Mataura Ensign GORE, FRIDAY, MARCH 9, 1883.

Mataura Ensign, Volume V, Issue 236, 9 March 1883, Page 2

Mataura Ensign GORE, FRIDAY, MARCH 9, 1883.

The concluding paper of our Chatton correspondent descriptive of the district he so ably represents will appear on Tuesday. To-day we commence the publication of a most; interesting story, entitled ," Seven Years and a Day," by a welNknown author, Mr Gfceßgon (Stow. The scene is laid^on the west coast of Sortland, and the narrative abounds in thrilling incidents. At its conclusion we propose giving our readers a longer story and in the meantime we cau reoommend the perusal of Mr Gow'a wellwritten tale. The San J?ranoisco mail arrived at Auckland on Wednesday. Work is to be commenced on the Kelson Gore Railway at an early date. The Gore Town Board meets this evening ,and the newly-elected Licensing Committee to-morrow at midday. / Ninep'ence per hour is the rate of wages to be paid to threshing hands in the Waipahi district. We regret to hear of the death of Mr An--1 drew Muir, a well-known Tuturau settler. His specialty was. stook breeding, principally Ayrshire cattle. The Danedin City Council acknowledge that it was through their want of foresight that the accident to Mrs P. Treueder occurred arid they have offered to defray the medical ' expenses of that lady. • The i following is the result of the ejection 1 on Monday for the Oreti Licensing ditsrict 1 Elected— Walter Southern, George Allan, = Thos. Black, James Dore, George Merson, W. D. Baß3tian. : The South Canterbury correspondent of ; the 'Lyttelton Times' made a careful calculation of the damage done to the crops by the recent wet weather. He Bfcts down the loss , in Geraldine,Oounty at £21,088 ; and ia Waimate County at £27,966. A good deal of this ' is golely owing to the oarelessatas or parßi-< 1 imooy of the farmers themselves in threshing from the stook.

