THE Evening Star. PUBLISHED DAILY AT FOUR O'CLOCK P.M. Resurrexi. TUESDAY, APRIL 5, 1881.

Thames Star, Volume XII, Issue 3828, 5 April 1881, Page 2

THE Evening Star. PUBLISHED DAILY AT FOUR O'CLOCK P.M. Resurrexi. TUESDAY, APRIL 5, 1881.

The Thames County Council meets to

morrow affprnoon

Wx understand that no less' than £730 of the rates' of last year remain unpaid at the present date The total rates.of the Borough including about £1000 for water and £140 for library, amount to £4000, and suoh a large balance as £730- is not, creditable to the burgesses. • Me TIZAED, Collector of Customs, notifies the payment by him of Imperial pensions tomorrow. We understand that the trial trip of the Patiki will take place on Friday next, when the shareholders, with their sisters, cousins, and aunts, will be invited. The Prospectors' Claim at Te Aro va has already commenced to cart stone to the battery, and it is expected that within fourteen days the stampers will be at work. We understand that thn shareholders of the Smile of Fortune and the Morning Star have agreed to bear the cost of six chains of tramway, and a 5h00t.350 feet, to convey their stone to the flat/ from which it can be easily taken to the bafrjery. Mr Porter, the Chairman of Direotors of tbeMoruing Star, let the contract during his late visit to the goldfield. All shares in the Morning Star, Te Aroha, upon whioh calls due are not paid before the 9fch inst. are to be forfeited by order of the directors. The recent rain has enabled the Herald^ Alburnia, Golden Crown, and Queen of Beauty mills to start crushing. Messes Seed and Batkin recommend further reductions amounting to £10,000 per annum. A copy of the new evidence to be brought forward by the Crown in the case of Procoffi has been furnished to Mr Brassey, who has been appointed by Judge Richmond to defend the accused. The Crown Proseculorwaa very much againsl the postponement of the case till next Monday, but upon the application of Mr Brassey the Judge ordered the case to be down for Monday. ,We are pleased to learn that the trustees of the McGregor fund (Messrs Marshall and Comer) have purchased for Mrs McGregor the freehold of her cottage allotment H6>ar tho Waio-Karaka school, and have taken steps to see that a little money is givan her occasionally when she is in need of it. The District Court was opened this morning by Mr Allom, and adjourned till three o'clock.. A report of the proceedings at that hour appears in another column. The P.M.B.S. Australia, with the English and American mails, arrived in Auckland at 3.30 p.m. yesterday.* Passengers for Auckland—William Hewitt, H. D. Carter, Miss R. Casey, Captain E. R. Webb, S. P. Starr, and ten'in the steerage. The steamer left Honolulu on the 21st March. The City of New York had not arrived. On the passage the Australia kept a man on the look-out at the mast head, but Baw no sign of the missing steamer. The Zealandia was sighted on the > 31st March. The Waikato Times says:-— We understand that Captain McPheraon. has been asked and has consented to undertake the duties of Brigade Major at the forthcoming Easter Review at Te Awasnutu. Preparations for the demonstration are being actively made, and there is a prospect that the affair will be a grand success. In answer to an advertisement, the whole, of the committee and r fully half of the members of the Thames Rifle Rangers met Capt. Douglas last " evening in their drill hallIt has been arranged to compete for about two dozen prizes at the butts, where lucoheon. will be provided for the competitors. The hon. members of the corps will be invited to try their skill with the rifle, for which purpose rifles and ammunition will be on the ground. In the evening , there will be a concert and dance. Two worthy members of the Baptist Church went last evening to light up for the baptismal service, and one of them, the venerable Mr Forsaith, fell into the tank which is situated below, the pulpit. The old man sustained a complete ducking, and the sight of his companion pulling him out like a drowned rab, would have raised a smile to the countenance of the moat rigid adherent to the denomination of which John Banyan was a shinine light. B We have authority for alating that it is probable the celebrated lecturess, Madatne Lotti Wiltnot, will visit the Thames. . Me 9C. Jotnt, on the occasion of her removal to Auckland was presented with a handsome desk by the Shortlaad Weslayan young women's bible class. The usual meeting of the Orphanage Committee was beiag held while we went to press. . The Te Aroha correspondent of the Waikato Times writes very sensibly as follows : ; — "The names of some of the owners of socalled abandoned claims placarded on the wall of the Warden's office have excited some remarks upon the fairness of granting protection to some from the usual goldminers' law, that if a grant. is not worked it shall be forfeited. Speculators can take advantage of this protection obtainable by payment of. a certain sum, and without any expenditure of labor or capital can merely hold their claim till it is made valuable by the work of some poorer neighbor, who, after working for months and turning ' oat.. perhapß a hundred ton 3of material finds that he cannot wait any longer for the completion of the battery, but mu?t go to work elsewhere to obtain a further supply of cash, or something for a living, and who may thus forfeit his claim. The moment the battery goes to work the hundred tons of material from tho forfeited claim may turn out to be of value, and the protected claim, that has done no work, immediately reaps the benefit by a rise iv tho price of their shares, while the poor fellow who has suffered all the heat and burden of the day, has to look out for another corner in which to earn his crust, or work for somebody else's benefit all over again. There is a little complaining, naturally, to be heard on the subject, and, it is said by some that the sooner the protective system is done away with the better for the field. A most promising looking claim if protected from the necessity of being worked, turns out nothing and does nothing for the advancement of tha field, but if compelled to develop its resourcee, might ' be made of use to tho community generally, ss

