MOUNT BENGER.

Evening Star, Issue 3776, 1 April 1875, Page 2

MOUNT BENGER.

[From'our own Correspondent.)

I am almost inclined to claim the honor due to a prophet, as the opening of the Miller’s Flat block has resulted exactly as I foreteld in your columns months ago. Some four or five sections have been applied for twenty deep • the rest of the block remains, and is likely to remain a breeding ground for mongrel cattle. Nor must it be imagined that even one-tenth of the applications actually in are for bona fide settlement. At least two-thirds of the applicants are, I am morally certain from my knowledge of the men and other circumstances, land sharks, expecting to be bought off ; and a very large proportion of the others are friends of real applicants, employed to obtain entire chances for their principal in the “ nbal™ in the hat,” by which the successful applicant is determined. The whole affair, in fact, is as much a piece of gambling as one of Mr Dodson’s monster sweeps—a perfect disgrace to the legislature by which it is countenanced. But laws are curious things. Here we have a commonage monopolised by a aiwgU sheepish, thousands of acres under the agricultural leasing system unfenced and unimE roved, mites of mining reserve occupied and eavily cropped by persons who contribute net a centum to the land revenue—in short, every provision of the various Acts set at defiance with absolute impunity. A non-politioal Waste Land Board was supposed to cure all these evils, but it evidently does net. Up-country residents are apt to hint that both political and non-politioal Boards mean much the thing—a parcel of cyphers and a board in the form of a chief commissioner.

Talking of the commonage reminds me of an adventure that befell a survey party recently camped out on these Alpine heights. One morning they were sorely puzzled by a succession of most unearthly sounds. Some suggested the moa, but the scientific man of the party said the sounds exactly tallied with Du Chaillus’s description of the roar of the male gorilla. Armed to the teeth with staves they organised a reconnaisance in force. First they encountered a mob of scrubby looking sheep flying at racing speed, then they observed a curious looking animal creeping on all fours through the tussocks and uttering doleful yells. Cautiously they closed in on the unknown monster. It turned its baleful eyes upon them. Horror and fear for a moment held the sway, and then the leader of the party re-assurod his followers by recognising the intellectual features of a well-known M.H.R. The explanation was simple. Our political friend had lost his dog. and with that fertility of resource so characteristic of great minds had concluded a puppy would prove a sufficient substitute. The experiment was not a success. Harvesting is now over. The result is ths best crops for many years, and a fall in ths pneo of oats to 3s 6d per bushel