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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XII, Issue 20, 5 September 1877, Page 2

A gentleman writing from Warren to a friend in Bathurst speaks of the recent drought in Australia as follows:— " I have just returned from atrip down the Macquarie and Castlereagh. This drought is indeed fearful, and I fear the end is not yet come. Squatters who, twelve months since, could draw a cheque and get it paid for £IO,OCO, can't draw one now for £1000. Indeed, there are some poor fellows who, through hard work and frugality, had nearly reached the top of the ladder, before this frightful drought visited them, but alas! now they are nearly beggars. I don't exaggerate when I tell you I know some squatters who, out of flocks of (say 50,000) sheep, have not a tenth of them left, and cattle o.vners on many stations are just as great losers. The noise of the axe and saw cau be heard on mauy runs, falling the handsome and drooping myalls to sustain life in the perishing beasts, who now almost refuse it as food on account of the almost imperceptible spring in the .young grass on some partly favored spots on the runs. There are some ruus vfhhh ure all right yet for feed and water, bat for how long is another matter. The heat is now almost too great to bear down the rivers, and the sky is almost destitute of clouds. The black caterpillars in myriads are ou " the leaf," and eat up every vestige of green feed. Such is my plain and unvarnished tale." The Wangauui Herald writes the following lugubrious prediction with regard to the future of Blenheim: — Kecent floods in Marlborough have set its thousand and one engineer quacka to work again, and the pros and cons of the Dousliu log dam remedy for the local perpetual deluge, once more fill the columns of (he little Express. For the last year, the attractions of this all important topic have been ou the wane, seldom more than half a dozen communications on the subject, appearing in one issue of the local sheet. An extra high flood was alone required to revive the interest in this Douslin Bam, apparently this flood has visited them, and the whole colony will doubtless look forward to the revised and corrected dissertations on the unruly ptopensities of the Wairau Stream, which will occupy the sole attention of the Marlborough people until their fears are realised, and the river definitely settling the question, leaves its artificial chaunel and washes the capital into t}ie sea. ) A piece of great rascality, which should act as a warning to the girls, has just been perpetrated in New South Wales. An adventurer got introduced to a very respectable family not mauy miles from Queaubeyan, won the affections of a young lady, daughter of his host, proposed, was accepted', and finally married her. He represented himself as a man of property from Queensland. The pair started for what he called his home, and reached Goulbourn, when the scoundrel disappeared with all his bride's effects, in the shape of jewellery, &c, and has not since been heard of.

While complaints come froni different parts of the colony, the disposition to invest capital in such companies as the Union Insurance Company shows that there is no scarcty of money in some parts. Remarking upon thia, so far as Auckland is concerned, the Herald says:— On .the applications made in Auckland a sum of £12,500 has already been paid, a similar sum has to be paid on allotment of the shares, 'and, of course, all those who havo applied have the mouey in their hands. Then calls of 2s 6d are to be made at intervals of four months and altogether, if all the applicants in Auckland are satisfied, they will have to pay, within a twelvemonth, £62,000. This is not much less than £1 a head for the whole European population of the province— men, women, and children, unemployed and all! It is noticeable that Auckland has applied for far more shares than her proportion according to [population, from which it might be in:erred that she is the wealthiest part of the colony.