ARROWTOWN.

Dunstan Times, Issue 777, 9 March 1877, Page 3

ARROWTOWN.

(FROM OCR OWN CORRESPONDENT.) The past week has been a pretty lively one, both in the shape of work and excitement. All the farmers are busy getting in their crops, and those having a large breadth of wheat have reasons to be thankful. Mr Seoles, of the New Orleans Hotel, is a very lucky man having some one hundred acres of this now precious cereal ; he should he able to clear a Very considerable amount out of his crop this season. I hear of very few cases of damage through the late rains. In a mountainous country like this floods do no damage except in their natural water courses, it is the people on the low lands that get it after us. Our County Council appear to be getting along pretty well, and they are wisely working upon an economical scale. The system of contract work is a vast improvement upon the old dajf labor principle, and I verily believe that the making and repairing of roads will not cost more than one third in the hands of the County Council to what they did while under the management ot the Provincial Government. The Assessment Court for the hearing of appeals was held at the Frankton Hospital on Wednesday last, when some thirty-five cases were disposed of; they, however, amounted to nothing, as the adjustment of the differences in value only amounted to a few shillings in either case, while a number were thrown out altogether, the notices not having been received from the Council, in time, as laid down by the Counties Act. Our County Council in the matter of its details have not managed their business with the same precision as has been the case with you in Clyde. Oitr Chairman and Councillors have been ahead of their working staff, while your working staff appear to be ahead of your Council. 'Perhaps it is because we have a M.H.R. as County Clerk. 1 do not think that the people of Cardrona will succumb to the blandishments of Cromwell in being enticed to amalgamate with that portion of Vincent County, which, judging by the Argus, must have “ Pyke on the brain,” Pyke haunting them even in their dreams. The utter disinterested motives of the people of Cromwell are too plainly apparent not to be seen through, the fable of the “wolf in sheep’s clothing” is a fool to it. Cardrona wiR not consent to he thus eaten up I can assure you. A dray road will be made from Arrowtown to that place, when we shall be bound in the strongest and closest bonds of fellowship. I fancy, however, that Mr Pyke having given Cromwell a smell of a County Council sitting there that they will be longing after something more, substantial for a considerable time to come, and we shall have to keep a sharp look out to prevent ourselves being deluded into annexation with our questionable friends. To bo forewarned is to be forearmed, and wo must not listen [to the voice of the charmer, “charm he never so wisely." We had the great V. Pyke here as a member once, you must recollect, but we never had occasion to charge him with doing anything either good, bad, indifferent, our complaint was that lie did nothing. He was introduced to the electors by a'clique, and lie came, saw and conquered ; he then went away, and wo never saw or heard of him any more. We, therefore, have nothing to say against Mr Pyke. By the by, wo never grumble here about Queenstown being the County Town. Our Chairman put down all our pretensions to that honor with a high hand, the Emperor of all the Russians could not have behaved in a more autocratic manner. Ho declared this wise, without offering any opinions or giving any reasons whatever, “ that under no circumstances should the Council hold sittings at Arrowtown.” Uur aspirations were thus nipped in the bud at once, we never grumbled, and we have discovered s nee that we have lost nothing in missing the empty honor, while there remains to ns the comforting unction that Queenstown has gained nothing beyond the sale ofa few extra nohblors at the particular hotel patronised by those few of the Councillors who are not Good Templars, If Cromwell Councillors had joined that body instead of abdicating they would have had ample revenge upon Clyde.

