EXTRACTS FROM THE PROVINCIAL PRESS.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume V, Issue 291, 26 September 1874, Page 3

EXTRACTS FROM THE PROVINCIAL PRESS.

: The ' Guardian' reports that it is intended to proceed at once with the alterations-, that are to be carried out in'the Provincial Council Chamber. The sitting accommodation for members will be rendered of a more compact character, as the chairs will be brought closer to the Speaker's chair. The reporters' gallery is to be lowered; and these alterations, it'is expected, will cause the utterances of Provincial representatives to be distinctly heard. The Speakers' and strangers' galleries are also to be enlarged, and the roof strengthened by additional bearings at each principal. ' '

The f Bruce Herald' of a late date has the following information, which is, we fear, a creation of a fertile mind, anticipatory of what will one day be a fact:—" The Government are about to construct a dray road from Ramsay Town, Maerewhenua Diggings, to the Naseby road, which will go through the Maerewhenua Pass, a distance of twenty miles from entrance to exit. The whole length of the road will be about thirty-five miles; No doubt this is hut a continuance of the railway system, which, will find its way through the Mount Ida Goldfields, via Oamaru r and Waitaki, before many years." The ' Guardian' cf Tuesday deprecates a hasty rush to the Palmer:— " The attractions of the Palmer are beginning to exert their influence on the easily excited feeliugs of our mining population. A batch started off for the new El Dorado on Saturday last in the s.s'.. Otago, which on leaving was crowded with passengers. The demand on the 2.30 Port Chalmers train was so great -that four extra carriages had to be put on in order to meet therequirement. While not disposed'to depreciate the. Palmer Goldfield, we would : strongly urge upon our miners the necessity of caution. None but young, hale, muscular,and vigorous men can possibly brave the rigors of the climate with any degree'of impunity. We do not wish to make "bogies" out of snakes, savages, swamps,* and rivers ; but no man, be he ever bo Brronc, can afford to barter health for gold, and this is to ninety out of a hundred,the alternative offered by the' Palmer Diggings. - Mr. T. L. Shepherd is not alone in his strong condemnation of the existing Goldfields Act. In the 'Mail's ' report of a case heard in the Warden's Court at Queenstown on the 4th instant, Mr. Warden Beetham " does not hesitate to express an opinion that the Act of this Colony was a complete hash —a hash that was perfectly inexcusable. It deprived him, and he would venture to say the same for every brother Warden throughout the Goldfields of the Colony, of the benefit of the precedents laid down affecting min-. ing laws in the other Colonies. He intended to speak strongly, because he was so-fre-quently asked to consider cases, when he found the New Zealand Acts would not allow him to apply them to matters. He saw the same thing occurring in the District Court, and -the sooner the Legislature relieved the Goldfields of this difficulty the better it would be. The Mining Acts of New Zealand were a jumble, and a disgrace to the Colony."—'Star.'

The blacks at the Palmer relish something else besides horseflesh, as the following paragraph from the ' Cooktown Courier,' of the 15tn August, will show:—"About ten days ago those sable sanguinary savages, the blacks, killed, cooked, and ate a man on Gregory's Gully. The man was in good condition, young and tender, and no doubt our friends enjoyed him immensely. They have since ' wiped out' another miner on the Upper Camp; but as, this individual was a Cornstalk, in poor condition, they made: no '. use of his body further than mutilating it in a most frightful manner. These facts are plain; they are very horrible, too. This district has been settled—at any rate, occupied —for nearly twelve months; yet we do not seem to have any better protection now than in the 'early days.' ' What are the native police doing ? Why cannot they protect men in the district, so that they can rise up in the morning without fear of being on the coals and forming a dainty dish for these cannibals before night ?"—'Guardian.' His Houoe Judge Gbay, in giving his decision on a late occasion at Queenstown in a Bankruptcy case, is reported to have said : " He could not punish the bankrupt, as a Turkish ' Caliph would an . offender, for Lis moral conduct, as well as his apparent offence. He must be governed by the law'as laid down in the statutes. He did not approve of the insolvent's-conduct ; but the creditors had not generally opposed, probably not caring to throw away good money after bad, or what was equally valuable, their time. He could not, therefore, refuse insolvent his discharge, and would leave the creditors to look after him hereafter. In granting the insolvent his discharge, the Court acted with great reluctance, He was, figuratively speaking, throw-ing-himseif almost on his haunches, as it were to accomplish the duty, The insolvent had behaved so abominably, and had covered 'his conduct with bo many falsehood* that the