well as ,its owners. Tho Battery it is said, will commence operations, very shortly now, and a true verdict may then be passed upon tho value of the Te Aroha goldfield, but oo.nparativsly a poor supply of quartz is awaiting t > be crushed, and this it is said is one of the effects of the protective system. It was reported yesterday that a prospecting party made a remarkably valuable discovery somewhere in tho neighbourhood of the Waiontjomai erpek and not far from the Sbolovev claim that has excited considerable remark befere by the good qualities of the quartz found upon it."

It is but seldom (says the Inangahua Herald) in miuing enterprise that a venture can be pointed out which has enjoyed such uninterrupted success as the United Alpine, since the company commenced to declare dividends about June last. Since then nine dividends have been declared, varying from 8d to Isd per share, and the company being divided into 32,000 shares, this represents a total of £13,066 13s 4d, or 8s 2d per scrip. In addition to dividing this handsome sum amongst.the shareholders, the company have erected machinery partly out of profits, bosides opening out the mine and otherwise developing certainly the most permanent and probably the most valuable gold mining property in New Zealand, there being a certainty of at least five year's stone to be obtained that will supply the crushing power at present available from the levels opened ; and there is every indication of the stone maintaining the good average quality of th*\t whioh has been treated during the successful operations of the past nine months.

A TBLEfIBAM from Dunodin states that the whole of the rate levied for the city was pai 1 before the close "of the financial year. It would be a matter for congratulation if the treasurer of the Borough of Thames could say as much. Although the rates are heavy on the Thames, residents should make an effort to pay them, sis otherwise it will be impossible for the authorities to provide for necessary improvements, or to keep the works already done in a stats of ■ repair. We understand that a greater number of names appear on the defaulter's list this year than ever before, and in many instances owing to the non-payment of the water or library ivttes. These rates are very small—in many instances amounts' under two shillings are standing against well-to-do burgesses. Non-payment will prevent ratepayers exercising their privileges of voting at municipal elections. We would advise a call on the collector within the next few days before the defaulter's list is published.

A most extraordinary occurrence (says the Inangahua Times) is reported to us as having ocourred at Soldier's, near Reefton, It appears that on Sunday evening ksfc, two men named Brown and ti-ibson were returning home from Eeefton to their hut in Soldier's Gully, and when about, half a mile from the Grey road they saw ahead of them what at first appeared to be a small shrub on fire. As they approached it, however, it assumed the appearance of a ball of bluish fire passing slowly over the bush at a height of five or six feet from the ground. As the luminous appearance passed the travellers, one of them, Gibson, was struck by the body on the Bide of the head with such violence ag to render the man almost insensible, and (he light then vanished. The sufferer managed to crawl home, but for some hours was in such agony that his mate was several times on the point of leaving for medical assistance. In the course of the night, however, the man recovered. Strange to cay that no mark of any kind was caused by the contest.

The following ia too good to be oasfc aside. The writer of " London Town Talk " ia the "Argus says ' fj —" Hers is the best thing that the Irish, trouble has given us. A Land League orator, addressing the crowd, was assuring them in high-falutin' terms that ' the Creator had given tha land to man for his own. He gave it to Adam first—' ■' Arrah, be aisy about Adam,* exclaimed a warning voice from among the throng, ' Adam was evicted without compensation. 7"