NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Auckland Star, Volume XVII, Issue 203, 30 August 1886, Page 1

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

The prospecting parly which is being despatched to theeouthern part of Westland County to explore :'or gold has our best wishes for its suooese. A good goldfield in aDy part of tho colony just now would benefit the whole by absorbing the surplus population of the towns. Referring to the district of which these hopes aro entertained, the "West Coast Timee" cays: " The keen interest, not to say excitement, that has been aroused in New Zealand by the publication of the statement made by Carey and Hyndman relative to the mineral wealth existing in the neighbourhood of Red Hill, will at least cause more prospecting to be done in this and in other well-known mineral localities in the southern portions of Wostland. As to the statement itself some misapprehension seems to exist ; Carey and Hyndman were not the prospectors of the particular locality referred to, but they were members of a party organised by certain Canterbury and Otago speculators under Mr Durward. This party included Captain Malcolm —who has for some time been directly interested in prospecting in the district south of Jackson'e Bay — and Mr McKay, a well known resident and explorer of the locality, This party left' Hokitika in the Waipara many months ago, .'.nd has been employed in prospecting about Red Bill, having previously obtained a prospecting licence. Their Iα bours have ended for the time, and the success of tho work will not be known until tliGy re«eive a report from Dr. Hector as to the result of tho analysis to which the various spocimons have been subjected. Throughout tho district there are vast stretches of country — mineral belta — which will, when properly explored and worked, increase tho wealth of the country to an onorrnous degree. Tho mineral belta south of Jackson'e Bay aro contained largely in country abounding in olivine rock. Red Hill is largely composed of this, as is also a largo lango, named from this cauce tho Olivine range. Hero we have a groat variety of mineral?, tho outcrops proving a guarantee of their richness. Gold also abounds in most localities." It will be observed from thii"i htwover, (hat (he work ig purely prospering, and many parts of tho Ooromar-del, Thainee, and To Aroha ranges probably afford an equally promising iicld.

Mr Justice Johnston has been pasting some severe strictures at Invercargill Criminal Seetioiiß upon tho want of classification in the prisons of tho colony. He had bofore him four youths of respectable parentage, who had been convicted of a robbery, described as " barefaced and impudent/ but he had great difficulty in deciding how to punish them, beewso, ho said, the prisons of the colony were not yet in anything like the condition they ought to bo in respect to classification, wilhout which judgoe, in passing sentence, hardly knew what they wero doing. Notwithstanding all effort?, no pystein of classification approaching perfection had yet been introduced. Tho reason of this v.ll that it cost money, and tho peoplo who had tho power of dealing with tho -matter, the l.CKjs!ature,did not consider it necessary to find' funds for the complete classification of prisoner?. As the gaoler at Invercargill had power to keep boys separate from adult prisoner?, he sentenced two of tho "respectable" youths to six months' and the other two to three months' hard labour. But for this slight approach to classification, we infer that the judge would have let the respectable robbers go scot free—a decision which would probably have been most disastrous.