Untitled

Grey River Argus, Volume XII, Issue 1182, 13 May 1872, Page 2

The General Government, or rather the Telegraph authorities, are losing no time in extending the wire to Keef ton. In another column an advertisement calls tenders for the 'Conveyance, of the necessary material along the route. The different tenders are to be from Greymouth to Arnold ; thence to Ahaura ; from there to the Little Grey township ; next to Devery's Terrace ; from thence to Square Town; and from that to Reefton. Particulars appear in the advertisement referred to. . : Mr Joseph Wood, mining manager of the Anderson's Creek Quartz Mining Company, Registered, furnishes the following monthly repjrt, under date, 6th May :— ''The Company's head-race is near, completion. I have ten men employed, upon the work. It will take about a week, with six men, to complete the cutting at the head of the race; and the other four men about three weeks to finish the fluming and do all necessary work to complete the race. In three weeks I ex- ! pectto have the water down upon the wheel. When completed, it will be a fine race, and will carry sufficient water to drive thirty to forty heads of stampers, and, with a very little outlay, it can be made to carry a great deal more. There is about one week's work for six men to finish the excavation for the machine and securing the tail-race. • The works necessary to connect the tunnel with the machine consist of a tramway twenty chains in length, and a shoot of five chains in length, with a paddock for

receiving the stone from the latter and delivering it to the former. With the number of men at present employed, it will take from eight ; to. ten- weeks to complete the whole of the. work. When the tramway is in 'working order, from Hi) to 100 tons of stone can be sent down to the mill per day. The tunnel is being carried on by contract at L 3 19s per foot. The .distance, which the . tunnel is in at present is 552 ft. The present contractors have 24ft to drive to finish' their contract, which will be about the boundary of the company's ground, when the reef is expected to be met with. " The rock which is being driven through at present is of a hard slaty nature, mixed with small quartz veins, showing indications of a reef or leader not far off. When the reef is met with there will be no delay in getting out quartz. The average driving in the tunnel with six men is about 6ft per week." At the Volunteer Hall, on Saturday even* ing, Miss Stepbenson and Mr Burford again appeared, but the weather waa so threaten* ing that a comparatively small attendance were present. The pieces were "The Outlaw's Bride," a highly-spiced sensational drama, and the " Dead Shot. " Both were very ci editably performed, but call for no special mention. To-night "TheTicket-of-LeaveMan" is to be brought oub. We may say that it created a greater furore in London than any piece of modern times ; and if passably put on the stage, as we have no doubt it will be, will prove a great attraction. A portion of the machinery for the Wealth of Nations battery and water-wheel arrived at Westport by the , Maid of Erin has been landed and despatched to Reefton. The Hokitika people have apparently been recently galvanised as far as racing is concerned, for, not satisfied with, an Easter programme, they have given notice of races oa the Queen's birthday, the 24th instant. We wish them every success, and, hope that our Gre'yinouth folks will either do ditto, or at least get some sports for the day* if only in compensation for the late lugubrious day of thanksgiving. •• On Thursday night last, the bar of, Mr Barker's Hotel, at Reefton, was broken into and the till plundered. Its contents consisted of a few shillings only, in addition to a number of papers, valuable only to the owner. The tender of Mr John M 'Lean has been accepted for clearing seven miles for the telefraph line between Eeefton and the Mia Ha. The line will run along the dray road, which will be cleared the full width of a chain, Mr Courtney clearing 40ft, and Mr M'Lean the remaining 26ft. The Provincial Government of Taranaki is a very unpretending institution. From the estimate of revenue and expenditure laid before the Council, for the half-year ending December, it appears that the available revenue for the year from all sources, including the fifteen shilling. capitation grant, but excluding grants for public works, as being of an exceptional, character, only amounts to the sum of L 4450 j while the expenditure is estimated ab L 5984. No wonder that the Herald considers the present cumbrous system of government absurd and advocates a municipal system. A woman, named Sarah Featherston, is in custody at Westport, charged with aggravated assault. It appears that the victim of her attack was a medical gentlemen named Bruen, and that while in the prisoner's house he was struck in the head with a sodawater bottle, which partially stunned him ; and, in falling, his face came into contact with an earthenware basin. The vessel broke, and one. if not more, of the fragments penetrated the pupil of the right eye, completely destroying it. When the police arrived upon the scene the unfortunate gentleman was lying on his back, and a fragment of the basin, fully half an inch in length, was protruding from the socket of the eye, and had penetrated transversely, crossing the pupil, and apparently lodging in the brain. The sufferer was removed to his dwelling in Kennedy street, and was attended by Drs Giles and Thorpe. His condition is dangerous, and on Wednesday evening it was feared that erysipelas would set in. Nothing hats been heard of Robinson, the bushranger, who so daringly escaped from Mount Eden gaol lately. He is known to be a desperate man, and is well armed. It is now ascertained that-he was not mortally shot by a detective, as reported. Had such been the case, his remains must have been found ere this, as settlers are neither few nor far between adjacent to where the supposed rencontre took place, nor is there anything to show that Robinson was wounded. No one seems to know if the police are still in pursuit, or have abandoned the chase. The military' authorities of Great Britain seem determined to punish with great severity the offence of adulterating liquor sold to the soldiers. A late number of the Daily Telegraph states :— " Yesterday was promulgated the finding of the Court Martial, held at Chatham, to inquire into the conduct of Sergeant Thomas Grimes, of the Royal Arbillery, who was charged with having adulterated the beer which he sold to the troops. The guilt of the prisoner. . was proved, he having been watched and taken in the act ; but his previous good character being taken into consideration, he was ordered to be degraded to the rank and pay of a gunner, and to be confined, with hard labor, for 112 days, in Milbank convict prison." . ' , • The Auckland correspondent of the Lyltelton Times ,t\nxs refers to a late Westland police official on the Haley trial. "He (Haley) sadly bothered Inspector Brohain, and once requested that officer not to get " into a rage," adding "you see I am quite calm and collected" — which was cerbainly true. Once, Mr Broham parted for a time with the excellent memory for which he was so greatly praised, when he, in common with other members •of the police force, repeatedly uttered the self-same evidence word, for word. He forgot if he was in the police in 1864, and could not recollect, until close pressed by the prisoner, if he resigned, went to the West Coast of the Middle Island, and was out of the force for six months at a stretch. He fetched a hat fro:n Haley's house: The hat was most material evidence, yet Inspector Broham could not remember if the hat was covered with a " puggaree," or whether he brought it away in daytime or at night. The following extracts in reference to the Saddle road we take from a special report of the Inangahua Herald, of Saturday last :— "At a fair computation one mile out of the seven has not yet been made, and the contractor is certainly to blame ' for the unwarrantable delay in carrying on the works, as will be clearly seen from the small number of men he has let large sections of clearing and forming to. In several instances he has placed half-mile sections [of clearing in the hands of three men, and many of the trees along the line of road involve quite a day's labor to remove them from the ground: It is a farce to witness three men struggling and straining themselves in endeavoring to lever large logs off the road, when at the very least 20 men should have been employed instead of three. Then, again, as much as a mile of roadmaking has been let to six men. The only cause of the contractor not being able to obtain hands is in consequence of the ridiculously low figure he has been offering to sublet sections of the work at; It will readily be perceived that the price the contractor was first offering, viz., L 3 .sa. per chain, for forming, metalling, and ditching, the depth of the ditch to be sfV4ft width-

