Untitled

Grey River Argus, Volume XII, Issue 1121, 1 March 1872, Page 2

The Hon. Mr Reeves, Minister of Public V orks, Mr Haughton, Gold Fields Secretary, an I Mr Lahman, County Chairman, visited * Greyouth yeateriay. Mr Reeves and Mr

Haughton, we understand, will leave for Reefton probably to-morrow, and proceed to Westport, when Mr Reeves will return to the East Coast by the way of Hokitika and the overland road ; and Mr Haughton, after a visit to Charleston, will proceed to Nelson and Wellington At Hokitika, on Tuesday, a deputation from the Corporation, consisting of the Mayor, Councillors Tait, Hawkins, Macfarlane, Barrett,. F. L. Clarke, and Cross, and j the Town Clerk, \vaited upon the. Son. the Premier. In the coursfrorthe address which they presented, the following paragraph occurs : - " We also trust that in the ensuing session of Parliament some measure will be carried which will incorporate the Nelson South-West Gold Fields with the County of Westland, and assimilate the rules and provisions for the government of a mining community into one code, so that one miner's right shall be available all over the extended County. It is believed that if this were the case a great saving would be effected in the cost of government, and much annoyance to miners be avoided." In reply, Mr^JTox delivered a speech very similar in its tenor to that given here, pointing out that it was the duty of the various constituencies to instruct their representatives as to the new form of government, they would prefer, so that an alteration may be made during the next session of the Assembly. The Flood Relief Fund Committee continue to receive contributions from other parts of the Colony, and to distribute relief in the cases which still present themselves. There are some other up-country applications which have yet to be considered, or' are now being made the subject of inquiry. After another meeting, the Committee will probably be able to submit a final report of their proceedings. The Volunteer Hall should be crowded this evening, when a dramatic performance is to be given in aid of the Mood Relief Fund. Nominally! the entertainment is to be extensively patronised, and. it should be so practically, considering the interest which has been taken in the same object, and on similar occasions, in other parts of the Colony. The entertainment has also attractions of its own, in the plays which are to be performed, and in the array of amateur ability which has been secured for their performance. Our advice to those who may be debating the question "To go or not to go" is— Read the programme. At the Resident Magistrate's Court, yesterday. D. Maclean was fined LI for a breach of municipal regulations by permitting some hides to be housed, and to cause a nuisance,, in Waite street. A person supposed to be of unsound mind was remanded for medical examination, and some civil cases were disposed of. A movement is on foot ainoncst the drapers in Dunedin to close on Saturdays at 1 p.m. Coromandel is overrun with prospectors, and it is believed that nearly every " likely spot" has-been tried. A sermon to children has been preached in Christchurch. The subject chosen was " pitchers of small quantity." According to the local papers the Auckland harbor swarms with sharks Several narrow escapes from these voracious fish are recorded as having recently occurred. At Levuka, a storekeeper advertises ropes and chains for securing houses against " the approaching hurricanes." Seventy miners are out of work by the stoppage of operations at the Bay of Islands coal mine. About 250 men are at work on the Waikato railway, arid they get on very well with Mr Brogdcn'o overacoro. Thirty of the loafing class were, however, discharged. A correspondent says ':— Anyone capable of doing anything like a fair day's work for good wages need not be idle ; and it must be confessed that a generous interpietation obtains with Mr Brogden's overseers. At the Resident Magistrate's Court at Ahaura, on Thursday, Matthew Kirwin, a miner from Half Ounce, was committed for contempt of Court. The contempt consisted of laughing and making audible remarks on a judgment of the Court in a casein which Kirwin was defendant. On being brought up previous to the rising of the Court, the defendant was asked what he had to say for himself ? He denied treating the Court in a "contemptible" manner, and "he did not intend to laugh at the judgment, for.it was not a laughing matter ;" on the contrary, he was "breathing a heaving sigh at the result of his case, and if he did not do it gently or in a manner not to offend the dignity of the Court, he humbly apologised." The defendant was lectured on his irreverent conduct and discharged. At the Resident Magistrate's Court, Ahaura, on Thursday, 29th February, Timothy O'Neill, a butcher, was committed to take his trial at the next sittings of the Supreme Court to be held at Hokitika on 19 th March, for wilfully and maliciously killing two pigs, the property of Samuel Loftquist, a gardener at Napoleon. Bail was .allowed in four sureties of LSO each and defendant's surety in the like amount. A reduction in the price of gas has been announced by the manager of the Wellington Gas Company. After the Ist of March those consumers who pay promptly will receive a discount of twenty per cent, and thus the cost to them will be equal to 16s per , 1000 f t; but- on overdue accounts the full price of 20s will be charged. On Wednesday, the 31st January,.. it was reckoned there were one hundred and sixty persons in Auckland who pursued the calling of sharebrokers. On Thursday, February 1, the numbers were reduced from one hundred and sixty to less than a single score. TheSharebrokers Apt had done it all. In the Welliiugton Resident Magistrate Court, last week', there was a civil- case relating to. some , land, between two persons named Watson andM'lntyre. Tkelndcpendent gives the following report of some of the proceedings :— '' Mr Buckley, for the defendant, contended that the plaintiff had no title whatever to the land. Mr Watson— But the land is mine, and I've sold it. Mr Buckley— Then you've no right to come here, and say the land is yours. Mr WatsonWell, if the land ain't mine it ain't Charley M'lntyre's, cos' I gave him the piece os o' says is 'is ; so if I've got no title he's got no title. But hero's my conveyance for the laud. (Hands one of the numerous papers to Mr Buckley). Mr Buckley— You don't call this a conveyance, do you ? This is only a copy of a conveyance. Mr Watson— Oh, that's conveyance enough for me ; I ain't a going to the expense of a deed. His Worship— l can't admit this as a deed of conveyance, Mr Watson, and as the case seems now to be one of disputed title, I must rule that 1 have no jurisdiction. Mr Watson— Oh no, I won't have that ; adjourn the case for a week. His Worship— What teason have you tp urge for a further adjournment, , Mr Watson? Mr Watson— l got a lot more papers to briug as you ain't seen yet, your Worship. His Worship—Have you any better title to the land than you have yet produced. Mr WatsonNo. His Worships-Then I must simply rule that I have no jurisdiction. The verdict was recorded. Mr Watson (who had been.frequently reprimanded by his Worship)— Well, that's law very likely, but it's not justice. His Worship— Sergeant, take that man -into custody. Mr Watson— All right, here I : am; ; shove on the. (Jarbies. (Watson was removed I i to one of $0001%. - . <

