OUR WEST COAST LETTER.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 10359, 14 May 1895, Page 6

OUR WEST COAST LETTER.

(From Our Own Coeresfondent.) Westpobt, May 1. THE COAL COMPANIES JOYFUL. Among the New Zealand coal companies the news of the Government's intention to reduce the coat of haulage on fche railways will be welcomed by none with more satisfaction than by the Blackball Coal Company (Ngahere, Grey Valley). Many of your readers ate unaware of the enormous difficulties in the way of the English company between the coal pit and the port of Greymouth. Aftsr the black diamonds havo been hewn and transmitted over its three-mile expensive aerial tramway, another transhipment and a I'l-mile, run on the Midland railway has to be made, for which tbe exorbitant charge of 2s 6d per ton is demanded. Thi3 latter charge is felfc to be a most grievous one, and as in my last report; on this fine mine to you I drew attention to tbafc fact, aud asked the Government to encourage the industry by a reduction, I am bound to admit the power of thafc advocacy, especially when I remember the (fco me) ever-memorable words ot the Premier in his last Hokitika speech, iv which he plainly enough said that fche Otago Daily Times and Witness were the leading journals of the colony, and that thpy had most influence with the Government, and he (the redoubtable King Richard John Seddon) being the head thereof, tha inference is that the par did the biz for the companies; whereat the latter ought to acknowledge fche potency of the Otago Daily Times and Witness. MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS. Here is cheerful news for all cargoless boats plying to the port cf Greymouth for coal. At its last meeting the Greymouth Harbour Board agreed to purchase the Rangitikrs ballast of road metal ot 3s per ton.

Salmon trout having made their appearance in Waimea and other South Westland creeks, and some idiots having gone to work to net them, Mr C. A. Barton, secretary to the Westland Acclimatisation Society, is rightly going to make things sultry in that direction.

Greymouth, waking up afc length fco the fact of a general rottenness pervading its sewage canals, is replacing the pestilential wooden boxes by earthenware pipes—ths sanitary signs begotten of the general intelligence of the Grey City Fathers filliped by the eloquence of friend D. M. Sheedy.

Ah Sin Choke has been going the whole hog at the Lyell. Nofc content wifch getting the best of Ah Fat Warn over some mining property dispute, this desperate almond-eyed, yellowskinned little rascal, dirk in hand, rushed one day last week out of his opium-scented habitation, and—ah ! inserted the point between Fat Wain's fifth and sixth ribs, and had it not been (as indeed his name signifies) for the lucky protection over thereabouts of some good few inches of adipose tissue, why, poor Fat Warn would have been now sleeping with his fathers. As matters are, the wound is i'm deep, and Ah Sin Choke will have to stand his trial for illegally wounding.

Another gambol of the West; Coast blizzard has indelibly stamped itself on Mr Walsh's homestead — a farm some miles , inland from Reef ton—in the way of levelling, by uprooting all forest trees, over fully 100 acres of land. If ifc has done no other harm it may save Mr Walsh both the trouble of clearing his land and* the expense naturally attendant thereon.

Tho Inangahua Miners' Prospecting Association have now eight,men out on the ranges all around the quartz centre of Reefton.

Last Wednesday night the farmers of Totara Flat;, a pleasant agricultural settlement in the Grey Valley, decided to float; £2000 for the purpose of establishing a butter factory there. Mr Sawers, Government dairy expert, was present.

Last nighfc Reefton got into a little flutter of excitement consequent; upon the news coming in of the striking of quartz in the footwall of the low level of the celebrated Keep-it-Dark mine *, but up to the closing of the mail I am untble to say what a few shifts will prove—viz., the extent and value of the new find.

Timothy M'Loughlin, one of the earliest pioneers fco the quartz field at Reefton, during which he had experienced' most of the ups and downs of this very speculative centre, pegged out his last claim on Tuesday morning aboufc 5 o'clock, bufc before doing so he left a good big div. behind—to the world lln life " Tim " was well known on stocks and shares, and he could will the ".bulls " and the " bears." Amongst other incidents of a somewhat thrilling lite it is related thafc even whilst a wagesmiuer he always had his eyes and ears about him for the main chance.-' I, think it was whilst at work in the celebrated Welcome claim that, seeing a chance, he -instantly, took advantage of it and netted a cool £11,000 ! It happened this way : The Welcome was afc its /palmiest;;' the stone . was rich—very rich! but going very flat. They were near' their boundary, and Tim knew it, so he went and quietly pegged oufc a broadsider, then went as quietly back to work. In due time he had a survey made, and from the knowledge thus gleaned he found that all of the rich gold being mined oufc by his employers was in his (Tim's) new lease! Result: an immediate injunction to cease farther operations ! The management met, and the only way out of the difficulty was to accede to his modest demand of £11,000 cash, which they did—aud that was " Tim's " first rise; bufc little he recks it now.

