GREY VALLEY GOLD FIELDS.

Grey River Argus, Volume XII, Issue 1472, 23 April 1873, Page 2

GREY VALLEY GOLD FIELDS.

(FROM OUII OWN CORRESPONDENT.) IIOABS. Tho several contractors for making the portions of the main Grey Valley road between the Arnold and Ahaura rivers arc having splendid weather for their operations, and the work on the different contracts is accordingly making rapid pro-'' gress. The section from the Arnold bridge; to the No Town track will, if all go well, be about finished this week. The opening of this section to traffic will cut off the worst portion of the old road; that between the Arnold and the Twelve-Mile. The contractors for the middle sections are getting on satisfactorily. Messrs Drennan and Butter, the contractors for the sections from Nelson Creek to the Ahaura, commenced work in earnest on Monday, and . now are advertising for more laborers. The line of the several contracts presents a busy appearance, and reminds one at first sight of the bustle and hurry at the commencement of a now rush to a fresh gold discovery. Mr Surveyor Hall, with his staff, started on Monday to make a detailed survey of the new Amuri road. If this work is pushed forward with the energy of which Mr Hall is capable, the track will be so far completed before the wet weather sets in that it may safely be thrown open for traffic in a month or two. THE LOCK-UP AT AHAURA. Time and again the attention of the authorities has been dravn to tlie scandalously inefficient prison accommodation on these gold fields. There is some little excuse for the limited room at the disposal of the police in the outlying districts for the confinement of offenders, because in those places the accommodation required is in general only temporary, but the means available by the police at the central station, at Ahaura, lor the confinement, and especially for the classification of prisoners, are disgracefully insufficient. The building is not much larger than a 10 by 12 tent, and yet, one night last week, seven prisoners, four males and three females, were "yarded" within it. Two of the females were, without saying anything uncharitable, very bad characters, for the Magistrate told on 3 of them, when sending her to gaol, that if a proper place existed for the separtion of prisoners he would sentence her to a long term of imprisonment ; the other woman, according to the character given her by the police, was not so bad, but she had the misfortune to live among bad neighbors. Of the men, one was on the eve of the expiration of a long sentence for theft, another was a Maori imprisoned for a serious assault, the third was a poor creature in a state of helpless idiotcy confined as a lunatic, and the other was a hard-working man, the father of a family, who was found guilty of poverty and imprisoned for debt. Here was a gathering together of human misery, in what is called a free and enlightened age. Such an occurrence could scarcely have taken place in any other part of the world, and yet we go in for the spread of the gospel iv foreign parts, and the conversion of the inhabitants, white and Muck, of the Fiji Islands. The cost of erecting a safe place of confinement for females would not exceed, at the present rates of material and labor, twenty pounds, and still this disgrace and shameful reproach to the Nelson Government, of allowing common decency to be outraged in this manner is allowed to exist. In this matter, at all events, the polics are not to blame, and the wonder ia how they contrive to manage as well as they do with the means at their command. This is one of the socially- inrpor taut subjects worthy of being brought under, the notice of the Provincial Council during the ensuiug session. THE GREY VALLEY HOSPITAL. The promise the Superintendent made during his last vkit, that the hospital building at Ahaura would be placed in a state of repair, so as to be fit for the temporary reception of patients, has not, of course, yet been fulfilled. The building is going to ruin for want of some attention, and the matter is only taken up in a lukewarm manner by the local residents, because there is a kind of feeling prevalent | that the local hospital is meant to be a rival to the Greymouth institution, Such is not the case, and the local committee of the Greymouth Hospital have over and over again tried to impress this upon the subscribers to the Greymouth charity. The Ahaura Hospital is only meant to be an auxiliary to the hospital at Greymouth, by receiving urgent cases of accident requiring immediatetreatment. Thepatients will only cost the same amount, no matter where they are treated, and if they can be properly looked after at Ahaura, the Greymouth institution will be saved the charge of maintenance. This is looking at the matter from an economical point, but the opportunities of alleviating pain and giving immediate relief in case of sudden sickness, n're the chief reasons why a local, if temporary, refuge is required. CATTLE SALES. That the Grey Valley was, sooner or later, destined to become the cattlemarket of the West Coast was easily foretold by those who were aware of its natural advantages and capabilities. But that it would so soon become the chief centre of the cattle trade was hardly expected even by the most sanguine believers in the ultimate success of the first disheartening attempts to create a market. The result has been hastened by an accidental circumstance, a mere matter of half-a/crown or thereabouts. TJje Cqunty Council, it seems, in its wisdom as' it thought, but, as it turns out, in its shortsightedness, imposed an additional tax on the importation of stock from Canter- j bury, and this last straw broke the camel's back. The cattle dealers and owners found that another and better route was open to them, along which taxes were unknown, and which led to the very heart of the place of demand and consumption. On Monday, Messrs Maclean and Clapcott held a cattle sale, at Ahaura, which was the mott numerously attended by buyers 1 of any sale yet held in the Grey Valley. Already large mobs of suitable stock are en route to the Grey Valley from the cattle-raising districts of Canterbury } the principal auctioneers from Hokitika and Greymouth have secured facilities for holding sales, the Amuri road is commenced, there is unlimited free grass, and all these circumstances indicate that a ' central cattle market in the Grey Valley I is now firmly established. :