THE Inangahua Times. PUBLISHED TRI-WEEKLY. MONDAY, APRIL 23, 1877.

Inangahua Times, Volume IV, Issue 6, 23 April 1877, Page 2

THE Inangahua Times. PUBLISHED TRI-WEEKLY. MONDAY, APRIL 23, 1877.

The- amateurs will meet for rehearsal afc Dawsoa-'s. Bali this, evening at eight o'clock. The Just-in-Tirae Company, Boatman's,, started crashing last, night.. The quantity of amalgam collected, from the Wealth of Nations, battery for the week ended- oifcSaturday last was 388ozs 12*iwts. We learn from, the Jurist of March, that Mr H. Bi G-resson* late Judge of the Supreme Court el New Zealand, is now travelling in Ireland* B is staged' that the Government i. intend to ask him to represent this colony at the Penitentiary, Congress to be hpld a,t Stockholm.. A Chinaman named Ah Quay suflfering from, lunacy was token, down, to Greymouth on, GDhursday. morning last. His mate w.as killed; at Redman?a a short time since by a fallof earth* and' the loss preyed upon his mind till; at length, his. countrymen feared, he would commit; self destruction, and; therefore ■ conveyed hinv to Greymouth.. The tender of Christopher Moldoon has been accepted by the Hopeful Company for sinking wiaze to connect No, 4 level with, No. s— a still lower level, the price being L2;l9s per foot* When; this work is completed? the I company will have 200 feet of backs to work on should the reef; lire down. The appear* ance of the lode on the floor of; No 4 level fully warrants the belief that it will. The perpendicular depth.fEom No 4 to No 5 S level is about 150 feet. Ata.meeting of; the directors of the ladependent Company, held, at Mr Brennan's office on Saturday eyeninglast, the tender of Christopher Moncreiff was accepted for driv« 10^870 feet of tunnel at £1 7s 6d per foot, equal to £1196, ss. There were sixteen tenderaia all sent in for the work. As-an indication of the firm faith held of the value of this mine, it may be mentioned that the company have decided to lay down iron rails, and the necessary order has been, forwarded to Greymouth for the material. The company will start crushing at the Public Battery during the present week with a good of stone — about 150 tons — which, was obtained in sinking the company's winze on. fche eastern reef. It may be taken as a very favorable indica* tiofl of the permanence which mining operations in this district are assuming that a large number of companies, have decided to employ iron, tram rails in, lieu of wooden ones. The Wealth of Nations and Energetic Companies have long employed iron rails/and found the wisdom, and economy of so doing. The Macedonia Company have followed suit, and now we find that, bolh, the Hopeful and Independent Companies have decided to use the 1 same material. The Hopeful Company have issued an order for six tons, of irons rails, j which will be erected immediately on their arrival on the groutit?. j

