Untitled

Grey River Argus, Volume XI, Issue 943, 4 August 1871, Page 2

The English Mail, via San Francisco, closes at 11 o'clock to-day. It proceeds by the s.s. Murray to Nelson, and will there be picked up the p.s. Nebraska, on her return trip round the ports. Mr Scott, of the firm of Scott and Wilkinson, insurance agents, and representatives of the Victoria Fire Insurance Cempany, is now in town, and is prepared to receive proposals this day, at the Melbourne Hotel. All applications for spirit licenses, &c, and renewals of the same, which expire before the Ist December next, must be lodged at the .Resident Magistrate's office, on or before Monday, the 7th inst. We have had an opportunity of inspecting the stock of watches and jewelry now being exhibited at the Albion Hotel by Mr Salomon, of Dunedin. It is certainly magnificent, and well worthy of a visit, though it was only for the purpose of seeing such a rich collection of diamonds and jewelry. Mr Salomon will be here for a few days only. The monthly meeting of the Grey River Hospital Committee was held at Gilmer's Hotel, on Wednesday evening. Present : Messrs Masters (chair), Maclean, Reid, Thompson, Revell, Newton, Arnbtt, and Gihner. The minutes of the previous meeting having been read and confirmed, the Visiting Committee reported the number of patients in the hospital on July 31 to be 27. Admitted during the month, 15 ; discharged, 15 ; died, 1 (Faulkner). The accounts for the month, amounting to L 219 7s Id, were laid on the table and passed. The other business was unimportant. The County Council is to be invited by the Chairman to recommend additional reserves of land for the endowment of the New Zealand University. Mr Hoos is to move for the appointment of a committee to enquire into the working of the various departments of the County. At the Resident Magistrate's Court, yesterday morning, before W. H. Revell, Esq., R.M., Edward Windle was fined L 2, orjfour days' imprisonment, for making use of obscene language in a public place, and an additional 10s, or 48 hours' imprisonment, for beingdrunk and disorderly. Margaret Mason, alias King, was charged on remand, with the larceny of eight Ll-notes, the property of William Clancy, a miner at the New River. It appeared from the evidence, that the complainant was in the Enniskillen Hotel, Richmond Quay, on the night of the 31st ultimo, and took out his puree to pay for some drinks, when the accused snatched it from him, and kept it for about ten minutes, when she returned it, minus LB. He remained in the house all night, and next morning asked the accused for it. She denied having taken it, when he gave her in custody. Some evidence was taken, which was of a very cjutradictory nature, and, on the application of Mr SubInspector Hickson, a remand, for the production of two witnesses who were in the honse at the time, was granted. The Southern Ci-oss reports that thirteen members of the . Armed Constabulary have been dismissed for insubordination. At the County Council meeting on Wednesday night, the report of the Roads and Tracks Committee was brought up and adopted. In it are recommended the following works, payment to be made, half in ' cash, and half in land :— A track from Maori Gully, Arnold, to Maori Creek Town, New River, Grey district. A track, one and a quarter mile long, from Greenstone road to Italian Gully, Waimea. A track, one and a quarter mile long, from the Blue Spur to the eight-mile stone, Christchurch road, Kanieri district. A track, four miles long, from the Mikonui River t to the foot of the Rangitoto ranges, Totara district. Tracks along six bluffs, above high water level, from theWauganui Bluff to Hunt's Beach, Okarito district. The committee further recommended that immediate action be taken for the construction of the abovenamed| roads and tracks. The West Coast Times of yesterday contains a notice of the death of Mr Francis Murray, one of the earliest pioneers of the Murray Creek. The deceased has been suffering for some time from disease of the heart, which proved fatal on Sunday last. He was a native of County Derry, Ire'and, and was widely-known and highly respected in the upper Grey district. The funeral was to take place at Hokitika yesterday. Provincialism is stinking in the nostrih of the people of Southland. The Southland Times thus expresses itself on the late session of the Otago and Southland Provincial Council : — "After occupying a period of two calendar months, the session of the Provincial Council has been brought to a close. If we except its so-called honorable members who, despite failing revenues, bank overdrafts, and crushing loan liabilities, managed to wring out a few paltry pounds as an attendance fee, we question if there is a man in the place who looks back upon it with feelings of the smallest complacency. What has the country gained by all the solemn lnuinmery thrust on public notice for the past ] eight weeks? Its so-called legislation is I nothing more than so much expression of

