OUR WEST COAST LETTER.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 10423, 27 July 1895, Page 6

OUR WEST COAST LETTER.

(From Our Own Uorresfondent.)

Ross, July. 17.'

A ROW AND * JEWELLER'S SIIOP.

..It ia up at theßlua Spur, and on Mr Boy's claim, on thenewrush there; .The row is between two lawyers, Edme.g'old-fev'erdisgers.-.and'Mr' V7ar.-len Wlacfarlane,; the. Midland, Railway Company,.and the Government; .but the war has got so mixed upas to render.the belligerents hardly distinguishah]e in number, joint, *or limb. . Suffice it to say that a certain .■Mr-D.wyer is said to hayo purchased ?2 rt\V^iv Ights and Privileges of a.reserve from the Midland. Railway Company and liion let certain other ri.?ht3toother people Sincetbe seizure of the, ulidlandr.R+ilway. CompanyT-lock, stock, and barrel—by the Government, and the discovery of. rich gold in the' reserve, the genisj minsr under. the, : .impression.7he had' as much right to the ground as anybody else, rushed and' commenced to mine all over it, .whereat they (the miners); being.snmiuoned, for. trespass, were .fined each. 403, or in default 14 days'imprisonment with hard labour.': They, appeal, 'and their appeal is sustained;,but.are once more summoned ahd condemned by .the. lower court, the -title of the Midland Ri.ilway.Company's grant to: parties aggrieved being put before Mr Macfarlane who .was anxious to do rii;ti£.\pjj tbis Mr James Park, Crown prosecutor, throwing professional etiquette overboard, waded neck'deep, in a. Mood-curdling, acnife-scilping,. warrwhoWthree-cilunin letter to ;the Hokitika Kvening Star, in which, thn magistrate, the opposing coutjsttl, and all on the other, side come in for a wh'olissilu skinning and red-tot branding process. How it/will all end I know not, but I hear/the wordy epistle has been forwarded to the Minister: for' Justice, who may have something to say to its author,,, who of course hai^ his;.side of the question also. The jeweller's shop is at theibottoru of Mr Boy's shaft, and he; good old general that he is, marks out his extraordinarily rich patch, where the gold is, and laiigha,. whilst all, the ; rest tear each other's eyes out over some ground where probably the very rich gold fgn't ! , s. : ■. . -

:■ ' -MISCELLANEOUSITEJIS.! ! The Greymouth Jockey Club at. its annual meeting last w«ek disclosed a capital financial position.' It had paid off all its debt on the racecourse and - grand .Btand," and' proposes certain other, .useful 'conveniendea, chief amongst which is a band rotunda. . .'■ .. •

■ Respecting the proposal to drain Riin'u Flat by a public drainivze adit,:a petition signed by 69 Kirnu.imriers offering to contribute half the cost m labour has just been forwarded to the Minister for Mines, and the probability is the sludge channel .will be made by Government subsidising the.labour.. ■:; ■ .' ■■ ' ■■ '^;.■ ■ ■'.'-..'■ .-.■■;■ -.

Ihe workers in the long drives of the low Wei tunnels at Suuday Creek - a rivulet of the Grey Valiey—are said to have struck ile at last, said lubricant, however, being in the shape ot good, red gold, and in/payable quanjiitios too. . ; The old enemy has been busy lately, and his sickle has reaped a few Coast greyheads. Among the number happened to be one very old identity, Mrs Ellen Coughlan, whose recollections reached away.back to the earliest of Coastal time?, the stormiest; of days : when the golden grain came showering in on everybody 'game enonglv to face the pristine wilds, wolds, arid boss of the West Coast; when .£4,148,030 worth of gold poured out of the Coastal fUts and guliies in two years ; and when a lot of thing* were done and Raid which, ir put into a history, would form thrilling detail. The late -Mrs Coughjah kept, one of the fiwt pubs" oh Shellback. Gully, ' where she made heaps of money and reared a largo family, the members of which she left fairly well off the other oay.1 ; : .■ .. '.. -..7. .... :. ■■

I regret to say that the prospecting shaft sunk near Constant Bay (Charleston), aided by the General Government and chosen by Mr H. A. Gordon, has agairr*bottomed on rock.' Charlestonians, however, should not despair, but go on and try alsewhere, a« some of the ricli gold of the halcyon days still remains deep down on the numerous auriferous flats.

Mr Lirsen, Mayor of Westport, who, with Messrs .Suisted (chairman of the We»tport Harbour Board) and Adam Javnieson (local agent of the Westport Ooal <;6nipiuy), did so much towards settingthe tug to the port, is now gathering all available data ia connection with Coastal borough councils preparatory to gettirjg the cooperation for a joint petition to Parliarneat praying it to leijve all solvent boroughs intact and to manuge their own affairs.-

Last Saturday a well-known sold miner of the Blackball was killed by an earth fall in his claim A boulder rolled over him, and he expired shortly after having beea released.. Last Suuday «i(;ht as Mrs ftWityden, wife of an old and highly respected resident of Kanieri. was resumed to her home. She is supposed to have fallen in a fit and become drowned, as her dead body was picked un next day. ' "- •. ■- ,

The.cruelty of some Coastal fathers is, I am forced to say, beft6mtng<proverbial. The other day we hiul ah iliustratibnlof a certain ill-condi-tioned, unnatural parent entering the house of his daughter, arid acting iv such an unaccountably excited manner as to be advised by her, a gentle creature, to go home until be was better hehaved Oaths, curses, and err.el beatings by the father on his own flesh aad blood took place to such ?n extent.as to call'for the interference of two bystanders. Finaly: An information laid by the Dolice, a conviction for an unprovoked assault entered up by the magistrate, who condemned accused to 14 days' hard, labour in the Hokitika Gaol. I knew auother father who, jealous of bis own daughter getting by her own industry into a higher seMe of society, stopped her oa the road in the nii'dst of a riding party and, compclliDg her to dismount, save her, before the whole cavalcade, a nio-sc unmerited thrashing Nothiug was done to him in respect of such aii attront on a grown-up youug woman The Knichta of Labour.ai the Mokihinui coal mine (Bullur) are setting on capitally, all the works of driving the tunnel and opan cutting «V;c., being well m hand. Bores have been -rot dow.n in several places and disclosed valuable ssams of coal averaging 19ft thick. The Km-hts who are the pick of colliars, besides beins' aeree aole and pulling together as one man, reckon wiu," their very excellent manager (Mr Alexander to be soon m a position to output from 500 to 600 tons of black diamonds weekly A young man at fieefton named Moss bad a narrow escape from being burned alive in '~, w ior some reason^ he got up at about 4 o'clock in the morning, lit his caedle and Uiea fell ilf Thu blankets and bedding took fire anrf Bltei?--dentially awoke him, and whKt thorn out«de hw mate (asleep in the other uunkf 1^ luquired what he«- wi The Kumara Miners' Association are now beinourged by a petition from Kumara miners to ml its iuflu«ncß with the General Government in Retbni; them to purcha.se Mr Holme's w a te, fx w because thei-e is maufflcient water in tC <> ' ment race to supply the field " tUe Govern-

— A spider saved the life of tbe er-nH n,,-i« of the Gcraym Emperor. Frederi^S was K.ng of Prussia, and ' an attempt wm made co poison him in a cup o f chocolate By chance a sp.de. Ml into the cup, aed for this reuon the monarch gave theehorolatofco.cW who lmnsnditMy died. Inquire ™, „ ?s> with the result that the coo^wa? h^L^td a large spider wrought in cold now f W C one of the chief loom, of the Winter vT '! ro&>d« m in memory of th e ffi^ S^ B &*