The Dunstan Times. CLYDE, FRIDAY, JANUARY 19, 1883.

Dunstan Times, Issue 1082, 19 January 1883, Page 2

The Dunstan Times.

CLYDE, FRIDAY, JANUARY 19, 1883.

Beneath the rule of men entirely jus* The pen is mightier thar the sword.

The Vincent County Council meets foi' the transaction of ordinary business on Wednesday next, the 24th inat. Mr A. Cameron announces the sale by auction of hie well established business premises at Butcher's Gully for Tuesday, the 30lh inst. . . . . In many places the late frosts attacked the fruit, in other parts it was not in the least affected ; and now in those favord spots, with the fruit just ripening, the sight is a grand ooe. The annual meeting of subscribers to the Dunstan District Hospital takes place on Saturday next, the 27th inst., in the Library Hall. As there are various matters affecting the general welfare of the Institu ion to be discussed, it is to be hoped there will be a large attendance. From Christchurch telegrams wo learn that at a special meeting of the Kaiapoi Borough Council the Fiuan jia! Committee, who hare been making a special audit of the municipal accounts, reported that three sets of rate-books ami the balance-shoe s for the year 1877 were missing, and they could not complete their work, as the books and papers of the Council were in a most disgiaceful state. They consider that the auditors had been grossly negligent, as their work had not been done. They also reported that as far as they could ascertain there was a deficiency of £550. extending over a perio l of four years. It was also reported that the Town Cleik, one Dudley, after being suspended by the Mayor, had sent in his resignation. The Council decided not to accept the resignation, and also to take proper measures under tire Act for oustiug the auditors from office. There is nothing fresh in mining to note, do fresh discoveries having been made ; though, if we understand rightly, several parties have been prospecting some of the spurs of the Old Man Range tor quanz lodes Leaders, seams, and veins carrying loose gold in the casing are to he found in abundance ; but as yet a defined icef has not beeu hit upon, In iioations, however, abound, aco ndingly it will not heat all surprising to heir of something good being struck. Nicol-on and party, at the Alpine r ef, heat I of Fraser’s River, have alast got to work, and are ciushing away manfully ; the stone showing gold pretty freely, a ,d if they do not turn out a Hand some c.ke of metal shortly the fault will not be with the stone, hut with the appliances. Shearing is now pretty well over in this part of the district, and by all accou its the. clip is better than lor years past, bo hj in quality and quantity. The lambing, how. ever, is not quite up to the average, the highest being a. out 65, while the lowest is under 25 in ihe hundred. The stale and condition of the clip is attriouted to the great decrease in the uumoer of rabbits, amongst wide i terrific i-lankier was mine •Hiring the past year, eeO.OdJ rki s being taken o£f one pioper y a11..e, but there is no doubt if it is desned that the b< Befit is to be a permanent one, still equally as active, if no; actual:y more active steps will have to he adopted towards eradicating the pest than has been, as in many parts the little rodent is becoming, quite numerous again Grass being now plentiful poisoned giain is not effective, therefore trapping, hunting with dogs, and shooting, is the °ystem now adopted, but it really has not the effect of exterminating, hut merely of checking. In another column is anj anv.rtisement under the hand of the Secretary of the Clyde Athensenm and Public Library, to the effect that the lule governing the powers and fees of subscribers has been amended, and the new rule in extenso follows. The object of the Committee in amen ling the rule is to get rid of, if possible, the excu-ie of many that being unable to pay a pound down as an annual subscription fee they will not pay quarterly or half yearly, and then have no voice or say in the management. The excuse to our mind is a frivolous one, but at all events it was considered and the rules so amended as to prevent its recurring again. Now the question arises, will the subscription list be increased now that every possible facility is given in the way of payment. On the answer to this question rests whether the doors of the Institution will be kept open to the public or closed against them. A canvass of the. town and district ii to be made ; accor . ingly the Committee determine to leave no stone unturned to test the sincerity or otherwise of the excuses. It is a wellknown fact that of late years the library has been kept open at a loss, and it now rests in the hands of the jublic to *. y «ih* thei it is to be «*d oi toK.

