REGISTER!

Grey River Argus, Volume XIV, Issue 1720, 7 February 1874, Page 3

REGISTER!

[to the editor.] Sir— May I be allowed to make a few remarks upon an article in last week's Argus headed '• Register ! Register !" I regret you should have occasion to venture a doubt upon the possibility of that most . objectionable piece of nonsense called qualifications to vote, with all its appendages, such as forms, filling, attesting, revising, and who knows what, being entirely done away with during our next session of Parliament. Can our mighty rulers give a reason why it should be necessary to hold meetings, appoint committees, get forms printed, and canvass the country to get men to fill in this very particular- form, which he must do before we can have a fair equitable voice in the management of the country? If they think it is necessary let them assist us by appointing an officer in each district to supply and collect these forms (which might be done in up country districts by the officers in charge of the various police stations). Let Revision Courts be held in each district as well, the absurdity of j a roan having to travel say forty or fifty miles to a Revision Court, if by some freak of the Registration Officer his name is objected to, must bo apparent. Let us hope that when the Bill is brought before the House to abolish this present system and substitute manhood suffrage in its place, the members will as men see the necessity of such being carried out, and pass it through. Aa one of many reasons why I would urge that some responsible person should be appointed to collect these forms in up country districts the following that happened to myself last year I think should suffice ; at any rate it may assist the committee who are now taking such an active interest in getting us up-country people to register : — In the early part of last; year my attention was called to a placard in No Town headed " Register ! Register ! Forms, &c, to be had within." I at once applied to the storekeeper over whose store the placard was posted ; that gentleman produced a form and filled it np for me. Thinking he would know better than myself the exact way it should be done, I thanked him. After he had done it, I read it over, found it, as I thought, correct, and signed it, paid my shilling fee, and left. When the list of objections was published 1 was congratulated on all sides as being one of a very few whose claim was not objected to in the No Town district. Fancy my astonishment when some short time before the election for Superintendent I find that I am not upon the roll. I made inquiries of the storekeeper, who remembers giving my application with others to Mr Hayden, who informs me that he received a number from the No Town district, but of course does not remember mine in particular; but what he received he handed over to Mr Revell, and refers me to Mr Haisty, who knows nothing whatever of the transaction. I have not applied to Mr Revell, fully believing that he got more than his share ot blame from tbe indignation meeting that was held here when the objections was published, by which nearly tbe whole of the Grey Valley was objected to. When a man is disfranchised as I am, after doing all in his power to follow out the injunctions laid down to him by those who take the matter in hand, and should know the proper routine, I think it must show the rottenness of the system, and if we want our proper representation some radical change must be effected. Admitting there is every credit due to the gentlemen forming the Committee, also to yourselves for endeavoring to get all that are qualified placed upon the roll, while there is a chance of such a case as mine occurring again, we Bhall never get a fair representation. In closing, 1 might congratulate the committee in abolishing the shilling fee. That certainly is a step in the right direction, but how our Nelson sooth- west miners could understand that anything could be done for them without a fee is a mystery to me. I am, &c, S. I. O. H. No Town, February 2.

A writer in the Timaru Herald says : — " Continuining on to Clyde crossing the Molyneux by a bridge, 1 just outside Crom well the road runs parallel to the Molyneux. One would suppose that on these narrow mountain roads, entirely unprotected by fence or wall, with frightful precipices running sheer down from their sides, accidents would frequently occur. But, on the contrary, they are as rare there as in more civilised parts. Two accidents which happened some time since between • Cromwell and Clyde are worth relating, aa showing, perhaps, as marvellous escapes from death as the most sensational novelist could desire to record- In one the passenger coach capsized and rolled down the precipice right into the Molyneux, and the driver and a passenger rolled down with it. The latter picked himself up half way by snatching hold of, and sticking to a shrub which came in his path ; the former went with his coach to the river. Strange to say, beyond a bruise or two, which kept him off his his driving box for a week, the man was entirely uninjured. The coach was smashed to atoms, the horses both drowned, and the mails and effects irretrievably lost, except, by-the-by, one of the mail bags, which was afterwards found thirty miles below the scene of the accident, suspended, curiously enough on a wire rope stretched just dipping the water, across the river. The other accident occured to a medico and his friend in a buggy. The horse they were driving was a jibber, and as ill luck would - have it, the brute jibbed at a specially nasty place on the road. The friend got out to coax and to lead; but the horse backed, and in a moment) (the roads are su narrow that there is so space for manosuveiing) backed the biiggy, with his unfortunate master, over the precipitous hill side. Buggy, horse, and 'onun, rolled into the. forming river, but ■ iJatrange to say, Dr , such was the impetus of the terrible roll, was shot away ' from the buggy on to a rock standing up in the riven. There he lodged until he was picked off by a friendly miner comparatively unhurt. The horse and buggy were never - seen again again, nor the smallest vestige of them.

(For ContmuaUori of JVews see Uhpagc.)