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Grey River Argus, Volume XI, Issue 891, 5 June 1871, Page 2

Messrs Harris and Hewitt, the champion pedestrians, left yesterday (says the Christchurch Press, of May 27), per Rangitoto, for Dunedin, to fulfill a short engagement in that city, at the conclusion of which they wiU return to Christchurch en ronte to Hokitika and the West Coast. Hewitt's half-mile race will take place at an early date after their return to Canterbury, and notwithstanding the distance to be covered in so short a time, he is very sanguine of being able to do it. Bird remains in Canterbury, and is in active training for his twelve-mile race with Austin, taking a spin of seven or eight miles every morning on the racecourse. Austin and Pentecost, who hare been on a trip to Timaru, returned to town last evening. They report the gathering there as fairly successful, although the weather somewhat interfered with the enjoyment of the day. The Ovens Advertiser mentions, as a striking instance of vicissitude, that Mr John Johnson, who in the palmy days of the Ovens was one of the wealthiest of the rich Woolshed "bosses," aud retired from work with a large fortune, has since lost his money in unlucky speculations, and is now in prison for a debt of Ll2. His family are now in a state of destitution. [A reader informs us that when Johnson made a present of his famous claims at the "Devil's Elbow," it was paying L 7 a week per man, and that he left it with a fortune of L 50.000. Without being a mar. of either extravagant or improvident habits, he seems to have dribbled his fortune away in one unsuccessful speculation after another until he has become a living representative cf the truth of the saying, that "any man can make money ; but it is not everyone who can keep it. "]