opinion 'for consideration by what in reality is the legislature of the country, Its administrations amount to nothing more thau certain expressed purposes contingent upon the whim and caprice of a bank manager, who may at any given moment put a veto upon further cash accommodation being afforded. The long-winded debates of honorable members are, iu^ealifcy, the mere ravings of a parcel of men who, so soon as the colony awakens to a. crue sense of "progressive policy, must return to the obscure paths of society from whence they were brought, no one can tell why." In the County Council, on Tuesday, Mr Guinness, in moving for the appointment of a committee to consider a draft of a proposed new Public-house Act for Westland, advanced, in support of his motion, that the Act at present in force in Westland had worked very badly, aud that it required considerable amendments. He had prepared a draft, which he had submitted to the member for Totara, who agreed with many of the points contained in the same as improvements on the present system of licensing. The portion of the Act which related to granting licenses to dance-houses, he thought, should be abolished, as it tended to immorality. There should also be a provision whereby license-holders should be compelled to give ample accommodation to the public, and a distinction should be made in the licences, as regards those who afforded such accommodation and those who only retail liquors at the bar. M{,Barff, of course, defended the existing Act,' of which he was the author, and with regard to the dancehouse licenses, said that provision he had introduced not to facilitate demoralisation, but I to put a check upon it, and the consequence had been that while at the time the Act came into operation about twenty dance-houses were in full swing. They were reduced afterwards to four, under the present Act. He maintained that the clauses referring to dancing had worked most beneficially, and he hoped that the mover would have given more detailed reasons in support of his motion. Mr Bonar was sorry that the immorality on the Grey was so great as represented by the mover. After a short exchange of personalities between the County Chairman and Mr Hoos, the motion was carried. A late Nelson paper describes the weather in that locality as having been unusually mild. The geniality of the weather has brought the almond trees, the first precursors of spring, early into flower. The man who met with the unfortunate accident on Tuesday at Finlay and Haworth's Saw-mills, Hokitika, died on Wednesday morning at the hospital. Wo learn from the West Coast Times that at M'Mahon's Claim, Ross, the party working came on good gold on Tuesday, washing 240z in one day, and they expect to get altogether 2500z this week. The claim was very poor until recently, when it has proved increasingly productive under the efficient arrangements of the present manager. The report of Reuter's Telegram Co., which was recently made in London, stated that the net prolits of the company for the year 1870, after payment of all charges, amounted to LI 1,670, including L 291 from the preceding year. An interim dividend at tbe rate of 24 per cent, had already been paid, and the directors now declared a further dividend at the rate of 74 per cent., making a total distribution for the year of 10 per cent., free of income-tax, absorbing L 7300, after adding 1.2000 to the reserve fund, and writing of the fixtures and furniture account, leaving a balance of LI 176. The Court of Chancery had formally sanctioned the reduction'of the capital to LSO.OOO. A suggestive case under the "Neglected Criminal Children's Act," was brought before the Resident Magistrate at Invercargill a few days ago. . The defeudants were two sisters named Ralph, aged respectively 14 and 16 years, whose antecedents were well known to the police. The immedia f e circumstances of their apprehension were these. The previous evening the police had their attention drawn to a notorious house in Clyde street, occupied by a woman named Anderson. On gaining admission, they found inside three men, the woman Anderson, and the two defendants. The men immediately decamped, their retreat being so precipitate that one of them actually dashed head foremost through a dilapidated window sash. The appearance of the hovel was wretched in the extreme ; and although no drink was found by the constables, they saw enough to convince them that it had lately been in use. Both of the accused girls had been known to the police for years back as being associated with abandoned characters. Eighteen months ago, their mother, in company with another woman, kept a house of bad fame. On visiting the house on one occasion, the police found the mother, the eldest of the accused girls, the other woman, and a strange man, all lying huddled together, drunk, and the youngest prisoner handing round drink to them from a bottle of brandy. Three months ago the mother had been sent to prison for soliciting prostitution, and on being released she went to reside at Switzer's. The two defendants had had no fixed place of abode since the mother left Invercargill. They had lived at the house of Anderson, and other places of questionable resort. Some time ago they were taken under the protection of the Ladies' Benevolent Society, and provided with respectable situations. The eldest girl, who was described as being thoroughly depraved, immediately afterwards returned to her old haunts, and after some persuasion she induced the other to follow her example. According to latest advices, the weather in the Lakes dltrict, Otago, seems to have beeu-very severe. Writing on the 19fchult., the Mail says— "Such, a thunderstorm as that continuing the whole of yesterday has never been experienced here. Th« river rose five feet duriug the afternoon. The waterraces are broken away by the sudden change from frost to rain ; the river workings are swamped, and the dredges are as bad as they were before. The only mining venture that pays is tunnelling, and those claims are few in number.