THE Gray River Argus. PUBLISHED DAILY. MONDAY, AUGUST 4, 1873.

Grey River Argus, Volume XIII, Issue 1559, 4 August 1873, Page 2

THE Gray River Argus. PUBLISHED DAILY. MONDAY, AUGUST 4, 1873.

According to the latest telegrams, that periodical and fearful pestilence, cholera, seems to be rapidly on its march westward across the continent of Europe. Only the other day it was reported as prevailing at Vienna. In such a season, with that capital crowded with visitors, and with extraordinary facilities for travel to and from it, it is not improbable that the spread of the dread disease has been expedited more than it might have been at another time. Naturally, its appearance in the British capital has excited alarm, but it is to be hoped that the extraordinary improvements lately made in the organisation of sanitary measures will be a weans of staying its progress more effectively than on the occasions of its previous visitations to the country. The Spaniards can, apparently, well dispense with • its presence, for they are killing and slaying among, .themselves with a constancy that savors of their enjoyment of r the,'process rather, than the reverse, and with an alternation of success which does riot seem to indicate a speedy cessation of their civil wars. There , is one commercial item of the news which,' half a century ago, would have influenced a supposed specific for cholera, but which now bespeaks the extent of a famine in regard toa particular article which; however great a specific for some ailments, is, when associated with feasting, the promoter of many. Brandy has ."gone up" so much per gallon, and the Melbourne market has sympathetically responded to the change in the commercial barometer. The sequence will probably be, symptoms in exactly the opposite direction, so far as concerns Custom-house thermometers, and the carriage of more water up-country, in these parts of the world, in the name, not of Plizvius, but of Hennessy and Martell.

Comparisons between Colonies may not be less odious than they are when made with regard to things more minute — say, men and monkeys. There is some fairness, however, . and reason for modest, quiet congratulation, so far as this Colony is concerned, in making a comparison between the records of crime in New Zealand and Victoria. Our later summaries of Australian news have recorded a succession of the baser and bigger crimes contained in the calendar, and in our last telegram there is a suggestive addition to the budget. It is satisfactory to see, however, that ithe cloud overhanging a community'has such a silver lining as is represented by the liberality (variously stated; but still'large) which. has been shown in the case of the sufferers by the late shipping disaster at Port Philip Heads! And it ought to :be • at least ; satisfactory, , to . . ail single: Town Clerks i n , th? Colonies that their .contemporary in Melbourne; is capable of successfully courting a lady with ; a . gold .. lining ; to her ; pocke;t worth— unfortunately,:'^there's: the rub.'' .Itis^varipuslyestimated it is not less^ than £10, 000, and it may be These" telegraphic agents are thorough men of business, evidently!; hence bur recent receipts of information as to what may er may not bo 1 mere money marriages, but which are unr doubtedly marriages in which the brides are "a' the money the better."

The expectation of finding coal on the Nelson side of the ranges has always been a trump card among the hopes and speculations entertained by those who have, with a view to Nelson interests, advocated a West Coast railway, and Dr Hector's opinion has more than once been sought as to the value of samples submitted to him as indications of its existence. The same learned opinion has again, and recently, been invited on the same subject, but the experiments have not been equal to expectation. First he was asked to analyse some samples from the Owen river, where a discovery was made the other day, only in confirmation of a previous discovery by .Mr Dent. In a memorandum of his analytical examination, Dr Hector says :— "This is a semibituminous coal, resembling in outward appearance the coal from the Collingwood and Mount Rpchfort seams, but different from them in riot being a strong caking coal. It cokes very imperfectly, and does not puff up. Its , ash is light, and of a brown cplor, shpwing . the presence of iron in small quantity.,,, This, coal is therefore of medium quality as a steam-generator, but-willbeiuseful as av household coal." That isj we mays take it for granted, in the event of the 'deposit 'being ! extensive, which is not : yetf ! demonstrated. Another sample tested iri : the W ellirigton laboratory was from Richmond, a Nelson suburb, 'or an incipient ' crty ; "which there adjacent lies." The results of the experiments with it were less promising, but for local consumption it may be useful if found' iir quantity;- which is as yet neither questioned " nor proved; Of the sample Dr Hector says ".-r- il . This is a brown coal of a very soft and friable nature, its inferior appearance being due, I suspect, to its being taken from a portion of the seam that had been exposed to the weather.' It burns freely, with a clear luminous flame, but does not yield any coke. Except in the rather low per centage of water, it agrees with the brown i coal found in Southland, and is similar in this respect to the coal found at Jenkins's mine, near Nelson, but from which it differs in a most marked manner in the proportion of fixed carbon, which in Jenkins's coal was 62 per cent-, while in this it is 29.16." Dr Hector, however, ! considers it quite equal to much of the brown coal that is mined in other parts f"of the. Colony, and Richmond will, no doubt,' now set about investigating cne of , i those f esqurces which the, Foxhill Railway may be the means of developing. , Mean-

