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Grey River Argus, Volume XII, Issue 1046, 2 December 1871, Page 2

A meeting of subscribers to the Greymouth Christmas Sports is to be held tins afternoon, at 4 o'clock, at Giltner's Hotel, for the purpose of receiving the report of the canvassers, and electing a Managiug Committee. The Star Minstrels Company, last night, repeated their programme of the previous evening, and were very successful. A prominent feature in the entertainment was "The Comic History of England," by Mr Bent, which was bristling with local ■allusions and puns. Putting aside everything else, it is worth while to hear the History. If he would only gi?e us a local history of Greymouth, in the same style, it would indeed be a racy treat. An entire change of performance is announced for this evening. The only case at the Resident Magistrate's Court yesterday morning wa9 tbat of James Lee, who was summoned for non-compliance with a maintenance order. The defendant pleaded that he had no property. Ultimately an order was made for payment of LS with costs. A new gold-bearing quartz reef has been discovered fifteen miles from Cromwell, Otago. From the appearance of the stone the reef promises to be the richest yet discovered in that 'Province. The anti-Chinese petition, although it lay for four weeks in the Mount Ida district, did not receive a single signature. The Wellington Sub-Commissioner of Government Life Assurance is reported to have effected assurances amountfng to upwards of LlB.OOO. The body of Mr J. Kingham, a cattledealer, who was drowned a short time ago while crossing the Waiau, was discovered on the 22nd ultimo, about five miles below the place where the. accident occurred. . A General Government Gazette contains a list of the telegraph stations throughout the colony. From it we leara there are 76, and of these 12 are in Wellington, 12 in Auckland, 21 in Otago, 10 in Canterbury, 6 in Marlborougb, 5 in Nelson, 2 in Westland, 3 in Taranaki, and 5 in Hawke's Bay. On the 22nd ult, a rush took place on shares in Tookey's claim, which is reported to have struck the Caledonian lead. Th«y are now selling at L 44. The steamer Comerang, which had been chartered by a number of speculators, left suddenly. They are supposed to have gone to Sydney to buy Tookeyls shares in Melbourne. Tho Greymouth and Grey District Almanac aud Directory for 1872 has just been issued, and may be obtained from the agent, Mr Roche, Mawhera Quay. It will be found to be a great improvement upon the one issued for last year. It has been carefully compiled, is well printed, and otherwise got up in a very creditable manner. Besides the usual calendar, it contains a vast amount of valuable information upon ajihost every commercial subject and matters connected with these Gold Fields, besides a complete directory, not only for the town, but for the entire Grey District, from the Teremakau to Reefton. It will be found to be a valuable aseistaut whether in the merchant's office or in the digger's tenti An attempt was made, to " salt" aWushing from the Sailor Prince claim at the Thames; four sovereigns and four shillings being discovered in the stamper box with the quartz. It will be in the recollection of our readers, says the Lytlelton Times, that in the years 1866-7, a meeting was called in Christchurch to consider the propriety of erecting some permanent memorial to the West Coast explorers, whose lives had been sacrificed in the work they had been engaged on for the future benefit of the Province, and that subscriptions to the amount of L9O were then raised, chiefly through the efforts of Mr Strouts, who soon afterwards left Canterbury on a visit to England. Since then the subject has remained in abeyance. ]Now, however, a very suitable opportunity has appeared to present itself .for -the completion of the work, and the memorial has assumed the shape of an appropriate decoration to the new church of St Michael's, in the form of a series of stained glass windows for its western end. A meeting of the subscribers was called at White's Hotel ou the 23nl inst., by Mr Strouts, at which the following ; resolutions were passed /—"That five stained i glass windows (drawings of which were subimitted) be placed in the west end of St i Michael's Church, now in course of erection, I as a memorial of the five gentlemen— Messrs Wbitcombe, Howitfc, Tpwnsend, Dobson, ' aud Ollivier, whose lives were loat while ex-

ploring the West Coast of this Province, ami that a brass plate with a suitable inscription be placed beneath the windows." "That Messrs Harmon, Strouts, and Ollivier, _ ba empowered to carry out the above resolution, with power to alter the design of the centre light."

