MAEREWHENUA.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume II, Issue 151, 19 January 1872, Page 5

MAEREWHENUA.

(From oar cwn Correspondent.)

With regard to the death of Clarke the miner, many reports of which have appeared in your late issues, I wish to observe that when the police authorities at Oamaru declined to interfere iu the matter it became a matter of necessity, from decomposing circumstances, that the body should be buried. Let truth be told: there was no desire or intention on the part of the miners here to backslide, or refuse to a fellow mortal the ordinary right of Christian burial. The wood for the coffin was purchased, but it was found that the body was so contorted as to render its reception within its limits impossible. Thus, then, was the unceremonious burial of which your correspondents complain conducted. Let me say of him as we ought to say of all humanity, and I .hope perhaps may. be said of myself —Requiescat in pa?e. - In spite of dry weather hitherto unprecedented—iri spite of croakers—in spite of all the unfortunate circumstances which have for some time past prevailed—these , diggings are forging ahead—slowly, perhaps, but surely. We here are all anxious to hear" the result of the application made to the Government to advance money to complete the Ben Lomond race. If there be any objection on the part of il.e Government. to advance the funds requi el for the completion of this m6st necessary and important work the ~ sooner we know it the better, and the sooner regulations are published under which advances can be applied fur and granted the sooner shall we know our fate,., .and. the. encouragement which hopeful diggings such as these are likejy to. receive at the hands of. a paternal Government. For my own part, 1 unhesitatingly affirm that all this place requires for its development is an adequate- knowledge of its resources and a small amount of fostering care. Whether it shall or shall not get that care depends,' to a very great extent, upon the gentleman into whose hands the destiny of the district has been and is confided. The late severe drought has told heavily . on the crops of this favored district, and it has become matter of doubt how far and to what extent the crops may be available. The pastjseapon in this respect has been bad, the present not over encouraging, and, so far as we can see or judge of the future, there is little hope of improvement.

The shearing season: is over, and for once the squatters and their interests would seem to reign paramount —good crops of wool, good prices, and fair weather being the order of the day. So far so. good, but so far as mining is concerned we can do nothing without water, and that great want has essentially failed us this season. We still, however, live- in hope—temporarily, perhaps; discouraged, but with a full belief and reliance in the future. To tell you all our little wants would occupy more space, perhaps, than you would be disposed to afford me in your valuable columns. Bad, however, as things from the want of water have been and are, I am, I think, entitled to say " Dutri vita e.A 1 spes." I fear that the same affliction under which we have been suffering here has been experienced on the Hogb urn * ana that your cry, like our ,own; is Kain ! rain! rain], l I fear that I .have trespassed too | much upon your space; any additional matters, therefore, I will reserve till my next.

The betting in the Tichborne case i 8 * 10 to X against the claimant.