NOTES FROM NELSON.

Lyell Times and Central Buller Gazette, Volume VI, Issue 272, 8 May 1886, Page 2

NOTES FROM NELSON.

(from our own correspondent.) insurance companies. If the number of Insurance Associations in this Colony are a guide ; we are the most provident people on this earth. Fire, Marine, Life, Accident have all their representatives to provide against probable loss, and, judging by the palatial offices they erect, the number of agents and

canvassers they employ and the dividends they pay they must all be doing a thriving business. Sometimes endeavours are made by their clients to get on the soft side of them, as witness Mr Howard's severed hand trick a few months ago. He was howled out; but Very ofteu a struggling colonist is enabled by the occurence of a tire at a convenient time to make a decent start in life out of Insurance funds. The iniquity iu these cases does not consist in initiating or assisting the conflagration but in getting found out, and the struggling colonist generally displays too much forethought to leave auy direct evidence behind him when he enters into such a speculation. The Companies in their anxiety to do business are not very inquisitive as to the value of assured property whether Fire, Life or Marine, and it is a sort of just retribution which occasionally overtakes them when they have to pay out say £SOO for a burnt out cottage and furniture which would have been dear at £2OO.

But with the Accident Insurance Association it is different. Their business partakes more of a gambling nature than the others; which are based upon certain calculated probabilities. This Association gives long odds against a man meeting with injury or death by accident. For a payment of £l2 down they will, if he is incapacitated from work, give him £3 per week or £SOO if killed. It is a gamble on both sides, and as such there should be no difficulty in settling what is really a debt of honour. At the late Sessions of the Supreme Court here, the Accident Insurance Association defended a case where a client had died. They refused payment on the grounds that his death was the result of natural causes rather than accident. The usual contradictory expert evidence was led on both sides, but the verdict was for the plaintiff and the Association then took refuge behind the plea that due notice had not been given; which question has still to be argued. Now I wish to remark that this is a bad way to do business; it tends to drive trade away; it renders would be insurers dubious of any benefits to be derived from the Company in case of misfortune; it leads them to argne that the Association is not so much for the benefit of the assured as for the up keep of the host of agents who are making an easy living out of the premiums paid. I don't think one man in a thousand would go out of his way to look for an Accident Insurance Agent; the whole of the business of the Institution is privately done by persuasive canvassers; therefore with a view of making these canvassers' task easy, the Association ought, in common fairness, to shell out unless there is a very barefaced attempt at swindling; and as a rule people don't go so far as to fall down cellars with a view of their heirs and executors getting the amount of the policy if they are killed. Men don't die for one another in the 19th century, whatever they are alleged to have done in the past. Now as a corollary on this law suit a very remarkable instance of the risky nature of the business of the Accident Association happened here last month, and I have no doubt similiar instances occurred in other parts of the Colony.

Our Volunteers to the number ot 250 went to the encampment at Wanganui. They all went over in the Anchor Line boat, Charles Edward. That Greyhound of the Paciflo Ocean is allowed by Her Majesty's Customs Certificate to carry about one fourth of that number of passengers on a trip, and has not boats for more in case of accident. But owing to this trip being on military service, the Charles Edward had a special permit on this occasion to take as many Volunteers as could be mustered and stowed away. The Canvasser of the Accident Insurance Company was to the front on her leaving Kelson, and booked no less than £14,000 worth of risks ; the premiums amounting to £lO os. Had anything happened to the steamer, where would the Association have been.

A DISAPPOINTMENT. There was a general expression of regret in Nelson when it was made known that the Westport action for slander, Munro v. O'Conor, was squared. The defendant has such a reputation for browbeating his audience in a meeting that the public were anxious to see how ho would take a scarifying himself; but, alas for our hopes! The Buller Lion quietly put his tail between his legs, paid his £SO, and cried pecavi. The apology was as nicely worded a document as I ever read. It was as full and complete as an apology should be; yet there was nothing abject or humiliating about it, and it was in that way creditable to both parties. I sincerely hope this case will have taught Mr O'Conor a salutary yet inexpensive lesson. In future let us hope he will not set himself up on a pinnacle as virtue personified, looking down upon less gifted people as either rogues or fools. Had he gone on with his defence his pleas would have been curious but not «toavincing. For instance he did not consider calling a man a "thief" was to be considered as accusing him of having committed an indictable offence. He also was of an opinion that an auctioneer in the prosecution of his calling was not entitled to take advantage of printers' discounts without giving his customers the benefit of those allowances. The gentle Eugene, having posed in his varied career as both auctioneer and printer, must have had a softer side than his friends ever gave him credit for if he did not take all he could get in either capacity. Then, as to his justification and plea for mitigation of damages, he iutended excusing himself on the ground that when his hot Celtic blood got the better of his judgment that his tongue was apt to run riot; that in fact an Irishman. hn:ler certain conditions,

was not a responsible being. Also, that as Westport is as yet only emerging roia a state of barbarism towards civilisation that the fact of calling a fellow citizen a thief does'nt count for much anyhow; that it is in fact a courteous way of addressing a friend in those parts. I somehow fancy that neither judge nor jury would have seen the hang of these argument ; but all's well that ends well.

THE RNUFFED-OUT COUNCIL. Before being finally wiped out as councillors our corporation intend finishing up their career of incompetency by performing aa many fantastic tricks as their ignorance of their functions can suggest. They have gangs of men engaged at present in picking up the principal streets, rendering thorn about as pleasant to travel on as a river bed after a flood. They have at last awakened to the necessity of knowing something about the levels of their sewers, aud Mr Oliraie and a couple of chainmen are finding out what are the relative positions of the bottoms of them, to see how far they are wrong; and as the matter of taking these levels is one which could have been let by contract, the specifications have included the survey and plotting of a map of the whole town, I can't see why the council should have privately engaged Mr Climio to do a 'part of the work. Report says that no bargain was made with this gentleman, and rumor (who is a lying jade) also says that the professional gentleman's fee is ten guineas per day, and, furthermore, that he condemned the Wiamea street sewer (which I did months ago). I expect the new council, on their assuming office, will find a protty kettle of fish.

THE CHAMPION MINE. The directors have not issued any bulletins regarding the number of tons of copper smelted this week, and as the customs returns do not report any extensive export of metal, and as the American manager of reputation was about town for a day or two, in a suit of " store clothes and a biled shirt," as his country men express it, I am led to the conclusion that the pot has not resumed work since my last report. The shareholders have, however, received invitations not asking them to apply at the office for the first dividend; far from that. They are requested to give their consent to the directors borrowing a sum of £15,000 to pull up the wooden tramway and put something in its place that trucks will run on, and for other works necessary for keeping things on the move. I have'nt the least doubt the long-suffering shareholders will give their consent to the directory borrowing £15,000 or £15,000,000 for that matter. The doubt I have is where they will find capitalists eager to part with their surplus thousands on the security they have to offer. Eobari.