OUR WEST COAST LETTER.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 9905, 25 November 1893, Page 5 (Supplement)

OUR WEST COAST LETTER.

i, (Fbom Or/a Own Correspondent.) " j Boss, November 16. 1 WOMEN TO KEEP SILENCE IN THE CHURCH. 7 Mrs. Reefton Edwards is setting herself up as [ an authority to combat the express commands s of that somewhat ancient scholar St. Paul (he who sat at the feet of Gamaliel), who said: ; " Women shall keep silence in the church." Last - Sunday evening she is reputed to have preached : in reply to strictures passed by critics on her 3 remarks at the October meeting of women - electors, defending herself against the charges of , using offensive expressions about the nuns by re- . iterating that her only desire on that memorable ? occasion was to uphold the action of the Sisters » of Mercy in getting enrolled as electors as a 3 worthy example to Protestant women. No one , had furnished her with the notes for her address, I and it was ridiculous to charge her with championing the publicans' cause. Far from that— <■ she would dearly love to Bee every drop of intoxif eating liquor poured into the river. But, at the j same time, in endeavouring to get rid of the drink evil she favoured a policy of fair and equit- ' able compensation in preference to one of unjust - confiscation. In conclusion, she urged Protestant E women to present a solid front at the coming election. WATER VERSUS STEAM. Bushmen of the Upper Grey river are evidently s disenchanted with the Midland railway, or father ■ ts excessive charges for carrying squared timber f to the port of Grey, for last week railway sleepers were being floated down the river in catamarans . of 200 and 300 each. Their protest is that the rail--1 way carriage charges do not leave sufficient i margin of profit to encourage the hewer to pro- £ ceed. On the other hand, the railway authorities . tike every credit to themselves for assisting local . industry. 1 . . CASUALTIES. , It is reckoned that since last June drownings in 5 the Upper Buller river have made 18 orphans. I Last Saturday a Keefton miner named Cadigan t whilst at work in the Globe mine, had his right L arm broken. Mr George Black, manager of the ) Progress mine (Reefton), received a nasty cut on i the forehead from machinery, and had to go into ■ f the hospital last Tuesday. William Cockrane, a ' local coachman, was run over by his own runaway » coach, and was injured considerably. By the l death of the late Patrick Brennan last I'riday ' Keefton loses one of its oldest pioneers, an , intrepid speculator and a straightforward man. It is relate i of him that at one time he held 32 legal 1 managerships of Reefton companies, and was , clearing as much as £100 a week; yet, strange to , relate, he died indigent. Although diligent . search has been made, yet up to the time of writ- , ing no trace of the bodies of Hiss M'lndoe and J Mrs O Hourke has been discovered. ' . GOLD MINING. 1 last Thursday the tributors of the Humphrey's i Orully cleaned up 5400z 13dwt of gold, of the value ; of £2109,6' a 6d, the result of 13 weeks' run. i ?jhS M°n* dO r Company obtained 200oz 19d\vt ■ gold for 21 days sluicing. ; Another company is being formed at Westport ! I with the object of working the old Red Queen , quartz reef. A party commences this week to , break out stone from the newly-discovered quartz reef in the mining district of Totara, with the . object of getting a ton or so tried at the f local battery, and if the crushing pays a party of j four are to open out and work the claim Joshua Gibson, manager of the Ross United Company, recovered at law from R. Mason last , week tne sum of £6 9s as expenses for giving i evidence in the late trial Mason v. the R.M.G.M. t <-/0., a claim for damages to land by deposit of silt and mining debris.. Plaintiff lost the case, and ' was also mulcted in costs. It appears that witness s Lrtbson also gave evidence for defendant company, i for which he was paid £6 9s by Mason. The 3 amount sued, for is, as it were, a second paymeat from plaintiff. " tt w^. ilst P r Gaze's gold-saving process is proving I effective, I regret to say thattheßoatmans' Cyanide Company have ceased operations for the present, after expending somethingjlike £600 in the • purchase of the basic compound. MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS. At the last monthly meeting of the Greymouth larbourßoard.theChairmaninformedthemeeting I that on some of the board's works the expenditure was so heavy, that recently repairs to a barge cost D £77! Anewonecouldhave been built forlessinoney. This matter is nearly as good as that attaching to 1 a