"When the primary excitement toned down, the con sumers began to solace themselves with the fact that after all there was nothing like gas. It was so much cleaner, a better light, and not at all dearer than kerosene. The dream of joy lasted a month, till the meter man came round, and then the head of the house, for the first time in learnt the meaning of thousands and tens of thousands of cubic feet of gas. Before this he had never troubled to learn the mysterious working of a gas meter; he was perfectly satisfied with the statement made by the collector that, as the gas passed through, it turned the hands round; lie had only to pay for what the said little hands registered. Ho far, this was highly satisfactory, but when the clock like instrument registered four and five thousand cubic feet a week, the consumer takes a very warm interest in the working of the gas meter, and begins to have doubts whether, like Salem Scuddek's camera, it is " an apparatus that can't lie." The head of the house finds that, at 225. 6d. per 1,000 feet, gas is costing him three times as much as kerosene, so he actually reverts to the old illuminator, and curses the day when he ever had the gas laid on. These few introductory remarks bring tut now to the subject at issue—the price of gas. At last night's meeting of the Municipal Council, the Gas Com mittee's report was read and adopted, and we have no doubt it will be perused with great interest, especially by consumers. Comparisons, it is said, arc sometimes odious, but on this occasion we think they arc desirable. We have at some trouble obtained from Jnvcrcargill the official re turns in connection with their Gas Works, which we will now place before our readers. The supervision and labor at t3ic Inver cargill works for four months is put down at £203 165., and repairs and maintenance at £OO. In Oamaru the salaries for four months are calculated at £205 17s. Sd., so thai, as far us wages are concerned, we are actually paying £O3 less for the same period than our Southern friends. Now, for maintenance ours is more expensive, as the figures in the report show a sum of £132 6s. Bd. 