Auckland Echoes.

Thames Star, Volume XIII, Issue 4277, 15 September 1882, Page 2

Auckland Echoes.

(fkom otra own correspondent.)

During the past week or two the superfluous energy of the Auckland people has been expended in the mild excitement of speculation in mining shares. The longdeserted temple dedicated to the sale and purchase of scrip, which for months previously had been untenanted by any save a few disconsolate-looking high priests of mammon—i.e., sbarebrokers—whose Micawberism was written on every lineament of their features, and could be detected in their gait and the pose of their bodies, become a busy scene of life. " Something has turned up " at last, and our friends the brokers have laid by a sufficient stock of filthy lucre to enable them to hang on, or rather hibernate, during another season of depression. If history repeats itself at all, it is certainly in seasons of share excitement, and it is most amusing to an old hand to stand unconcernedly by and see the same old business done, the same old lie told, the same credulous dupes, with more money than experience, and the same old peculiar smiles on the iaces of those whose experience and good fortune has enabled them to scoop the pool. No, Bret Hart, the, Caucasian is not played out; at least, that is, not all of them. But good bye to cynicism. There is really a good feeling here at present with respect to the Queen of Beauty, and the Thames mines generally, and I know people now investing money in your district who had for years passed the insurauce buildings on the opposite side of the road. Coromandel has had its day, so has To Aroha and Waihi, and nothing will go down but Thames shares. If this good feeliug is to be turned to good advantage by the Thames people, they must be careful not to send us men of straw with bogus companies to float; worthless characters who hope to make a few paltry pounds by the sale of promoters' shares in mines they have not the slightest intention of working. Bona fide speculators will be well supported by men of capital, provided they are satisfied that the promoters really mean business. A word to the wise is sufficient.

Another instance of the wonderful enterprise of the Auckland Stud Company has been afforded by the purchase of twenty brood mares from Mr G. G. Stead, that gentleman being on the eve of breaking up his stud. The price paid, lam informed,; was £9,000, and considering the breeding of the mares, it is not exorbit* ant. They are all related to the best racing strains of England, and number amongst them " sisters, cousins, and aunts," to say nothing of other relations —winners of the Derby, St. Jaeger, and the other great classio raoes, The value of the horseflesh now at Sylvia Park, the Stud Company's farm, cannot be less than £100,000. It is by far the most important breeding establishment .in Australasia.

The inquest on the body of Mrs Clearer

is over, and what at first appeared to be a dreadful crime turns out to be a mere case of death from natural causes. The most remarkable feature in the inquest has been the disagreement between the analytical and medical testimony. All the medical men who saw the deceased before death agreed that the symptoms were like those of poisoning, and two doctors deposed to finding undoubted traces of the deadly irritant in the intestines. The only means of accounting for the discrepancy' —for no one can disbelieve Mr Pond's evidence—is by assuming that the chemicals and instruments used by Drs Richardson and Walker had by some means come in contact with arsenic.

Same people come out here with very overdrawn ideas of colonial life. One of the passengers by the Ashmore, after visiting his land at Te Aroha has returned to Auckland. He says he is not satisfied " with the beastly swampy country," and asserts "he could never make a living there." Such are the people who give a colony a bad name.

Mr Thomas Mazzini Clark returned from Australia by the mail steamer. He has embarked in business as a commercial traveller, and has a good spec, on, in which some newly patented sewing machine plays a prominent part. I was recently shown a letter from the Masters' family, of pyrites reduction works fame. They are at Beaeonsfield, a rich gold mining district in Tasmania, and are doing well. Mr Masters writes that he recently saw Davy Reid in Melbourne, and that he was looking well and happy.