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Grey River Argus, Volume XII, Issue 1230, 8 July 1872, Page 2

We learn that the Westland Quartz Mining Company at the Inangahua started crushing on Thursday afternoon last. The usual monthly meeting of the Grey River Hospital Committee was held at Gilmer's Hotel on Saturday evening— Mr M. Kennedy in the chair. The minutes having been read and confirmed, the Visiting Committee laid the accounts for the month on the table, amounting to L 216 4s Bd, which were passed for payment ; and reported the state of the institution as being satisfactory. The number of patients in : the Hospital at present is 32. The annual reports of the medical officer, treasurer, and general committee were read and adopted, previous to being submitted to ihe general meeting of subscribers, which takes place this week. The treasurer reported having received the following sums since last meeting :— East Ward, per Messrs Masters, and Greenwood, 199 6 ; West Ward (third payment), per Mr Arnott, LlO 4s 6d j Nelson Government for May, L 93 4s 3d ; balance from No Town district, Lll 17s. The remaining business was unimportant. At the Resident Magistrate's [Cnirt on Saturday, James Dall, on remand, supposed to be of unsound mind, was again brought up. Drs Morice and Smith stated that they v had examined the defendant, and found that he was laboring under a monomania on the subject of marriage, but that he was not dangerous either to himself or others. They thought the fit would not last long, ana recommended the defendant to take a trip to sea. The Magistrate recommended the defendant to take the doctors' advice and discharged him. .An application was recently made by Mr G. Simmons, of Greymouth, for a lease of portion of the Coal Reserve on the Westland side of tho river. In reply to his application he has received from the County Chairman a letter enclosing the following telegram from Mr Reeves, Minister of Public Works in the Middle Island :— " As the Government intend soon to adopt measures which wi''. lead to tho working of the Grey Coal Field on » large scale, they do not' think it advisable to encourage prospecting -with the view of leasing small areas." . A miner named Edward Wright was brought down the river last evening from No Town, and taken to the Hospital, where ho died about a quarter of an hour after admission. It appears a tree fell on him, and fractured his skull. Deceased is an Englishman, about 40 years of age, and is known to have some relations in Christchurch. Tho Comedy and Burlesque Company with whom Signor Donato is associated concluded | tli- it- sh-.it scries of performances in Greyni inh on .s..t unlay evening, when they perfin in 1 «r> .i well-filled and thoroughly Rntir-iix.M li use. The programme was a long one, and the cnicrtainment as a whole was one of the best that has been given in Greymouth. Yesterday the members of the company sniled by the Wallace for Westport, where they purpose; performing if a hall is procurable, after they have paid a \isit to Charleston. ■■ The Southern Cross of the 27th ultimo says that on the previous day the Judge sat in banco, but notwithstanding that He sat yet thero was no banco. His Honor had returned from Wellington, not before he was wanted, but boforo he was ex pected. Therefore learned counsel had failed to give notice of their intention to move the Court upon ileiuurrers or rules nisi ;

or for injunctions to restrain, or to remove i;. junctions ; or to enter motions for new tiials, or to quash proceedings. His Honor took his seat at a few minutes after eleven o'clock, and remained looking 0 into the open void for half an hour, when ho rose, and, bowing to the reporters, retired to his private room. Not a learned counsel or wig and gow a pub in an appearance to ask, with "great respect to the Court," to move for anything ; or to move that something might not be moved for. The Deputy«Eegistrar was there in gown ; bo also was the crier— he too, with gown, but of inferior textile, and of more unpretentious cut. The Court was enveloped in a cloud of mist ; for clouds discharging a' drzzl'ig rain surrounded the building, and there was a gloom profound which reached even to the justice seat. When at the time of his Honor entering the Court the crier called "Silence," the Bound weut through the building and returned back again with a sepulchral echo, so depressing that the few present were about in the same frame of mind as could be imagined of men attending 1 a waging funeral ?i a snowstorm.

