ALEXANDRA.

Tuapeka Times, Volume VII, Issue 355, 13 May 1874, Page 2

ALEXANDRA.

(From our own Correspondent.) The Molyneaux has fallen considerably during the last fortnight, enabling the claimholders at Butchers Point to start; work again. With the exception of the usual sprinkling of Chinese who fossick along the beaches every winter, there are no other parties working on the river at present. The contractors have completed the new line of road between the ferry and Butchers Gully, which is a great- improvement on the old track, although some portions of the newly formed road will be hardly fit for the passage of heavy waggons without the addition of a layer of gravel. A melancholy accident occured on the 4th inst. to a boy about three years of age, the sou of Mr. J. Hessan of Bald Hill Flat. It appears that the mother had occasion to go into the garden for a few minutes, leaving the boy and a younger child in the house. The little fellow had apparently been playing too near the fire, as when the mother returned she found his clothing in flames. The flames were promptly extinguished, and medical assistance procured, but proved of no avail, as on Wednesday the child died from the effects of the injuries he had received. Those persons who are unable to appreciate a specimen of quiet humour have been rather surprised at the allusion to- goldfields affairs in His Honor's address to the Provincial Council. Eeferring to the impending conflict between freeholders and the miners on the question of river pollution, His Honor confesses his inability to see a satisfactory solution of the difficulty, but as a panacea for all the ills that mining flesh is heir to, purposes to sell the auriferous lands, and thus create a numerous class of freeholders on every creek and gully on the Goldfields. When Mr. Hardup is dunned by his tailor for the settlement of his small account, which he (Hardup) is utterly unable to pay, he generally endeavours to mollify the wrath of hia enemy by giving another large order for new garments ; but it is rather a novelty to adopt this principle in politics. To do his Honor justice, however, his principal motive for advocating the sale of auriferous land 13, that by making the miner a freeti older he "would be* induced | to save the top soil and replace it after working out his claim. His Honor says that if tho "miners could see their own interests they would unanimously petition the Legislature in this direction." But the miners can't see it. It is strange that for nearly a quarter of a century during which gold mining has been carried on in the colonies, the idea never once occurred to them ; but then they don't know what is good for them. In the Dunstan district the major portion of the land rendered deaolate by miners would almost have, fattened two worms to an acre j but say that a miner was the possessor of the freehold of his claim aud desired to save the valuable Burfaee soil, so that after extracting

the grains of gold he might reap crops of golden grain from his land, he would haye to remove the top soil to at least a foot in depth which on an acre of ground would amount to 1600 cubic yards, so that taking the modest estimate of sixpence per cubic yard as the cost of removing and replacing the soil, the miner would become the happy possessor of a plot of freehold land at a cost, for the soil alone of £40 per acre. I am af riad the the Legislature will not be inundated with petitions in this direction ; the miners are of bo obstinate a disposition that most of them vrho wished to purchase land would prefer doing 80 at the ordinary Government land sale, and in some other locality than a worked out claim. The late Artemus Ward advised a simple method of Teaching the understandings of thoso matter-of-fact people who always look on the serious side of things, and never can comprehend a joke; this was to insert at the end of a paragraph a commentary in brackets, such as (" this is a goak ") or ("this is sorter ironical.") This system might occasionally be adopted with advantage in writings of more importance.