LAKE WAKATIP.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume VII, Issue 383, 14 July 1876, Page 3

LAKE WAKATIP.

(From our own correspondent.) The King of Terrors thas been busy again in the City of the Lakes (Queens town), snatching away on this occasion, quite suddenly and without warning, Mr. John M'Bryde, a well known and highly respected citizen, tho landlord of "the Harp of Erin Hotel, Beach-street, Queenstown. The suddenness of the case, it is reported, is accouuted£,for by heart disease. The dullness of winter pervades this, entire district. Business is paralysed for want of cash, and cash is scarce through want of profitable employment; and this in a district whose teeming resources rank amongst the wonderful facts which account for the rapid advance of this Province in wealth and financial prosperity. The state of this district puts me in remembrance of a £wlio got possession of a first class milking cow, whose milk yielded abundance of butter and cream, of which the proprietor was so proud that he invited his friends to examine the produce, and partake of enlert.vinments, into which they entered largely ; and, whilst they discussed the luscious viands, and the joyous entertainer expatiated oa the merits of his ncwly-acquired property—the cow that hud yielded it all —one inquisitive guest asked the question, " On what was the cow fed? " at.whieha heavy cloud of stupid shame settled on the brow of the proprietor, and ho answered that "he did. not know, but he supposed she got something." The administrators of the. affairs of trict are in a. similar position with reference to it. They expatiate and blow loudly about the rich revenues which they are extracting from the people in ull possible shapes ; and, if they were asked how tiie people managed to pay them, they (tin governors of the country) would have stupidly .to cordess their ignorance. They cannot, in the cases of many items of revenue, tell how much any particular district had yielded ; and, as a matter of course, under such a state of things, it is impossible to arrive at anything like equitable returns of votes for works in special districts. It is in this department that reform is needed, and if the foresight of our statesmen will make such reform their object, they will deserve, and doubtless, receive, the thanks ot the entire community, certainly of this district in particular.

Since my last letter some shares have changed hands in the Macetown reefs, at very good figures. Sixteen seventysecond shares in the Homeward Bound reef were gold oy Mr. W. Haven for £ll2O, or £7O per scrip. This was thought by some to be a high figure, but it was exceeded & few days later by a sale of three- scrip, owned by Mr. A. Resta, at the respectable price of £IOO each, or £3OO tor the lot. Number one north, on the same line of reef, called the Lady Fair claim, held by six men, was priced by a would-be purchaser at £6OO, which was refused. The above facts should be enough to establish without doubt the rich character of the range, in which these reels occur—namely, that lying between the Arrow and Shotover Rivers. The annual meeting of the Arrow District Mine; s Association took place on Saturday night last, when the Retiring Committee were persuaded,to resume office for another terra. A well-merited vote of thanks was passed to the Central Executive for their effective and persevering industry ; and new life seemed to be introduced into the annual report by the account given of the finds of payable quartz at Macetown.