The Provincial Council of Taranaki have granted twelve months protection to Mr Rotten, to enable him to form a company bo work the petroleum springs at the Sugar Loaf. The Council voted a bonus of LSOO for the first 10,000 gal exported. A northern paper says that when Captain Hutton, the assistant geologist, visited the Kawa Kawa coal mines recently, he directed the miners to sink for a seam of coal, which . he told them would be found at a depth of 170 ft, The seam was reached at a depth of 168 f t; and we are told the miners expressed great admiration at the accuracy of Captain Hutton. The bakers at the Thames have initiated an excellent movement. There ia to be no more nightwork. The journej nen have demanded, and the masters have consented, that the workvig bakers' hours shall be from five o'clock in the morring until five o'clock at night. It will doubtless be looked upon by some as very terrible to contemplate that hot rolls and bread not an hour out of the oven will not be procurable on this field, bakers' natural rest be : ig notb'ug in comparison. Mr Woolley, the landlord of the Royal Mail Hotel, in Victoria street, Auckland, has lately received .from America the head of a praiile buffalo bull, which is so magnificent a specimen of its kind that it would be considered worthy of a prominent position in any museum ?n any part of the world. , The head is in a fine state of preservation, and weishs close upon three hundredweight, which enables one to form some criterion of the immense bulk and enormous power of this specimen of a prairie bovine. The head is finely mounted and enclosed in a very large glass case. Within the laat few days it has been viewed and admired by large numbers of visitors. The head of the buffalo is of such rare size and of such unique beauty that in the district where it was k ; Ued, and where these beasts abound, it was considered superior to almost: anything of the same species ever before seen. Mr Walter Hare is now :i Ross, seeking signatures to a petition to the House of Representatives, requesting the Assembly during the next session, "to pass a law, giving power to the inhabitants of any licensing district, by a majority of two-thirds, to" prohibit the issue of any license for the common sale of intoxicating drinks within such district." A private letter received from a prospector in the Ohinemuri district states that h? has some splendid specimens, and that he has every confidence that there is a large payable gold field. The Resident Minister for the Middle Island has accepted the tender of Messrs George Smith and Co., Dunedin, for the supply of 25,000 totara sleepers for L 3740. from the latest Melbourne paper to hand we learn that Mr H. P. Purcell, the barrister who came to Australia last year to collect evidence for the defence in the Tichborne case, is again on his way to Melbourne via New York and San Francisco. On this occasion Mr Purcell is retained by the Crown to collect and advise on the Australian evidence for the prosecution of the claimant. He may be expected by the next Californian mail Bteamer. The rumor that Mr Macassey has taken legal proceedings against Judge Ward, in respect of an article which appeared in the Timaru Herald recently, turns out to be correct. The w rit was served on Mr Ward at Invercarg : U last week. Arrangements have been concluded between the General and Auckland Provincial Governments for transferring the pol'ce to ihe latter Government at the end of the present month, the conclusion of the financial year of the Colomal Government. Tha bailiff was put in charge of the Golden Gate claim, at Ross, on Friday, by the Drainage Board, and, as the Union Bank holds a mortgage over the plant, we shall, no doubt, hear of law proceedings being taken in consequence thereof. The Drainage Board has acted leniently towards the Golden Gats Company, and did not take any action for the recovery of the rates due until notice was tiven of the abandonment of the ground. The opening of the Coromandel branch of the Hibernian - Australian Catholic Benefit Society took place on the 25th ult, when over 50 members were initiated After the ceremony a dinner was given, at which Brother P. Barry of the Green Harp mine presided, having on his right the Rsv Father O'Reilly, and J5 -other M. MuUijan, president of the Thames Branch ; on his left, Brother M'Goldrick, • the new president of | the brauch, and Brother Michael Landers, the secretary; Brother Edward Twohill ably filing the vice chair. In an article on the electiou of Sir David Mon-o for Waikouaifcii the Lyttdton Times says :— We are reminded that when Sir David was a candidate for the representation of Motueka at last general election, '"he was loud in his denunciation of the gambling policy," into which he said Ministers were hurrying the country. The phrase is happily chosen, and fitly describes the speeches made by men of the Monro-Richmond way of thinking. . They denounced, but did not argue ; they condemned, but gave i/o sound reasons for their condemnation. They had a few pet words, such as "gambling," " reckless," " disaster," and the like which they dinned into the ears of all who would listen to them ad nauseam, but we do not remember that they ever demonstrated the unsoundness of the policy of public works and immigration or the unfitness of the present Government to administer. In view of the speedy opening up ot our immense quartz reefing country at the Inangahua, the following extract from an Auckland paper ought to prove a valuable hint : — "We have been furnished with an assay Ticket, showing the yield of gold from a parcel ot' tailings resulting from a crushing of quartz for the Crown Prince Gold Mining Company, at the Manukau battery. From the assayer's report it appears that B£dwt of gold was obtained per ton of tailings. This result is really an alarming one, and shareholder*, as well as directors, should give it their serious consideration. He is a crushing respecting which it is known that over onethird of an ounce of gold per ton of stone remained unacted npon by the quicksilver in the ordinary process of extraction. Is it any Avonder then that stone from many of our v Ines is found unpayable under the process

