THE LAKES.

Dunstan Times, Issue 200, 24 February 1866, Page 3

THE LAKES.

(from a correspondent.) Queenstown Feb. 21

The great excitement here lately has been the jetty question, which has almost assumed the features of a civil (!) war which the inhabitants of the different ends of the township ; the Ballarat streets and Beach streets being the Montaga's and Capulets of our little society, and do not scruple occasionally to illustrate their arguments by an appeal to physical force. The meeting held upon the subject terminated in something like a free fight, the chairman jumping upon the table, and declaring the meeting "broke." The facts of the case are very simple; the jetties having been washed away by the late floods, the Government promised to give £4OO to build a new one, and left the consideration of the site to the inhabitants themselves. The end of Ballarat street offers altogether most convenient for the public service, but the dwellers in Beach-street, led on by one or two of our local agitators, opwose this with the view of advocating tha claims of their own side of the wigwam. The matter has been referred, it is said, to the Secretary of Public works. Mr Handera addressed the electors of the Goldfield Boroughs on Monday evening, and made a long rambling speech in his usual weak-minded style of stump oratory. The meeting was not by any means so unanimons as might have been expected as its appreciation of the Queenstown political pet, and altogher the candidate cannot have felt it a great success. Mr Haughton stands for the district of Hampden, and Judging from the roll, which is almost identical with that of the Provincial Council district which that gentleman represents, his return may be considered certain. Public opinion even here appears to be changing in his favor, though certainly he did rub our hair the wrong way in altering the name of the electoral district from (jueenstown to The Lakes. Mr O'Neill will receive thorough support up here in his contest for the Goldfields, and we only hope some good man may come forward as his colleague—cannot the Duns tan raise a candidate at a pinch 1 Mr M'Pherson, perhaps, might be induced to stand for the Boroughs. The Escorts this week are above the average, and the effects of the late flood have been im most casts set right by this time, so that mining news generally may may be considered satisfactory, Shares in various quartz claims have been changing hands at high figuaes; 4of the original proprietors of the Scandinavian sold out last week at £l,lOO a man, and the Vulcan Company are said to have obtained a handsome sum for their leasehold. The Criterion Company, Arrow River, are pushing on their works, and have nearly completed fhe dam. Shares are quoted at i!4O with a tendency to rise.

Large ai-eas of land are being taken up for agricultural purposes. Upwards of 500 acres have been applied i'or during the last week in this and the Arrow districts. A flour mill is about to be erected at the Falls of the Kawarau, near the Hospital, so that next year, we may hope to raise our own necessaries of Ji.'e, without troubling the merchants below, or waiting on the dilatory dray. j