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Grey River Argus, Volume XIII, Issue 1524, 23 June 1873, Page 2

The " turn of the day " was accompanied by a change for the worse in the weather, and since Saturday morning there has been an intermittent downfall of rain at a considerable angle from the perpendicular, driven as it was by a stiff nor'-westerly breeze. On Sunday morning the storm culminated overhead in a brief series of bright lightning flashes and big thunder peals, and underfoot in a general prevalence of water wherever water had leave to lie. The storm must have extended over a wide area of country, as the river rose steadily and considerably, and last evening there was a strong fresh running over a decidedly surfy bar. The rainfall has, however, now abated, and there is no appearance of the fresh reaching the dimensions of a flood. It waa the intention of Mr Harrison, M.H.R., to have addressed his constituents at the Ahaura on Saturday evening, but the storm which commenced on that morning put it out of bis power to fulfil his promise except at the risk of detention up-country beyond the date on which he had arranged to return to Wellington, After starting he

found discretion to be the better part- of valor, and in visyt- of being storra-sfeaid beyond the period to which his'vigit is limited, ne had to forego his design of meeting 4;he either at "the, Ahaura or. at any ©if Hfie other inland cenHres of population. 1 Mr Frank Guinness and Mr J. D. Pinkerton have been exceptionally "unfortunate men " in their travels to and from Kelson in connection with the discharge of their duties ■as members of the Provincial Council. When ' on their way to the Council, they were detained in Greymouth a week, inconsequence of the Claud Hamilton passing the port without being tendered, and on their return trip they have been equally unlucky. An extravagant sense of duty induced them to remain in Nelson till the actual day of prorogation, and it was nearly a week before they were able to take steamer for the West Coast. Their first opportunity was the Kennedy, and she has since Friday been a prisoner at Westport— probably in the solitary shelter of the Buller Lagoon. In addi- ; tidn to the loss of time, these detentions are calculated to make a considerable excavation in one's honoraiium, and the hon. members, by the time they return, are likely to come fco the conclusion that the representation of the Grey district in the Nelson Council is a distinction which is rather dearly purchased. Both members have been assiduous in the discharge of their duties during an unduly prolonged session, and, under the circum--stences, they seem to deserve a public expression both of thanks and sympathy. The Literary Society's entertainment, which was postponed on Friday in consequence of the unavoidable absence of one of the principal amateur performers in the local burlesque which h to form part of the programme, takes place this evening at the Volunteer Hall. With weather favorable, there is likely to be a large attendance. Another large landslip has taken place on the niain road up the Grey Valley, effectually putting a stop to traffic for the present. The slip occurred on Saturday, on the east side of I the Coal Mine, entirely blocking up the ioa-3, and rendering it utterly impossible for the tip-country coaches to attempt to pass. The No Town and Reefton coaches had to be left on the other side, and it was with great difficulty and danger that the horses were led singly over the slip in the dark, with boulders constantly " rolling down the hill. One of the boulders, weighing some hundreds weight, passed between one of the horses legs, but fortunately without injuring it. The horses and drivers, with the mails, arrived in town late on Saturday night. The contractor for the maintenance of the road was then at work, with a large relay of men, clearing off the slip, and it is expected that the coaches will be brought turough to-day. The road from the Twelve-Mile to No Town is reported as being in a fearful condition. On the last trip of the coach one of the horses was submerged in a mud-hole up to its ears, and the coach was several times given up for lost. We hear that under these exceptional circumstances, unless some urgently required repairs are immediately made to the road, it is not the intention of the mail contractors to continue rnnning the cooch — which means smashing coaches and drowning horses— during the winter mouths. A special meeting of the Grey Eiver Hospital Committee was held at Gilmer's Hotel on Saturday evening (W. H. Revell, Esq., in the chair), for the purpose of leaking arrangements for -the annual meeting, which was agreed to be held on the 16 th July, and the election of the new committee on Saturday, 19th July. It was resolved that all country, subscription lists should be forwarded to the Hon. Sec. at once, and that the sub-committees appointed to canvass the town should do so on Monday (to-day.) Messrs Butt and Kirton were appointed to audit the accounts for