THE COUNTRY.

Evening Star, Issue 3157, 2 April 1873, Page 3

THE COUNTRY.

Balclutha. —Owing, no doubt, to the inclemency of the weather, the Oddfellows’ Ball on Friday evening was a great failure-, only one of the fair sex being present.—A man named Robert Stewart has been missing for nearly a week. It is feared he has fallen into the Molyneux. Stewart had been drinking very heavily previously. Tokomaikiro. —Mr A. M'Callum, of the Canada Bush district, informs us that last winter a pair of partridges took up their quarters in one of his paddocks, and this season he has observed a covey of thirteen young birds in the company of the parent pair.—lt is reported that the Rev. Mr Coffey has tendered to his Bishop his resignation of the curacy of St. John’s, Milton. Not having received authenticated information as to the cause or causes of this action on the part of the reverend gentleman, who has only recently been located in this district, wc do not feel at liberty to record mere rumors, but we may add that there arc jqany who deeply sympathise with him, and much appreciate his earnest Christian character, flis non-conformity to fashionable views in matters pertaining to religion, we believe, has been the cause of a luke-warmness on the part of a portion of the congregation, but whether this has had anything to do with his resignation we cannot say. Our obituary contains a notice of the sudden and unexpected death of one of the oldest settlers in this Province, Mr John Anderson, of Kelvin Grove, Kaihikn, brother-in-law of the Messrs Allan Brothers, East Taicri. It appears the deceased, while at work in his garden on Saturday afternoon last, felt suddenly ill, and immediately thereafter became insensible. T)r Manning, of Warepa, was at once sent for, but on arrival found that nothing could be done to alleviate his sufferings; death, however, terminated these within twelve hours of the attack. Mr Anderson arrived in Otago from Nelson along with his brother-in-law, Mr Alexander Mackay, of Dunrobin, East Taieri, in 1844* nearly four years before the arrival of the Wickliffe and Philip Laing, the pioneer ships from Britain. Mr Anderson sailed from London for Wellington, accompanied by Mr Mackay, in September, 1839, by the ship Oriental, one of the first four vessels which sailed upon the same day under the auspices of the New Zealand Company.— Bruce fferald,