OKARITO DISTRICT.

Grey River Argus, Volume XIII, Issue 1586, 4 September 1873, Page 2

OKARITO DISTRICT.

[j'KOM OIJR OWN CORRESPONDENT.]

- . August 25. Now, and of Utfe, ! there has been nothing fresh or staftlinghere" 'among the ■digging community, r At pne~end 'of the beach all are settled down to Hard/steady labor, - trying to make -up foir lpaK time 9ince the race was finished. I hope this desirable end will be accomplished. A lot of men are working at the -other race:, and in a month from date I fchink>all> inlwanfc of water -will have anample supply;- 1 ? The next arid stan'dingcbmplai^t 1 will : be the want of gold.' These reinarlc apply to the Five-mile." " ----- -■:...■

The long.!ahd'high talk here is about 9500 acres of land to be sold- in this ' neighborhood, and offerers ha v^ been bidding above each other from lOskip to Xssj at wh.ichis;is<tobe sold,- but lean jtelj the : .seller8 i that I heard a gentieman wondering .whether they would^take 18s per acre for the same block, which leads me to think that those ; in want of, so much shouldfpaySOaper acre.- ; They, only want a monopoly, andwill try to'dole it out at >Ls up toliiOOper-acre.; .The gentleman I heard is perfectly able in«inoney matters, .

A petitipn: haa been drawn out and a ineeting held here ion thd^ye^n^e last Saturday, to be presented' to /the, General :not to sell the. land unless the; big part of the money is to , jbe) spent inthis neighborhood.: I was^npt at the meeting,^ nor have. I- seen thejpetitipn. I hear there is a talk. of. shutting up Okarito as a port of entry: Thislooks like going back, and cettaiti I am that our resources are ample to. go forward, and : ?re will do so at some future day*? jflo think .that pqr member ip for this district should, let his voice be better heard on, such subjects. : A|;: the election, time his" friends hpld him up as a very : great map. He was learned forVdootor j he ww learned: for atpnest,H&c. JA. man maybe all this and more and be a right man, butnbt in the irighVpl&<se; Patience to see what may turn round. Ihold 1 to be a great ■virtue; but it«i» av&iufe of 'a four*

legged ass as well as of a man. We all know thaj, the animal named can roar, and by so doing it can both attract and repel. Members of Council ought to mind that they are public property, and it is in the public welfare that I write. : A case of very great importance to boatmen was decided by Mr Tizard, in Okarito, in June last, which proves that their -butter does not lie too thick on theirj bread, as some think, and certainly ought to be known. Not being in; Court, I can only give the arguments on the side of Mr Motnm, the! boatman on the Waiho. The case arose \ as follows :— A man had crossed till his bill was 8s or 10s. The boatman then wanted his money before he put him over. The man then crossed the river himself,, from doing which, at the time, unless from cold, he was in no danger, and summoned the boatmen for LlO damages. A witness was in ihe house oi the boatman (at the time unknown to the coroplainer). The complainer swore that he offered tq pay the present passage, but not the former debt. The witness did not hear thi3 offer made. Anyhow the boatman

ment. It was only stipulated by the Catholic authorities that their own right I should take precedence, so as to avoid repeating a marriage already validly effected. But a papal dispensation is required for these unions, and for this certain conditions were imposed. Formerly, wie believe, an agreement that the boys born of the marriage should be brought up in the religion of their father, and the girls in the religion of their mother was very generally accepted, and most of us have come across families of mixed religion both io England and abroad. But since Cardinal Wiseman's time an express stipulation that all the children should be baptised and educated as Catholics has been rigidly insisted upon in this country. No interference, however, with the received custom of repeating the marriage ceremony was attempted, as a Roman Catholic priest writing to the Tvms seems to imagine, tiil long after the change in the law. It was only when Dr Manning became Archbishop of Westminster t v at he lost no time in issuing a strict prohibition to his clergy against celebrating any such marriage until they had obtained an assurance that the Anglican ceremony would not be superadded. With, the motive of this injunction we need not here concern ourselves, further than to say that it is obviously intended to discourage mixed marriages, which Ultramontanes are never tired of denouncing, and which, according to several official — and therefore now infallible — utterances of Popes, the Church " abominates and detests."

was fined L 2 10s, 13s expenses, and wit-

ness LI, besides two days and one night from home, and was told he could not refuse to cross any person. I never heard or saw the witness in the matter, not do I throw any reflections on the case, but the like of this should be known for certain. I hear of nothing out of the usual way from Gillespie's, but I hear of no complaints. This, in itself, is so far cheerful and some of the squatting diggers have begun to plant early potatoes, which looks like staying in the same place another year,. and the man with a family to have his little plots of potatoes, his cow, pig, Ac., seems to me to be the only happy digger. Anyhow for being well put on, being clean and always cheerful, he can compare most favorably with a class that

hardly spare eight hours for digging out of the twenty-four hour 3, but often can 'spare ten and twelve hours out of the twenty-four for the company of barmaids 'and billiards. I have little to say of the Amerou,

Lams

although it is tickling the throats of some . outsiders, and good finds are expected. I V^tMnk some of the parties may be inclined to say little, and what may be told in con-

fidence I ; could not put in print.

At the

same time when people have all their rights secured they can have nothing to ■ fear. "Without publicity our knowledge ' and comforts would be of ' the most dwarfy ;jnnd. I think all the odds and ' ends idf parties digging up the Waiho are ' dnyen..down to the beaches in this cold .weather, unless the party within a mile or so otthe glacier. > I hear nothing from the Three-mile, and the same may be said of Okarito. The new firm is mixing up nicely, and already is become part of ourselves. The diggings up the Waitaki are little heard of here ; but from all I can learn they are not to be risked by men in the distance, unless they wan): some amusement with mud and water, or a trip for . their health.