The Bruce Herald calculates that, owing to so little wool being scoured this season, there are throughout the Province of . Otago something like two hundred hands unemployed, who have for years past found employment in the various wool-scouring establishments, The whole of the New Zealand portion of the Suez mail was brought from Melbourne by the Rangitoto. The Alhambra, by which the news was received, had sailed before the mail arrived.. ■ The Mayor of Dunedin received the tise of the Theatre from Mr Sibbald, free of charge, for au amateur performance to be given by the Colored Opca Troupe in aid of the Greymouth Belief Fund. Mr Larnach promised to supply the gas for the Theatre gratuitously. A fine nugget, about the size of a hen's egg, is reported by the Ross News to have been found in Robinson's claim, at Blockade Gully. In the same ground, but on a higher level, a similar nugget was found about two years since, which contained 9oz of gold. It is the intention of the Hokitika Oddfellows and Foresters to get up the usual fete and races during the Easter holidays, the proceeds to be devoted to charitable purposes. The number of gallons of spirits distilled in the Colony received into all bonded warehouses during the year 1871 was 58,951. The number of gallons taken out of bond during the same period was— for home consumption 2!), 221, and for exportation 14. On December 31, 1879, there were 52,038 gal in bond. A Fiji paper says :— " A few of Coleinan's fancy mustard labels have been paid to the native tax-gatherer for dollar notes. The white man who paid these things to the natives as money deserves to have a mustard plaster applied to him by the Government Moral Health Officer." No less than 170,000 sheep have been booked for the supply of this season's operations at the New Zealand Meat Preserving Company's factories at NVashdyke (Timaru£ andKakanui. . , A cabman, named Dan Howard, has been stabbed by a man named William Kerr, . in "The Paddock," Colombo street south, Ckristchurch, during a dispute about cabhire. The Daily Times notices the death of Mrs Mansford, the wife of Mr T. A. Mansford, Port Chalmers. The deceased lady was much esteemed and respected by the residents of Port Chalmers for her kindly nature and benevolence. ; Diptheria is on the increase in Wellington. A project tor the reclamation of a large portion of Lake Ellesmere has been mooted in Christchurch. It is the opinion of Jiany engineers well qualified to give an opinion that the scheme is perfectly feasible. The shares in a new Theatre Company in Wellington are being taken up very satisfactorily. Several of the leading merchants of the city have taken up one and two hundred shaies. An amusing case of sharp practice occurred lately in the Resident Magistrate's Court at Wellington. A man named Campbell, well known in town, who has purchased some b:>ok debts, was suing a creditor under them. He had been previously sued himself, and judgment obtained, but when asked to pay, he said, "Oh ! yes, some time." When the case in which ho was plaintiff was completed, he asked if he might leave his books in Court for a short time, and permission being given he did so. His creditor immediately applied for and obtained a distress warrant on his property and seized the books, without which Campbell could not gathor in his debts, and kept them till the amount of his claim was pvid . There is some intention of getting up a race-meeting at Nelson in April, after the return of horses from the West Coast meetings. Ihe Examiner says : — Mr Danieli, of Wanganui, who is now in Nelson, promises to send over Flying Jib to meet Peeress at weight for age, besides two young horses which have not yet run. He also thinks it more than probable that Wanganui would send a good steeplechase horse to the