the year. The Hon. Treasurer reported having received during the month :— Nelson Creek local committee, L7O ; payments by patients, L 9 9s 7d j Red Jack's Benevolent Society, L 9 15s Gd ; Moonlight Committee, Li 6 5s ; Masonic collection at Trinity Church, LlO Is ; Westland subsidy for December, L 64 19s 3d j do do, for January, L7l 5s 8d ; Nelson subsidy for April, LIOO 3a 9<J. There being four months' subsidy of the Westland Government in arrear, Messrs Smith and Kennedy were requested to telegraph to the County Chairman, urging the necessity of paying before the vote lapsed. The remaining business was unimportant. At a meeting held in the Court House, Ahaura, on Wednesday evening last, it was determined to hold a musical and literary entertainment on the Ist J uly next, in aid of the local school fund. In the Resident Magistrate's Court, Ahaura, on Friday, James Fisher, miner, appeared on bail, charged with assaulting Constable Dorris, by striking him on the back of the head, at Napoleon Hill, on the night of loth June. There was a second charge against defendant for resisting the constable while in the execution of his duty, but the latter charge was abandoned. Sergeant Goodall conducted the prosecution, ' and Mr Staite appeared for the defence, The Magistrate, Mr Whitefoord, dismissed the information. According to the report in the Grey Valley Times, he said that as far as the evidence was to . be relied upon it went clearly enough to disprove the charge brought by the constable. He thought that it was to be regretted that the conditions of the Licensing Ordinance wore such as to require the police to engage themselves in the system of espionage, for he considered that it not unfrequently forced them into discreditable positions, and for the credit of the force it would be much preferable to see such ducy performed by the regular revenue detectives, and he was sorry to see that no amendment of the Act had been made during the last ' session of the Provincial Council. His Worship directed Sergeant GoodalFs attention to that part of the evidence wherein Constable Dorris was accused of having set a dog upon the defendant. Tenders for the erection of Warden's and Police quarters at the Lyell have been accepted. The Nelson Government refuse to con? tribute to the protective works at Reefton, because the Engineer "protests profession* ally against them," and the vote of the Council was to be subject to his approval. During the recent flood in the Upper Grey, the ford at the Little Grey Juuction, says the Inangahux Herald, was changed considerably The new ford is some distance up the river, towards the Ikamatua, and nearly behind O'MaUey's farm. At a meeting of the Hokifcika Borough Council, on. Friday evening, Mr Jack congratulated 'the Council on the successful result of the deputation to Greymoutb, and believed it had done much good by promoting a cordial feeling between the towns of Greymouth and Hokitika. The Mayor spoke in high terms of the reception accorded the deputation in Greymouth, and expressed a hope that at some future date the people of Hokitika would be able to return the kindness by welcoming a similar deputation from the Borough Councillors of Greymouth. The gentlemen appointed to canvass Hokitika on behalf $. the Kauieri Water-race are said to have been' very successful, The Westlhml kegUster regrets to have to record the death of Mr G. Flint, an old resident of Hokitika, whose funeral, v.nder the superintendence of the Oddfellows, of which order he was a member, took place yesterday.

The election of. Councillors to constitute thejnew corporation of .Westport is fixed in the Gazette lor the 7tiyrf July, and Dr Giles, R.P.1,, is appointed l^Kning Officer. .. A Mr -.Haddock isTß|fcdidate for election as a member for PorPChalmers. His first meeting was a most disorderly one, and was brought to a close by the gas being turned out, when everyone made a rush for the door. The Dunedin and Port Chalmers railway is partially unfenced, and according to a correspondent of the local papers, these were some of the consequences : — " On walking down the line the other day I was shocked at the many signs of recent carnage —sleepers stained with blood. Here was a dog's tail ; there a hen's head ; and further on the entrails of a fine goose, whose pure white, but blood-spattered feathers were scattered about." Saturday last, according to the calendar, was the shortest day of the year in these latitudes. There is a dead-lock in the Borough Council qf Wanganui. One night lately Major Finnimore jumped up and left the chamber, followed by Chavannes, Beaven, Bamber, and Brown. This is because the Mayor refuses to resign his position in the Provincial Executive. The goods traffic at the Dunedin railway station is so great that it has been found necessary to double the amount of shed accommodation. At a meeting at Balclutha,' Major Richardson declared himself to be " tired to death of what is called politics." Madame Arabella Godclard, the premier pianist in the world, lately made