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Grey River Argus, Volume XVI, Issue 2295, 16 December 1875, Page 2

During the visit of Mr Millar, F.S. A., the Provincial Engineer, to the Grey Valley, advantage was taken to interview him with respect to the Half-Ounce, Orwell Creek, 2rason 'Provincial Council at the last session would barely cover the cost of the work a'ready in hand, and it would be necessary on the part of the General Government to make a further allowance to complete it. The Orwell Creek track would receive early attention, so that the L 250 voted foi it might be spent, and as for the Starvation Point part of the Amuri road, it would have to wait until Providence or the Abolition Bill brought about a change in the manner of dealing with our ways of communication. Mr Woolcock addressed the electors of Half-Ounce on Monday night in Andersen's Hall. There was a large attendance. Mr Cunningham in the chair. Mr Woolcock was listened po very attentively throughout his address, at the close of which Mr IWi proposed, and Mr Irvine seconded a resolution that Mr Woolcock was a fit and proper person to represent the district in the coming Parliament. The resolution was carried unanimously. On Tuesday night Mr Woolcock addressed the electors of Granville, Mr Melody occupying the chair, and there was a large attendance of electors. At the close of his address, Mr Halpin proposed, and Mr . Young seconded a resolution that Mr Woolcock was a fit and proper person to represent the district. The resolution was carried without a dissentient voice. From the Inangahua Times of Monday we glean the following mining items :— An extraordinary and general meeting of the shareholders of the Independent Compauy was held on Saturday afternoon last, at which the following gentlemen were elected directors : —Messrs Pamsay, Cato, Monahan, Meldruin, and Casley. Messrs Mathias and Potts were elected auditors. — At a meeting of the shareholders of the Invincible Company, held at Mr Hankins's office on Saturday, it was decided to place the affairs of the company in voluntary liquidation. It was stated that a hut, situated on the mine, and belonging to the company, had been broken into and the whole of the stores and tools belonging to the company stolen. We are informed that since the company ceased operations bhe mines have been plundered of every portable article of value, the last articles removed being a set of truck wheels. — The Independent Company, of which such good things have been so often predicted, promises to speedily come up to the most sanguine expectations. Up to Friday last about 12900zs of amalgam was taken from the plates alone, and to this quantity has yet to be added about 300ozs or 400ozs as the product of the tables, &c. Mr George Noble, a settler on Totara Flat, met with a severe accident by being throw j from his horse on Monday. He was assisting Mr David Donald to rido in cattle, when his hoixe threw him, inflicting serious injuries, among which was a fracture of the coUar bone. The following fatal accident is repo.ied by the local papers as having occurred at Rangi. tikei : — "On Sunday morning a canoe containing a number of Maoris, both men and women, was crossing the Rangitikei from Mr Allmon's faim when, owing to the natives allowing the canoe to brbacVto too much, she filled and sank. The men managed to gob to land, but two women and a child were carried away. The woman with the child managed to swim ashore. The child, however, was quite dead when they were taken out below the CM, and the woman herself very much exhausted, but after getting a fire made and warming her at it she came round. The other woman was carried half a mile lower down, and when recovered she was quite dead, The following amusing incident is related by the Wellington Post?— "A rather unfortunate accident befel a bridegroom the other day, not 100 miles from this city. The nuptial knot had been duly tied, and the , happy pair had just entered their oarrlage • ;

en route forthe steamer bound to Nelson, when the uaal fire of old shoes for good luck was opened >n them. So long as the cannonade was confined to the light fantastic coverings, \am by 'light fantastic toes,' it was harmles enough ; but, unluckily, one of the gentlmen guests was seized with an ardent wish ;o add his quota to the happiness of the newly-married ones, so he eagerly palled off a mighty hobnail and flung it'wifch herculean force at the retreating carriage. The aim was excellent. The projected hobnail hit the bridegroom just on the temple, mating a terrific gash, from which the blood grored in streams. The scene which followed may be imagined. In the end, the hapy couple, instead of passing their honeymon in Nelson, spent it at home ; the bridegrooE under surgical treatment for his wound, ad the bride nursing 'him. Moreover, he till carry an ugly scar for (life. Rather ' too nich happiness " this !" We learn thjb in all probability, tenders for the constitction of a portion of the Mikonui race,; will be invited within a month of the jrosent date. It is' intended to construct ahigh level reservoir at no great distance rom Ross, and of sufficient size to contains month's supply of water, to be used in working machinery for the drainage of Jone's Flat. A cilcket match is in contemplation at Wellington betteen teams selected from the Treasury and Audit offices respectively. Preliminary arunsements have been made, and the event iw'lll come ofl shortly. We understand thatthe Colonial Treasurer (Hon. Major Atkinsoi), the Paymaster-General (Mr Batkin), the Auditor-General (Dr Knight), the Comptroller-General (Mr J. E. Fitzgerald), anJ other high