at present adopted for extracting the gold from the quartz ? In Victoria such an amount of gold in a quartz reef as that taken from these Crown Prince tailings would I c made to pay handsome' dividends to shareholders ; but under such a wasteful system as that which permits so large an amount of gold to pass off in the tailings, the g .eat majority of shareholders here can never expect to get dividends from their investments. The subject is one calling for the attention and skill of the practical miner and the man of science, and every encouragement should be given by those interested in nrning to anyone who devotes time and attention to it ; not the least important duty of mine managers being that of fairly testing any new system of gold-saving which may be brought under their notice."

A find ot splendid coal is reported on some lands belonging to Mr James M'Gregor and some natives, close to the sledge-track adjoining Messrs Ballin Brothers, brewers, Coromandel. A correspondent says, "Owhu; to some pending arrangement, I am unable to give your readers full details, but I may confidently assert that if the seam is as goc d as a sample which I have seen ; n possession of a gentleman here, it will be a great boon to Coromandel, and tend to throw open another rich mineral, and add to the wealth of the district." From the Bright Smil3 claim at Coromandel, we learn that on last Thursday the condii/bn 1 of the roads from the mine to the batteries w as such that it is found impossible to 'get any draymen to convey the quartz," therefore the stampers have ceased reducing for the present. The plates and boxes were cleaned out, and from these were obtained 3250z of veiy hard amalgam, which will yield very wel'. For this not over 40 tons of dirt were crushed, so that the advocates of2oz per ton are correct, while there remains upwards of lewt picked stone in hand to be treated when the whole of the paddockis cleared. The lode from the No 1 level down to tho present, or No 3, has gradually improved in quality, and when the machinery is erected to enable them to go down another level, we shall see this mine one of the largest gold-producers on the field.

The Launceston Examiner thus refers to the late Mr John Davies, of Hobart Town, whose death was recorded a day or two ago : — " Mr Davies was a very old colonist, and had been for a long psriod connected with the Australian press. In the early days of Port Philip, now Victoria, he was connected with the Patriot, a small newspaper established by the late Hon. J. P. Fawkner. 'He subsequently came to Tasmania, where he entered into business, and being tolerably successful, purchased the Hobart town Guardian, which he shortly afterwards established as the Hobart Town Mercury. Subsequently the plant and subscription lists of the Colonial Times, the Daily News,. and the Courier fell into his hands. Mr Davies has been for many years in Parliament, Jiay ing represented at various periods the constituencias of Hobart Town, Devon, and Franl'Un." .- ■ • •