The Arrow Observer AND LAKES DISTRICT CHRONICLE. Arrowtown, Friday, May 10, 1872.

Lake County Press, Issue 49, 10 May 1872, Page 2

The Arrow Observer AND LAKES DISTRICT CHRONICLE. Arrowtown, Friday, May 10, 1872.

The lines from «A. P." will appear in next issue.

Ihe first of a series of quadrille parties, to be given fortnightly during the winter months, will be held in the Library Hall to-morrow evening. Messrs Murphy and Anderson are the musicians.

An adjourned meeting of the Board of Depasturing Wardens was held at the Shotover on Tuesday last. The business transacted was not of great importance, consisting chiefly of altering certain boundaries and granting applications for depasturing licenses. There was a good attendance of members.

E regret having to record a painful and fatal accident which occurred on Wednesday night or Thursday morning to a man named Edward Cox, baker to Messrs M-Dougall and Smith, Macetown. From «hut we can learn, it appears that C» x left Arrowtownjon Wednesday evening with some loaded pack-horses for Macetown. It must have been pitch dark by the time he got to the top of the range, and the unfortunate man seems to have missed the track, and fallen over a rocky precipice some forty or fifty feet. The horses came home alone, and, after a little, search parties were organised to look for the missing rnan. He was found this morning quite dead. Ihe deceased was a man about 45 or 50 years of age. We believe the body will be brought to town to.uight apd an inquest be beld to-morrow,

Y kbtkkd ay, although Bel apart by prod a- j mat ion of the Governor ub a holiday of thanksgiving for the recovery of H. K.- H.' the Prince of Wales, seemed to make noj difference to the business men of the Arrow; —all the places of business being op n as : usual. . For uny loss that would have beeni incurred storekeepers might at least havej closed half the, day. The Government! offices and bank were, of course, closed. The new Town Hall. Queenstown, is to be opened on the 24 ih v i ii a grand concert. There seems to be soiue'split among the intended performers and the cry. oil caste and social position leads pese the affair will not be an unmixed suc-j cess. This is-much to be regrettedj -aftdj we trust the management will .take means) to avoid what can only engender " envy; bitterness, and strife,"

We have to acknowledge receipt of the Illustrated iV. g. Herald for last month. It is as, usual well got up, and among others contains a pretty view,of the rising town* ship of Balclutha, on trie banks of the Moly-i neux ; the rums of the Theatre Royalj Melbourne, after the fire ; t>ham attack of the "Victorian iron-clad Cerberus on VViU liamstovm batteries, &c. ■ , ■ < ■■ . , i'

The tea-meeting in aid of funds to clear off arrears due by the School Committee is likely to be a real success. We understand that the ladies are working willingly for the attainment of the end sought j and it need hardly be said that this of itself is a guarantee that the affair will come off satisfactorily. We believe thepromotors of the entertainment have received very liberal promises of support wherever they have applied ; and from former experiences of like affairs in Arrowtown we feel confi. dent that on to-morrow night week the Library Hall will be overflowed with visitors.

The following letter has been handed to us for publication by Mr J. A. Miller: —Provincial Secretary's Office, Dunedin, April 26. Sir,—Referring to your letter of the 26th ultimo and the memorial on the subject of a track along the Arrow River valley, I have been directed to acquaint you, for the information of the memorialists, that the Government is informed that the estimated cost of the whole of the work is £2OOO, and it proposes to take the question into consideration when forming the next Estimates. 1 am to add that the Government is fully aware of the necessity and importance of opening up the track as ea*ly as pos-ible. —I am, &o, Alex. Willis, Under Secretary.

The encroachment case recently tri d at Queenstowu does not seem to "be yet done with. We learn from the Daily Times ot 4th instant that— ■« Mr Macassey moved for a rule m*» for a writ of prohibition to stay execution. The grounds upon which the rule wis granted were that the Warden and Assessors acted together as co ordinate judges of law and fact; and thut execution was permitted to issue before the time limited for appealing had expired. The ruie nisi was granted with a s;ay of proceedings, the judge directing th« Registrar to telegraph to the Warden. A rule nisi was also granted upoo the applica-i >n of Mr Macassey to quash the convict on of J. Y. Henry 'for ringing without due cause the fire bell of Queenstown, thereby causing public alarm aud oommotion/

What may happen to a Provincial Councillor is thus related in the Southland Times: —An accident which might have hid more serious consequences, happentd on Sunday night to Mr Lunisden. With praiseworthy zeal for the proper discharge of his duties as M, P. (.'., Mr Lumsden started for Dunedin on Sunday fernoon in a buggy, hoping to catch the Balclutha coach on Tuesday, and thus be in time for the opening night of the session. About twenty-three miles from Invercargilf, the track runs out, or n- arly so, and in the dark the driver got ofl the road. After repeated attempts to regain the track, the drivei came to the wise resolution of remaining where he was with the buggy till morning, or the moon, threw more light on the subject. Mr Lumsden, however determined to find the road on foot, in the midst of a storm of driving rain and almost total darkqess. The result was that he was out nearly all night, and only arrived at the Halfway Bush accomodation house in the morning.

