NOTES FROM NELSON.

Lyell Times and Central Buller Gazette, Volume VI, Issue 276, 5 June 1886, Page 2

NOTES FROM NELSON.

(from our own correspondent.)

The Gospel of Intemperance,

Another apostle of the Blue Ribbon faith is preaching a crusade here just now. Mr Matthew Burnett, alter a campaign on the West Coast, is giving us a treat He claims to have recovered 8000 thirsty souls from perpetual thirst in your part of the world; Apostle Booth, about a year ago, said he had reclaimed nearly all the population, whilst that truthful but singular journal yclept the War Cry, weekly asserts that more brands have been plucked from the burning on the wild wilderness of the wicked West Coast. So that, if all these respectable authorities are to be believed, and they all claim to be teachers and leaders of the truth, the brewers and whiskey mongers down in your neighborhood must be in a bad way. I don't know what special claim this Matthew Burnett has to travel about the colonies and draw big audiences; I went to listen to him the other evening expecting to get a wrinkle or two in oratorical effect. Booth was worth listening to, and could speak to the hearts and feelings of his audience, but the " English as she is spoke" of the present apostle simply beggars description. He has a harsh gruff, discordant voice. His action is ungraceful in the extreme, he parades backward and forward on the platform as if his conscience was uneasy and he had to keep in motion to ease it, whilst his head is jerked in an unusual kind of way as if he wished to throw that as well as his

second-hand opinions at his audience

During the five minutes I suffered torture from him, he was describing Father Matthew. He said that he went into the temperance movement with his 'ole 'art and he blasphemously told us that. "Men were just wanting when God required them," and that was *ow Sir Garnet Wolsey came out as a general at the right time. Now this man who claims to convert thousands is, I have no doubt, doing a righteous thing in his own eyes. He travels about the colonies on the Temperance racket, lives well, makes a good living, since front seats are charged a shilling and a collection is made, yet how many of his converts are bona fide reclaimed drunkards. The great majority are women who don't drink, and children from four years of age and upwards who don't want to drink; or as one blue ribbonite aged six said the other evening " Oh, ma! I joined the Blue Bibbon army to-day, and I had some snapdragon, and broke it at Nellie's birthday afterwards."

A Prodigal Council. A.t the last Borough Council meeting a little bill was presented from Mr Chmie for £57 for finding out the state of the sewers. This information was considered by the mayor and councillors as not only valuable and necessary but cheap. Now I would be sorry to deprive them of the notion that they had at last hit accidently on some step in the right direction, but as a matter of fact is none of the three. In the first place it was not necessary, seeing that the sewers could not have been constructed without plans and specifications of some sort, and those documents are or ought to be in the archives of the Council, and for the same reason it is not valuable. The whole draiage scheme will have to be prepared before long and this information will be supplied with a good deal more that is absolutely necessary, and this bit of patch work engineering will then be of no value at all. As to its being cheap, there may be two opinions about that. The mayor said the same work had cost £ISOO to the Wellington people. I will

not contradict his worship ; but he also spoke ot a fable which had appeared in the papers concerning the levels. I have also read a fable about the .£ISOO drainage plan in Wellington. It is recorded in that reliable record that a certain engineer volunteered his services with a view of improving the sanitary affairs of the city, he did'nt want payment for it; he was prompted by charitable motives only : so he spent a few weeks in looking through his dumpy and sketched out the result, and sent in a bill for £ISOO. There was a row, and a law case and a verdict, but I never heard that the Wellington people considered the plans and report worth the cost.

The mayor congratulated the council on the fact that the sewers constructed under the supervision of the city engineer were " all right." Mr Climie in every case found them all wrong from the fact that they were altogether too large for the work they had to do, but the mayor has an intense reverence for the genius of his scientific right banJ. Mr Climie also told them that before the Waimea Great Sewer was proceeded with that data would have to be prepared showing the area proposed to be drained. That is exactly what I told them many months ago, and I did'nt charge them anything for the information ; may be I will send in a little bill some of these days, but I h ive a sort of conviction that it would not be so universally japproved of and passed ibr payment as Mr Climie's was. Not but that my informat on is quite as valuable, but I am not a distinguished stranger. Long ago another philosopher discovered the fact that " No man is a prophet in his own country."

