NOTES FROM NELSON.
(from our own correspondent.)
The Champion Mine.
The directors of the Champion have issued a circular, which gives the shareholders an idea of the financial position of the Company; and a very unpleasant position it seems to be. By the time claims are met, and calls paid up, making allowances for defaulting shareholders, of whom there will probably be a number, the Company is virtually flyblown. The directors now invite capitalists to invest £15,000 in the concern, on the security of the mine, plait, uncalled capital, future profits, and all other assets or probable assets the Company have, or may have in time to come. They metaphorically offer to pawn their corporate shirt to obtain the necessary funds to prosecute the work, and the American engineer offers to work the mine on tribute, and deliver the metal at £2B odd per ton. I hope some patriotic capitalist, with a hankering for 10 per cent, and a trusting faith in the mineral resources of Aniseed Valley, will comfe to the front. There is a fine field there for a patriot with cash, and the will to spend it. Till the meeting of shareholders, on the 26th instant, there will not be any likelihood of the office being swamped with applications for debentures, and till then I do not expect to hear of further developments^ Our City Council. We in the city are at present suffering from a mania on the part of the Council for road-patching. The City Fathers, with their usual perspicacity, are getting the streets into shape for the winter, and with a foresight and thoughtfulness worthy of a better cause are covering them over with various materials, more or less suitable for conversion into mud or dust as the weather happens to be rainy or fine. Had they given their whole time and attention to the matter, and consulted the best authorities on the subject, or experimented for the purpose, they could not have chosen a better time or more suitable material for making sludge. And then they tell us our streets are better than in some parts of the Colonj. Just so; and we may thank our wonderful climate for them. If we had Wellington wind and rain here for a year our streets would be washed out and blown away. The metal used is too soft to wear, and it seems absurd to put such stuff on when the Boulder Bank is composed of splendid material for road making. And the Council's efforts to ameliorate the grievances of the residents of Washington Valley are doomed to disappointment, for these unfortunates have before them the prospect of a quagmire for the coming winter and spring. The Corporation seem to think that they get their work done best and cheapest by accepting the lowest tender, no matter who the contractor is, or whether he knows what the work is worth, and, as a matter of course, they get landed now and then in a mess such as they have on hand in this job in question. It is false economy to let work for less than its value; especially to contractors known to be incapable of carrying the work out. It is unjust to the contractor, and annoying to residents in the neighborhood, who have to suffea. However, another week or two will see a fresh Council in, and I hope the ratepayers will select some of their body as representatives with common sense.
Drawing a Badger,
Ever since the LyelL Times changed hands and became a respectable unit in the current literature of the Colony, I have done ray best to give its readers a weekly resume of matters of public interest in Nelson. Had there been an independent newspaper in this City I would probably have contributed to it, if I could have made my own terras; but as my readers are aware the two rags, which do duty here in lieu of newspapers, are beneath notiee as exponents of public opinion. The morning paper especially is such a dismantled wreck of what it was, that there are no hopes for it except by means of a holocaust of the entire establishment- Time was when this paper held opinions and was a leader of public opinion, was in fact a decided power in the place. Now it is so impotent there are none to do it reverence. It is many years ago since its decadence commenced, but the debilitation has been as sure as it has been gradual. The task of writing tie history of the decline and fall of the Slop Bucket, may devolve upon me some day, for I believe I know more of it from its birth downwards, than any one else, more so as my journalistic efforts saw the light in its pages. I had a sort of sentimental regard for the poor old thing until circumstances made it necessary for me to desist writing for it. Those circumstances I have, from merciful motives, kept religiously locked in my bosom, deeming it a cruelty to expose the weakness of the wretched relic, and I would have kept my pen quiet on the matter had one of the contributors " Voyageur " to wit, had not had the temeritv to tako me to task for what he is pleased to call my " vituperative and malicious writing " respecting an " old established and widelyappreciated journal," I feel sorry for ** Voyageur," because it is evident to me that he has been made a tool of