MOUNT BENGER.

Evening Star, Issue 2914, 21 June 1872, Page 2

MOUNT BENGER.

(FROM our own correspondent.) The weather hero for the past fortnight would make a pplar bear shed tears of ice. What with the unprecedentedly large fall of snow and the thermometer stationary some inches below «ero, we are paying the piper with a vengeance for our six months of fine weather. Between the two stools, drought and frozen races, the mining population are likely to have hard times. It is true that in the expectation of the river sinking to a very low level our enterprising pubs. Ixave added largely to their live stock in the form of fascinating bar-maids, hut the good times are long of coming. The quantity of snow melted on the low-lying ground by the noonday sun serves to neutralize the frosty nights. Still, inch by inch, the beaches are being uncovered, and, if this weather continues very much longer, the complete drying of the bed is only a matter of time. At the Teviot the bank claims arc

in full swing, all of them doing fairly. Further down, Eeady and party at Scaly Bay are doing well, cradling from two to three ounces per diem. They have been rather unfortunate as to get several small floods, having stopped their work for some weeks. This is to be regretted, as they are a most enterprising party, and, although only three in number, expendmore money in wages per annum than any half dozen of the surrounding cockatoos. At Welshman’s Beach, Sheehey and party are doing very fairly. Of the local dredges, the waterpower dredge Moa continues to pay her shareholders some LlO or Ll2 per week. Mr Nicholson’s craft is doing well off the Beagerqum, and that belonging to Messrs Wood and Edgar, after working some time on Patrick’s Beach with fair returns, is about to take a cruise to the Beaumont, where it is to be hoped good fortune awaits them.

Local politics are very dull. All our leading characters have proved “ ter-r-r-r-aitors” to the district, and we have only one patriot left, “which his name is Mackay.” In the event of his following the evil example, the Mount Bengerites will have to fall back on the local storekeeper of the Celestial persuasion, and thereby incur the just indignation of the honorable member for the Dunstan a consummation devoutly to be dreaded.

As I telegraphed on Saturday, the Queenstown and Frankton mails lost by the recent accident to the coach were picked up in the river, near Moa Flat, by Mr Wood, of the water-power dredge ; but in spite of the careful search instituted by our postmaster, none of the other bags have turned up. The loss of these mails is a proof of the careless manner in which the bags are stowed loosely into the coach, instead of in a proper watertight compartment prepared for their reception.

The Oddfellows’ ball comes off this week, and as we have added a milliner to onr local manufacturers, something gorgeous in the way of female raiment is expected. A kind of art union in aid of the Church of England funds is also about to be held. As a son—however unfaithful— cf the grand old institution, I must deplore the necessity for raising funds by means supposed to be the special forte of the Reverend Messrs Chadband and Stiggins school of divines.