THE Inangahua Times. PUBLISHED TRI-WEEKLY. FRIDAY, AUGUST 12 1881.

Inangahua Times, Volume II, 12 August 1881, Page 2

THE Inangahua Times. PUBLISHED TRI-WEEKLY. FRIDAY, AUGUST 12 1881.

We learn from Wellington that the Gojdfields Committee have completed their labors, the result being a carefully prepared and exhaustive Keport upon all matters relating to the goldfielJs of the Colony. The I'eport, which will be presented to the House in the course of a few days, contains many important recommendations, amongst others, the appointment of a Eoyal Commission to inquire during the recess into the whole question of goldQeld's management, past, present, and future, their resources, re* qiirements, system of local Government, taxation, and future administration, including; the constitution and working of Courts of law, and in short all matters relating to their control and form of management. The lleport has been very carefully considered, and it is thought that the reasons to be advanced by the committee for the appointment of such a Commission will not fail to carry the assent of the House. The committee will ask full powers for the Commission to take evidence in the different goldfields centres upon all subjects of local public concern, and the prevailing impression is that by this means the whole questi >n of goldfields affairs will achieve a prominence in lue e y e s of the Colony, such as it has never yet received. It will be recollected that in the course of his late busting addresses, Mr Weston gave a distinct pledge to bis constinuents that he would move for such a Commission, and the recommendation of the Goldfields Committee on the subject is the practical outcome of that promise. It is true that the design of Mr Weston stood in some risk of beina frustrated through the precipitancy of Mr Eeeves, in his evident desire to forestall his col* league in the matter, but happily, through the intervention of tbe Commit' tee, Mr Reeves was prevailed upon to withdraw his untimely motion, and now the recommendation is backed up by tbe additional force of tbe combined goldfields members, and it cannot be doubted that in a such a shape it will carry very much more weight than if made in the form proposed by Mr Keeyes. We have had Eoyal Commissions upon a variety of Public questions, but we shall be disposed to view the ou f come of the present one with much more hopeful anticipations than have been inspired by many of its predecessors. That the wants of the goldfields of the Colony are woefully misunderstood by the great bulk of representative men in the House is -evidenced in a variety of ways, and to our mind in none more so than in the continuance of such indefensible exactions as the 20s miner's right fee, the gold«du!y, exorbitant rental for all classes of gold mining leasesr and general inefficiency and cost of the whole machinery regulating ami controlling the mining industry. We cannot then but view the appoint** meiit of the proposed commission with very much favour, and so that its powers are ample and its investigations searching, wo make no doubt that the result will leod to i he sweeping away of many of tho abuses, which have for so long drags ged at the skirls of the irnning industry, J ■ i

