MISCELLANEOUS.

Grey River Argus, Volume V, Issue 318, 28 January 1868, Page 3

MISCELLANEOUS.

Some three weeks ago, Mr Powell, of this town, while engaged on census business, in the Te Anau district, met two men at Mr Printz's station. These men were on then* way to Southland for tho purpose of enjoying the holidays and recruiting themselves, .after an isolated residence upon the West Coast. They stated to our informant they had been working in the neighborluxrfl of "Martin's Bay, and had obtained^ £30 ounces of gold as the result of siif week's work. We tell the story as it was toid to us, but it has this effect — it tends to confirm previous experience, obtained by minors, that both north and south of Martin's Bay gold does exist. — Wakatip Mail. We have Launceston files to the 11th instant. All the Tasmanian journals are full of the reception of Prince Alfred, who appears to have made a good impression there, as elsewhere, during the first days of his sojourn. The grub is. committing great ravages .among the wheat to the westward and other places. The Southern Champion Races take place at Hobart Town on the 22nd, 23rd and 24th inst. A most distressing accident occurred at Native Plains (beyond Deloraine) on the Bth instant. Two young men (brothers) named Charlos and Henry Dell, of the respective ages of eighteen and twentytwo years, were assisting some men in the employ of Mr Spicer, Whiteford-hills, in picking fruit at one of Mr Field's stations. One of the Dells went into a waterhole close by to batho, bnt very soon showed signs of distress. The other brother immediately stripped and plunged in to save him, and unfortunately both were drownei. The following significant paragraph appears in the Launceston Examiner of the 11th : — "Reports are being anonymously circulated in Hobart Town that the financial position of the La\mceston. and Western Railway Company is so precarious that H.R.H. the Duke of Edinburgh should not be led into any participation in the ceremony of turning the first sod. We are authorised to say that not only have the northern colonists made up a subscription list of L 25,680, bnt that they are in a position to comply with the provisions of the act, nothing but the forms to be supplied by the lawyers remaining to be completed." Several meetings have recently been held in Wellington and the Wairarapa district, for the purpose of promoting railway communication between these places. A deputation from the committee, appointed at a meeting in Wellington, waited upon the Superintendent, with the object of obtaining, if possible, for the purposes of the preliminary survey, a grant of L 250 out of the 2000 standing on the estimates for the survey ; but their mission in this respect proved fruitless. It had resulted, however, in a promise from his Honor to place Mr Stewart's services at the disposal of the committee for the survey of a line from Wellington to Wairarapa over the Rimutaka, aa soon as Mi* Stewart was at liberty, which would be in two or three weeks' time. It was resolved that a subscription list should be opened to provide for the necessary preliminary expenses of the undertaking, and the. management of the funds thus obtained was vested in a committee of nine, '