THE WEEK.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume IX, Issue 140, 13 June 1874, Page 2

THE WEEK.

Nelson is positively dull without her Councillors. It became quite the fashion to drop into tho Hall for an hour or two and listen to the goiups on, and now that we ara deprived of that amusement tho winter evenings appear doubly long* However, wo shall probably not have to wait many months for another legislative season, as the Council will, no doubt, in the event of the loan being granted^ be called together shortly after the rising of the Assembly. Wbat will then be tho verdict on those who have been left in charge? Will they retain their seats or have to give way to others, if the latter, how long will the new men * hold office? All these are nice little questions arising out of our new system of responsible government. If flyiDg about the country is calculated to inspire confidence, Mr O'Conor will certainly not be ousted from his position, for he does not let the grass grow under his horse's feet when once he makes a start. Presiding at an Executive dinner in Nelson on Tuesday evening, at tha Lyell on Friday morning. This is making the pace rather hot, as tbe horsey men say. If all this energy is productive of the amount of good that we have a right to expect from it, Mr O'Conor may defy his opponents at the next session. Is it a good or a bad sign that so little interest is taken in the election of members of the Local Education Committees? Tweuty-five ratepayers at the annual meeting is not a largo attendance in a town having the population of Nelson, but it may be that the presence of so small a number is a proof not of apathy, but of content. If there were fault to find, or improvements to euggest, surely more tban twenty-five would take part in the proceedings, or some of those present would have something to say with reference to the schools and teaching. In the absence of a greater Dumber of ratepayers, and of any remarks whatever upon our j educational system and its working, we may naturally infer that everyone iB perfectly satisfied with the existing state of things. And yet one would almost like to see a little more interest, taken in tho matter once a yenr. So the Perseverance Company, after repeated attempts to die, has at last succeeded, and with it vanish all the dreams of wealth that four short years ago were so largely indulged in. The great majority of the shareholders no doubt hsve agreed to the winding up of the Company from the conviction that the mine would never pay, but there are others who have somewhat hesitatingly given their consent, believing as they do that gold abounds in the claim, and that they are throwing up what might at no distant date prove an excellent speculation. But hope has been deferred so long that the heart has become very sick, and so the Perseverance Company is very shortly to become a thiDg of the past. I sometimes ruminate, aod I daresay others do the same, upon what would have been the effect upon our community had the Perseverance and the Culliford Companies proved a success instead of such a wretched failure. Not only would the shareholders have been enriched by iheir dividends, but such a etimulas would have been given to mining enterprise that by this time we should have known far more of "our mineral wealth than we do at present, for these two companies would have been but the pioneers of numerous others, whereas now ask a man to go into such a speculation and just look at his face to see what he thinks of you. There would be no occasion to wait for an answer. Far better would it havo been that these two reefs had never been discovered, not only on account of those who have lost money by them, but for the sake of the province at large, for a shock has been administered to the confidence that was at one time so universally felt in the value of our mineral resources that will be felt for years to come. I sometimes hear people asking why landowners or leaseholders are allowed to shoot pheasants on their properties without a license, and I am not able to give them a satisfactory answer. The license does not entitle the holder to shoot on other people's grounds, but merely to kill game after he has obtained permission from the owners to enter upon their proporties. The privilege conferred by the license upon the owner or non-owner of land is precisely the same, wey then should they not both pay alike for it ? The reasons for requiring licenses to be taken out, I take it, are twofold. In the first place to prevent the birds being indiscriminetely shot by everyone capable of holding a gun, and, in the second, to add to tbe funds of tho Acclimatisation Society that has been the means of introducing the game which most people are so glad to seo here. If tbis be so, I fail to see why landowners should he exempt from pay- ' ing the small fee reqaired by law. Certain late occurrences in the commercial world have made rather prevalent in Nelson a complaint popularly known as the " dumps"; a slight improvement in this respect haa been noticeable within the last few days, but other troubles have taken the place of the " dumps," and now the fashionable complaint is the mumps. Young men and maidenß, old men and children have their heads tied up in flannel, neither age nor sex is spared, and tbe

number of melancholy looking objects that one meets in making a tour of the town is something incredible. Flannel mu3t surtly be at a premium. In another paper published in town, "Almost a " Laughing Jackass " has kiodly devoted a fow lines to commenting upon my " chit chat and gossip " which ho objects to as possessing ** in influence as effectual as though it were real." I would remind him that it was never my intention to write for laughing jackasses, which accounts for my not having sfudied his peculiar tastes. If he does not approvo of my weekly jottings, it is open to him to leave them unread, and to occupy his time far more profitably in perusing the letters which so frequently appear in the paper ho patronises, on the subject of tbe absence of Government advertisements from its columns. If, not liking my communication, he still persists in reading them, he really must bea very foolish fellow, and the next time he writes, he ehould omit the first three words of his nom de plume. T wish he would sign his rfal name, for I have an idea that, if he did, most people would think be had selected a very descriptive substitute. F.