certain Cedar creek quartz-mining company who B used to do all its work on wages. One month a bill came in for £7 10s for repairing a wheelJ barrow! b Mr Bell, ■who is opposing Mr Guinness for Grey- . mouth, whilst addressing his Taylorville constituents last Friday, said the Governoiship of c the colony ought to be abolished. His Excellency was only a spy for the Imperial Government. If a Governor were necessary, then he should be elected by the people. The Legislative fc Council should be substituted by the Referenum. He condemned co-operation as a system ! debased for political purposes; he wanted a State g Bank in lieu of the present financial arrange--3 ments ; taxes pn\ necessaries of life should be abolished, but imported coal should be taxed— 8 for all of which Taylorville gave him a vote of V thanks. i, The Mokihinui coal mine having shut down, ;, many colliers out of employment are finding their c way back to Taylorville, where work is more plent tiful. ■. The final result of the Grey County elections is ■* that all the old members are returned. a. Captain Fairchild, of the Government steamer Hinemoa, has once more succeeded in bringing i- every drop of the indignant blood of Greymouth if to boiling point. Last Friday, on arrival off the n post, his request to be tendered by the local tug ,t was met by a perfect avalanche of furious remon- ', strance from the citizens of Grey, and member and Cabinet Ministers were approached, '■ "wired-in-to" and reproached, the citizens 6 begging, entreating—nay, demanding—that the hard-headed skipper should be compelled to !s Bail his' bark across the breakers of their 23ft bar and up the rippling tide to the wharf; p but all to no purpose: Ministers were '" cautious—they could not interfere; the comM mander was obdurate—he would run no risk, and so the noble craft after being tenp dered steamed away south from scandalised Greymouth, only one man; rather cruelly repeatfc. ing the trite joke that, "If she had gone in she mightn't have got out hanymoa !" , Hokitika has voted its mayor £100 as a salary for the ensuing tei-m, but Greymouth—a richer ■° municipality—refuses to give its next chief a magistrate even £50. ir In the matter of the general elections, and of the ie return of members for Buller, Inangahua, Grey, 3 and Westland, there will be a tightrun between 0 Conor and Roderick M'Kenzie,' the people backing the former and the coal companies the latter. For Inangahua many will tell you >g Collins may slip in between Keeves and O'Regan, whilst his old and well-served friends cfc express confidence over Reeves's return. But if ar the man who works the hardest is to get the prize, why, then, O'Regan must finish well. Mr. Bell, for Grey, is loudly clanging his "senti- ° ments " all over the electorate, but Mr Guinness need feel small fear of a licking in that quarter. 00 Again, if his friends do not prevail on Mr Oxenhe bridge to withdraw from the Westland contest, of he may, possibly, have to forfeit his deposit. v . The Coal Creek Company, evidently taking ltv fright, have got the Agent- :enera\ to cable the * news to the effect that £20,000 had been deposited , „ with the Bank of Eagland on behalf of the com--1 pany. J a Last Saturday some wretched thief entered the dwelling of a man named William Harker, Ross, id- and stole a book containing £2 in note 3 Muoh indignation is being felt here over the rob igY bery, as Harker ia poor and a helpless cripple. Applications have been made to proclain Duffers' creek (South Westland) and Donnelly' lnS creek (Ross) water courses wherein tailtug3 am !SS- mining dtbris may be run, and the Minister, b' :3ta authority of the Governor-in-Council, nov •un gazettes same. e jj A number of old Westportonians returninj ~ from Mount Zeehan (Tasmania) give most dolefu jD" accounts of that colony. One said he existed fo Ipi maiij weeks on potatoes, whilst another l'ved oi > m oatmeal. They express their relief at gettiii: ias back to New Zealand. Over 1000 persons atteoded the funeral of th jjj x . late Patrick Brennan, of Reefton, last Mondaj mournera going from all parts of the West Coast . Dr Giles, who administered the law, for manl cc years as Resident Magistrate in We3tland, ha" m S been eulogised by some of the Coast press on th wd occasion of his retiring from the Auckland bencl cii- One newspaper fthe Ross Advocate) says ver ijflg truly of him—"He was a just man; terrible i ; D , r rebuke." icb. — For seven years a nervous old geufelema at Woolwich made a circuit of half a mile twic i.nd per day rather than pass a powder magazim 13 The ether day he learned that ifc had bee 1 tmpby for eight years !