THE LAKES.

Dunstan Times, Issue 466, 24 March 1871, Page 3

THE LAKES.

(from our correspondent.) Queenstown March 20. The elections being happily over people have subsided into their usual quiet again. 1 think that with regard to our representatives we ouorht to rest satisfied in having chosen Messrs. Haughton and Robertson. The latter gentleman represents ns in the Provincial Council only and a more honest straightforward man and one who has a large stake in the district and whose acts of kindness have given many a poor struggling man a lift it would have been impossible to have found. Mr. Robertson was returned, as he should have been, unopposed, and his election has given very general satisfaction, With the Provincial Council there is a great deal to he accomplished. Our roads are in a most neglected state, steep cuttings are trembling and bridges tottering and ready to fall for the want of a few pounds of nails being driven into them or a plank here and there repaired. The Shotover Bridge is very shaky the river having undermined one of the piers on the Frankton side, the works begun for its protection have been stopped months since, so that miles these are at once piocecded with the bridge stands a very good chance of being swept away the first floods of winter.

St. Patrick’sDay passsed off merrily so far as the rain would allow, for it poured the whole day and evening right through. The Masonic Ball on Thursday night was very successful as Masoivc Balls usually are. Some of the visitors from your place were very unfortunate, Iheir horses having knocked up in the rain, and it was very late before they arrived at Queenstown.

The amateur dramatic performance in aid of the Hospital funds came off on Friday last at the British Lion Theatre. The affair went off well ; the attendance notwithstanding the downpour of rain, was a large one. A fatal case of drowning occurred on the evening of Monday last at the head of Lake Wakatip. It appears that the engineer of the Victoria Steamer, a Mr. James Stenhouse, and an old Queenstown resident, unfortunately for himself, had been over indulging in the bane of the goldfield o , and by some means fell overboard into the Lake, from whose depths he never rose again, until his body was brought up by the grapnels. Mr. Allen Mackay, one of the proprietors of the Steam Saw Mills, launched a boat in less than a minute after the accident, but could renderno assistance whatever, and had the drowning man ever rose to the surface there was no life buoy on boaid the steamer to throw to him. This is a shameful case of neglect for which the owner of the boat ought to be severely punished.