DUNEDIN.

Tuapeka Times, Volume VII, Issue 364, 13 June 1874, Page 2

DUNEDIN.

[From our own Correspondent?)

The report- of the Select Committee appointed to enquiry into a report upon the expenditure on the Tokomairiro and Tuapeka road, and upon Abe facts, connected with the letting of the light railway tenders, is a complete refutation of -the accusations made by the Provincial ' Treasurer with reference to alleged improper proceedings on the part of the ex-Secretary for Gtoldfields, Mr. Bastings; and shows also that Mr. Simpson, . the Provincial Engineer, ifr altogether free from any blame in the matter. It is but right that the Press of the province should take cognizance of the Committee's report, for the accusations made by Mr. Turnbull have been widely disseminateJ, and must have been injurious to Mr. Bastings' character as a public man. Instead of that gentleman being selected as specially blamable in the matter of the contracts, the reverse seems to be the case, and other members of the late Executive are deserving of -severe cenaure in the matter. Mr. Fish's motion censuring the late Executive for their -undue haste in accepting those contracts meets with very general public approval. The grievance of your member Mr. J. C. Brown, was before the Council again yesterday in the shape of a motion by the aggrieved calling upon tae Provincial Treasurer to substantiateor withdraw the statements he had made regarding Mr. Brown's asserted endeavours to, obtain grants of the public funds during the recess. Mr. Turnbull explained that what he had referred to when he made the statement was an application by the Clark's Hill. Prospecting Go., for a grant of money for milling purposes which had been refused t>y the Executive and which was subsequently applied for when he (the Treasurer) was in Lawrence, by a deputation headed by Mr. Brown, who pertinaciously and in forcible language urged that the sum applied for should be granted. The Executive again refused the grant, and. ever since then repeated applications had been made for the money. The Treasurer explained that he never meant it to be inferred that Mr. Brown would have benefited personally had the money been granted.

Mr- Brown pressed his motion, and it was put and .carried, ho that in the words of the motion the Treasurer has yet to substantiate or withdraw the imputation conveyed in the terms made uJse of?" •

It lately be^?atne"the subject of remark that a mail hardly ever-^arrived from Melbourne I without there .being two or three murders, suicides, or outrages of some sort chronicled in the newspapers to hand. It seems as if Otago were going to become a pretty strong rival of the sister Colony in this respect. 1 Outrages and calamities of one sort or another have been rather prolific lately, and the most recent one of the catalogue, far heartless brutality stands almost unrivalled, Under the guise of unusual affection a despicable coward, of French extraction, named Buißson, gave his wife, a poor, ill-used creature, a glass of drugged portgr, before retiring to rest one night lately, and wbile the poor woman was under the influence of the drug, endeavoured to choke her by ' thrusting his hand in her throat, «everely lacerating the roots of her tongue, from- the effects of which she subsequently suffered terrible agony. The wretch, has been fitly committed for trial for wilful murder-. _ ' During the- present -week a considerable quantity of coal has been brought in from the Q-reen Island pits by the Clutha engine -and trucks this being a foreshadowing of what we may expect when the. branch line to the pits is constructed. It has been delivered in truck loads, containing about five tons- each, to the order of private consumers, at the rate of 9s. per ton. This, is, however, small coal, of which I suppose a good deal will go to waste, the picked coal no doubt fetching % much better price. "When regular supplies come in from the various pits daily in the large quantities which the trucks can convey, as will very soon be the case, we shall have very little reason to cry over dear coal, so far as the provincial article is concerned and to those of our manufacturers' who employ it for steam purposes, the saving will be something very* considerable^