THE Grey River Argus. THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 1870.

Grey River Argus, Volume IX, Issue 634, 10 February 1870, Page 2

THE Grey River Argus. THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 1870.

Oar attention has been drawn to a printer's prror which appears in our report of the last nieetiog of the Hospital Committee. The tender Accepted for butcher meat is there Bfciited to be 6^d pei 1b ; it suquld have been s|dperlb. I At the termination of the cricket contest a walking match of two miles for £10 aside came off between Owen Bodeu and J. W. Shepherd. Boden was the favorite, and, as was expected, came in a winder by (our yards. . Mr Wi^tefMOsrd, the new Warden, has tisld t«p days sittings last w-jek at the Ahaura, «tnJ given good promise of capability in the discharge of bis official tlnties. Both cases were of importance, involving rights to protected tracks, and the result wa3 looked forward to. with much interest by the wpcrmntry population. Mr Wlritefoord has now, we belie *c, taken over the charge of tho Grey district from Mr -Irfxwe. • In the Thames Advocate, of January ?S, the Bailiff of the Resident Magistrate's Court, Siiortlan 1, advertises the properties of nqlcssthan thirty-five mining companies to. be sojidj by him, having been, sebsed v.i execution for debt ; ani{ the sajne paper, of ths following day, gives the naryea of suven additional ones figainst whom judgments had bct-n obtained hy many suitors. We have bo ilonbt biit that thp gi e^t majnri. ty of these are tbo bubble companies. tb.a,t always crop. jip when speculation, is su rife, and whore, as in Aucklaml, inexperience was so great. The Cardrona correspondent of the Cromwell Arffits says that John Chinaman bas been teaching one of pnr storekeepers bow tq inake'goll. Mr ftobert Patterson bongbt Vstwe3n, f.mr a,iul five ounces of, to al\ ap^ pearnncc, nice, shotty gold f torn a Chinaman, laat week. Air Patterson lisa had groat experience in bn j ing gold, and suspected at the time tiftt thj g<^d ytas not all right, asis weighol li^ht for the quantity, but sbill hp jpujd .John the full price. He kept tho parcel se}>ar.itc, examined it the following day, and $m:«d it to. contain a large. quantity'uf base yiuUl. Tup imitation is extremely good—very few cmt}il detect the fraud by the eye. A fceventb sba* e in the A.uroia Comßany'a. i-la''m f Bentligo, Otago, changed hands last •week {•>? LIOOO. Mr William IJarclay haying m>Ul hi* interest to Air Jubn biici"wootl, of Uy«le, We this day niiWish the t»n>graii>ii)c of tho <ircyuK>utlv laoa footing, aut^ it certainly is. \x iiit-BS prqjiitinj u\\i. NoA only are tlys yrizc3 v»iuali!e (indeed thjy arc, with two or three exceptions, theliigbostin N ew Zcahmdj, V,u,t tii« cottrso upon whiuli the hoi s^s tu'e to in H(».v nruUs .uU,j of il\u best, to lc f.ni.ittiu tins colony. Tho t.H,e great drawback l<t t;a<y am:.-** to lite com so fioin (own is tliu jt>..il, I.Ht Uiis IS, to übyu by i,ua(,lc •f.ofjd by the

Connty, and the thanks of the community ! aip due to Messrs Lahman and Harrison for , tlie energy, they have .shown in getting the dißtincs promise of the County Chairman to have it put into good order before the meeting. The stewards .ire aciiyely employed in earn ing out the necessary, preliminaries., and as several of them have been elected year after year to the s.aiue ditties, and each year fvdlilled tljem successfully, it augurs well for the meeting of 1870 being as decided a sucp«ss as that of any previous one. The accommodation in town for !)<>rses is also this, year greater than formerly.' The stewards have deemed it advisable, and we think rightly so, to hold all the races upon two days, leaving yaturday for such impromptu matches as may be made when competitors come together. This decision has been founded upon past seasons experiences, and will, we believe, be pordially endorsed by the general public. With, fjuo weather to aid their efforts \ with the craok horse? that such prizes should induce ; with a large amount of visitors from pur prosperous mining districts, we feel assured that the forthcoming meeting will be oven a greater success than the btsfc of the hitherto very successful ones. At the Warden's office, Westport on Monday, 7th. iust., thore were four applica? . tions fqr claims for quartz-reeling on Irish? man's Creek, near the Lyell lliver. Th.ere hag already been an application grante.i to the prospectors on this creek, who are said to have brought to town some gold-bearing quartz specimens, and, on the above date, three of the applications were for six men's ground each, and one for i> lease of 164 acres. Two agricultural leas.es were a]so applied for in the game district. Tl^s indicates that there is some belief i^i the permanency of the Upper fuller and Lyell districts. When the alarm bell rang out its loud and wirning peal laat niyht, an on-lqokqr would have been su.rpris.ed to, see h.o\v quickly the inhabitants, turned out, and in such large numbers. The members, of the Fire Brigade were,, as. if by magic, on the spat, ami before the, reverberation qf the first clang had cea§e.d, the hose-rreel was on its way to the scene of the. n"rc. Luckily, however, their servie.es were not required, as upon nearing the scene of the conflagration it was discovered to be only the bush on fire, instead of the house upon th' 3 terrace. Th.3 crowd on learing this, left as quickly as they bad assembled, with the exception of a few who went on (among tbem the majority of the yiro Brigade) to render whab service they could in the suppression of the flaring bush. This is the fire spoken of by us in our issue of last week, and it ought ere this to havebeen attended to. The housss on tho terrace are seriously endangere! by their proximity, and steps should be takeu to stay its further progress, ere serious damage be done. We (Thqxnes Advertiser) noticed a very ingenious contrivance for lifting water, at the foot of the Waiotahi, yesterday. It consisted of a rope and a small curiously shaped block with brass wheels, by means of which a bucket was run up and down with the greatest ease. . The principle seemed to be a combination of that adopted in the wire tramways and the plan known amongst sailors as a " whip," for lifting cargo from a ship's hold. Mr Maguire, says the Westport Times, has lately put to gnud use the limited snpply of prison labor at his comn^and. Wallabi street has been cleared and levelled, so as to be now an .accessible thoroughfare, and other parts of tqwn have been- improved, As a rule, the prison labor compares well with labor that is paid for. The only complaint is that theic is not enough of it. Could not the same use be made of the prisoners in Greymonth ? The discovery of a gold-bearing quartz reef, says the fyjiielton Times, is announced as having taken place at the Waikari. The locality is in the rear of Mr Moore's run at Glenmark, about Sfty miles north of Christchurch. The reef is large and clearly de* filled. The stone appeal's to be of a ferruginous character, and in the three pieces brought to Chrisiehureb, what appear* to be gold is plainly discernible. A prospactors' claim waa taken out some short time ago, and still holds good over the country adjacent to the reef.