meeting. If a good stable was offered for a handicap, it is more than probable several horses engaged at Greymouth would enter for it, and that we should have a visit from Mr Walters, with Yatterina and Slander, on their way back to Auckland. At the public meeting held in Wellington to open subscriptions for the Greymouth sufferers, Mr Harrison, member for this district, said jhis attention had been drawn, prior to the meetiug, to the fact that a statement had appeared in that morning's Independent which conveyed the intelligence that notwithstanding the recent flood a race meeting was about to be held at the Grey. He wished to explain that the meeting was the annual race meeting, the >money for which, speaking from his own knowledge, had been subscribed six months ago. The horses for the different races had been entered and trained, and it would be impossible for the stewards to avoid holding the meeting, as the owners of the horses, would have a good ground of action against them if they did not. He mentioned the matter because it might have been the means of prejudicing the opinions of many people. Elizabeth Witten, a patient in the Auckland Lunatic Asylum, stabbed, herself in seven places. The wounds terminated fatally. Lieutenant Woods has gone from Fiji to Sydney; to endeavor to secure the removal of the British consul in March. William King, of Waitara, with 200 Waikatos, came into New Plymouth to meet Mr M'Lean, for the first time since 1860, when ICiug held friendly intercourse, with Europeans. He was warmly welcomed by his former friends i and the public. Things now look brighter than for years past. ■ At the Thames Resident Magistrate's Court a woman charged her husband with assaulting her with a bottle, and stated that if it had n6t been for a small pad which she wore in her hair, her skull would have been broken ! This, says the Herald, is the first occasion on which we have he>rdof hair pads being of any practical use. Moral : Ladies whose husbands resort to bottles as a medium of correction, should patronise large hair pads. ■■■- ■ At . Christen urch, a man named Christopher Kerr died suddenly, last Sunday. Kerr was a farmer in the Bays, and came over to Christchurch in connection with a case to be heard in the Magistrate's Court. Being an old acquaintance of Mr John M 'Vicar's, he went to his house, and was dining with the family when he suddenly made an attempt to vomit, and displayed most alarming symptoms. M 'Vicar at once ran for a doctor, and Mrs M 'Vicar in the meautime rendered all the assistance she possibly could. Dr Nedwill was the first medical gentleman to arrive, and although Kerr was then alive, he was barely so, and died before any medical aid could bo rendered. At the post 'ihortem examination it was discovered that the cause of death was obstruction to breathing by a piece of meat sticking in the gullet, and overlapping the upper part of the windpipe. ■ ■ An inquest was held at the Hokitika Hospital, on Wednesday, before Dr Garland, coroner, on the body of Guiseppi Pedrotti, who died in the hospital on Tuesday morning. It appeared from the evidence that deceased, who was a packer, was proceeding

; tin horseback last -Monday eveiiingi' from Goldsbrough to Italian Gully, and when he got ; to Waimea Creekv the horse fell and rolled over him; The horse immediately rose up, and Pedrotti' a foot being entangled in the stirrup, he was dragged over the stones for about forty yards. His foot then got disengaged, and he was carried to the Mountain Hotel, where Mr Matthews attended to .him. Next morning, he was removed to the Hokitika Hospital, but died forty minutes after his admission. Dr Maunsell stated that the cause of death was internal hemorrhage, the result of the fracture of five ribs, aud of rupture of the liver and spine.