officials will play in the respective teams. A rifle match and a boat race bitween the same departments also are propoed. During his fpeech at Dunedin the Hon. Mr Reynolds, in reference to the General Election, said i— " There has been no lack of advice given is to the class of representatives the constituencies should return to the next Parliament: The constituencies are advised by some t) elect representatives who will endeavor to lssuscitate Provincial institutions as they afc present exist. I have no hesitation in sayng that if any such are elected, all their attempts will be futile. The Provinces ar« abolished, and can never again be resuscitsfced. You may therefore dismiss this class cf representatives. Others advise the election of representatives who will advocate the establishment of two Provinces for each Island. Such a proposition, to my mind, is quite untenable, inasmuch as Canterbury, Nelson, Maryborough, Westland,. as also all the Provinces in the North Island, except probably Auckland, would never consent to any such arrangement. Then again, there is another proposition to return representatives who w'.ll he satisfied with nothing less than one Province for each Island, and a Federal Government. Now this latter proposition is, to my mind, the most reasonable of the three, but I hold it is not feasible. T feel pretty certain that such a measure cannot be carried in the next Parliament, even if Otago were to return all its representatives pledged to use every effort to this end. I hold that few, if any, have had a better opportunity of forming a correct opinion on this question than myself." An Auckland telegram in the Evening Post of the 6th instant says :— Some anxiety was evinced in town yesterday, in consequence of a young gentleman, the son of a former' Colonial Minister, having been missing since Tuesday lost. It is now satisfactory proved that the lad went away in the Julia Price to Norfolk Island, having been induced to this foolish step by some youthful inc'is--1 j. li/ivuj- 'rnrieb^-pTfpn&afeS-rjux;-Harrington's address withdrawing from the candidature of the East Coast, owing to the continued illness of his son. The address is dated from Melbourne, Captain Wales, one of the late members for Dunedin, has intimated that he does not seek re-election, becauso the elections take place earlier than he anticipated, and on account of pressing business engagements. A few days ago, through a burning vesta, which had been carelessly dropped on the Wellington wharf, a portion of the wharf suddenly burst into a flame, and had not a bucket been close at hand, the wharf, saturated with tar and highly combustible aa it is, might have been destroyed; Several planks were damaged. The wharf at Auckland had a narrow escape too about a fortnight ago. The Daily Times of the Ist gives the following account of the capture of a real salmon in Port Chalmers : — " The utmost excitement was caused at Port Chalmers yesterday morning, by the rumor of the capture of a real salmon in the harbor. At first, the report was pooh-poohed ; where could the salmon come from 1 when none had been yet acclimatised. This and the kindred questions were put, until some one suggested that the Atolyneux experiment of a few years ago might not have proved such a failure as was supposed and regretted at the time. Next came the query, but where is the fish ? and then Mr Innes, of the fishing station at the Peninsula, was said to have been the fortunate capture? of the veritable salmon, and inquirers dispersed in search of him. He was soon found at the Railway station with basket in hand, containing the most beautiful fish that had ever been seen at the Port, and which was pronounced on all sides to be | a salmon trout. A plump fish, fair to see, was the stranger, covered with silvery scales, and when measured and weighed was found to be 26in long by 17in in giitb, and 10£lb weight. The fish, carefully wrapped in a cloth, was taken to Dunedin by Mr Innes in the first train, and exhibited in the shop window of Mr Melville, fishmonger, Princes street, where it attracted quite a crowd. The fish was taken in a net jnst below Quarantine Island. An inquest was held at Wellington, on 6th December, on the body of Alexander Scott, Bank clerk, who committed suicide by cutting his throat with a penknife. A verdict of suicide while in a state of temporary insanity, was returned. Deceased had been drinking heavily of late. Professor W. Stanley Jevons, in a treatise on scientific method, asserts that "if the whole population of the world, say one thousand millions of persons, were to deal cards day and night for one hundred millions of years, they would not have exhausted one hundred thousandth part of the possible deals of a pack of cards." Some of the bulls at the annual sale of pure bred stock at Christchurch the other day, fetched some long prices, For instance, King of the Butterflies, 775 guineas ; Esau, 350 guineas ; Alphonso, 225 guineas ; and so on. The highest price offered for a Lincoln ram was 65 guineas, and the sales of horses and pigs call for no special comment. At a subsequent sale of Messrs Sutton Brothers' rams, one splendid animal fetchod 100 guineas, the purchaser being Mr Thos. Rowe, of Christchurch. One of the most interesting personages in the procession which will take place at Lucknow when the Prince of Wales is there will, it is said, be the identical State elephant that carried the Marquis of Hastings when he visited Lucknow as Governor-General a centuiy ago. advices have been received by his Honor the Superintendent, from the Agent-General, that another shipment of eighty immigrants has left England for Hokitika.