the parties now engaged iv it, as long as funds are freely forthcoming. The Te Aroha rush; which, during last summer printed to the visitor a (scene of buelle and activity, in consequence of the then newly discovered reefs has apparently only enjoyed n short spell of seeming prospority.t iTho advent of a crushing machine on the Geld has demonstrated the unpleasant fact that nt;the present at least, the reefs, from which on their discovery such splendid returns were anticipated, have not realised expectation. The following is an extract from a letter just received from a gentleman well known iv Eeefton--" Te Aroha, July 20th, 1881. Dear -Our new crushingbattery is finished, and we have had our trial crushings. As soon a3 the battery wa3 completed, the parcels of stone, on hand by the various purties, w?r9 put through, and in every instance the result was unsatisfactory, The Prospectors' gave the bt!st yiold, viz : 210z9. of gold from, six tons of quartz; but as this represented about three 'mouths work for four tnen — the leader being "onlyj[from 1 to 3 inches in thickness — you will I see £ that the return was far from being payable, espe. ially as the value of Te Aroha (gold is only 56s per oz- The next in rank was the Morning Star, which went Is.lwta to the ton from a reef about a foot thick, but being situtted a considerable distance from the machine-site, the transit of the stone cost this company 8s per ton, which, with 10s cru-hing charges, swallowed up nearly^oneha'.f of the p o'ecd?. The crusl iags from the Morning Lights, Prince of Wales, All Nations, and other claim 3 were still poorer, in some cases the return was insufficient to pay the crushing rate. I hear that during the last day or two the Prospectors' ground has been pegged off by a new party, after being abandoned by its former owners, and the Morning Star has been let on tribute. Most of the companies havo suspended work, though a few are still prospecting, for which there is abundant scope, for the Te Aroha mountain range extends north and south for many milps. and comparatively little prospecting has yet been done. We may have a second rush to Te Aroha before many months, who knows." Pressure of other matter ha 3 reluctantl y compelled us to hold over for our next issue the letter of *' Miner," on the subject of miner's rights. A great los 3 of time and inconvenience to applicant in tho Warden's Court for rights, which before being granted require tho posting of notices and attendauce at Court at the day of hearing, might be avoided if it were more generally known that it is a rule here that applications of this description are invariably taken a3 the first business on the opening of the Court, and that it is necessary to take down the no! ices, which, have been pofctcd, and to produce them in Court to ensure the consideration of the application. It is also necessary that the description of locality should be very precise in order that no mistake should arise as to the " locus in quo." • Blower ' Brown had young Hutchin?, the boy champion of England, are no their way to give Colonial atheletes a treat. The former won the six dayn' ohampionslr'p of England two years ago, covering 533 miles, and absolutely running the last two milas — a feet which, after a hard weeks' work, is altogether unpredecented ; while the wonderful little fellow Hutchins, who is only 14 years of age, ' has won an armful . of silver cups,' and challenged any boy in the world his own age to walk from half a mile to 20 miles for any ium up to LSOO. Sir F. D, Bell says regarding his work at Home; ' I know what work is. and I may say, with exception of tho West Coast Commiasion, I hnve not for 18 years done so much continuous work as since I came to England. At a fire in the bedroom of Mr Devitt, Bayswater, South Australia, £1120 worth of notes were burnt n a drawer. ' Beacon' and* Mazappa ' have bolh in late issues warm articles on the Loftery Bill, and, says 'Sinbad.' they are right. The bill, which is as Mr Wakefield very rightly observed in the House a clear infringement on the liberty of the subject, was introduced by some of the antiquated fossils in the Upper House ; bat the Lower House, on the second reading, showed on the part of many members an amount of imbecility that was surprising. They most of them seem to think that the Bill will put down betting ; the fact being, it will be the best thing for the ring that could be introduced. It is rumored (says the Post) that the £50,000 declared to be available for dis« tribution by way of bonus to policy holders in the Government Insurance Offije wf 11 give an average bonus foi each £100 insured of about £1 Is or 203 cash— the amounts vary* ing with the duration of tiio respective policies— or a bonus of £4 to be added to the sum payable at death. The Attorney-General i 3 reported to have said in the Legislative Council that the bonus would only be payable on policies of at least six years durat:on: Some few weeks ago a party of surveyors came upon the fossilised remains of a whale embedded only a few feet from the surface in the bank of the Waitaki river on the Otago side, about three-quarters of a mile to the south of the township of Wharekuri. The i wbalo is about twenty feet in length and will ! lvquire very careful removal, as it appeara to have been somewhat crushed and mutilated. The whole of the head has been successfully removed and also some of the ribs. It is Dr. Hector's intention to have the fossil removed to Wellington. Some hundreds of centuries must have passed since the whale was alive, and the discovery ot its rein tins so fur inland (about thirty-fivs miloa as the crow flies) is one of no little interest. It was almost a pitiable sight to witness the painful eiigurnosd fchown by leading popul.i'riiy huntov3 to got the Princes under the care of their wings. Eumor had gone foith ihsit the partners of the Princes were to be selected by the council in committee, and ihat the selection would be confined to the married women, and I am safjly assured tha