Mr Str^ck^asfeibtanfe teacher in the Riverton High School, has been appointed teacher ajj Thorn bury. f \ • '"]' ' At yesterday's meeting of the Southland Ijand Board, K. Alexande^i applied to j>urbhasefive acres adjoiningfaeotiou 555, Hokdnui district, originally reserved for a eohool house. It appeared .that the area was required by the County Council as a gravel reserve, and the application was refused. A Press Association telegram contains the information of special- importance. in .view of recent events, that Te Whiti and Tohn are to be released. ' A match will bo played at Gtore ou St. Patrick's Day, i7tb March, between the Mataura and Gore Cricket Clubs. Wickets will be pitched/Uoon after the arrival of the morning train, At the last meeeting of the Southland County Council — an adjourned one held on Monday — a letter was read from the manager of the Hew Zealand Agricultural Company, requesting the Council to have the fencing of the land granted by the company for approaches to the Ofcama bridge carried out before the work 1 of formation is pro Deeded with,— The engineer was instructed to, as far as possible, give effect to the request. /The Gazette contains the reduced passenger fares to come into force on Maroh 2Obh. Firat class rates are 2£d per mile ; second class, lid. Return tickets will be issued only on Saturday and Sunday, and ■will be available up to the end of Monday The return fares are 3d and 2d per mile for first and second cUbs respectively. A fiend named Sullivan, under the cloak of religion, obtained admission to the house of Mr Brooks at Waimatuku and committed rape on his daughter, aged fourteen. He is yet at large. f A little fellow named Grant, son of a recent settler in the Oharlton district, lost himself on Tuesday evening, and several Gore and Charlton residents set out as a Bearch party. Some time before they reached Mr Grant's house at 3 o'clock in the morning, the lad had turned up safe and sound much to the relief of his distressed! parents, An Invercargill firm has adopted a novel method of humiliating a bankrupt, whose list of liabilities, copied f roaa the ' Mercantile Gazette,' they have stuck up in their window in Dee street. At thejlasb meeting of the Otago Land Board Messrs Connell md Moodie, on behalf of Mr E. A. Elliot, applied for a license \to occupy section 2, block IV, township of Fortrose, under the 25th section of "The Public Reserves Act, 188 1 . Declined. — Robt. Baxter, section 5, block I, Ofcama, applied to have his holding capitalised. Granted, — J. Anderson applied for a lease in lieu of license in respect to his holding section 6a, block I, Otama. Granted. A vote of want of confidence in the Victorian Ministry has been carried in the Legislative Assembly without a division. The Ministry have resigned. The Governor has charged Mr Service with the formation of a new one. We have been requested to state that, throughethe kindness of Messrs Green and Souness, parties desirous of assisting th c local Good Templars by presentations 0* saleable goods for the forthcoming gift auction can leave their parcels at the abovenamed firm's auction rooms. At the R.M, Court, Invercargill, on Wednesday last, John Buchanan, brought up on remand on a charge of having on the February, stolen from the Railway Hotel Wyndham, a purse containing £3 and othe[. articles, was discharged, owing to the in' ability of the prosecutor to attend. ' Wyndham residents having failed to eleot a full Licensing Committee,' His Excellency the Governor has appointed the following gentlemen, viz '.—Messrs Jas. Forsyth, Jas Milne, Robert MoOallura, James Holms, and Irwin W. Raymond to be . the.CommiaBionera8 ionera for that district. The first meeting of the Commissioners will be held on the 10th inst, at noon. the last meeting of the Otago High School Board of Governors a telegram was received from the Hon. Dr Menzies, who stated that a deposit of secondary coal had' been discovered on the Board's endowment at Wyndhara, and suggested that the Wyndham Valley be prospected before any further sale of land takes place. — The Board decided to take steps to obtain further information on the subject. The London -Timei,' ia an editorial on February 13 bb, bewails the farming prospects and says a crisis ia field work exists. It is "water everywhere." A good sowing time is wanted, and it is surmised much of the autumn-sown grain is rotten. All Europe is in a similar condition. Our Chatton correspondent informs us that threshing is now the order of the day in the Chatton district. Messrs Collins Bros, are threshing grass seed at Mr Michael Dillon' a farm and Mr Gavin Dickaon will make a start almost immediately. There are no fewer than seven threshing mills in the district this year, so that grain from Chatton should soon be in the market. The Government having only granted 28 per cent, of the amount applied for by the Southland County Council under the Roads and Bridges Construction Aot, the schedule of works has necessarily undergone considerable amendment. The grant will be apportioned as follows : — Wallacetown Riding, £970 j Wiaton, £2275 5 Awarua, £2139; Waihopai, £1142 ; Oreti, £2288 ; Waikaia, £596 ; Fortrose, £1523 ; Wyndham, £1646 ; Gore, £4191. Tenders are to be invited for the various works ; to be in by 23rd March. An application has been granted by th© Otago Laud Board in favor of Mr F. Singer for a seven years' leasa of 1400 acres of land in the Mount Hyde district for the purpose of growing flax from which linseed oil is manufactured. His solicitor in a letter to the Board pointed out that Mr .Singer had made every effort to get the farmers to grow this valuable crop, but " The pain of cori* ceiving a new idea is proverbially severe* Farmers are everywhere conservative, and Mr Singer haß found the New. Zealand species no exception to the rule. Wheat they, know, and oats they know ;, but aa for linseed, they have heard of it in connection with poultieefe, but never in connection with ploughe, and so they shake their heads and stick by the old paths.", Precept having failed Mr Singer now wishes to try the effect of example ; hence his application for this piece, of suitable; marshy land. Heirsatisfled that when once the farmers see linseed and rape successfully, grown on a large scale they will pluck up heart to do likewise. , As soon as this ia brought about t;he oil industry will be an achieved success, for.; i$ wants nothing but a looally grown supply of the raw material. • . There ,has always been a difficulty in compelling the Jtttendanoe of witnesses at court.; At the lart.sitting of the R,M» Cburb hw«,a

