SERPENTINE.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume II, Issue 131, 1 September 1871, Page 5

SERPENTINE.

(From our own Correspondent.)

Aug. 18. The winter here has fairly broken up, and much damage has been done to the dams and races by the floods consequent upon the sudden and rapid melting of the snow. Among the principal sufferers ] may mention Worth and party, and Buckley and p .rty, whose losses have been very severe. All hands are preparing to set to work with renewed energy and vigor. The prospect of a good spring supply of water is I think favorable, as snow-drifts are still in existence in some localities to the depth of some seven, and "even eight feet. » , The mail service is in the same unsatisfactory state as heretofore, and even sending you these few lines involves .a ride of ten miJes. Out of the way as this place undoubtedly is (a fact to which I attribute much of the neglect to which it has been subjected at the hands of the Provincial Government)!, for my own part, am sunguine as to its future, and I feel sure that a larger proportion of gold will be obtained than from other diggings of greater pretensions, and in better favor with the authorities. lam sorry to report that-a case of robbery occurred here last night. The robbery was of a tail race into which a party here had just finished running their paddock, and who were on the very eve of washing up. The head of the tail race was entirely robbed, and as a matter of course the best portion ot the gold stolen. Suspicion would seem to. point to the Chinamen, whose camp is close to the despoiled race* Should proof of the fact be forthcoming "John" would, 1 fear, receive but little favor or consideration at the hands of the diggers here, who, in the absence of police authority, would be very likely to take the law into their own hands.