THE Inangahua Times PUBLISHED TRI-WEEKLY. MONDAY, JANUARY 17, 1881.

Inangahua Times, Volume II, 17 January 1881, Page 2

THE Inangahua Times PUBLISHED TRI-WEEKLY. MONDAY, JANUARY 17, 1881.

Some consternation has been created < amongst the holders of unpurchased sections 1 in Reefton, by a rumor which has gained currency, that it ie the intention of the 3-0- --| vernment to revive the exaction of busi» [ ness license fees, for all town sections which I- are occupied under any other conditions than \ that of Crown Grant. We, are not aware whether there is any real foundation for the report, and therefore merely give it for what His worth. By a private letter received here from a Reefton gentlemen now in Chrietchurcb, we gather that the warmest enthusiasm prevails on all sides there in resoect to the West Coast Railway, The subject is the leading topic of conversation, and all agree in regarding the undertaking as at length in a fair way of commencement. Mr Wickes, the original mover in the matter, ia one of the lions of the hour, and he is ably backed up by the efforts of several old coasters now in the City of the Plains. Foremost amongst the num« ber id Mr T. S. Weston (our late respected District Judge) who is unceasing in his efforts to aid the movement. With such influential friends as these on the other eideof the range, there is good hope for the success of the project. We learn that the Stewards of the late race meeting have a surplus of about £50 on hand after paying the expenses in connection with the late meet. It is the intention, we understand, to get up a one or two days' race meeting about St. Patrick's Day, but whether the event will be held in Reefton or Fern Flat, is as yet undecided. The Picnic ' Committee met at the Oddfeli<w'ff^Hall en Friday evening lastr Mr W^ im^^p^nfMei' The BonV ireastirer respited that £39 had been paid in by the collectors, and outstanding list showed a further Bum of .nearly £30 to come in, making £69, which would be supplemented hy a further sum -of £10 from the Church of England pic*nic rommittee. The report was considered as very satisfactory. Sub- com« mittees were then formed to carry ouc the general arrangements. It was stated that Mr Smith offered the use of his paddoe't fo* the occasion for £2 ; and Mr John Dick placed hi? at the disposal of the committee, free of charge. The offer of Mr Dick was accepted ; £5 was set apart for music for the. day; £7 for prizes ; £5 for labor,| freight, and .incidental charges, and £^50 was voted fcr the supply of eatables. Thursday next was the day fixed upon for the pio-nic. The meeting then adjourned till Monday (this) evening, Mr William Gardner, for many years County Engineer, elsewhere announces his intention of opening there regular practice of surveyor and civil engineer in the Inangahua. Mr Gardner besides being an expert draughtsman and civil nnd mechanical engineer, hasr had twenty years practical experience on the goldfields of tbe Australian colonies. The best evidences of liis ability in the profession, are, however, to be found in the many important public and mining works, which have been carried out under his plans and supervision in the Inangahua. All the larger and more important mining works entered upon in the district during late years have been designedly liiin. and they will speak for themselves. Mr Gardner has just received a full equipment of the very latest and best surveying instruments, and this with his lon# experience, and habitual carefulnesp, will enable him to guarantee the fidelity of all surveys undertaken by him. Qualifications, such as Mr Gardner possesses, are of tbe highest value on a field like thi*. and we trust, therefore, that he will meet with the fullest patronage. Mr Gardner purposes to keep a constant record of tbe working* of all those mines, which may accord him eupporfc. It seems strange that while the game of «rieket throughout tbe whole of the An?*™* laa'an Colonies has grown to the height of a passion, and is indulged in upon every possible opportunity, here, in Reefton, it is almost wholly neglected. It his hard to account for this singularity npou the part of Reefton, otherwise than by supposing that the community ia cultivnting a lazy indolent habit of life, which is fust rooting out the healthy relish for active, field sports, This is bad and an effort pbould be made to conquer it. It ia undoubtedly true that want of healthy exercise, more than years, rankes mon prematurely oh\ nnd nowhere probably are the Blugoish habits of our daily life more conspicuously stamped upon the gait, earringly, nnd manners of the rounp ant} middle-np.-d, thnn in Reefton. We trust then that some effort wi'i b« niadi to ehoks off this sleepy ohnrnrte) i*tie , and put in something of tbe wholesome cpriglitlinssa which springs from frequent, participation in hoal'liy outdoor recreation. The cricket person i's yet young, «md there is no reason why a match

