Cromwell Argus, AND NORTHERN GOLD-FIELDS GAZETTE. CROMWELL: TUESDAY, JAN. 2, 1872.

Cromwell Argus, Volume III, Issue 112, 2 January 1872, Page 4

Cromwell Argus, AND NORTHERN GOLD-FIELDS GAZETTE. CROMWELL: TUESDAY, JAN. 2, 1872.

Christmas Day, 1871, has come round and passed into the long calendar of days which are never to return ;—quietly, perhaps, yet not without its share of. the charms and fond recollections it possesses for all Enalish men and women. Though separated by a vast expanse of the great watery waste from the land which they call Home, they do not forget the happy days of their childhood, and, above all others, the Christmas Days spent in the land their memory holds dear. Many are the thoughts which crowd upon the minds of numbers of our colonists at this hal lowed season; thoughts that carry them away (in imagination) to where kind and loving relatives are assembled together by the blazing yule-fire, affectionately speaking of the absent ones in far-distant lands, and longing for their return, if only for the briefest possible period, to the family circle which regrets their absence. At this season, more than at any other, the spirit of affection for absent kindied seems to rise strong in men's breasts, and the longing to see the loved faces of those who in early life were companions and associates is almost irrepressible. Christmas Day is especially attractive to English people ; our Scotch friends do not experience the same pleasurable feelings and tender recollections which begin to well up at its approach in the breasts of Englishmen, —wherever they may be. And the absence of these sentiments does not arise from any lack of fueling in the nature of Scotchmen ; but simply from the fact that they can look back upon none of the happy associations of Christmastime so common in England :—the happy re-union of families perhaps long separated ; the anxiously looked-for return of joyous schoolboys, home for the vacation, with their merry faces and pleasant chatter ; the hearty welcoming of numerous pretty cousins with their papas and mamas, and dresstid in their winter jackets and furred robes; the good-humoured snowballing in which all join, and the hearty peals of joyous laughter which fill the air as the I tun progresses ; the social gatherings thai

take place in the evening round the Blazing and crackling logs that fill the huge fire-places, when the song, the dance, and the merry parlour-games are all joined in with such zest. These are associations which are never to be forgotten, and all conspire to make us look back with loving tenderness on the Christmas Days we have spent in the land from which we are now so far distant, and to regret the severance of our connection with it and the many friends we left behind. We trust that the year which is now numbered with its eighteen hundred and seventy predecessors has been one of prosperity with most of our readers ; with all we cannot reasonably suppose it to have been so. Some will have to look back on the year 1870 with sorrow as a period in which they have lost relations, friends, position, this world's possessions; while others have perhaps advanced in prosperity and been successful in all their undertakings. But this is a time when all sorrowful feelings should be thrown aside, —when those who have been unsuccessful in the past should hopefully look forward in anticipation of brighter days. We hope we shall many times have occasion to greet those who have read our few remarks to : day; and to wish them " A Merry Christmas ahd a Happy New Year."

On the night of the Bannockburn Concart, (Friday, the 22nd ult.,) the house occupied by Mr Joel Boulton at Doctor's Flat was unroofed by the force of the wind. Mr ami Mrs t>_ .u I .-.,- -\ -i -J. it-- a:.„„ -{.!.„,,J:,,.. 4U™ I .U'.SUIUUU WnlO ilil'aCUli i4O (JUS ullliO, tH;JvyU.«.!*»;, i;uv concert; and theii four children, who were all in bed, had a miraculous escape from being t-SIl, i i-'-- J-1-- £•"-' * J-1 -1- ■u/TsSnTi rv>mrwsp<l KlUea uj- ouu iaiiu.;, 01 »~~ ~i..„~ lAiuiy the walls of the building. The iron roofing was found scattered about for a distance of half-a-mile from the dwelling, and the greater portion I was so much bent and twisted as to be of no j further use. Two miners living close by generously placed their dwelling at the disposal of the houseless family until the roof could be replaced. The carcase of a large-framed bullock came floating down the Kawarau on Friday morning, and was washed on to the beach at tie rear of the Bridge Hotel. The animal had probably slipped from some precipitous portion cf the river bank, and being unable to regait the shore, was drowned. Numbers of sheep and cattle perish in the Kawarau in this way: Dr Black, the Professor of Chemistry and Mineralogy appointed for the Otago University, arrived at Port Chalmers by the ship Christian M'Ausland on the 28th ult. Backbiter was the winner of the Ladies' Purse and St. Bathans Cup at St. Bathats on the 26th and 27th ult. The Daily Times of the 2.9 th December says : " We have authority for stating thit Mr C. E. Haughton, M.H.R., has been appointed Under-Secretary of the Public Works andGoldfields Department, the acceptance o: this otnee by Mr Haughton will render his sat in the House of Representatives vacant, a writ will be shortly issued for the return of a member for the Lakes district." By the amended Juries Act, winch is now in force, the verdict of five-sixths of a jui'y can be taken in civil cases, provided that no verdict not arrived at unanimously shall be taken till the jury have retired for a perbd of six houi-s, and have intimated to the preiiding Judge that there is no probability of their ;greeiug. Kereopa, the Maori murderer of the late Mr Volkuer, tho missionary, has beei sentenced to death. The following account of Mr W. J. T. Clarke, who lately purchased 45,900 aces of land at Moa Flat, is by the Wellington orrespindent of the Napier Telegraph.: —"Theiareer of Mr Clarke is a most marvellous one. Originally in business in Tasmania as a butcher, and tk it not in a very large way, he is now probably thj largest landholder under the British Crown. It is within my knowledge that the merest aoci<lent turned the current of his fortune.. :In H'J6, he left Tasmania for New South\Yales, and took up a station on the Liverpool Pains,— and at that time, of course, such could be ha I at a moderate expense. He became the neighbour of Mr Jones, a well-known leadirg merchant and man of influence in Sydney, bit now long since dead. Disputes arose betw«en Mr Clarke and Mr Jones' superintendent • and,the former, believing the influence of the latter to be too overpowering to leave him any prospect of justice, sold his property at the very nick of time, when the plains were looking theii very best, after a wet season. Their verdure and carrying capacity at such times are most extraordinary. The happy moment thus seized by Mr Clarke to clear out was immediately followed by the droughts of 1836 and '39 ; and those who •are colonists of that standing must remember the losses of those seasons, and the ruin entailed by them. With happier fortune, Mr Clarke invested his augmented means in the vicinity of what is now called Keilor, in Victoria, and there laid the foundation of those enormous territorial possessions that are a wonder even in the Colonies."