her first appearance before an audience in the southei n hemisphere. She then gave a concert in the Town Hall, Melbourne, and although the charges for admission were fixed at a higher rate than any ever imposed before, she had a magnificent gathering. Her playing has long passed out of the sphere of criticism, and there is no doubt that by her natural gifts, cultivated by long and careful practice Madame Goddard has obtained as perfect a command over the piano as it is possible to obtain. The most difficult passages cease to be so to her, and the piano becomes in her hand an instrument of a higher order, endowed with richer capabilities than it ever before possessed. The Star Combination Company— Miss Tilly Andrews, and Messrs Arthur Vivian, Simmons, Burton, Wills, and Herr Norberg — have lately hedn performing to fair audiences in Picton, Havelock, and Blen^ heim. The Warden reports to the Marlborough Government of the Wakamarina diggings for the year ending March last :— About 2000oz of gold were obtained :in the Wakamarina during the year, and asj have averaged the population at 90, the average wages would be about 30s per week; V Some individuals who attended Governor Bowen's first levee in Melbourne are severely castigated by the papers for their very bad taste in handing in cards which appear to have been prepared to answer the purposes of advertisements. The Argus furnishes instances of Volunteer officers writing their addresses in full ; of one officer sending in a card that contained four lines of print : and of an individual who tendered a business card, which set forth the occupation he followed, and told the terms on which money could be lent and old clothes purchased. This is the style in which the Wanganui Chronicle welcomes a traveller back to his home : — After a short sojourn at the peaceful and picturesque solitudes of Queen Charlotte's Sound, where the whistling of the melodious ostrca ecUUlis, mingled harmoniously with the strain of a well-koown voice, whose rendering of " Young- Ellen of Lorraine" has, we may say, a wide-world notoriety, the "Father of the Wanganui Bar" crossed once more that at the mouth of the river yesterday, and is, we are happy to say, once more on terra firma, and in greatly improved health. We trust he will give the world the results of his tour in a quarto volume, enlivened by cuts, as we feel sure such a contribution from his pen would be greatly appreciated by the reading public. An amusing instance of the bigotry and tyranny of the Sabbatarians occurred lately at the Hutt, Wellington. One of the cases on which Mr Crawford, R.M., was called upon lo adjudicate was an information laid againsb a settler there under the old Sunday Trading Act of Charles 11. for iufringing the Lord's Day by driving out his horse and cart on Sunday to fetch home his wife. A technical irregularity enabled the magistrate to dismiss this preposterous charge. Fancy a dinner costing a nation about a million and a half sterling ! Yet such appears to be the cost to England of a dinner once eaten by Mr Gurner, the Crown Solicitor of Victoria ; and . it comes about thiswise. One of the points relied on at the Geneva Arbitration was that when Mr S. P. Lord, of Melbourne, an ardent Northerner, urged upon Mr Gurner the arrest of the stowaways on board the Con federate cruiser Shenandoah, when she lay off Williamstown, Mr Gurner hungrily and angrily replied, " Lord, I must have my dinner !" It was argued that but for the Victorian Crown Solicitor's zeal to get his dinner, the shipping of the stowaways could have been prevented, and for Victoria's neglect, England was cast in damages to the amount of six million dollars. Mr Anthony Trollope, in his new work on Australia ond New Zealand, while describing Ofcago, notices that all colonial towns have passed or are passing through three different stages in housebuilding. The first is the canvas stage ; the second, the galvanised iron ; and the third, the wooden. Most of the gold fields towns in Otago, he says, have reached the galvanised iron stage ; and speaking of this description of building, he says : — " The rooms formed of it, of course, are small, and every word uttered in the house can be heard throughout it, as throughout a shed put up without divisions. And yet the owners and frequenters of these iron domiciles seem never to be aware of the fact. As I lay in bed in one of these metal inns on the road, I was constrained to hear the pri. vate conversation of my host and hostess, who had retired for the night. •So this is Mr Anthony Trollope ? ' said the host. The hostess assented, but I could gather clearly from her voice that she was thinking more of her back hair than of her visitor. 'Well,' said the host, 'he must be a fool to come travelling in this country in such weather as this. ' Perhaps, after all, the host was aware of this peculiarity of his house, and thought it well that I should know his opinion. He could not have spoken any words with which at that moment J should have been more prone to agree."