Some magnificent stone was struck in the { Just-in-Titne mine in the latter part of last week, and some specimens brought into town by a number of visitors to the mine created quite a furote amongst shareholders and speculators. Daring, Thursday,, Friday* . and Saturday there was great activity in the sharemarket, and shares changed and rechanged hands, very rapidly at advanced prices. Strangely enough though transactions were numerous in Reefton on Friday at 10s, sales were readily passing in Greymouth. on the same day at 12s 6. Sales closed here on Saturday at 12s. We were shown several pieces of the stone broken out, one piece weighing about two ounces, was estimated to contain from Bdwts to lOdwts of gold. Ihe Hopeful Company, Boatman's had a general cleaning up on Saturday last, the result being a handsome parcel of 9510zs 18 dwts of melted gold. This quantity added to 5510za lOdwts obtained at the last cleaning up brings the total yield of the present crush* ing up to 15030zs Bdwts. The exact quantity of stone put through was 828 tons, thus giving an average of close upon two ounces to the ton. Some idea may bo formed of the great i productiveness of this mine from the fact tha within the short space of time which has elapsed since crashing first commenced this company has declared ten, dividends, representing a gross sum. of L 24.956 sg. The mine at the present time promises to yield an immense fortune to its lucky possessors . , > An opportunity will shortly be presented; ! for correcting the bungled; mining surveys which were made in the early, days of the I Inangahua. A staff of surveyors under tha direction of the Surveyor-General i 9 at the present time engaged in a general survey of the whole of the Middle Island. The party have now reached Squaretfown, and a trigono? metrical station has been established at that point.. The party will during; the present week remove camp to Fern Flat, where it is intended to make another fixed- station, and an additional station, will also be established on a convenient height near Reefton. The party will thence proceed overland to Nelson, esatbljshing stations, at al) convenient points along the route. Residents in the Strand an<l ! Broadway, in the vicinity of the Inangahua bridge, complain very justly of the noise occasioned to the neighborhood by waggoners being, allowed' to camp there. As many as five and six teams are frequently congregated there, and the nui*. sanqe created by the presence of thirty or forty horses can be well imagined. This is not all,, however, for the horses during the night time wander about the locality doing damage to the fences, and gardens of the residents., and the noise of their movements is a matter of great annoyance. We trust that either the Board, or the Council will endeavor to deal with the complaint in some way, or possibly I it might come within the province of the police to- take action in the matter. As an instance of the remarkably, rich, stone met with in tha Just-iivTime mine, we, relate the. following incident which took place on Saturday last, and which will convey some idea.of.the extraordinary richness of the gold bearing quartz in this district. A small' specimen weighing under 30z9, obtained some ] few days ago from the above mine, being, handed for inspection to a few persons atoce of the hotels a considerable discussion arose as to the actual amount of gold it contained, So gseat indeed were the differences, in the various opinions^expressed that one gentleman on offering 30s for tho, specimen- was coolly, told by another that he was a fit subject for a lunatic asylum. Several wagers- having been made that it did' not contain more than, three pennyweights the party at length proceeded to the National Bank where Mr Kirton kindly produced the mortar, and, in the pre« senceofall, very soon. put an 6nd to further argument on the subject. The stone was carefull crushed^ and the proceeds cleaned and weighed, and much to the astonishment of the whole party present produced the splendid yield of lldwts of clean gold, thus showing that one ton of precisely the same quality stone would yield over four thousand ounces of gold,, equal to a money value of nearly sixteen thousand pounds. Several, more specimens of equal richness have during the past week, been, brought to light from, the lower level, and on Saturday intelligence reached town that the same rich stone had been struck. It is believed that Sepatatioa will again he the Parliamentary programme oftheOppo- • sition. The Printer^ Register perpetrates the following :— Why do printers not succeed to, the same extent as brewers ?— Because prinr ters work for the head, and brewers for the stomach ;-. and where twenty men hare, stomachs, bub one has brains. The Weekly News says: —Amongst farmers opinions vary considerably as to whether or not it is profitable to clip lambs.. While some old breeders recommend it strongly, others as strongly condemn the practice. So that 18 is for- each owner of- sheep to do what he considers best. Advantages of shearing lambs may, he stated, to be as follows :-» A good many ticks are destroyed. The lambs, are not so liable to get on their backs when they get older. The wool brings, in ready cash which is sometimes acceptable. If lambs are clipped; they should be done early, so thatthe. wool may grow, below the cold weather sets in. An- elector at o*9 01 Mr. Hutchinson's meetings in Wellington is stated by the Argus to have made, unintentionally, a. very funny joke. He referred to the question of religion and nationality, and said he did not like to see Bach questions brought up at political I meetings. What did, it matter what ft man's nationality was ? For his part he. was an Englishman, but he could have been born in Scotland or Ireland if he liked. It was nothing to do with anybody. This, innocent elector could not join; The laugh was still mpre furious «wheh he indignantly repeated that he wrt an Englishman, and, that his " old woman" was an Irishman, but for all that it concerned no one.

