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Grey River Argus, Volume XII, Issue 1320, 22 October 1872, Page 2

The wharf continues to present a beggarly account of empty berths. There are no vessels in port, none from a distance immediately due, and the coasting steamers keep playing a came of hide and seek. Much as Messrs M wards and Co. have drawu from the Wat Coatt, and dependent as their t •%•*» «»,nnld be upon the attention they pay * i .•■ -Mtuetite, they never once coni the people, through agents '••. »f th> 'leoarture of their r f < >v i the difle «nt ports, and the -i> .i-at, wisely *n..ugh, does not un« •>(,-• what Rt«ami<oat agents can do at a very triflitig cost The consequence is that the public, whether represented by consignees or the triends of passengers, are constantly in a quandary as to the movements of their boats, and it costs individuals much more than it wonld cost the company to obtain information which, for their own interests, the company should provide. This matter is one of general complaint, and unless th« firm can afford to despise it, or even if they can afford to do so, it would be courteouF, .useful, to give it some attention, with a view to remedying it. An occasional ■ixpenay telegram to the newspapers, or a •hilling telegram to any agency, is. not likely to prove very deadly in point of expense, or to bulk largely at the end of the year in tho balancing of profit and loss. • The " yachting season" at Greymouth may be said to have commenced. " The doctor's yteht" walks the waters like a thing of life, ia, whenever a breeze favors her doing so, and at present she has an uninterrupted coarse up and down the river, her only companion in the river being the Dispatch, and the coal and cargo boats with which she can compare so advantageously in point of speed, as she also does in bunting. The steamer Kennedy is understood to be under a new command.

. Captain Daniels, formerly of the steamer Wallabi, is said to have joined the New Zealand Steam Company's service. The p. 8. Wallace started from Hokitika on Sunday morning for Martin's Bay and all intermediate southern ports except Okarito, the p. s. J-yttelton having been engaged to visit that port. Captain Turnbuli accom-panied.the-Wallaceon.her present trip. She is expected to return about the end of the week.

The old Wakatip steamer was brought to the hammer last Saturday, ; at Queenstown, and was almost "given away" for LIOO, the purchaser being Mr Huff. The old boat, which is still on the beach, must be considerably lighter now than when first hauled up in July last, after a submergence of some seven" years, judging from the weight of a splinter of white pine, broken off her bottom, which, on the 20th of the month, named, Weighed 29/OZ, and on Friday last, being dried, weighed exactly lOoz— thus losing Marly two-thirds of its weight. ' The Canterbury Government have offered a reward of LIOO, and a free pardon to an accomplice, on receiving such information as will lead to the conviction of the parties who scuttled the barge Mystery. This is in addition to L3O offered by Messrs Haydon and Co. !r. With respect to ship building in the United States the San Francisco " Bulletin" says:— " The age of iron seems to have lefs us hopelessly behind in tho race for maritime upremacy. never to be recovered until Congress shall place us on an equality in ship building with' our commercial rivals. While the banks of the Mersey, the Clyde, the Humbert the Tweed, and other British rivers and ports are noisy with the din of ship ; yards, our own are comparatively silent, though a number of large iron steamers are now oeing constructed on the Delaware, at and near Philadelphia, which, despite the dnties hampering iron ship-building, aspires to be the 'Clyde of America.'-?'