at/top and ; 3ft at.hottom, tine ...width 6f metal to be spread 12ft* Oirijui depth,;was no.t an inviting sum to induce men tpiaeqfept of Work." The writer, 'ifter givingjfurtner.de--tails, winds up by saving—" Itc\nll thus "be-, seen that only 25 men were actually at work on th©y formation of the road the day I passed along the line of road, and 30 employed clearing, making.a total ja.vaab.et.otM men employed in the construction of the Saddle road. No atart has yet been made on the culverts." The Melbourne Weekly News contains -the following by '.' Playboy," in .its sporting notes : — Now that Randw'ick is over and full reports have come to hand, we know all about it. Favorites generally had a- bad time of it, and consequently the ring must have come off best. However, there are some large winners, a well-known sporting Esculapius, having landed a good stake over The Prophet in the Cup, and a high func.tionary from New Zealand who has had a particularly good time of it since he came to Melbourne, having clone ditto over both Leger and Cup. If this gentleman is as 'cute in political financing as he is in betting, then the Few Zealanders will do well to keep him at the head of their Tieasury, for, not content with pulling off several "Hamlets and Prophets, " and' backing both separately, he actually backed the three' crack three-' year-olds each to get places in. the Cup, and as two of them did so, he was rewarded for his pluck." We need hardly explain that the Hon. Julius Yogel is the "high functionary" alluded to. The gt*eat Pukiti native meeting was held with true Maori magnificence. The Herald says :— Congregated within the whare were Topine and Pehi, with the Waikato chiefs, Kempj Mete Kingi, Paipai and other Putiki chiefs, representatives from the other settlements along the river, and a few chiefs from Rangitikei and Otaki. The pakehas present were — Colonel M'Donnell and Mr R. W. Woon, R.M. Mefce Kingi, as the host, opened, the ball, and spoke for a considerable time. One may easily form some idea of the . excitement by the following sentence :— The time of song was quickened, and moving like one person, the whole crowd twisted and twined with such astonishing rapidity, that nothing ;beyond a writhing mass of feathers, protruding tongues, and starting eyes were distinguishable. The Chronicle gives the following inventory of the gifts . — 2OO bags flour (mostly 2001 b and 1001 b bags), 134 bags biscuits, 194 bags sugar, 200 blankets, 102 dried sharks and dog-fish, 200 eels,- about 80 gallons of spirits (a choice of brandy, rum, whiskey, gin, old torn, &c, being afforded .the guests), and a large quantity of miscellaneous gifts. :