Mr Warden Simpson paid us his usual fortnightly visit daring Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday last, whou ho dispatched a very largo amount of business. On Monday ho sat as R, M. and Warden at Queenstown, on Tuesday at the Arrow, and on Wednesday ho presided at the County Assessment Court, which was held at the Frankton Hospital. At the Arrow wo are getting most exceedingly litigious. I do not know exactly whether it is a good sign or a bad ono, but 1 think that this much may ho made out of it, that one section of the community have a strong disposition to prey upon the other. One case worthy of note was heard in the It. M. Court, which will most likely place ono or other of the litigants in the criminal side of the Court, as the Magistrate very forcibly put it. It was a summons case for a settlement of an account represented by an 1.0. U. for Lll 25., other items being some two pounds more. The plaintiff was a Mr Preston, the defendant a Mr O’Donoughue, who, when the 1.0. 1 T. was put in as evidence of the demand, denied having attached his signature to it. The ease was postponed by consent of the Bench until the next sitting of the Court, to admit of more witnesses and proof of the hand-writing of defendant. In the Warden's Court a very long case was heard, occupying over five hours, it was the celebrated jumping case of Williams against Cope and Co., at the Macetown reefs. The evidence was gone into at considerable length- Mr H. J. Finn appeared for Williams, Mr Cope conducted his own case. The case is a very important one to persons speculating in quartz mining such as supplanting miners to prospect for gold bearing reefs, the gist of the dispute amounting to this : That in a difficult and inaccessible country like the Coronet Range at Macetown, where winter snoivs and storms will obliterate any ordinary laud marks ; working men taking advantage of this remove their employers’ pegs and fill up the trenches, and in their absence then mark out and lay claim to their property, and come into the Warden’s Court and try to justify their nefarious designs. The heating of the case was listened to with considerable interest, especially by parties paying into claims. Of course, as in all mining disputes, there was a very large amount of cros s ' swearing and conflicting evidence on both aides. .The evidence in the case went to prove that, under the mining regulations, a claim is no claim at all unless the owners thereof are constantly on the ground, and that in no case should an outsider speculate unless the property is leased and properly surveyed, pegged, and connected with the nearest trig station. Any title not thus held being liable to be assailed. In this case the jumpers were supported by a sort of a Publicans’ Joint Stock Company, whom the evidence showed were beneficially interested in the successful issue of their case. The high state of public morality on the Arrow may therefore be easily judged when cases of this sort come into Court. The legal warfare began first by Williams and Co. marking out and applying for a prospecting claim, marked upon an angle so as to embrace three-fourths of the claim held by Cope and Co., otherwise the Premier Prospecting Company. This was opposed by Cope, and the Warden ordered a survey, when the Warden refused the application upon Williams’ own confession that the application did embrace a portion of Cope’s claim. Williams and Co. next applied by information and summons that Cope’s certificate should be cancelled for various alleged breaches of the mining regulations. Cope then appears to have laid an information against Williams for trespass, inasmuch as by marking out and laying claim to said prospecting claim, his (Cope’s) property had been damaged by being depreciated in value and rendered unsaleable, but no evidence was offered that any damage had been sustained, only that in resisting the application for the prospecting claim, Cope and Co. had been put to a deal of expense and unnecessary trouble in journeying to and fro between Arrowtown and Macetown. Cope and Co adduced no evidence that they saw Williams and Co interfering with their claim, only the fact of the application notice, and finding that a portion of their claim had been marked out by somebody whom the notice avas supposed to represent. A plan of the ground shewing the relative positions of the two claims, and male by the Mining Surveyor on account of the prospecting claim application as ordered by the Warden, was produced and acknowledged, with some minor .differences, to be correct. It was also claimed by Cope and Co. that Williams and Co. were, at the time of their taking up and marking out the ground in the em ploy of Cope and Co., who paid them wages, and also produced receipts for same one week after Williams and Co.’s application had been lodged in the Warden’s, office, which fact, was acknowledged. Mr Cope contended that even if ' Williams had not removed his pegs and marks, as his servant, finding them dbwrq it was his business to replace them. The Warden reserved his decision. Two other oases heard in the R.M. Court were rather interesting. Ono was a claim for L2, the value of eight ducks, the property of Mr Hoologhan, killed by Mr G. R. Barker, who found them trespassing in a small paddock, containing some four acres, sown with oats. The extravagant value set upon the ducks was calculated upon a Celestial estimate of these savory birds. It was then argued by plaintiff that as the land was held by virtue of Residence areas granted under the Goldfields’ regulations, and was only fenced by posts and two rails, defendant had no right to take advantage of the Rig and Poultry Nuisance Ordinance where he found animals trespassing on his property ;—First, for the reasons that the Ordinance only applied to owners of freehold and leasehold property ; and second that the fence would not keep out poultry. The Magistrate reserved his decision. Ths other case was that of a minor being summoned by a storekeeper for a debt of some Ll2, alleged to iu a proportion of an

account duo by a mate residing with him in the same hut. Thu minor produced an account tor L 24, tho lialf of which had boon paid to tho storekeeper ; also, another small account from tho same made out in Iris own name, bearing a similar dato. it was alleged by this act that tiro storekeeper had consented to hold tho defaulting partner liable, and not tho paying one. Tho Magistrate, while acknowledging tho hardness of tho cane, explained that the law of partnership loft him no alternative but to give a verdict for the storekeeper ;he would however order payment in one month. Tho defaulting parnor ofierod to pay as soon as he got the money.