Court could not feel for him. He had obtained his discharge, not through his deserts, but because his commercial transactions escaped the puuishment of the law." The report circulated last -week through the Province, relative to the supposed murder of Mr. Logan, is fortunately incorrect. The Dunedin papers report that':— News has been received in town of the Safety, of Mr. T. Logan, of the Bendigo Quartz Keef, who been reported to be missing under circumstances which led many to think that some accident had befallen him. Mr. Logan left for Croiuwell on Friday with a cake of gold. It.also is reported that he left i-owburn for home at midnight. On the wny his pipe fell from his mouth on to the road, and he pot down to pick it up ; but ; on again attempting to take his seat in the buggy the horse started, and dragged him a short distance, which accounts for the blood marks. The horse went to the ferry without him. Mr. Logan made his appearance at Mr. T. Marsh's farm on the following morning. He is only a little bruised. —The ' Star's' correspondent telegraphs the excitement here'about Mr. Logan's non-arrival was caused through blood having been found on the seat of the buggy out of which he apparently fell. Mr. Logan is all right, being only a little bruised. Mr. Logan had been down with a cake from Bendigo, and was going home after midnight, possibly sober. His pipe fell from Jus mouth on to the road, and" he got down to pick it up, by getting in again the horse started, dragging lum a little \v;>v, which accounts for the . blood marks. The animal went to the ferry without him. , Mr. Logan turned up at Miirsh'3 farm in the morning.

The Canterbury Press, refering to the cry of " Spoliation of the southern land fund." states : —We suppose there are personß wlu believe this stuff.. At all events " the land fund in danger" servos very well for a cry. People can say that who can say nothing else. It is exactly suited to politicians of the Tad pole and Taper kind—a set of political cuckoos whoss intelligence it just equal to an automa-ton-like reiteration of a single phrase. But as a serious argument for the maintenance of provincial institutions it is not worth answering ; for, in the first place, ibis untrue. It is as certain,as can be that Mr. Yogel has so such design. He has repudiated it in the strongest language'a man could use. . .... .Thus the Government stand

pledged in the most; positive unequivocal manner a Government tan be—and as far as they can tliey have pledged the House—to uphold existing arrangements with respect to the land fund in their full integrity. . . . Meanwhile it is an amusing practical comment on the value of this extravagant alarm about the land fund, that the Provincialists of Canterbury have placed themselves under the leadership of the very man whom they are used to consider its most dangerous enemy. There is no one in all the 2forth Island who .labors under a more deeply rooted suspicion of designs upon the Southern land revenue that Mr. Fitzberbert. For our own part ■ ■rt*ji| have always prol estcd against these fuspicion's as unjust. But that they exist intensely .among the public men of both Canterbury and Otago, and Mr. Fitzherbert has been regarded, in and out 6t Parliament, as ever on the watch for an opportunity of seizing on the land fund, is undeniable. ' He has been charged again and again (especially by our contemporary, the 'Lyttelton Times') with desiring to set aside the compact of 1856, and to convert the Middle Island land fuud into common colonial property/with th 9 view of making it available for the purposes of Wellington. Yet, now, Mr. Fitzherbert is the leader of the Provincialists. Hs is their champion against the machinations of Mr. Vogel. He is arm-in-arm with Mr. EoLeston and Mr. Reeves: What does that indicate? Evidently that these gentlemen know that the land revenue is perfectly safe. Their action contradicts their words. .They show that they have no fear for the land fund by consorting wioh one whom they consider its most pernicious enemy. Their alliance with Mr. Fi tzherbert proves their entire confidence that the representa'ives of the Middle Island will always be able to! hold their own, and to; successfully maintain the right of the South- - em provinces to their land fund against any attempt the North may make to dispossess them.