I regret to say that the celebrated Minerva Gold-mining Company, Upper Blackball, Grey Valley, has ceased operations. Starting some 12 months or so ago, with every promise of success, that wonderful speculator Mr Gerald Perotfci launched out by supplying the concern with a crushing plant, the results being fchat 530 tons ofquartz obtained during the sinking of the 250f0 shaft yielded gold at the rate of 9£dwt to the ton. Thus encouraged, the directors began driving and stoping out, when, as ill luck would have it, the gold gave out, and the work accordingly ceased. The quartz is still showing in.the bottom of the shaft, and shows gold too. The fact of the matter is that the shoot of gold was going straight down with the reef, out of which the company was foolish enough to drive and so lost all traces thereof. But there is good hope yet for the Minerva.

All the required capital for the Greymouth" Opera House Company having been subscribed, the lists were closed yesterday, and no time will how be lost in' supplying a long-felt: want.

The somewhat singular coincidence is reported inthe; Greymouth newspapers of a candidate for the local school committee running the muck of the late poll and coming out of ifc afc zero with not one; vote recorded in his favour !■■...■'..

The annual fair got up by the Presbyterians of Hokitika in aid of the Home Missions fund was a pretty little effort last Tuesday night. Apart from the pleasant inner surroundings of flags and draperies, the walls had "the last roses of summer " and autumn flowers and spoils laughing here and there—the work of fair hands. The evening passed away pleasantly enough by the rendering ilof songs and solos, vocal and instrumental. "Caller herrin'," by Miss Maud Tait, and " Ora pro nobis," by: Miss Peasy, took my fancy. Several violin selections by Miss Bust also attracted fair attention. The incumbent (Rev. W. Douglas), who is as popular a divine aa he is an excellent one, appears to greatly add to the success of these gatherings, which last year gave a net profit of £20, which was devoted to the spread of light oyer. the. Flowery Land of the Heathen Chinee.

As just at the present moment the atmo--sphere of the West Coast is redolent of" woods " and the shipment of samples thereof to Great Britain, it might not ba out of place fco point out that in every case of the pines growing here there are two distinct; species, one of which is very little good indeed for any other purpose than that of fuel. For instance, we have the pointed or spiral-shaped white pine growing as straight as an arrow aud as clean in the trunk as Pompey's Pillar. This is the fuel tree, and comparatively useless as a timber for building or other purposes.- It is in the rough-bark, gnarled - trunked, bushy - topped, apreadiugbranched white pine that all the wealth is—for weather-boarding afc anyrate. This, if hewn down in the winter, sawn in the spring, and seasoned in the summer, gives really good value. Some of it was so treated 29 years ago by a farmer of the Kokatahi, and the weatherboards are now as sound as the day they were nailed up. ■•'..-

Mr Duncan Macfarlane, goldfields warden, Hokitika, who would sooner assist mining enterprise by his capital papers to Government thereon than sentence an unfortunate " drunk" or send up for trial to the Supreme Court an unfortunate bigamist, has just returned from thafc beautiful country with its multifarious natural wonders of snow-capped mountain, ever-verdant vale, and the darkly deeply-blue lakelet—South Westland —and he is of opinion thafc, notwithstanding past disappointments, fche auriferous south beaches will pay handsomely when the Bass Company fetches in an adequate water supply. He also speaks in a hopeful strain about; the future of the south as a large field for legitimate mining enterprise.

Thafc eminent surgeon, capital friend, and popular citizen, Dr M'Brearfcy, has just set the medical faculty at Greymouth s-fchinking by his clever diagnosis and chirargery of a most extraordinary case. The patient (a male) had suffered acutely for many years with an internal complaint, thought to be incurable, bufc yesterday Dr M'Brearty relieved him with the aid of the knife, and he is now effectually cured, to the surprise of many. Probably a treatise on the case will appear in the Lancet.