THE The Inangahua Times. PUBLISHED TRI-WEEKLY. MONDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 1882.

Inangahua Times, Volume VII, Issue 1048, 13 February 1882, Page 2

THE The Inangahua Times. PUBLISHED TRI -WEEKLY. MONDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 1882.

Mr James Stevenson sold on Saturday afternoon by public auction Mr Finlay's leasehold for £205, Mr Patrick Murphy, being the purchaser. Afterwards several parcels of mining shares were offered, and disposed of at satisfactory piices, realising as follows :— Balaklavas, from 5d to 7d ; Morning Stars, 2s Gd ; Low Level Tunnels, 25.. 6d ; Welcomes, £6 17s. Phoenix Extended and Progress; shares were withdrawn, and sold privately. Thanks to the consideration of Messrs Campbell and Mitchell, an extra mail from Greymouth was delivered in Reefton on Saturday evening last, the bag having been brought through on horse-back. The down mail coach will leave at the usual hour this morning. It is notified that the old-established firm of Gilmer Brothers have dissolved partnership. Mr George Gilmer leaves for Wellington, and Mr S. Gilmer will conduct the Greymouth business. Tenders are invited by the Rainy Creek Extended Company for the supply ol 4000 feet of sawn, timber. Broadway was well filled with people on Saturday evening last, and there was a large amount of business done in the scrip Une. Prices generally continue very firm, but the absence of a speciality such as the Imperial proved a week or so back, keeps the market down to a simmer. A discovery which is likely to prove oi some value has been made by Mr Daniel David, brickmaker, on hiß land on the southern side of the Inangahua river. He has opened out several seams of true hermatite. Mr Rowe, geologist, who haa tested the deposit, pronounces it of excellent quality, and it is Mr David's intention to take early steps to turn the discovery to account, by the erection of machinery for the manufacture of paint. The nomination of .candidates to serve on the Licensing. Committees of Reefton and Murray Districts respectively, will be received up to noon to-day. Tlie place of nomination at Reefton is the Counci] Chambers. Miss Amy Johns took a farewell benefit in Kater's Hall on Saturday evening last, but the attendance was very meagre, owing to the activity in the share market. The company leave for the Grey Valley this morning. Although perhaps rather late in the season, it has been decided to revive the game of cricket in Reefton, and to this end practices will be held every afternoon in Smith's paddock, and matches will be played every Saturday. A splendid opportunity is presented to persons desirous of obtaining a prominent business frontage in Broadway. Mr Jas. Stevenson, under instructions from Mr James Danks, will offer at auction on Saturday next, the valuable allotment formerly oocupied by the Empire Hotel. The property being unsurpassed for business purposes will no doubt excite the keenest competition. The Nelson people are agitating stongly in favor of a tri-weekly mail service by coach to Reefton, and it is said that the Government are disposed to entertain the proposal favorably. When at Reefton lately the advantages of the service to the Wiest Coast generally were fully explained to the Hon. Mr Rolleston by Mr W. H. Jones, who headed a deput ation to the hon. gentleman on the subject. At the conclusion Mr Rolleston said that the matter was not one which strictly speaking fell within his Department, but recognising the importance of the subject, both to the West Coast and Nelson, he had made a note of the representations of the deputation, and would bring the matter under the notice of the Postmaster General immediately upon returning to Wellington. In connection with this subject, we understand that Messrs Campbell and Mitchell, the present Greymouth mail contractors, have made an offer to the Government to run a tri-weekly coach from Brunnerton to Fox-hill, performing the trip in two days. It is the intention of the contractors, should their offer be accepted, to make the through service continuous with their current contract, and they have thus been able to cut their tender very low, as they a**e themselves naturally anxious to see the communication established for the increase of traffic it would occasion on the stage between Reefton and Brunnerton. Apart from the great public convenience which the through service would confer upon the whole of the West Coast, there te good reason to believe that the additional traffic it would necessarily create b ith on the Fox-hill and Brunnerton railways would furnish a substantial annual set-off agains h e contract price. The Christchurch-Hokitika road costs the Colony something like £10,000 yearly to keep it open for traffic, whereas the northern road wmiid cost but a trifling ff-'W iv comparison, for maintenance, mid

