ALEXANDRA.

Tuapeka Times, Volume VI, Issue 285, 17 July 1873, Page 6

ALEXANDRA.

(From a Correspondent.) July llfcb. Tn mining matters there is nothing of importance to report. The Molyneux 'is falling slowly, but is still considerably highter than it was in the month of May. The weather is a good deal milder, the frost having disappeared, and, by way of variety, has been succeeded by fogs and mists of various degrees of density. The principal topic of interest at present is the forthcoming municipal election. Mr. Beresford, our present Mayor, has consented to stand again as a caudidate for the office, and, judging from the names appended to his requisition, his return is certain. We are promised an infusion of new blood in the Municipal Council — Messrs. Samson aud Morris being spoken of as the coining men. If they consent to stand they will be returned without opposition. We possess a happy style of dealing with these matters in Alexandra. When there is any work to be done, every one is perfectly satisfied to allow any one else to do it, the right to growl over the manner in which it is clone being strictly reserved. This is a capital plan, as both parties are sure to consider themselves illtreated, and they receive any amount of sympathy from their respective friends. It afforded me much pleasure to read your article on the state of the Tapanui road. It is not creditable to tho province tiiat a district on which a considerable portion of the goldfields depend for their supply of timber should be closed for heavy traffic for four or five months in the year — the state of the track being such that the bullock drivers prefer to turn their bullocks out and rusticate during the winter months rather than attempt the all but impossible feat of conveying a load of timber up-country. It is true that ou some occasions a dautless bullock driver, tired of a life of inactivity, after settling his worldly affairs, has loaded his dray and, giving a farewell kiss to his wife and au encouraging curse to his bullocks, has boldly braved the dangers of the slimy deep in the endeavor to perform that dreaded journey of seventy or eighty miles. His friends shake their heads at the rash attempt, and, as weeks and months elapse without tidings of the wanderer, their hopes expire, and they fear that driver aud team have sunk beneath the treacherous mud, to be dug up in future ages, and puzzle geologists by the strange nature of their fossil remains. Happily no fatal remit has occurred, and when the pale and haggard driver at length returns with the framework of a team of bullocks, drawing the skeleton of a waggon, the fatted calf is killed, and the driver registers a solemn vow that he will do so no more. We possess a very inferior class of bullock drivers in Otago. It was pleasant in the good old times to see a party of genuine '• bullockies" treble-banking through a swamp, giving utterance to a comprehensive series of curses that included the anatomy of 1 the whole team, from the tails of the ! polers to the noses of the leaders ; and when the dray lurched in the mud, how ' they joined in a terrific chorus of curses that made the bullock's horns rattle on their heads and their tails curl up 'with sheer ttrror, until in desperation they gave another drag and landed the dray safe on the bank. An Otago bullock driver in the same position addresses his bullocks in a tone of mild remonstrance ; asks Baldy " what he is up to," and enquires of Blutcher "if i be is going out of his senses," puntc- ; tuating his sentences on the heads of the bullocks with his whip handle, and if impelled by a sense of duty to give emphasis to the observations, which the conduct of his team ha 3 called forth, he strictly confines himself to the oaths in current use in polite society. Bullock drivers s have sadly degenerated.