The trial crushing of poorer stove in the new ground opened oy the phoenix Company, Skippers, Otago, has, the Wakatip Mail says, exceeded expectations. The yield of retorte I gold is 105oz from/110 tons crushed. As Giiwts (according to %ie calculations of the Manager, Mr H. Evans; will pay a dividend, the returns will probably be large this summer, there being an abundance of stone already obtained. ' Speaking of the character of Wellington water, which we are told is altogether beyond a joke, Mr Holmes said lately in the Assembly — " Where several of the members resided, the well and the water-closet were side by side, and from the fact of several houses being on lower ground than the cemetery"— still that cemetery with its sad and silent witnesses— "his honorable friend Mr Mantellhad wittingly and truly described the water in that locality as having a body in it." Six Chinamen were summoned before the Warden at Naseby, Otago, a few days ago, for mining withoufr miners' rights. All pleaded ignorance of the necessity of being so provided, and in the case of three, who were new arrivals, the plea was allowed as an extenuating circumstance, and they were fined 10s each, or three days' imprisonment with hird labor, jn default. The other three, who were old Victorian miners, were fined L 5 each and costs, or six days' imprisonment in default. A melancholy accident occurred in the River Wilberforce, Canterbury, on Sunday evening last. Mr James Holt, a young man twenty-five years of age, and son of Mr James Holt, St Albans, was crossing the river on horseback, in company with three others, when the hind legs or his horse either sunk into a hole or slipped off something in the bed of the river, and the animal fell over on to him in the water. The horse got away and escaped from the river, but its unfortunate rider was not again seen in such a way as to enable assistance being given him. About two hours afterwards, Mr Wm. Adams, with his son, went in search of the body, and found it on a spit about a mile below where the accident occurred. It was at once taken ashore, and information sent to the police. The Wairoa correspondent of the Hawke's Bay Herald says :—" It is said that a letter has been received by the chiefs on the East Coast from Rewi, in the Waika«o dialect, and in the./ peculiar idiomatic style of Maori correspondence. He commences his letter by telling them that for a long time he has been asleep, but now that he is waking ; that the Pakeha are all , fish (hapuka) ; that he is the fisherman who will catch them all in his nee. He advises all the chiefs to spread their nets I'eady for a similar object. That a star (or sign) will shortly rise, for which they are to be on the look out, as this will be the signal for them to commence their piscatorial pursuits. This is a free translation of the letter received by Paora Apatu." On Saturday morning last, as Mr W. Harris, of Kaiapoi, was getting into his trap at the Sawyer's Arms Hotel, Papanui, the horse feeling his foot on the step commenced to move away, and before Mr Harris could gain sufficient command over the reins, one wheel of the trap came into contact with the corner of the trough where the horse had been drinking. This frightened the animal, •which made a furious start forward, and the wheel of the trap ran along the edge otthe trough at a considerable elevation from the ground for several feet, when the trap capsized, throwing Mrs Harris and her daughter, Miss Hetty Harris, violently to the ground, a fate which Mrs Harris' son only escaped by jumping clear as the turnover occurred. Fortunately, Mr Harris had maintained his hold of the reins, and within a few yards succeeded in arresting the further progress of the horse without any material damage to it or the vehicle. Mrs and Mrs Harris, though not quite so fortunate— the former being severely shaken, and the latter receiving a wound on the temple— nevertheless did not suffer so much as might have been expected from their fall. On the trap being righted, Mr Harris was therefore able to renew his journey to town. There is a world of sad truth in the follow* ing letter, which appears in an Auckland contemporary :— " Living near me until last night, was a quiet, clean, honest, truthful, hard-working woman. But she has fits of drinking, when she is a devil incarnate— a nuisance to the whole district. Probably she has stripped her home and her back fifty times, for she never -gives over drinking;, as she says, till ' her duds are all gone." A policeman had the humanity to beg of each rublican in her neighborhood not to give her drink, saying, 'he did not want to take her up, knowing she was an industrious woman.' Of course 1 need not tell you the result of his appeal. 1 know a man, too, who rarely re« turns to his home sober, Sunday or week day. The house he most frequents is kept by an 'intemperate teetotaller.' Where would be the use of his wife trying to convict that publican ! At an hour's uotice he would have ten, twenty witnesses, if necessary, to swear the said man never had a ' drop too much in his house" — that would satisfy our justiceloving Justices of the Peace ! That same man has been a known confirmed inebriate for at least the last ten years in Auckland. But meu and women have not only drunk of deep waters, but they have fouled the residue with their feetj