— ln a gale on Lake Wakatipu the Jane Williams had foundered, and the Victoria screw steamer had a very narrow escape. All on board declared that they escaped shipwreck by nothing short of a miracle.— On the testimony of an eye-wit-ness, the same journal states that that rapid river, the Shotover, was actually frozen over for a few days during the severe frost some three weeks since. It seems that at a place near the Sandhills, the Ophir Quartz Mining Company, had washed a large slip into the river, which, backing it up, rendered the stream comparatively smooth, and thus allowed time for its congelation for some distance upwards." The Wellington Evening Post, of Bth of July, says — "Truly 'the fashion of this world passeth away.' Only a very short time has elapsed since the whole colony joined in hurling execrations at the head of Tito Kowaru, who was denounced as a fiend iv human form, placed beyond the pale of human sympathy by his ruthless deeds, and to shoot whom, like a wild dog, would be an act of the highest merit. A reward of LIOOO was placed upon his head by the Government, and expensive expeditions undertaken in the hope to capture him, were not begrudged. Mr Parns was held to have degraded himself, as well as the Government he represented, by appearing at a meeting where the arch-rebel was present. But what is now the state of matters ? Tito Kowaru openly shows himself Jin the vicinity

ot European settlements ; less than a month ago he was in the immediate neighborhood of New Plymouth ; his abiding-place is wellknown, f.nd yet no one offers to ?nolest him ! He has waxed bold, and actually demands from the Government a condonation of his offences, and permission to return within the pale of the law. In fact, he looks upon himself as a bankrupt, waiting to pass his examination and obtain his certificate. But worse still, his request is supported by the Provincial Council of Taranaki ; they plead their exposed situation, their inadequate means of defence, and the example set by Mr M'Lean is pardoning other murderers, and ask the Government to give poor Tito another chance ; and such is the position to which Mr M 'Lean's disgusting truckling to rebels has brought the Colony, that it is far from unlikely t that the request of the arch-cannibal, backed by his Taranaki sympathisers will be refused. Peace must be kept at the expense of any amount of degradation. Possibly the rebels, after they are pardoned, may demand compensation for the wrongs inflicted on them, and no doubt tho generous M'Lean will be ready to grant it. We may shortly expect to hear of Tito Kowaru being made a native assessor, or a major, or something else, and settled [in the town of New Plymouth. The inhabitants of Taranaki have never been famed for any display of spirit, but their last proceeding ' out Herods Herod,' and if their wishes are granted, they will have succeeded in affixing a stigma to the name of New Zealand colonist, which nothing can ever wipe away." Tt is becoming a fashion with most Colonial communities to encourage a strong appetite for newspaper "extras," on the slightest provocation. What would they say to the state of things that prevails in the capital of the nation that has been so much talked of recently— Germany. Only lately most important telegrams from the seat of i war arrived, but, says the correspondent of I the London Times, " the Berhners have ) taken the news very quietly. The telegram came just too late to appear in the evening papers— and a second edition is a thing unknown in the capital of Germany. There is a heavy newspaper tax here, and every journal has to declare in advance the number of copies intended to -be printed in the ensuing three months. Hence the habit of subscribing ; hence the difficulty of getting single numbers, even at an absurdly high price ; hence the waut of extra editions ; and hence also the ludicrously small circulation even of important newspapers. In journalism, indeed, Berlin is behind all the chief cities of Europe. The newspapers are well sub-edited, the facts being capitally arranged ; but there is a sad lack of original writing, and very little enterprise in supplying the public with news. The anomalies produced by the tax are striking. For instance, the National Zeitung, by far the best written Berlin paper, is published morning and evening, the latter print consisting of four pages, half the size of your sheet. For each separate number you have to pay threepence, but you can pubscribe tor three months for six shillings and ninepence. It is true that in the latter case you must wait until a woman from the office chooses to bring you the paper ; but then, if you hope to save time by buying the numbers separately, you must either send specially to the office, or lie in wait for the one peripatetic newsman who seems to supply all the promiscuous purchasers of Berlin from a shallow and most poorly laden tray slung round his neck. Is not this a very provincial arrangement for the capital city of a great empire ?"