A Gap Well Filled.

The want of a J.P. in the Central Buller has long been felt. Often 6ettlers have had to travel many weary miles for the sake of having a document witnessed by a justice: Although they are as thick as " leaves in Vallainbosa " in townships, many of our scattered districts have had to lament the want of a resident worthy of the honor. The selected one of the Central duller is at any rate a happy choice and I congratulate my old friend Donald M'Gregor on the appreciation her most Gracious Majesty has shown in choosing th*» levelest headed Scotchman in the community to uphold the dignity ot the law. Should I ever commit a breaeh of the peace I hope the canny Tonald will preside. If the Midland Railway works go a-head I anticipate somo heavy court days about the township of Hampden, and there will be considerable work for his worship if a few thousand rowdy navvies get to work in his neighborhood.

The Cliampion Mine Meeting.

On Monday evening last the directors of the Champion mine faced the music. A large number of shareholders attended to hear what explanation the report and balance-sheet would afford them as to the collapse of the concern. The meeting was eminently unsatisfactory, for, beyond confirming the knowledge already possessed by the victims, there was very little that was new disclosed. The chairman in his opening remarks made a sort of spilt milk appeal to his audience to let bye-gones be bye-gones." The reports were then read, and the agony commenced. Several shareholders had attended the meeting, fully determined to unearth whatever there was with a fishy look about it; but they were baulked in their endeavors. Some shareholders had been allowed to forfeit their shares; others had been wiped out, and the last call had not been responded to to the extent of more than naif of the call. It was suggested that a better insight could be gained if the books were pro* duced to throw some light on these questionable proceedings; but it seemed that the share register and minute book contained information which the directors preferred to keep to themselves. The Canterbury shareholders through their delegate were grimly sarcastic when they expressed their opinion of the directors as being "well-meaning, but incompetent." I think the directory ought, at such a meeting, and under such circumstances, to have disclosed the actual position ot affairs, hiding nothing, and gilding the pill no longer. They were there to account to the shareholders for alleged misspent capital. At the general meeting, in January, they had burked enquiry into the balance-sheet, if the document then produced to the meeting could be called such. At this meeting they did not even produce a balance sheet worthy of the name. The figures read out were no guide as to the position of the company. The only inkling the meeting got of their financial position was the reply, dragged out of the chairman, that their liabilities were £12,000, and the assets of a very dubious character, indeed. The directors wanted .£15,000 to get square and start again, and beyond that they did'nt want any inquisitive shareholders to ask impertinent questions. However, when, on the following Monday, an application was made to the registrar of the Supreme Court to extend the protection order for six weeks, some of the shareholders put in an appearance, and asked that a special meeting of shareholders and creditors should be held on January 29th, with liberty to open up debatable questions instead of confining the business to special points, and the registrar at once saw the position of affairs, and granted the request, so that there is every prospect of an even warmer meeting than the last. Among other matters which cropped up at the Court was the question of the cost of exporting the American manager back to the States, as per agreement; this the registrar male no order about. Any of your readers who feel any human sraypathy for this genius, who has drawn

.£IOOO a-year, and can't pay his passage, will oblige by forwarding subscriptions to the poor*box at this office. I enclose ray half-a-crown as a start.

The American manager of reputation also sent in a report —just about as misleading as the financial one was. After showing by figures that the ore did not contain from 17 to 25 per cent, of metal, as he said it did in March, he was now confident that it would give a return of per cent., or about one-third. You Bee he came down 66 per cent, in three months. Then he went on to say that he could start again for a further.expenditure of £BOO on roasting furnaces, and then make £3OO per month clear profit* I don't like to characterize that statement by calling it by its right name, nut I emphatically deny' the truth of it. Why, not many weeks ago I pointed out that the miserable 4x2 birch battens he had laid down for a tramway couldn't convey enough ore to the furnace to keep it going for a week without complete destruction, and this Yankee smelter reckons to use up over 100 tons of ore a-week, all of which is to be brought down on this tram ; and yet in his report Bays nothing about the necessity of laying, iron or steel rails at a cost of £2OOO, and a delay of at least six months. Yet some shareholders profess they would allow their credulity to be practised upon to any extent. For these and other reasons I freely subscribe the half-cown. Koeari.

(Continuation of News, see 4th Page.)