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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume IX, Issue 111, 11 May 1874, Page 2

The last residents of the Haast river have been brought up to Hokitika by the Waipara. They were Sergeant Sugrue and Constable M'Kenna, aud a luckless washerwoman named Clarke, who bad taken her tubs down there at the time of the rush but found the miners in too great ha te to get away to care for clean linen. Mining matters at Brighton are looking brighter than for a long time past. The beachcombers are meeting with tolerable success, and are in good hopes of profitable work during the winter season. At the last sitting of the Warden's Court a number of applications for dams, races, extended claims, washing sites, and residence areas were granted. A fatal case of poisoning by tobacco is reported in the Naval Medical Report just issued. It occurred (says the British Medical Journal) in the perßon of a boy of the Implacable. He had been frequently punished for chewing tobacco, and had often presented himself at the sick bay complaining of debility, giddiness and faintness, which were traced to the poisonous influence of tobacco. On the night of his death, he went to his hammock, telling his messmates that he felt sick. About ten minutes afterwards the occupant of the next hammock to bis heard him breathing stertoroußly aud immediately tried to wake him. Finding he could not he was conveyed to the sick bay, and was at once seen by a medical officer,, who found him moribund. The pupils were insensible to the influence of light; and the pulse which was scarcely perceptible, in three minutes ceased to beat. On post mortem examination of the body, two small pieces of tobacco were found in the stomach.