INTER-PROVINCIAL NEWS.

Westport Times, Volume VII, Issue 1120, 31 October 1873, Page 2

INTER-PROVINCIAL NEWS.

A woman named Parker (says the Grey River Argus) attempted to perform a feat last week which, but for an accident, might have cost her her life. She is the wife of a man named Martin Parker, who formerly kept the ferry-, boat at the junction of Moonlight Creek and the Gfrey and Ahaura rivers, and latterly she has been on the " rampage," principally about Hokitika, where she was imprisoned for attempting to obtain a free passage over the bar on board one of the steamboats.She returned to the Grey district last week, and reached Gough's punt on the Ahaura river at midnight onThursdav. Finding no one about, she took a small boat which was attached to the punt, and attempted to ferry herself across the river, but the boat became unmnnagable, and was carried down with the current in the direction of a mass of snags and brushwood, near the junction of Orwell Greek. When the voyager had been swept through the rapids belcw the punt, she managed to beach the boat and secure it, with the assistance of the punttnan, who by this time had become aware of the exploitHad the boat been carried a few yardsfurther down the stream, it would in all probability have been dashed to pieces.

It may be useful to persons in this colony to know that there is in Melbourne an infirmary for the special treatment of diseases of the throat, chest," eye, and ear. Patients paying 5s are entitled to one month's attendance with medicine, and every subscriber of £1 Is is entitled to four tickets for distribution to the poorer patients. These 5s fees, together with the subscriptions, and with donations from patients who had not been contented with paying such fees as 5s only, make up an amount which exceeded the expenditure for the past year by £3 3s 9d. During the year 1124 cases were treated <

The "Westland Register says :-*■ Amongst the property burnt at the Bank of New Zealand, Hokitika, were a considerable number of valuable specimens, several of them containing large proportions of gold, also nuggets and jewellery. In order to recover at least a portion of these valuables the debris on the site, consisting of charcoal, ashes, &c, has been carted to the upper end of the town, and is thsre being sluiced in the most orthodox manner, through ripple boxes. We have not heard the results, but the value missing is so large that at least a good per centage of the loss will no doubt be recovered by these means. The Wellington Independent referring to the practice adopted by some Australian firms of sending duplicate invoices to their customers in this colony for the purpose of defrauding the Customs, states for the benefit of storekeepers and others who purchase their supplies from importers, that • the " genuine and only " invoice of goods which are subject to the ad valorem duty is now always stamped at the Custom House when presented with the import entry. Eetailers when purchasing goods at an advance on the invoice cost, would therefore do well to see that the genuinness of the invoice is verified in every case by the Customs' stamp. Under the heading "Fashionable Intelligence," the Waneanui Herald of the 18th instant, notifies the arrival in Wanganui of Mr Eyes, of Marlborough, and Miss Johnson overland from the South.

ITho young widow wbo was buried in grief ia now alive and doing well. It is only another instance of premature jntorment.