EIGHTY-FIVE YEARS AGO

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26616, 12 November 1947, Page 4

EIGHTY-FIVE YEARS AGO

FROM THE FILES OF THE ©tago TTtmes DUNEDIN, NOVEMBER 12, 1862. ) “The Waikouaiti trade continues to increase sufficiently to encourage the Lady Barkly, Undine, and several sailing craft to keep, regularly on the passage, considerable supplies being daily sent round there for transmission to the diggings.” “We learn from the Wanganui Chronicle that the Native who lately attempted a criminal assault on a European girl at Wanganui and who led the police such a fruitless chase, was captured by the Native police some days ago, but was afterwards rescued by six armed ‘King’ Natives. So much for the Queen’s authority in New Zealand.”

“Captain McLean v. Douglas and Another, a special jury cause, occupied* the Supreme Court from shortly after 10 o’clock yesterday to 7 o’clock in the evening. It was a claim for £SOOO for salvage services rendered by the s.s. Aldinga in saving more than 800 Leicester sheep brought from overseas by the Flying Mist, which vessel struck* a rock and sank at her anchorage at Bluff Harbour. The jury awarded £2200 damages." In his evidence in the case John Douglas, one of the defendants, said that he was to pay a lump sum of £2650 for the charter of the ship. He had to provide the fittings for the sheep, find food and water, and pay the shepherds. There were five shepherds. The number of sheep shipped was 1736. He really could not say what the sheep were worth as landed. Several hundred sheep had died on the voyage.

Up to the present a sum of about £122 has been collected to assist the sufferers by the shipwreck of the Tamar. The list of subscribers to the fund is a lengthy one and includes “ Compositors and pressmen of Daily Times Office, £3 35.” 1

“There is too much reason to fear that another steamer, from. Melbourne has met with the fate of the Comet. The Citizen some 30 days ago left Melbourne for Otago and has not since been heard of. It is possible that during the stormy weather she may have sought shelter in one of the harbours of the West Coast, and if so she may not be heard of for some weeks to come.”

“ The greater part of a skeleton, supposed to be the remains of that remarkable bird, the moa, was, says the Lyttelton Times, discovered a few days ago in Canterbury by some workmen employed in excavating for the approaches of the new bridge over the Heathcote. The skeleton was found about 15 feet below the surface and appears to have undergone a complete process of petrification.”