' the members of this body never hud a more onerous duty than this self-sawo declaration. Each councillor remembered with some feeling of dread those tast words ol his spouse before setting out for iho meeting, ' Remember « I'm to dance with om of the Princes to-iii»ht.' How those councillors got. on who did not obtain the coverted honor for their belter liul vps ha 3. not been explained tome. Some young ladies, however, are intensely indignant at what tb>V consider a want of rr» cognition of their claimn. ' I never cared the least bit,' observed one of my young" lady acquaintance?, ' until I saw that Miss dancing with Prince George I think it horrid that she should haye. preference of a councillor's daughter.'—' Lounger ! in the Bandigo Advertiser. There are about one hundred and ecventyBye bands connected with the English army. The steam dredges on the Molyneux river at the Tunpeka month, have secured good prospects. The sum of £66,000 hnsbeen refused for a quartereacre section in Princes Street Duue* din. The total population of the province of Canterbury shows an increase of some 19,000. The Lake County Council has already oxpended £3000 in the cultivation of forests within its bound', f The amount of money already expended in the formation of the Otago Central line from Wingatui to Deep Stream a distance of twenty miles, is £115,000. The wheat crop in \ the United States for 1881 is estimated at 460,000,000 bushels. A case is reported in the Magistrate's Court, Wellington, in which the Telegraph Department sued a^ man; for 33 7d, a collect telegram sent there from forey mouth, the man sued being the sender of the telegram, which had been refused. Judgement was given for amount claimed. A very severe blow at burglars and pilferers is dealt by the Bill introduced into the Kouse of Lords by the Lord Chancellor. By this Bill, which has been read a second time the English police will have the power to go straight to the fountain -head of every kind of larcency and fraud— tie receiver of stolen goods, under whatever guise he pursues his calling. All dealere in scrap or second-hand articles must in future b> registered. It is enacted, too, with regard to old scraps or manufactured precious metals and secondhand wathes or jewellery, that the buyer shall not melt them or alter their form until after the' expiration of seventy-two hours ; and all dealers in them are directed to enter in a book certain particulars respecting the metal melted by them. Special warrants are to be given to search for stolen goods on the sworn information of an inspector that he believes the articles lost are on certain premises, and penalties are imposed on all who conceal or fail to give information to the police about articles iwhich they have reasonable cause to susplct having been stoleu. g During the first month*of thnr occupation of Lima, the Chilians J|pied a contribution of £40 000 upon fifty, of -the wealthy citizens. The United States now hasj'ten times more acres o f wheat than the United Kingdom ; it has twice the number of horses of both England and France, one- third more cattle, ar.d four times more hogs than both. . The Grey Star says: — Mining matters in reefs near at home are decidedly looking up. In Langdon's extended ground a reef four feet thick is said to have been laid bare. This stone, according to best account, carries good gold. A3 a result of this discovery, scrip, which a few weeks ago could have been had for nothing — in fact several parcels of 1000 each were actually given away — have advanced to a shilling each, with a decidedly upward tendency. There is little doubt that but for the wretched blunders made some months ago, this line of reefs would now be returning handsome dividends. The action in the District Court to recover damages from the City Corporation in consideration of a coach accident which befel Thomas Maher, the driver of Cobb's coach, in Willis street, Wellington, in December lust, was concluded before his Honor Judge Shaw and a jury of four about six o'clock one day last week. Nearly a dozen witnesses were called to support the plaintiff's claim, while only two were called on the other side. Coun» sel haying addressed the jury on both sides, his Honor summoned up, and the jury after a short retirement, returned a verdict for the amount claimed— £2oo— and costs, after which the Court r^ee. Mr Hartly Williams, the newly appointed Judge of the Victorian Supreme Court, i 3 a native of Melbourne, having been bom in Brunswick street, 40 years ago. He is a son of the late Sir Edward Eyre Williams, who was also a judge of the "Supreme Court until 1874, Mr Williams wa9 educated in England, took the degree of 8.A., at Trinity College, Oxford, and was called to the bar in the Inner Temple, in April, 18fi7. On the 3rd of April last the sheep in South Australia numbered 6,468,897; cattle, 307, 177 ; horse?, 157,915 ; and pigs, 131,011. Five actions have been commenced against the Government, arising cut of the collision which took place some months ngo, between a railway train nnd a cab, on the Kensington crossing, at Duviedin. The widow of Mr Mayo, whose dentil was caused by the accident, clairs £3000 j Mr C. 0. Armstrong claims £1000 : Mr Keys, the cab-driver, £500 : Mr Fuirbairne. £1000 ; Mr W. Lloyd, £1000. Messrs Maoassey, M'Dermott, au<? Kettle, are the solicitors for the plaintiffs. Mr Gladstone only takes hnlf the salary attached to the ofßce of Chancellor of the Exchequer—namely £2500 per annu v. Another attempt at prolonged fasting— this time for forty-five clays— has b.een commenced at Chicago under medical supervision. A person having the appearance of a working man came up at the Court yesterday morning oh a judgment summons, at the instance of a brewer. T!io debt has been standing a long dm?, and ha pleaded inabiH'y to pay it on accoivit of poverty. II U

Worship said, poor or not, defendant ap- ' peared to have no notion of stinting himself h the way of creature comforts, as in the period from December to Juno ho had been supplied with £26 worth of beer, or at the rate nrarly of £1 per week. This seeded fo the speaker a little extravagant, especially a--it had been got on credit. Defendant would have to pay off the debt in weekly instalments of 10s ; or, in default of any of the payments, go to prison fo'' one month : — Press. Mr Finn has given notice of the following motion. That, in the opinion of this House (1) the system of making appointments to the Commission of the Peace in the Colony i* uusatisfactory, and is not conducive to the due administration of the law ; (2) that a system assimilated in principle to that in Great Britain, where the selection ofMncistrates is praetira'ly left to the Lord Chins cellor, would be more calculated to secure the usefulness and dignify of the station of Justices of the Feacp, and command respect for the discharge of their functions ; (3) that in view of the important objects in question, the Government be requested to bring in a Bill for the cancellation of the present Commission of the Peace and for the issue of a new commission on the recommendation of the Judges of the Supreme Court in their respective judicial districts.