witness, who was expected to give evidence in. four case?, was, after leaving the box, only allowe<|3s 4d, expenses on the first case. He ' lia.d ey^dently.'expeoted 10s oh eaoh^case^ 1 not a bad day's work— bub His ' said he could only allow him, 10s for the four ! pases, the plaintiffs in each ..case being the , SSm'e. " Qiir|wifcnesß took ;ambrage-;''aV''this,- ; and, whenHhe next case was callad, he had ( disappeared, although in this case he had . , been subpoenaed and a sum of money ten. dered him for expenses. His Worship would , under these circumstances have issued a warrant to compel the immediate attendance of this much ill-used individual, bui there were no forms at hand ; and, aa it ' would have taken some time to write out the wari rant, the matter was allowed to drop upon the understanding that an information should be laid against the absconding witness' and heard at the next sitting of the court, His Worship remarking that the witness referred to had rendered himself liable to a penalty not exceeding £10. Emulators were not be-hind-hand, and a witness ia another case refused to enter the court unless he received a guinea for his attendance. As no money whatever had been tendered for the witness's expenses in this instance he was let off, though his satisfaction must have been small, for ha had been hanging about the court all day in. obedience to the subpeoaa he had been served with. If the attendance of a witness is desired, it is not only necessary to issue a subpoena, but a sum of money must have been tendered him for expenses. /'lnstances are not wanting of the attemptg by publicans to distort the meaning of clauses in the •' Tippling Act," to secure payment for a drinking score. At the R,M, Court on Tuesday, a Gordon publican sited for a large amount, and some little speculation arose when the counsel for the defence prooeeded to read the items on the bill of particulars, wherein the words "To Goods " frequently occurred, as to what the ' goods ' were. Plaintiff stated that the ' goods ' wera all supplied, and, when pressed, was corns pelled to admib that they were all also consumed on the premises. The matter became more problematical when it was stated that no fewer a number Jthan 163 ' goods ' had been passed over the counter. Upon inter-' rogation the publican confessed that ' goods) meant liquor, and he was very nearlyy nons suited for the amount claimed for the ' goods/ It was pointed out, however, that our legislators had been more lenient to hotelkeepers in passing a subsequent measure which made the recovery of amounts chalked up for beer legal, and as boniface, upon hearing this, immediately ejaculated— 1 They were all (the 163) beex3, Your Worship, * the litb le pre varication practised in charging for ' goods ' was unnecessary. <^A meeting of the Athenroum Committee was held at the Bail way Hotel on Tuesday evening. Present : Messrs Green (chairman) Beattie, Bonsey, Bree, Henderson, Kiag and Piller. The question of erecting an Athe- \ nseam hall came up for discussion, and after members had expressed their views it was decided that the erection of a Buitable building should be proceeded with at once. A sub-committee, consisting of Messrs Beattie, Dolamore and Piller, was appointed to arrange all the necessary preliminaries, obtain sketch plans for a hall and an estimate of the cost, &c. We congratulate the committee upon their energy and enterprise in the matter. They have had many difficulties tocontend with but have so far surmounted them all, and, having now recognised that there is a want for a public hall, reading room.&c, in this town, we hope their efforts to obtain one that will be a credit to Gore may be successful. If all goes well the new hall should be completed and opened about the end of May and ia view of that probability residents in the town and district might . well extend what assistance they can. Any member of the committee will be happy to deceive money donations towards the bu Iding fund or presents of books ,&c, with which to stock the library shelves. '■ yilr Thos. Hunter, who recently purchased 68 acres near the site for the Stony Creek Bridge from the Agricultural Company, in- . forms ua that he intends to lose no time in putting up his hotel and store. The building material will be on the ground to-mor-row, so that we shall nob have long to wait for the completion of the building. — Advr.