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West Coast Times, Issue 255, 17 July 1866, Page 2

We understand that great complaints were made by the members of the Grand Jury yesterday, of tho insufficiency of the accommodalion provided for them. In a new Supreme Court House, of which great boasts have been made, it is strange that no- apartment has been set apart for the special use of the Grand •Jury, and that the small and most inconvenient Magistrate's Clerk's room has to be assigned to them. To carry on their deliberations with the privacy proper to be observed in their ease is an impossibility, and we noticed yesterday that an armed constable had to be employed to prevent the npproach of prying listeners to the '^windows, which it wa3 necessary to keep open.

The Memorial Committee will niect this evening at seven o'clock, at the Cafe de Paris. AVc trust there will bo a punctual attendance, as there are now so many calls upon the time of business men that the unnecessary waste of half an hour is often a very serious inconvenience to them.

The play-going people will be glad to learn that the new season at the Prince of Wales Opera House will open on Saturday night, and that tho few intervening days will be industriously spent in the preparation of novelties. Mr Beaver's bal masque on Thursday night will be a novel entertainment in Hokitika.

We Jiear very favorable accounts of many of the sluicing parries on the Waimea. At tho head of the right-hand branch, Holland and party, who have constructed the most extensive works in the district, are rewarded by fair returns for their enterprise and industry. The weekly earniugs of the party average about LlO. Above them, M'Masters and his mates completed their largo dam about a fortnight since, and are now employed sluicing away a terrace. They also are well paid for the troublo of constructing preliminary works. Boyle, Keating, and their respective parties, are also engaged sluicing in the same locality, and. admit that the result leaves them no just reason to complain. A large race is being cut by M'Bride and party, from the head of the Arahaura to Fox's Gully, and will be finished in the course of a month or six weeks. Anticipating its completion a number of diggers have taken up ground in Fox's, which they believe will pay well, if there was a supply of water only at command. Below M'Millan's store, Cotton and party are hard at work upon a terrace, which pays steady wages for systematic working. The Ballarut lead is being traced towards tho Waimea township. Gold has been struck across " Pretty Woman's," where several small gullies have been opened up. Miners arc still doing exceedingly well on tho lead.

Mr Dalrymple, a gentleman just returned from Jackson's Bay, has supplied us with the following interesting items from that locality and the country north and south of it ; and. as latoly our advices from thence have been exceedingly meagre, the intelligence obtained from him will be, doubtless, acceptable to our readers. For a long time previous to June 20th, Jackson's Bay held little communication with the outer world, as no vessel had called there. On that date, however, the cutter Flying Scud ran in, and when she sailed for Invercargill carried away Mr Cleve and a man named Henry Mayo, who for five weeks had been lying disabled from a gun-shot wound in the thigh. At George's Kiver, thirty-five miles south of Jackson's Bay, there are about forty men at work inuring, but making little more than sufficient to supply themselves with provisions. They are entirely dependent upon a whale-boat to bring them food from Jackson*s Bay. They were once reduced to a great strait, as the boat got upset and was stove in, and for some time was unable to make her usual trip to the river. A short time ago a boat was washed aslioie 'near Ilaast's Kivei\ She was in good condition, with the name T. Parkinson, Port Chalmers, paiuted on her stem, and from the length of the barnacles which covered her she is supposed to have been in the water six months. Three and a half days' journey from Bruce Bay, on the left hand branch of the Perekia Eiver, ti party of diggers found some crevices containing heavy gold. The country, however, is so rough and scrubby, and the hardships to be encountered so severe, that they say not less than 2oz. per man a day would pay them ; and as the actual returns were far less, they refused to return. According to their statement^, they had scoured the ranges for some time before this place Avas hit upon, and some one had evidently been there before them, as they found a mia-mia erected and the remains of two Maori hens hanging to a pole outside it; whilst within, lyiug upon the ground, was that well known publication by Wilkie Collins, the " Woman in White." The appearance of the birds and book indicated that they had lain there untouched for months. From the quality of the gold these men obtained there, and the look of the mia-mia, they felt convinced that one of those mysterious gullies reported by Arthur Hunt had been stumbled upon. At Bruce Bay new ground was opened, close to the Maori Pah, but 'proved of very limited extent, two parties only obtaining gold in small quantities, with every prospect of its speedy exhaustion. Not more than fifteen persons are at present residing in Bruce Bay, and not a single store is left there. Our informant stated that through the nonarrival of supplies, the parties there lived for three weeks upon muscles and damper alone.

Yesterday, Mr Edward King Tyler was admitted a barrister and solicitor of tho Supreme Court of New -Zealand. Mr Tyler, who was, we believe, a barrister of the Court of Victoria, is the first member of the legal profession admitted lo the bar in Weßtluud.