THE Grey River Argus. PUBLISHED DAILY MONDAY, JULY 20, 1874.

Grey River Argus, Volume XV, Issue 1858, 20 July 1874, Page 2

THE Grey River Argus. PUBLISHED DAILY MONDAY, JULY 20, 1874.

jlt.-will be seen,' both I'by1 'by our telegrams and an announcement by the local agents, Messrs |G. Wi ; Moss' and : Co., that the Colonial ißank has peen successful in securing the 'services, in •Dunedin, of 'a 'number of gentlemen who have bad much experience in bankingj business, and whose reputation stands, high in commercial' circles. The sharelisfc will positively be closed to-morrow, and intending investors bad better make an early application for shares. Those- who are interested in the matter should remember that a call of 5s per share in the Gteymouth Coal Company is due and payable jto-da-y at the office of Messrs G. W Moss.and Co. The election of a new Committee of Man-, agement; f or the Grey River Hospital for the ensuing twelve months took place on Saturday, at I Gamer's Hotel. There was a good deal of i interest taken in the election this year, tHe" lower storey" of the pollingbooth being crowded with the candidates and their friends during the evening. Irreverant as it may appear under the circumstances, bets were freely made on the result, and as the time for declaring the poll drew near, the excitement was at as great a height as ifc. is possible to get it, at ordinary times in Greymouth. The voting resulted in the retura of all the members of the old Committeej with the exception of Messrs James Hamilton and J.. Kilgour. There were twenty-one candidates for the thirteen seats on the Committee and from among these the following were elected : — Messrs Gilbert King, D. M'Lean, W. F. Strike, E. Masters, F. Hamilton, J. Greenwood, M. Kennedy,H. Kenrick, G. Glenn* H. Newton, S. Gilmer, W. S. Smith, J. Arnott. When the poll was declared the successful candidates were congratulated by their several friends so enthusiastically that a • stranger would think some high honor in the State: had been conferred upon them. This is as it should be, for the cauße • which called all these " toilers by the sea" together was one of pure charity; that ctarity ''which works good thints and boasts not," and which indeed "covereth a multitude of sins." A district ball and supper for the benefit «f the funds of the Grey Kiver Hospital, was held at the new building of Messrs Stephens and Son, Hatter'sTer ace, Nelson Creek, on the night of Thuroday, 6th inst. The folowing gentlemen were the Ball Committee :- - Messrs James Kennedy, John M'Entee, John Coll, James Young, with Mr James Hicks, and Mr Richard Lochhead as Hon. Treasurer and Secretary ; and they were efficiently assisted by the local sub-committee of the Hospital, and by other volunteers. The company was numerous, and the festivities were kept up till "all hours " on Friday morning. Mr James Hicks, the Treasurer of the Ball Committee and of the local Subcommittee of the Hospital, arrived in town on Saturday evening, and paid into the hands of the Treasurer of the Central Committee the sum of L 69 Is 6d, as the net proceeds of the ball. A list of the contributions to the stock used at the bars and at the supper, with a discription of the donations, appears in anotliercblumn. At the Resident Magistrate's Court, on Saturday, James Watters, master of the Bchooner Alma, was charged on the informa; tion of D. Lundon, Esq ., Collector 6i Customs, with having committed a breach of the Merchants' Shipping Act, inasmuch as he did not within forty-eight hours after the said ship's arrival at her final port of deatia*

