ALEXANDRA.

Dunstan Times, Issue 953, 23 July 1880, Page 3

ALEXANDRA.

(PROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

The bridge works are going ahead apace, shewing that the contractors are taking every advantage of the beautiful weather. In several of your late issues you have referred to the current-wheel dredge. I am now in a position to inform your numerous readers that the speculation is a paying one and that the spirited shareholders contemplate building another exactly on the same i'nes as the one now 'at work. Since she was first started not a single hitch has occurred, demonstrating as plainly as possible that not alone is the system perfect on ■which the hull is built, but that the machinery is of the best description, and Messrs Kincaid and M ‘Queen, who supplied the machinery, deserve every credit for their good work. Dredging the Molyneux for its buried vichf s is doubtless one of the best of investments, yet strange to say it fails in attracting attention. The Conroy’s Quartz Reef Company’s shares are going off fairly, over one thousand being already taken up tonally. On talking with one of the projectors of the Company he gave it as bis opinion that though the proposal is for GllOO shares at LI each, no more than ten shillings per share will be called up. as by the time that amount is expended theCompmy will be getting gold. There is a good lot of gold lining obtained just now in this district, the major part, however, is falling into the hands of the Chinese, who, whatever be their faults, richly merit their good fortune for their industry ami persevererauce ; in Conroy’s and Butchers’ gullies especially, these children of the Moon are doing well. It must not be supposed however, that the Chinese are the only ones that are getting gold ; on the contrary, there are a number of parties of Europeans working on the banks of the Molyneux, and many other parties iu the back gullies at Bald-hill flat and on the Manuherikia river, the most of whom are getting payable gold, whille some are doing well. The famed claim at Doctor’s point, that some twelve months since was creating so much stir, and shares in which were passing lianas at such fabulous prices, I am sorry to say is now paying little more than wages —this is not caused so much by the falling off of the gold as the change in the ground, which is now a perfect quarry of detached rooks of all sizes lying jumbled together in one mass -it is only by incessant labor they can be removed, and the modicum of gravel that lies between them saved ; a powerful crane would be a great saving both of time and labor, and would sooner or later pay itself, but powerful cranes quire pretty powerful purses, and perhaps that’s where the shoe pinches. After a storm comes a calm, and after such a plethora of amusements as we had a few weeks hack in the shape of Carandinis. Florences, Muriels, and the rest, we all teel quite calm ;in fact, if it were not for the quadrille assembly that meets fortnightly and the music of the brass band, we should we dull indeed—so far the attendance on each evening has been good, enough couples being present to wake up four, and sometimes five sots. I had almost forgotten the advent of one gentleman amongst us, who gave us on one evening a lecture, and another (Sunday) what he pleased to c ill a sermon. 1 refer to M r Short, travelling agent for the Australian Mutual Life Assurance Society Ido not wish to say anything disparaging of Air Short, but I would decidedly suggest his giving up sermonising until ho gets his contemplated tabernacle in Dunedin erected, and then he may rant, and rave, and sing to his heart’s content, and those other independents who choose to hear him.