HALCOMBE.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5323, 18 April 1878, Page 3

HALCOMBE.

(prom our own correspondent.) Halcombe, April 12. In my last I advised you of the stoppage of •work on Nathan and Wilkie’s contract. The men who had been employed on die contract ceased, work through the non-payment of their wages. Since then I hear.that the contractors have filed their schedule. This untoward state of affairs has had the effect of delaying the completion of the line at least three weeks. Great sympathy is expressed for the workmen, who have in some instances lost as much as two months’ wages. These men have given their labor—and labor, too, of the most arduous kind,—and find, when too late, that it is not a safe thing to put their faith in contractors, The Government having undertaken the finishing of the line, work is now in fall swing, and it is conjectured that it will be open" for traffic by the end of the current month. On the 10th inst., while some men were engaged in working in the Corporation gravel pits, a quantity of gravel off the face, variously estimated at between fifty and sixty tons, came down, and buried a German named Bork under it. .The poor fellow had his back to the face of the gravel, and ( thus was not warned of the danger. Fortunately, for themselves, the other men saw what was coming, aud just had time to get away.' These men at once turned to aud made mighty efforts to extricate poor Bork. It is reported that an hour’s hard work had to be done before the body was recovered. Death must have been instantaneous It is supposed that the accident was owing to the cavities left in the.' earth by the rottiug away of the roots of an old tree. These cavities had become filled with water and sand, thus causing flaws tending to the displacement of the whole mass, which was also affected by undermining. At the inquest on the body of the poor fellow nothing transpired whereby blame could be attached to any one, and the jury (taken from tl\e deceased's countrymen) returned a verdict of death through misadventure. Bork was a highly respectable and industrious man, and leaves a wife and three children to lamant his untimely end. The wife is, I understand, entirely unprovided for, and it is to be hoped that; the Government and our local public will do something towards the alleviation of her distress.

Aa a proof of .the capabilities of the soil in this district, I may tell you that I saw_ a mammoth turnip of the white-stone "species weighing 221bs. and measuring exactly 32iu,in circumference," '