There are forty cases at Auckland, and nineteen at Christchurch, set down for trial at the ensuing criminal sessions, A correspondent from Blacks wishes to know when the return match with Clyde is to take place. We hope our energetic secretary will supply our correspondent with the desired information. The Hon. Mr Rdleston, Minister of Public Works, and Mr M'Kerrow, Surveyor General, arrived in Clyde on Saturday morning last from Alexandra, where they had been the. evening before, having N prior to that visited Blacks and St. Bathans. No formal deputations waited on the gentlemen. They were.however, accompanied by Mr M. J Macginnis, the County Chairman, on a viait of inspection through the Government and County Buildings. The wretched condition of the survey office, post office, the police offices, and the Inspector's residence, was brought under their immediate notice, and though no distinct or definite opinion was expressed or promise given, the necessity for some improvement was admitted and notes made. Time being limited the i gentlemen had lunch, entertaining several gentlemen, and then proceeded on to Cromwell where they arrived the same evening. The Supreme Courthouse in Wellington appears to be in a more deplorable sanitary state than the Parliament Buildings. Dr Collins, ae ording to a telegram in the Lyttelton Times, has made the fallowing report: —“On Wednesday evening, January IP, I went, at the request of the Council of the Law Society, te f he library and rollingroom of the Supreme Court, in order to give my opinion on the sanitary condition of that part of the buildings. On entering .the library there was no offensive odour to be drteoted, but when the window was opened I was for the moment caused to shrink bank by a whiff of offensive sewer gas which greeted my nostrils. From the library 1 went to the robing-room, the doors and windows of which had evidently been closed for some time. On opening the door am! going into the room, we passed into an atmosphere which simply stunk, the odour bccoiiiing stronger and stronger until the w.tsh-baud basin was reached, where the smell was so bad as to make me feel Quite sick. There was some greenish-looking, offensive smelling water in the basin ; which was quite clean, I he’ieve, when put into the basin some hours before. The inhalation of an atmosphere like that which I inhaled in tho robing-room of the Sipremo Court on Wednesday evening would cause, in people exposed to it for a ah «rt time on!;, headache and nausea, in many diarrhoea and vomiting, and in some probably dysentery or typhoid fever." “Anglo- Australian” in tho European Mail writes :—“ I do not know whether any Colonial astronomers have been paying much attention to the remarkable spots now appearing on tho sun. They have attrade 1 much scientific notice here. It may not be generally known that the initial scientific observation* of sun-spots was first made by Galileo himself. It was, however, r<served for Dr Alexander Wilson, of Glasgow, to discover, in 1767, that all the socalled ‘spots’ on the sun are really openings in the body of that luminary, and a later investigator, Schwabe, has shown that enormous disouarges take place from these appa li .g pits or gulfs. In one case it has been estimated that a body of fire—hotter than any ef our instruments could register at 1000 miles distant—is ejected from an opening having an area of 7-iOO square miles for the height or space from the surface of he sun of 200,000 miles !" Some interesting revelations were made at the last meeting of tho Tuapeka County Council about obtaining signatures to petitions. A Mr Ritchie (whose name was apj-endod to the document) had questioned the genuineness of a petition got up at Waipori for the formation of a road. We quote the following from the report in the Tuapeka Times: Eaton wrote to the Council, “ was prepared by me at the request of the shareholders of the Undaunted Quartz mining Co., Waipori, in consonance with the publis opinion of the district; and in a great number of instances, while canvassing for signatures, at the request of the miners addressed, I wrote their names with my own pen for the following among other reasons : - A few parties were unable to write their names ; otbeis were too dirty to handle the petition-sheet, and several mine managers, upon reading the petition, authorised me to write down the names of the miners employed by them at the respective mines, in place of calling up the men from their work ; others, again, were asleep at the time of my visit. A list of those persons was either furnished by the manager or the shareholders, and especially by Mr Manley (mine manager) and Mr Cox. Mr Ritchie’s name was written on the recommendation of his partner in a quart* claim, on account of his being absent," The widow of Dr. Tanner, of fas'ing celebrity, was (says the St. James Gazette) separated from her husband, and the cause of the divorce, if we are to trust the account that has found its way into some of the French papers, is not a little enrions. The doctor held, among other curious theories on the subject of diet, that a man’s character was largely influenced by the nature of the food of which he partook. French beans, for instance,‘prodneed,he considered, *n irascible tendency; carrots rendered people timid and sullen; turr’ps made them kind and amiable. To test his theories he put his wife an an exclusive regimen of French beans, with the result of exasperating that lady’s temper very much alters week o tit.' The doctor, proud of this confirmation of his theory, now proposed ta correct the effects obtained by employing an equally exclusive dietary of turnips ; but the lady, objecting to be made i the subject of any further scientific experiments, and perhaps entertaining doubts of tie lector’s sanity, applied for a diverse and Oltuned it

