The Inangahua Times. PUBLISHED TRI-WEEKLY. WEDNESDAY, JULY 2, 1884.

Inangahua Times, Volume IX, Issue 1411, 2 July 1884, Page 2

The Inangahua Times. PUBLISHED TRI-WEEKLY. WEDNESDAY, JULY 2, 1884.

The Fiery Cro^a battery returns did not reach us in time for publication on Monday last. They are as follows 190oz of amalgam, but whether this is for a full week or not we are unable to say. The Inkerraan Company's crushing plant was set in motion on Monday last, in the presence of the local directors and several other shareholders and visitors. The machinery worked splendidly. The paddock is well charged with srone, and as ample facilities exist for transporting the quartz from the mine, the stampers will no doubt be kept constantly going. We publish to-day a numerously signed requisition to Mr A. A. Stewart Menteath, inviting him to contest the seat for Inangahua at the forthcoming election. As will be seen by advertisement, Mr Menteathjaccepts the invitation, and is now definitely in the field. It is reported on good authority that Mr E. Shaw will not offer himself for reelection. The annual concert and entertainment in aid of the Hospital will bd given tomorrow night. The amended programme appears in our other columns. The chief event of the last fortnight (writes our Canterbury correspondent) is now, unfortunately for my letter, 11 days old. I refer to the deal h of Mr Robert Heaton Rhodes, the richest man in Canterbury. Mr Rhodes' wealth appears to have been even greater than was estimated. People who profess to know guessed that it would turn out to be something less than half a million. As you are perhaps aware, it lias been sworn at under £600,000, and will consequently have to pay the State £30,000 or thereabouts in probate and legacy duties. I wonder that it has not occurred to some of those reformers who call so loudly for legislation for the purpose of preventing the undue accumulation of vast masses of property that heavy probate and legacy duties may be a handier, less noisy, and leas cruel way of affecting their object than the confiscation of land or a " bursting up " tax. Such duties deprive no man of his earnings, at least while he is yet alive ; they do prevent enormous estates being handed down from industrious and capable fathers to, possibly, idle and incapable sons. Charity will be indebted to Mr Rhodes and his estate for £15,000, to be expended in giving bodily and spiritual assistance to the poor, and to inmates of prisons and hospitals in and around Chtistchurch. Some years before his death Mr Rhodes erected a monument to his own memory, in the shape df the Cathedral tower which dominates our town. But though this is the chief act of liberality with which his name is generally associated, he is responsible for another generous deed, to my mind even more to his <|-edit. Nearly a quarter of a century ago he joined with a well-known Christchurch merchant in buying from the Messrs Duppa the large St. Leonards Estate, which lies next to the Cheviot properly in the Amuri district. The price given was a big one ; part was paid down, and, part remained owing. Bad times came, and Mr Rhodes' mercantile partner became bankrupt. Mr Rhodes had every right to insist upon his retirement from the concern, but he declined to insist upon his rights, allowed the partner to remain partner, and r'nanced the estate himself so well that when Sfc. Leonards came to be sold the erstwhile bankrupt's share in the profits amounted to what most men would consider a handsome fortune. There are some thipigs in the world which speak better for a man's heart than even the building of cathedral towers. The disease from which Mr Rhodeß suffered for 10 years previous to his death is so uncommon, outside the tropics at least, that it has often been a matter of speculation how the deceased, who was a man of strong physique and temperate habits, could have become afflicted by it. The theory moat generally advanced is that great hardship and exposure to inclement weather and malarious air have been the most likely.