pliould not be arranged with some of the West Coast, dlubs, and tlms give at once a strong incentive to practice. A meeting of the Rare Committee was held at Coehrane's Hotel on Friday evening and was well attended. Minutes of previous meeting • were read and confirmed. Letter received from Conninglon" and Moore, respecting gate money from some of the stewards; not entertainod, A letter from Robert Woolfe, requesting reconsideration of former letter, also claiming £4 ferry charges for the three clays' traffic, could not bo en« tertained, as the contract with Mr Woolfa for crossing visitors to the course, embraced the whole race meeting, and as moreover Mr Woolfe had not fully carried out his part of the contract by erecting a footbridge across the river. Resolved that a canvass of the district be made fpr, the purpose of obtaining additional' members for the new Joek a y Club, now in course of formation. The sub-committee, appointed to deal with Ibe arrangement of a new course, reported having measured the obtainable distance in Smiths'" Paddock, which was found to be over threequarters of a mile, or about two chains longer than thecourse at Feru Flat, and that Mr Jone3 had been instructed to prepare a deed, on committee and Mr Alfred Smith, for leas ing theneeesß-ary land from the latter for ft term of 10 years, at an annnal rental of £20, Mr Jone3 submitted the draft dqcuß merit, which after come alteration was adopted, and ordered to be ready for execution by the time of the next meeting, A committee consisting o f Messrs Brennan, J. S. Smith, Williams, Dick, Stevenson, D, L. Cochrane, and , was appointed to sign the agreement on behalf of the club. The balance-sheet was then read, showing the amount of £359 4s. as total receipts, and the amount of £308 Is 6d as disbursements, leaving a balance of £51 2s 6d to the credit of the race fund, to which will have to be added several pounds for some small subscriptions rot yet collected, but which will be received on application. The healthy state of finance enabled the Race Committee tojeutertain hopes of holding a. meeting 'on Bt, Patrick's Day, when in all probability district horses only will be allowed to compete. It was anticipated that the new course would be ready by that time. The meeting then adjourned till Thursday evening, the 20th instant, at the seme hour and place. . . * The polide have received instructions from hepd quarters to rigidly enforce the provisions of the Licensing Ordnance, whereby Sunday trading, except between the hours of one to seven p.m., is strictly prohibited. The local traders have been notified that any and every offence against tbis regulation will be punished according to the law therefore provided. It will be remembered that some six months since tenders were accepted by the Telegraph department for the supply of square poles oi Tieart^oTTqtßrffj fortfie reconstruction of the line frorii Lyell to Reef toa. r Tiyo-pdles were in course of time delivered along the line, where they ' were left to season until required. Subsequently a reconstruction party under • Mij Lickheadfwaa sefat out 1 and commencing f|bm theLyejtl^iiave b^en engaged in replacing the old pole* and shifting the wires. Reefton was reached last week, and the work being finished, the party was disbanded) some returning to If ebon others remaining, This line is now considered the best con« structed piece of work of the kind in the whole colony, the material and workmanship being exceptionally good. At a meeting of the directors of the Specimen Hill Company, held on Saturday evening, the tender of Cashion and party foi driving 150 ft of tunnel was accepted, the price being 26a per foot. There is fc?eat grumbling and discontent amongst the inhabitants of Lyell, Hampden, and Matakitikft at tbe insufficiency of the existing postal -arrangements with those places. It is intended to call a public meeting there in the course of a day or two for purpose of drawine up a memorial to the Postmaster General praying for the establishment of a bi-weekly service. We can quite sympathise with the complaint for the inconvenience of the present arrangements is M' here as well as there. At present a month frequently has to elapse before replies can be obtained to business correspondence and this *is a serious drawback to till persons having convection with the distoiefc. The wonder h that people of the districts named have ec long and patiently borne the yoke. It is desirous that Thursday next should be proclaimed or obseryed as a gereral holi' day in Reefton, in order to afford the public an opportunity of nttftding the public picnic on that day. We understand that manj of the lending business places have alreadj acquiesced in tbe proposal. A New Plymouth telegram, dated 12th January, cays:— The Maories are not surprised at Mr Eryee's resignation, Te Whiti they pa 1 * prophesied early in December that he would not be long in the Government, and therefore it would be no use talking to him. The house of Mr Preston, a settler, at Pukekohe wa3 burnt down on Wednesday last. Hi 3 son, aged 15, and who was nn imbecile, was alone in the house ; he waa rescued, but has since died of his burns. At the inquest an open verdict was returned. A Tecent Dunedin telegraim says:— The Union Shipping Company purpose sending either the Te Anau or Wakatipu to Hong Kong towards the end of Ap'il, with a cargo of Chinese pa&sengers, of whom there will probably" be a large number, The steamer will proceed to Foo Chow, arid bring the first shipment of new seasons tea to New Zealand. Professor Blackie writes in a contemporary : The Sabbath, as the Christian Lord's day, is not. infringed, by any account of rational recreation so long as sufficient time is reserved for those religious services and exercises both public and private, for the practice of which the day waa especially set apart by the early

