TAPANUI.

Tuapeka Times, Volume VI, Issue 279, 5 June 1873, Page 6

TAPANUI.

(From a Correspondent.) May 31st. As you have been quite inundated with correspondence from this district lately, I will mercifully spare you this time by making my communication as brief as possible* Tapanui, from its isolated position, was supposed to be left out in the cold, but of late it has gained a degree of notoriety that is quite refreshing. In a district containing so many savans (who, in the exultation of their mighty intellects, are not afraid to appear in print and indulge in questionable personalities), my humble effusions are quite in the shade. I was under the impression that every body here was so intimately acquainted with each other's affairs that it was impossible to be mistaken in such a trifling thing as the writer of a letter ; yet it seems that " Paul Pry " has made such a mistake, and now Mr. Youngson, having found out that the aforesaid "Paul Pry" is a boy, magnanimously refuses to chastise him, but threatens to get his parents to do it it

he (" t P.P.") don't mind hisown business. I should put " Paul Pry " down as a rather old-fasliioned hoy. All this is highly amusing. Signs having a political significance are not wanting — anxious looking men, with politics indelibly stamped on their visages, are to be met every where, and I am almost afraid the School Committee, &c, will sink into oblivion during the excitement of the elections. The body of a man named Michael "Wallace, who met his death while in a state of intoxication, was brought here on Tuesday last. The deceased was a carrier in the employ of Mr. A. Bain, of Balclutha. He left that place with the waggon loaded for Tapanui, having among other goods a cask of spirits, which it appears he made use of pretty freely. On Thursday he reached the Waipahee, where he remained until Sunday, and on the afternoon of that day ho was discovered hanging with his body downwards and his heels fastened in the tilt on the top of the load, quite dead. The supposition is that he fell asleep on the top of the waggon and then tumbled out on the front part of it. Dr. Douglas was called in to perform the post mortem, which, however, was found unnecessary, as the man's neck was broken. A verdict in accordance with the medical testimony was returned. The deceased leaves a wife and four children unprovided for. The weather during the past week or so has been very changeable — heavy rain, then sharp frost at night, and ultimately a heavy fall of snow, which makes us sensible of the approach or already arrival of old Father Winter. The roads being now in a wretched^! state, the carriers are stickiug out for % a considerable advance in the rates of carriage. The Queen's birthday was celebrated bj every body going about their avocations as usual. I did indeed hear of one enthusically loyal subject firing off a pistol, but I am not certain if it is true. There was one thirsty individual who made superhuman exertions to evince his loyalty by endeavoring to borrow money enough to have a spree ; but, as he was known to have had at least half a dozen birthdays himself during the last twelve months, all of which he celebrated in the same fashion, not much notice was taken of him.

A candid correspondent of a Melbourne journal gives his experience of an hour's quiet -repose in a way near an hotel : — " I was passing behind a well-known hotel the other evening, having had a late supper with some friends proceeding home in the Somersetshire, and happening to loiter on the way — and probably owing to the number of right quid wally-wachts, or something similar, hot, with sugar, which I had suffered during the evening — anyhow 1 woke up after a refreshing lounge on the kerb, feeling one of the strangest sensations imaginable. To rub my eyes and gaze around seemed natural enough, but little reeked I of the scene around me. I should say thousands of rats were creeping over me, near me, and around me, some of them, as big as healthy kittens, others perfectly white with age ; most of them were fighting over something which lay ahead of me. I gathered my snrprised senses about me, rubbing my eyes gently like, so as to preserve my anonymity, and watched* the strange ceremonies going on^fc There were young rats and rats o^^ middle age fighting with iron-grey veterans and larrikin rats ; there were staid old tailskinn'd 'uns, holding their own in crowds of hundreds, and all rolling over a mysterious parcel in the middle of the right-of-way. I watched the brutes for I should say a quarter of an hour, I then commenced to shy little pieces of dirt at them, and, beyond causing "a slight disturbance amongst forty or fifty near me, the rest fought, bit, and cursed one another in front. Some of the wretches sat on their haunches and grinned at me, but the main crowd fought on in th» middle, each one walking off apparently munching something and looking happier. Surprise got the better of me: the heaps of mud I shied in amongst the ' varmints ' touched them not, and at last, after using up a heap of bluestone, I ventured to stride in amongst the crowd; and, after levelling two or three score with my boots I found the mystery, and wished at the moment I had stayed with my Somersetshire voyagers. My hat, a clean white belltopper, nearly new when I entered that right-of-way, I found in 400 pieces, and nothing distinct save the paper. They didn't care for paper, but they enjoyed the felt. The Leamington town crier is said to have made recently the following ant nouncement in the streets of that fashionable inland watering place :—": — " Oh, yes ; oh, yes ; oh, ye 3 ; this is to give notice to all mistresses of laundresses, that at an open air meeting held in Leamington by ladies of the wash-tub, it was resolved that on ani and after the Ist day of June no washerwoman would work for less than one shilling and sixpence per day, her board and beer included. By order of the ladies of the wash-tub. God save the Queen." Ireland's population decreased during the quarter ending J unejJO, 24,088. The number of inhabitants in the country is now fewer than in 1804, and has fallen off over 3,000,000 in the last 25 years. The land under tillage is less by 134,945 acres than in 1871, and more than 1,000,000 acres less than in 1850. Small traders in the provincial towns are failing in business, all of which facts indicate a condition of things not paralleled at the present time in- any other country in the civilised world.