CORRESPONDENCE.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume II, Issue 95, 9 December 1870, Page 3

CORRESPONDENCE.

"SLUICE-BOX" opST/iATHANS.

(lo the Editor of the Mount Ida Chronicle.) —Until I saw your issue of Eriday last I was not aware that there were two scribbling " Sluice-Boxes" here. The author of the article headed " Protection in St. Bathans," in making use of the same signature which he well knew to have been used only a few days previously by a different person, resid-ins;-in the same place with himself, has perpetrated a forgery for which there is no reasonable excuse. I fully agree with him in saying that the miners"are a very persevering; lot of men, and that water rates are high no one denies; but, if he wished to gain for- his grand point—the insinuation that he has been unfairly treated, by , reason of the Warden. 1 raving*granted protection to some other, party —he should, in the first place, have quoted the reasons mentioned by the -Warden for granting the protection complained of, and then he should have sjiown your readers how very wrong such reasons are, or were. He has not done this, and I cannot permit any of your readers to think that"the writer of the above-namejd. article, .and the writer of t\vo letters some" weeks ago similarly signed, are one and.the same person without undeceiving them.—-I am, &c, The-Originax-Slttice-Box. St. Bathans, Dec. 5, LB7O.

[The writer of the article " Protection at St. Bathaiis," signed u SluiceBox," in our issue of last week, is neither the " Muice-Box "* of previous? communications . nqr. " The •, Uriwiual Sluice-Box."—Eb. M.I.C.] PROTECTION AT ST. BATHANS. (To the Editor of the Mount Ida Chhonicle.) & Sir,—(af-lancing through the columns of the ' Mount Ida Chronicle' of Dec. 2nd, my attention was arrested by an article headed " Protection ■at St. Bathans," and' signed " Sluice-Box," a signature which has figured rather conspicuously in a previous issue of your paper. In his article dated Nov: 28, he condemns the "conduct of the .different water-companies for protecting their ground, and also that of the Warden for granting protection to the said companies. I think "Sluice-Box" labors under -a very erroneous idea when he says "the"water companies are protecting all the grounxLthey can, get, and will let their water run to waste rather than employ men to work it." "There are-only two claims in the Basin protected-'by the water companies, one of which is -.worked so far that fears were entertained' of bringing in their neighbors' ground," thereby causing the company to cease working, and apply for which Warden Robinson thought fit--to grant theth. " The claim I refer to is that of the Mountain Hace Water Company at Kildare. The second claim' under protection is one running into the Blue Grully, and was purchased by the Water Company from Messrs. Learmonth and Siltnore, who worked the claim as far ns it was possible"to do at the present level. This, then, is the claim, 'which " Sluii-p-Box " informs the.publiu was protected by the water companies, although- an objection was raised by a party of*, miners This party of miners have a channel- by which taey could work the above-mentioned piece of ground, therefore it was to their interest to object to a protection bein«granted. k ' Sluice-Box " did not. inform the public that the parti/'of miners mentioned by him- are holding. ■ half the ground on the Dunstan'Creek, and are keeping their eyes open for the other half, which, should they be.,'fortunate enough to obtain, they would no doubt name the present Dunstan Creek New Hibernia, and whistle " Garry Owen and Glory" to the jingle of the pick and shovel.—l am, &c.,. v Banshee. ' St. Bathans, Dec. 5. ~;