ation (Greymouth) ou tlie fourteenth day of July instant, deliver to the shipping master of the said port his ship's articles or agreement with his crew although detnvnd was made therefore by the infonnatfby'lt appears that Captain Watters, owing to' a disagreeir.ent with some of the employees in the Melbourne shipping office, could not obtain his articles before sailing. He offered to pay the clerk overtime" to get' them drawn out, but his offer was refused. He therefore trusted to the Melbourne shipping-master to send them after him by the Claud Haaiil ton. A statement of the foregoing facts was made to Mr Lundon on the arrival of the Alma, and that gentleman agreed to postpone proceedings until the arrival of the Claud, lhat steamer arriving without the necessary document our local sliipping-mastßr had no option but to take proceedings. The offence was admitted, and the defendant fined L 5 and costs, A meeting of the parisioners of St. Patrick's Church was held yesterday afternoon, at the schoolhouse adjoiniHg the Church, for the purpose of presenting the Rev. Father Belliard with a souvenir, previous to his departure from tlie Grey district. At a former meeting it was arranged that, besides the testimonial it was proposed to present to Father Belliard, an illuminated address from his congregation should also be given him The address is not yet prepared, and on ifc being announced to. the meeting that Father Belliard was not leaving for a week, it was decided to postpone the presentation till the address was ready. Up to a late hour last evening, the body of the lad, Albert Jones, who was drowned on Friday, had not been recovered. The lagoon has been dragged continually without finding the remains, and it is feared the body has gone out to sea. The s,s. Hero arrived at Auckland from Sydney on the 17th, bringing the same English and Australian telegrams as were brought by the Claud Hamilton ; but, owing to the wires having been down, they were not received here until Saturday, when they were useless. The beautiful "Queen's weather" ween joyed during the last week broke on Saturday, about mid-day, into a very disagreeable succession of sexually wind and rain storms, which have since continued. On Sunday afternoon there were heavy hail and rain showers, with Ugh ting and thunder at intervals, and it rained almost incessently from sundown till mid-night. During the proceeeings of the Supreme Court at Auckland, the other day, the foreman of the Grand Jury asked his Honor's advice in a case of what he called "find and Ireep " larceny. It appeared that the prisoner had found a purse containing money, and had converted it to his own use. The Judge remarked that, unfortunately, the principles of people in the Colony were rather lax in this matter, whereupon the foreman asked whether or not consideration should not be shown to persons brought up under so lax a state of morals ; but the Judge could not see it in tbe same light, and suggested that it would be as well if the Grand Jury found a true bill, and left it to a petty jury to decide the question of guilt or iunocence of the prisoner. The Thames Advertiser of a late date has a very strong article upon the Auckland fires. The article concludes as follows : — " The first thing to be done is for the authorities to take special and extraordinary measures to discover the perpetrators of the crimes lately committed in Auckland, and then to make such an example cf the scoundrels as will act as a warning to others. In the meantime the law might be changed, giving power to inflict sentence of death in aggravated cases. If this is not done, we fear that ere long some of tbe pople in the city of Auckland will be burnt to death in their beds by the scoundrels who now infest the place." A sensational story appears in an Australiau provincial paper; '• to th<j effect that Arthur Orton was hanged some years ago at the Melbourne Gaol in the name of Jackson. The records of the gaol have been examined, and the man Jackson^ referred to in the story, was hanged certainly in 1855, but at the time' he was 44 years of age. This little circumstance destroys the beauty of the tale, because the real Arthur Orton would not be much older now, if he be in the land of the living. ' The Melbourne Argus Sari Francisco correspondent sends the following items of late telegraphic news ;— ln a duel between Prince Metternich and Count Montebello the Count was wounded in the arm and disabled. The Globe lias a rumor that the British frigates Narcissus and Endymoin are ashore at Palermo, and: the corvette Eacoon atßermunda. The Parliamentary election in Durham is annulled, ion account of bribery, and the election in Ga'way on account of intimidation of electors. A London telegram states that Oppenheim and Schader, merchants, have failed. Their estimated liabilities are about L 600.000. The Prussian Deifc was prorogued on May 21. The Princess Alice of England, wife of Princes Louis of HsseDarmstadt. has given birth to a daughter. A fire in Galata, a large suburb of Constantinople, on May 19, destroyed 100 houses occupied by poor Jewish families. The Bishop of Manchester has been umpire in a dispute between the Manchester house painters and their employers. One of the points referred to him was the minimum rate of wages to be paid for work by the hour, and on this point the bishop says in his award :— " I have come to the conclusion that, all things considered, 7£d would be a reasonable ana proper rate, 2. That overtime on full working days shall not be paid for at the rate of a time and a half before tbe hour of 9 o'clock p.m.; but that on Saturday, whether a job is being finished or not, overtime shall be reckoned and paid for at the usual rate. 3. That Is per week extra shall be allowed to men on country jobs who are required to stay away from home on Sunday." The betting on the approaching Victorian spring races still continues very dull, and as a rule there is a disposition to invest in double and treble events. The latest Argus says :— " Some small business has been done in the Hawkesbury Guineas and Handicap at 100 to 2, while the treble of the Hawkesbury Handicap, Metropolitan, and Melbourne Cup has been fairly invested in at 1000 to 2 Dagworth is the most fancied for the Hawkesbury Handicap, and he would be backed to a large extent at 10 to 1. Very little has been done in the A.J.C. Derby, but four horses have been selected against the field at even for L4OO. The horse 3 taken were Xingsborougb, Neredah, A T, and Llama. The fielders still keep the odds of tbe-Metropolitan and Melbourne Gup at 1000 to 5, and they have decided not to lay against one horse for the double event. The double event of the V.R.C. Derby and Melbourne Cup has been taken several times, Blink Bonnie and. Stockbridge being selected for the former race, with Fugleman and Kins; of the King for the Melbourne Cup. In the right-out betting Horatio has been taken for the Metropolitan at 1000 to 55, the best offer afterwards being 1000 to 60. Break of Day has been backed for the Melbourne Cup at 1000 to 50. Tbe Assembly of California has passed a Bill requiring all miners to keep in good order and operation two shafts of ingress and egress, means of ventilation sufficient to give each miner 230 ft of pure air each minute, keeping hoisting machinery in good order, and overseers of mines to be deemed guilty of manslaughter if death occur from want of attention to its provisions,