The following particulars of the past career of Cyrus Haley— recenily sentenced to penal servitude lor life for shooting at Mr Russell with intuntto kill—may be "of interest to our readers :—" While a sergeant in an engineer corps in India, he conceived a violent hatred for the Adjutant of the Regiment, and robbed the military chest, afterwards burying it, in order to throw suspicion on the adjutant He failed to do so, and was sentenced to four years' imprisonment. He was sent to Portland Gaol, England where he obtained the remission of a part of his senti nee on condition that he showed where the chest was concealed. He performed this condition, and 10,000 rupees (£1000) where thus recovered. He then entered the service of the Bombay and Baroda Railway Company and soon had 20,000 rupees (£2000) at his eredit, leading to the supposition that he had kept back a part of the contents of the military chest. He was afterwards in receipt of 545 rupees a month (654/ a year) and filled several responsible offices. Having lost money, however, he went to England, where his last feat was that of fdrceing a gentlemen to sign a cheque by holding a pistol at his head. He handed eight certificates of character to Judge Arney, none being of latter date than 1865. They show his real name to be John Cyrus Haley He sent for Mr Russell and expressed regret for his conduct towards that gentleman. It is thought that he has an eye to throwing the authorities ofi their guard and then escaping from gaol." '

TB >sk accustomed to thu use of oatmeal diet will he pleased to learn that it has found a champion in the editor ot at least one newspaper. The Dunedin Echo asserts that "oatmeal imparts brains—a commidity scarcely to be foiiud in these beef-eating colonies."

Reejton (West Coast) is rapidly increasing in sisse, and will doubtless ere long rival the Thames in the yield of its claims. The reefs are said to be remarkably rich, and of immense extent. By next summer it is confidently expected that many thousands of miners will be at work in the disicti! • rhe countr y is covered with heavy ,bircb and, pine, bush. Reefton is fifty miles .distant fropa. .Greymouth. ' During his address to his constituents at Invercargill, Mr Dilion Bell is reported as having said :—The great question of next session would be whether or not we were to carry on or to discontinue the policy which had now been commenced, known as the Public Works and Immigration policy. The country was in a position of difficulty, and even of danger—the danger being that this policy, now aus pioiously commenced, and which afforded the only,prospect of a prosperous future for the colony, might be suddenly discontinued.

One of the most singular and amusing defences set up against a charge of ciuelty was that of Mr„Joy, at the Auckland Court recently. A man stood charged with having cruelly ill-used a bullock, when Mr Joy contended that this could not be the case, as the hide of the bullock after it had died fetched three shillings more than what a witness swore he got for the.skins of his beasts, upon which no alleged cruelty had been practiced. By this mode of reasoning, it mav be alleged that to beat a bullock has no other consequence than to increase the hide in value. The charge of cruelty was dismissed.

An -American paper, in speaking of the state of their navy, says that it is a collection of maritime curiosities, the ships more resembling those of the middle ages than anything else, and that th* entire navy at home and abroad consists of about 50 vessels, 8,000 men, and 570 guns, and goeson to say, -'John Bull has avoided numerous wars by the judicious expenditure of 50,000.000d0l yearly, and without increase of taxation has, within eight years built a navy that is a match for any two European powers combined. England has spent 180,000 OOOdol. less than we have and has built up the strongest navy in the world."

The old days of Victoria and Otago are reproducing themselves on the West Coast. At Reefton, the Resident Magistrate discharged a prisoner without a judge's order. The incident of Thomas liafi'ney swiming the Inanga'uua, and running down what, at Reefton, is called the Strand, in a suit made by Nature, has been aire idy recorded. He was taken to the lock-up, where there was one man temporarily provided with accommodation. This poorlellowawakened from the "snore i.f the j .!>t," stared with astonishment at the " new hand," begged the Magistrate, who, be it understood, has to sleep in the lock-up, to allow him to go out and sleep in a tent adjaoent. declaring by all kinds of protestations that he would return faithfully, The R. M. was in convulsions at the ludicrous inoident, and the Sergeant of Police rep rting that the man had behaved himself well, he was discharged. But it did not end there. In about an hour the discharged returned, begging the R. M. to give him <( a line to his mate," saying that that faithful observer of ««law and order" would not admit him unless he had the magistrate's authority. The magistrate did not see his jurisdiction to grant the line, but he sent the man along with the Sergeant, who, we understand, authoritatively made all things right.

Some strange remarks are reported to have emanated from Judge Williams at Melbourne previous to passing sentence of death on Feeney, who, it will be remembered, shot a fellow wardsman in the Treasury Gardens near the above city a short time since. It is stated that his Honor severely admonished the prisoner for not committing suicide after he had shot his friend. «« If," said his Honor, " you went out together to kill each other it was cowardly on your part, when you found your comrade had forfeited his life, not to have taken the loaded pistol from his hand and blown your own brains out." This is (says the Melbourne Age) to say the least, a remarkable admonition from a British judge to a prisoner, and probably it is without a parallel in modern times. It demonstrates Judge Williams's delioate sense of honor, but it is utterly opposed to our established moral and religious code that a man should commit a second crime as an atonement for his first offence—that because he is a murderer he should also be a suicide. Feeney does not appear to have felt the sting of his Honor's reproof, or he might have challenged the bench and the jury to afford him the means of becoming his own executioner. It would be interesting to know to what extent Feeney's regard for his own life operated with the judge in pronouncing the extreme sentence of the Jaw. Perhaps had he made only an unsuccessful attempt to blow out his brains, Judge Williams's heart might have softened towards him, and he would have held out to the prisoner some hpoe of mercy. It is very shocking to think that future murderers, taking this lesson to heart, may deem it incumbent on them to prove to society that, although they are homicides, they are strictly " honorable" men ; and scorning to come wholly untuoched themselves out of a murderous conflict, blow out their own brains, and save our judges the trouble of trying,, and the country the »• xpent* of hanging tutus.