ALEXANDRA

Tuapeka Times, Volume VI, Issue 291, 28 August 1873, Page 6

ALEXANDRA

(From a Correspondent.) The weather bas been a good deal milder lately, causing a plentiful supply of water, and the sluicing claims are all in full work. M'Elroy & Co., in G-olden Gully, have got very good prospects, and should tbe water supply last will be likely to do well this season. At Butchers Point the claims are all at work on payable ground, and with a prospect of continuance should the Molyneux keep down. It is intended to give an amateur concert at an early date in ovdor to raise funds to pay off the debt due on the Alexandra School, consequent on the extensive addition which bas been made to the building. We used to possess a pretty good stock of amateur talent in the district, and if the persons possessing it will give their assistance, there is no doubt the result will be a pleasant evening's entertainment, and substantial assistance to a deserving object. I think it was your "Vagabond Reporter" (his bump of veneration must have been dreadfully out of order) who, criticising the various localities he travelled through up country, compared the architecture of tbe town of Alexandra to a collection of empty herring tins ; according to present appearauces he will not hava the same opportunity for his sarcastic remarks tbe next time he visits us. Messrs. Finlay and Morris are erecting a large and substantial stone store, the walls of which are nearly completed ; Mr. Robertson, of tbe Geelong Hotel, is also erecting a new wing to his Hotel also of stone, and I understand it is his ultimate intention to replace the whole of his present building with the same material. Others of our citizens are criticising the beauties of the different orders of architecture — inquiring the cost of various kinds of building materials — or discussing the relative merits of Tapanui versus American timber, all betokening that we are about to pass through one of our periodic improvement epidemics. Tbe last time we suffered from one of those epidemics it took the form of an eruption of cellars, all our leading citizens were burrowing for dear life undeJ tbe foundations of their houses, until it was dangerous to walk along the foot-paths ; small quantities of sand and gravel were ejected from tbe holes at regular intervals accompanied by a puffing, grunting kind of noise, as if some donkey engine was at work in the subterranean depths, and was discharging puffs of soil instead of steam, while occasionally a voice from below would be heard calling out in a tone of touching pathos " aint you coming with that beer." Fortunately the virulence of tbe attack ceased in time to save our citizens from engulphing the township in their own excavations. Joking apart, the spirit with which tbe townspeople enter into these improvements, testifies the faith they possess in the permanent prosperity of the district.