their grindstones. Those who do the grinding business may be designated as the sharps, and those who act as auxiliaries can be classed as the flats, while those who pocket the unearned increment constitute the naturals. Yours &c. Old Gully Rakek. November 20th, 1884.