Church. The. supposed iscon'isteney between religious exercises in tho movnia* and innocent recreation of ti Sundty, is purely a Scotish fancy, altogether uisupported either by the tradition of tlie Cliristiau Churches, or by the conditions of a. well const tuted human nature, and resulted practically in the i artificial creetion of an awful sort of piety, which, by the erection of a sombre wall or partition between devout ealing and natural gaitey, has a tendency to make religion odious to the young and Christanity ridiculous to the wise. Jay Gould, the Ameiican speculator, is said to b 9 accumulating vest wealth, A year ago he cold 100,000 shaves of Union Pacific, for about 7,500,000d01. Then he bought a controlling interests in Eansas Pacific, which, was at 12, for about 600,000d01., and in the next, six months thtf stock rose to 92, netting 4,000,,000d01. -Wabash was at 18 when Gould bought, „ flojr, two-thirds of the stock, and it rose* later to 68£. His profits on the consolidation -of the St. Louis Northern, which he bought at 7* and saw rise to 47, and Wabash, are put at 4,850,000d01. In all by spending about 4,850,000d01. for stocks Gould has, it is sta^iji, 'flatted 11.000,000d0l if he were to sell out* The carrying tfaM-Q^ihe world still WF mains practically jh^^osiesßJon of England ttfltr ttiere "seoml^^^^^PW^ir^jMlJisiigd^iOT' though the* tonnage of our sailing vessels has decreased by about 500,000 tons since 1870, our steam tonnage has increased by about 1,400,000 tons, leaving a net increase of about 900,000 tons between 1870 and 1879. Since 1874 the foreign tonnage entering and clearing at British ports' has remained nearly stationary, whilst ours has grown about 80 per cent. The United States of America, the quarter from "which we had most reason to exprcfc competition, seems to be devoting its attenti?n. and its capital to other undertakings, for with the exception of Philadelphia, England has no competitor on the other side of the Atlantic, even Philadelphia, has only one line of steamers partly supported ny the Pennsylvania Railroad Company. The steam tonnnge, nearly all English, from British ports to the ■ United States, rose from 1,445,000 tons in 1873 to above 2.000, 000 in 1879. If such a development has taken place daring a long period of severe depression, it it not likely to be ohecked now that trade is improving. The following ingenious suggestion is made, by a correspondent of the New York Herald : -You recently called attention to an evil which existß in fonnection with the racing tracks of both England and America, viz., the unfair riding of horses by faithless jockeys. There is unquestionably a deep-rooted feeling in tho minds of by far the larger number of the ordinary visitors to a race tra;k that it is customary to ' manage certain races in the interests of certain owners and betting men. One simple remedy is to increase the surveillance over the jockey s while riding a race, and to that endjj.l beg leave to submit the following,, suggestions;— Erect one or more stands, td\,be u^i as points of observation r^si^i id^pfojgSß^s. of a race, and at each of these stands place {Borne one who may be relied upon to direct and report any false riding or other suspicious action on ths part of jtfekeys. Tho pulling of horses generally occurs on that ptrfiof the track furthest from the principal stands, and where it is difficult to see what is going on j the location of these observation Btations around the course would effectually obviate this and tend to allay the suspicious of a great number of very respectable, men who will continue to take pleasure in seeing good horses run fair race 3." Touching Dulcigno a correspondent of the Standard writes : — '• The Admirals at length see the spot which they are ordered to make famous in history by this grand display. Astonishment must have seized their minds to a degree rarely experienced by man. I despair* of gaining ; the readers credence for any description of Dulcigno. On a narrow but lofty crag protected on either side by precipices stand a dozen houses red roofed gaping with hole 3 where once were windows. In one corner rises a minaret. Stretched from either abyss, above and below are the old Venetian walls a world too wide for the shrunken town. It standa amid a wilderness of hills grey and bleak, picturesque truly but bearing no trace of human inhabitants for miles aud miles, Every man of our ship's company felt the humor of the jest as we steamed below this wretched lonely settlement which the united fleets of Europe were about to threaten. The hon. H. R. Boer, who shot himself aboard the s.s. Rotorua, was a member of the Legislative Assembly of Queensland for the district of Bowen.