the burden of which would probably fall upon the Counties traversed. The shareholders of the Progress company at the meeting held on Friday evening decided on registering under the "Mining Companies Act." Mr George Wise was appointed manager, and Messrs W. A. Thompson, W, J. Shaw, J. P. Treloar, W. Shaw, and Maurice Dore were appointed directors, and F. Smith, auditor. This company's property adjoins the Comstock Company's lease on the north, and the North Cleopatra on the west, and divides with the latter company the probability of having within its boundaries the continuation of tlie Welcome and Specimen Hill reefs. The Welcome Company has come to the front with another sensational return. Fourteen hundred aud seventy-seven ounces of retorted gold was lodged in the bank on Saturday last, as the result of the last five weeks' crushing. The directors will meet and declare a dividend to-day. At a meeting of the shareholders of the Royal Mint lease, held at Mr Wise's oflice, on Saturday evening, it was decided to register the company at once. The company's ground lies between the Golden Point and Morning Star leases, and its favorable position marks it as one of the coming candidates for popular favor. In Tawhiao's room at the Governor Irowne, Auckland (says the Herald), lies a large edition of the Bible in Maori, which has been presented to him by the Society since his arrival in Auckland. His followers, however, hold the Tariao or -Hauhau service twice a day. The Westport Times says :— We understand that the enquiry made by Mr Revell into the circumstances of the last Mayoral election has resulted in the i Burgess Rolls of 1880-81 being declared i irregular. Consequently the forthcoming [ Licensing Committee elections for the Borough of Westport will be held on the : Rolls of 1879. In this case many bur- ! gesses will be in a position to vote than if the later Rolls were used. The Alpine Club members arrived 1 per Te Anau, and will commence ascent \ of New Zealand mountains, beginning at [ Mt. Cook. _ Sir Bryan O'Loughlin promises to introduce a Bill for flogging larrikins. A Captain Oliver, who is now in Christchurch, undertakes the curing of stam- . mering, impediments of speech, &c. j From: the testimonials published it would seem that he has been most successful in curing some very bad cases in England and elsewhere. ( Messrs Brogden and Sonß' cement works at Collingwood are now rapidly approaching completion. The proprietors , expect to have everything in full swing : shortly. The machine will be capable of turning out 30 tons per day. About 40 men employed on the work of laying the pipe sewers in the east part of Christchurch struck for an increase of ' wages. The men were getting 7s a day, ' and demanded 8s: Sonfd of them who were willing to continue on at the former rate of pay were prevented by the others from working. The work, 'of course, came to a standstill, but only for a short time, for in the course of the afternoon several of the strikers having thought better of their action returned, and were taken on again on the old terms, and next morning nearly the whole of the men had come back to work at 7s a day. Numerous applications were received from men wishing to till up the places of those who had struck. The New Zealand Herald learns that arrangements have been made for the commencement of an enterprise which will result in large commercial advantges to Auckland. Mr Knox, of Sydney, who left by the Hero, before his departure purchased 160 acres near Kauri Point, having deep water frontage to the harbor, paying for the land, we are informed, about £5000. The object, we anticipate, ia to erect a large sugar refinery in connection with plantations at Fiji, to bring the raw sugar here, where it will be refined in different forms for the whole Colony. A very large amount of money will have to be expended on plant and buildings, probably not less than £20,000 and employment will be afforded to a considerable number of persons. Such an establishment will inevitably give a great impetus to our shipping trade, as vessels will have to be distributed over the Colony. Mr Knox is one of the directors of the Sydney Svgas Refinery, and there is no doubt the enterprise will be gone into with energy. A cheap suspension aqueduct was invented and used by some miners in California in 1852. A river ran between two blufl's, one of which was considerably higher than the other. Water was available on the one, but it did Hot " pan out " as well as that upon the lower. Some sailors, including the mate of a whaler, took up a claim, and succeeded in making a hose of strong duck, about eight inches in diameter, and stretching it from the higher to the lower hill, by means of a strong rope running through it. Water was then carried through this weak hose which could not have resisted the pressure if lowered into the valley, and the ingenious sailors realised handsome fortunes out of the land that had been hitherto worthless. The Wellington correspondent of the Grey Star says : — Considerable interest is manifested here regarding the reefs at the Inangahua. The Turner-Montagu Opera Company are drawing large houses here. Last night, in "Mignon," Miss Deakin made a great hit, the Times pronouncing it a brilliant triumph. Trade here is very dull, and insolvencies are of freqnent occurrence. There is an army of 150 letter-carriers in Melbourne. Thirty years ago there were only 15. The Blue Duck party at Tinkers (says ' Ive Charleston Herald) had a wash-up

at their claim during Christmas week and were successful in obtaining about OOOozs of the precious metal. | The thermometer registered 74deg in a cool brick building in Dunedin erne afterI noon last week. j I During the quarter ended December 31st Auckland yield 96440z., Nelson 5430z5., West Coast 35,0300z., Otago 26,7980z. This makes the total amount of gold entered for exportation since 1857, 9,822,7550z, the value being £31,461,423. The N. S. W. railway returns of the past year are published. The net income exceeded the expenses by £673,000. The public debt incurred for all purposes is £4,897,000. and the railways yielded an excess over the working expenses equal to almost the entire interest on the debt of the Colon}'. It wa3 thought a grand thing for the shareholders and the Colony when the Mount Bischoff Company began declaring dividends of 10s per share monthly : but after declaring two of 10s each at intervals of only three weeks after the last dividend declared another* (the 40th) of £1 per share, paid'" on 31st December. The transferiCooks were closed on Thursday and, rp'-opened on Jan. 2nd. The total amount of this dividend is £12,000, and the tax;payable on it £450. The Company has now declared in 40 dividends £21 per share, making a total of £252,000, or over a quarter of a million sterling paid away since the declaration of the first dividend oil' 31st January, 1878. The TimarUyHerald says :— '• The vicissitudes of .elections are often very thrilling and thpy do not always end on the day of the poll. There is no knowing what may happen between polling day and the official declaration. In one of the Southland constituencies, what has happened is that the Opposition candidate, who was supposed to be duly elected, had been found to be defeated, and the old member who is a loyal Ministerialist, has been elected by a majority of one. Some of the Opposition electors, it appears, had been voting too zealously. Four of them had voted twice, one enthusiast had voted 3 times. Tliis gentlemen we take to be the champion voter of New Zealand. A potato show was recently held at the Crystal Palace, London, at which there was a splendid display of esculents from all parts of the United Kingdom ; but amongst the pre-eminently abundant exhibits was one sent by Hooper, of Covent garden, the Queen of the Valley, whose productiveness was almost incredible. As the growth of a single seedling in one year were shown nearly two bushels of huge, healthy, palatable fruit.