A waggoner named Charles Neiper had a narrow escape from a very serious accident on Wednesday afternoon last when driving along the narrow roadway from the woolshed in Little Valley to tho Mannherikia, as it was he suffered a severe shaking from being thrown from his seat amongst the horses, and moreover, had his waggon considerably smashed up. It appears that the road in places is very steep with remarkably short bends, and is simply one continuous mass of rooks, and that in coming down-oue-of these places, and through tho jolting over the rocks, the brake got out of gear, and the impetus on the waggon bee line so great that to save the whole train it was necessary to pull into the bank. The consequence was that Neiper was thrown from his seat. the pole was broken, the ring-bolt snapped and the fore carriage of the waggon generally smashe I up. We do not, in the disorganised state of the county impute blame to anyone in particular, but we most decidedly blame the who’e County system for such a state of things. Another waggoner the same day nearly met with a similar accident on the same road, hut for the precaution he took of double chaining his back wheel j one chain, however did break. We cite this as proving that the nccident was purely through the roughness of the road and through no fault of the driver. Our new Governor, Sir William Jervois, left Adelaide for New Zealand on January Bth Large crowds ass- milled at A-lelaide and Glenelg to bid him farewell. Guards of honour were drawn up, ami the Glenelg Corporation presented a farewell address, after which the Governor embarked. The Lity Council also presented an address, to which Sir William cordially responded. The risks daily ran by men through the depravity, or it may be, hallucinations of the other sex are painfully illustrated by the liberation of two lads in Victoria last we-k. It will not have been forgotten that, at the Sandhurst assizes in 18S0, two lads nam'd Punch and Coibis were sentenced to death for an assault on a young girl. While the circumstances created general indignation there was something so horrifying in the thought of the death penalty being inflicted that there arose a feeling of relief when it b came known that the sentence had been commuted for one of 10 years’ imprisonment. That feeling must be intensified by the facts that the accuser now admits that the charge was groundless, and that the tads, about whose necks the halter may be said to have been, are now at liberty. At a meeting to consider treatment of Natives, it is reported that Mr F. W. Chesson, of the Aboriginal Protection .Society, corrected a misapprehension of onr cv r .having conquered New Zealand,and pointed out ’that our authority in that country rested upon the Treaty of Waitangi, to which the Native chiefs had voluntarily been a party. Whi’e expressing his regret at the land disputes that had resulted in so many Native wars in New Zealand, be y.fc thought that the Co ony had set a good example to other dependencies of the Crown by admitting Maori representatives in'o the Legislature.” When the philanthropic Press, and even tho Pall Mall Gazette, per. sist.in patting Te ■ Whiti on the back, it is refreshing to have such an opinion of tho spirit of New Zealand Governments from a man in Mr Chesson’s position. Reports indicate that a Dumfreshirs farmer has fallen heir to part of the colossal fortune of the late Mr A. T. Stewa-t, the celebrated New York draper. Mr Stewart died intestate, leaving a fortune of £l7 OOO.OMO. A third of this went to Mrs Stewart, a lady whom the deceased had married not long before his death, she being, at the time when his choice fell upon her a checker in the lace department in his huge shop. Inquiries have been persevering? made since Mr Stewart’s death to discover his next of kin, but tho difficulties have been great, in consequence of the extreme reticence which the d. ceased always maintained regard nghis family connections It is now reported, however, that a claim has been made out on behalf of Mr Andrew Stewart, farmer, Muirhonsehea i, near Lockerbie, Dumfriesshire, who is stated to be a cousin of the deceased. As, however, the Mr Stewart in question is connected with the deceased only on the male side, search is still being made for an heir in the maternal line before dividing the mon-y, which amounts to over £l2 000,000. It should be added that the Dumfriesshire Mr Stewart will only get part of this sum in any case, as he will share along with his brother in New York, and other relatives ; also cousi sof the deceased The number of participants thus far discovered is 17 in all. It appears that the millionaire’ parents were married at Dalmelhngton in 1898, his mother being a Miss Hunter; and such relatives named Stewart will receive a portion pari paseu with the latter. Dr Diplock, coroner for West Middlesex, has held an inquest at the Industrial School at Feltham, relative to the death of Maurice Barrow, 10 years of age. who hanged himself at the school. It appeared from tho evidenee that on Sunday the deceased was punished for cruelty to a frog. The punishment consisted of a stoppage of his playtime and confinement in a cell alone. After being jn the cell an hour, it was found that he had hanged himself from a water pip* by moans of a leather belt. Tho jury found a verdict of felt dt ee.