FROM A CORRESPONDENT.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 1964, 21 April 1875, Page 2

FROM A CORRESPONDENT.

Mackaytown, Tuesday. 1 A number of people came up today, but a: still greater number hare left, mostly for Tairua. The town is nearly deserted, and some of the spurs and gullies have been completely abandoned — others only partially. The shopkeepers and hotel-keepers who have gone to the expense of erecting permanent buildings .are looking blue. Some of them^wouUL|ike to be off to Tairua butj 'Tne^Prespectors are sending down by the Lalla Eookh to-morrow three tons of stone from different reefs in their mine. They have got a good ahotr. „ -.Their quartz is good looking stuff, and shows occasional gold; and if the cruihings turn out anything - like the Tairua stuff, a reaction will set in towards Ohinemuri. If the registered owners of claims do not carry on work »little more energetically, the best thing the Government can do is to give notice to the natives that their lease ot the field will terminate at the end of the year, or else bring it under the operation of the Goldmining .Districts Act. Tairua is attracting all the attention, while Ohinemuri is neglected. Capital has not yet been brought to bear upon the development of Ohinemuri, while I believe half the big bugs of Auckland are anxious to put money on Tairua. That this is \go I can vouch,;and Heave your readers to discover the cause. We have been visited at last with rain, which cannot help to do good here, and more especially to the different paddocks in the township which have been already planted with oats. There has also been very strong wind, which made tho calico structures shake a bit. There have been no new finds of gold sinco I last wrote to you. Edwards and party ! cut a reef in the Rose of Australia claim, next the. Banyan. The reef is about four feet thick and dipping to the westward. | They got a little gold, and they intend to try some of it as soon as possible. At Waitekauri work is getting pnshed ahead fast in all the claims. Quin, Bain and party have cut the reefs already | found in Leahy's and Foley's claims with, the same prospects, which they consider-*--/ payable. Mr Murray has taken up ten men's ground next to Foley's claim, and expects to cut the large reef in'about a week's time; they have already cut several likely leaders, but they have no gold as yet. This party are putting in three drives on three different levels, which will cut anything coming through their claim.

At a dinaer party ia London there wer« two sisters present; one a widow who had just emerged from her, weeds, the other not long married, whose husband had lately gone to India for a short term. A young barrister present was deputed to take the widow into dinner. Unfortunately, he was under the impression that his partner was the married lady whose husband had just arrived., from India. The conversation between them commenced by the lady remarking how extremely hot it was. " Yes, it is very hot," returned the young barrister. Then a happy thought suggested itself to him, and he added, with a cheerful smile f " But not so hot as the place to which your husband has gone." The look with which the lady answered this "happy thought" will haunt that unhappy youth until his death.

That Borough Councillors are not always men of education is proved by the following resolution moved by a councillor in a town we need not name:—" Ordered that the super intender of streets is heir by authorised 2 erect and mantane 2 street lite* in Joon-street." '

An old business sign in Philadelphia, many yean ago, read, " William Shot and Jonathan Fell."