The Nelson Evening Mail. THURSDAY, MAY 14, 1874.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume IX, Issue 115, 15 May 1874, Page 2

The Nelson Evening Mail. THURSDAY, MAY 14, 1874.

■' '1 ■ " '■ I The Albion with the Suez mail will probably arrive here about seven o'clock this. evening, The Post Office will be open for an hour for the delivery of her mails. The outward maSl o_y the same boat closes at seven am. tomorrow. -~4?toke. — One of those pleasant concerteMbr which tbo residents in the village "of jStoke have secured so good a name Wii4*be : held in -the Public Hall this evening. *■»•., / % Fire at Stoke. — A fire broke ' out at . 9 o'clock last night in the outbuildings belonging to Mr Rout at Stoke, and in a very Bhort time lhe barn, which was a large galvanised iron building, was destroyed. ;wi A all its contents, comprising a quantity of unthreshed beans, oaten hay, about 40 bushels of Beed wheat belonging to Mr Freeman Martin, a three-horse, power threshing machine^ and chaff-cutter £ttod with borso g*ar. The fire then .intended to a five. stalled Btable which was- contiguousY and this was : soon destroyed, . i^ut by the active exertioHs of the Deighbtoe§ the flames- were pre;, vented from spreading any farther. Mr Rout, who we regret to learn was uninsured, estimates his loss at £600. Immigration. —Io our telegrams to-day it will be seen that the Adamant sailed from London for Nelson last month with 330- immigrants, some of whom, no doubt, are shipped for Marlborough.' If proper accommodation is to be provided for them, there should be no delay in commencing the barracks, as the middle of July will probably see the Adamant in our harbor. ./

: The udmifiation pf/a membefdf ttye, Provinoial Cjouncil for the'Yßojfer dis-. trict to .fill the vacancy ca^edYby the reeigna&qn .of _yirS.JFishc^] Will lake place ofrMoin^iy tiliW an^tb&jfoll, if^ any, on lhe following Monday. "In its report of the Wnimate Steeplechase, the South Canterbury Times says :-r" Much amusement was caused by the tunning for the Maiden, all thefj horses "baulking at nearly OVery fencV jockeys spilling, and horses going down beiDg, the order. ~.o£- -tho,, day, , but.Jhe sensation reached its climax when the jock of Wait-a-while came in riding Bushman, and winning the race. A protest ; W">y entered against him." ■• When the s.B. Mikado was at Honolulu on her last down voyage, the price of coals was ninetydollars.a ton. That is to say, in roubd numbers, eighteen pounds. Would it not pay some of our neglected Greymouth friends in the coal trado, who find themselves without a market in monopolised Wellington, to try a cargo or two, to tbe capital of the Sandwich Islands " ?— jfntfependent. Presentations: are. once more the order of the day. A sum of £200 has been subscribed by the customers^-of the Bank of New Zealand at . Oamaru ,"" fbr the purpose of a presentation to Mr '■if, F. Warren, the late agent of that bank thpre.. It is proposed to .employ the money in the purchase of a piece of plate in London, through tbe London manager of the bank. Mr J, T. W. Wilkin, who after twenty years' service has retired from the Postmastership of Lyttelton, has received a parting present from the publio of a handsome gold watch and chain. . . '• iEglee," lu the Australasian, says : I have read the report of a debate in the Sydney Parliament, which, if noi, elegant in manner, is instructive in matter. I glean from this debate that Parliament does not care to allow the Governor of New South Wales JESOO a year for travelling expenses; item— tbat Lord Belmore was a ' costerraonger,' and used to sell cabbages and cauliflowers from the Government House gardens; item — that one honorable member of ihe New South Wales legislature is a 'liar, a blackguard, and a 'scoundrel''; item — that the gentleman who used these words was neither called upon to withdraw them, nor reprimanded for using them. And of course those strong statements must be quite -true, for are not the makers . of tbem honorable by Act of Parliament ? It may, perhaps, be worth saying on Lord Belmore's behalf, that the vegetable scandal arose from his permitting his gardener to dispose of his surplus stock for the said gardener's benefit. And as for tbe allowance of £300 per annum to the. present Governor, .if fortune on the turf continue to smile on the spirited Sir Hercules as hitherto, he won't want it. It is whispered that bis Excellency took £5000 to £600 from tbe principal Melbourne bookmaker, about Speculative winning the Gold Cup, which speculation did, and no one grudges the good fortune of so liberal a: patron of sport. Another instance of good fortune I have just heard. An old resident of Ballarat on his way. from Port Darwin to Melbourne, called in at Sydney for a day or two. An hour before ihe' Steeplechase was run, he bought Nonsense, backed the horse freely, and won £2000 during, the afternoon. Some one, evidently a resident in Greymouth, has been writing to the Canterbury Press under the name of " Weßtlander." He says: — " lam in the habit of paying periodical visits to Canterbury, and at each visit I become more and more deeply impressed with the extent of your resources, and the rapidity with/which these resources arej being developed. But although I have cast in my lot with poor, and at present despised Westland, which at one time formed part of your province, I hope I am not envious of your prosperity. As I feel satisfied; . while We at present mourn over your youthful folly in separating from you — that we possess the elements of prosperity unsurpassed by any part of the Colony, because we have yet our thousonds of acres of gold bearing country. - We' -have also extensive forests, from which large supplies of valuable timber pan be drawn. Our great want being water brought I on to our goldflelds and cheap communication with a market for our timber, which can be secured by a good harbor and railway communication therewith. As to our coal supply, Greymouth alone can supply the whole Colony for centuries to come, with a better and a cheaper articlejihan it now imports, an .evidence of which is that Newcastle coal in this market is worth from 34s to 35s per ton by the oargo, while Greymouth coal sells readily here at 42s per ton, which coal can be delivered at Greymouth free on board on the opening of tbe railway, now being constructed to the mine, at about 10s per ton. The only drawback to our then supplying the whole Colony with a cheap and superior quality of coal will be that Greymouth is a bar harbor, possessing only from eight and a half to twelve feet ot water, but this depth of water can, according to the best authority, be greatly- increased by expenditure of a very moderate sum of money, but unfortunately, we are yet too proud to ask Canterbury to take us back and spend with ua a part of that half million of money lying to her credit, that'we hear so much about, but we do hope that tbe General Government will .seethe utility of lending us money for the purpose of opening up a country- so rich.