time, for colonial consumption, the Nelson fields available are those of the Brunner and Mount Rochfort, and they form no means estate if they &ye but wisely handled.

The Christchurch road and the Kawhaka toll seem to become subjects for the consideration of the County Council as regularly as that body meets. Mr Barff was the last member to call attention to the latter subject, and, though there was a suspicion,' perhaps perfectly groundless, of his being prompted by more than mere anxiety for the public welfare, he certainly seems to have been justified in the action he took, and to have been supported by the unanimous voice of the Council when' the matter was finally considered. He moved in it by asking a Select Committee to "consider and report upon the present system of collecting tolls upon the Christchurch road." The report of that Committee, so far as we have seen, has not been printed, but the circumstances upon which it is based are probably sufficiently indicated in the mover's remarks on Friday evening, when it was brought up for adoption. He gave the history of. his inquiries thus :—

He visited the Kawhaka and learned that there was no check at all in respect to the cattle and sheep passing, through the gates. The books were kept in a most eccentric way ; most of the entries in them illegible, many written in pencil, and even those that were written in ink were undiscernible, partly because they were written one over another. The books were not the property of the County, and the irregular mode of keeping thfitn had evidently not been iaterfered with by the County authorities. No instructions had been given to the collector of tolls, further than furnishing him with the Gazette containing the list of tolls and j a letter notifying his appointment. In | fact all instructions came from Mr ; iTabartj even the check pass-books . were from Mr Tabart. When the collector applied for books from the Chairman's office, he could not get them. The system altogether was loose. The sheep were not counted at the gate, and it was stated that; the . drivers would prefer to give the correct numbers rather than have the sheep knocked about, but there was no record made of even the drivers' statement of num- j bers. A fly leaf from the pass book was. given to the driver to take to Mr Tabart, | but no entry was made on the block in the pass book. -Even the cash: collected at the ; gate was sent to Mr Tabart, instead of being forwarded to the Treasury. . . . . The; Committee had arrived at the conclusion that the method of collecting tolls at the Kawhaka '■■ was defective and that the whole system was unsatisfactory. They therefore recom- : mended that a system of leasing should be substituted for the present method. That would save a large expense, and there would, at all events be a knowledge of what the tolls would produce. In the long run the County would be a gainer by the change. The seconder of the motion for the adoption of the report, concurred with by other members, was one of our local members, Mr Kennedy, and he is reported to have said :— As a member of the Committee he was aware that the greater part, if not the whole of what the mover had said was correct. The report did not intend to convey any blame upon Messrs Mark Sprot and Co. or upon Mr Tabart. If there was any fault it lay with the County authorities. There was great looseness on the part of the- collector at the Kawhaka toll-gate, and probably at others ; but in this particular instance thei'e was a system of irregularity which was, to say the least, most remarkable.. Whatever might have been the motive which had led the member for Aihoura to investigate the matter, great credit was due to him for bringing to light the objectionable system which prevailed in the County, in respect to the collection of tolls. With reference to the case of the Kawhaka, he found that the returns were made up in an office in town and were not signed by the collector, although he could write. He had no hesitation in saying that the. system adopted at that gate was the loosest of any that could prevail in a place where accounts should be kept, and no individual, if the place were his, would tolerate such a system for a single week. : . . , ... I The Chairman, it may be added, also agreed with the recommendation in the report, and he pointed out that a resolution to the same effect had been passed in aprevious session on his motion. With respect to the cash collected at the gate being sent to Mr Tabart, though irregular, it could not be deemed of any importance, and it was convenient, as it saved preparing two returns. If the Council definitely determined to sell the right to collect tolls, then a revision of them would be necessary.