by the permanent staff of the Slop Bucket to sign his name to a letter with a view of slanging me while they had not the courage to do so themselves. It was therefore with mingled feelings of satisfaction and regret that I read "Voyageur's" letter in the columns of this paper. Satisfaction because I had at last drawn the badger, and regret that a comparatively inoffensive stranger had been taken in and made a catspaw of £ for the editorial staff of that paper have a lively recollection of their dealings with me, and how inevitable would be their fate in attempting any aggressive assault. But as " Voyageur " states that " Korari conveniently forgets that in the past he was only too gratified to be known as a correspondent of the very paper he now professes to despise;" and, as " Voyageur " was not a resident in Nelson at that happy period of the Slop Bucket'B and my career, it may be just as well to enlighten "Voyageur" and my readers as to the actual facts of what took place, and I may at once state that I have no feeling of shame for my part in the business, but will endeavor to show " Bow I abased myself " in my career as a contributor to the Slop Bucket. It is just two years since I returned to Nelson, I had been absent something like 18 years altogether, and was consequently ignorant of the local feelings or politics of the people; but had some old friends; among others one of the proprietors of the Slop Bucket. He, knowing I had been connected with respectable journals in other places, asked me to contribute some articles. I was | unwilling, not knowing the people, but after awhile I became a regular correspondent and we came to definite arrangements, the sum and substance of which was that whatever I considered worth writing, was to be considered worth pulishing, and that all I liked to write was to be printed as I wrote it, without excision or alteration, and that in recompense for a couple of columns or so a-week, I was to be compensated by payment of nothing and find nry own brains and paper. This worked along very fairy for a few months, when I went away for six months seeking whom I might devour else were, and on returning to Nelson the proprietors and the editorial staff formed a deputation praying me to give them more " Day Dreams." I said " You know my terms?" They replied they were agreeable. So it came about that for some months the Slop Bucket was lifted out of the slough of despair once a week and its readers got something for their money. But the great editor of the paper had some time or other been admitted to the club; and the club and its members were, in the eyes of that great authority, sacred from attack from so plebeian a scribe as '• Korari," and as this editor undertook on one occasion to cut out one of my best jokes because it alluded to a certain judicial snob who was a member of this coterie. I went to the office, demanded explanation of the breach of agreement and was thus lectured by the editor of gigantic intellect: "As editor of this journal I consider I have a right to exercise my judgment on what is printed in it." I collapsed. It had never struck me before that I was in the presence of a superior kind of a being, and the shock was so great that I there and then renounced all ideas of slinging ink with the chance of having my manuscript either approved of or condemned by the Jupiier of the Slop Bucket.
My Mission.
Now "Voyageur" is not the only scribe who has accused ine of malignity in rny writings. People who know me best are fully aware of how much of that failing is in my disposition. But the fact is I have a sacred mission to perform on this earth. There is a generation growing up in this colony; there are moral lessons to be taught; and there are shams, and humbugs, and frauds to
be exposed; and in the interests of society, and for the welfare of the youths and maidens who, in the future, are to become the rulers and ruled in this Britain of the South. I feel that for me to sit quietly by whilst the Slop Bucket poisons the unformed intellects of those coining legislators and borough councillors with such unwholesome trash as " Voyageur's " verses would, on my part, be a crime ; and, above all things, I love a clear conscience. It may be that this salutary lesson will be the means of preventing "Voyageur" from burning the midnight oil in hammering out bad rhymes; if so, then I have done my country some service; in not, I will again scorify him. It is useless for him to think I have any feelings on the matter ; it is a question of duty with me. And should any other scribe aspire to carve me up, I give him notice that he will find me a remarkably tough bird to dessect. Au revoir / " Voyageur 1" my poetic friend, am revoir 1 Korari.
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Lyell Times and Central Buller Gazette, Volume VI, Issue 274, 22 May 1886, Page 2
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1,801NOTES FROM NELSON. Lyell Times and Central Buller Gazette, Volume VI, Issue 274, 22 May 1886, Page 2
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