At Auckland recently Judge Gillies sentenced a brutal wife beater, a newly-arrived immigrant to three years' penal servitude. Paris has asocial ecandal about a " lady in high life," w,hp was discovered selling flowers in the street. She was looking for an., un-. faithful lover. Twelve months- have not yet elapsed since the Awamoko branch line of railway beyond Oamaru was thrown open, and already a goods and passenger traffic has been developed second only, it is said, to that on the Port Chalmers line. The railway has proved an immense boon to the Maerewhenua farmers, and has done much to bring into thorough cultivation some of the most fertile agricultural table- lands in Otago. It is intended, as speedily as. the necessary grant of money can be obtained, to extend the line up the Waitaki River. The crops this season at and around Papakuio, Awamoko, and Canterbury border lands have been above the usual average. New townships have sprung up in different directions, and the effect of the railway has been to give an important impetus to settlement, and to largely increase the value of property between the Waiareka district and the river flats of the Waitaki. Considering that Scotchmen are to other inhabitations of the Britiali Isles in the proportion of one to ten, it is astonishing what a number of high offices they hold and have held. Thus during the last 120 years the post of Lord Chief Justice of England has been filled by seven lawyers of eminence, of whom four haw been Scotchmen by descent Mansfield, Ellenborough, Campbell, and Sir Alexander Cockburn : men who need no comparison with Kenyon, Tenderden, and Denman. No Englishman, one fancies, has ever h&d the chance of booming Lord Justice Gensral of Scotland. Within the present century, again, four Scotchmen have b.9ld the I Great Seal— two of them, Erskine and Brougham, having had; the- rare distinction of winning renown both as statesmen and jurists. The first minister of the English Church, and the first subject in the. realm, is a Scotchman. Finally should we have the misfortune to be involved in war within the next few. months it is generally I understood that the first important command would be bestowed on a Scotchman of that famous Hou3e whose mptto is, Ready,. aye,. i rcaily.' Of the ingenuity of the Americans in the 1 way of inventions, Gisborne has been enlightened rather considerably in a small way,.) I says " Snyder," in the ' Poverty Bay Herald. I Lost week there came amongst us a traveller i from San Francisco, his card introducing him to the traders of the town as Mr J. A. Whitaker, who, we believe, is in no way related either by blood or business tie 9 to Mr F. Whitaker, our most respected AttomeysGeneral. Mr J l . Ay Whitaker deals in Yankee notions ;. the Attorney- General also deals in notions which are not Yankee. The notions of the two namesakes are quite different!. Mr Whitaker, Attorney-General, will show an Apti of Parliament which can be made to read in a dozen different ways and with no two ways alike. Mr- Whitaker, United States commercial traveller, can produce something which like an Act of the General Assembly, looks at first sight to be one things, but upon explanation is shown to bo half a dozen other things quite different, which only an American inventor could have conceited, and reduced to a reality. Among other inventions shown U3 were a fire kindler which at the expense of a farthing burns for 1& minutes ; a clothes-line holder which dispenses with, all knots or tying ; a sash tightener which keeps out dust, supersedes weights, and prevents windows from rattling 5 a potatodigger that will dig a row of potatoes as fast as a man can walk 3 and Self>opening gate ; a wonderful rat-trap, by which the rat is caught by fencing he sees a brother rat when it is only its own reflection in a looking-glass j a thimble with a small implement attached which threads a needle in an instant 5 a simp'e invention for preventing lamps from exploding. There is a curious piece of furniture which Mr Whitaker will bring with him on his next visit. It is at first sight a chest of drawers. Turn a winch and it becomes a bedstead; Fold over a flapand there is an easy chair. Undo a small fastening and there is an oval table. Turn it upside down, pull a spring, when it becomes a sideboard with several cupboards. Do something else very simple, and- behold a bookcase. Turn a hinge,. and there again is the original chest of drawers. Such are a few of the American inventions Mi Whitaker is exhibiting to the Colony as specimens of American invention, handicraft, and ingenuity, .r^^^———-.