EIGHTY-FIVE YEARS AGO

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27039, 25 March 1949, Page 4

EIGHTY-FIVE YEARS AGO

FROM THE FILES OF THE ©tago IDail'e IHmes DUNEDIN, MARCH 25, 1864. The escort arrived in town yesterday, bringing the following quantities of gold: Queenstown, 85680 z 15dwt; Ar- '■ row, 9240 z lOdwt; Dunstan, 46740 z lOdwt; Mount Ida, 11760 z sdwt; Mount Benger, 1960 z sdwt; Hamiltons, 38490 z ' lOdwt; Tuapeka. 23600 z; Waitahuna, 2830 z; West Taieri, 6460 z 22i6780z 15dwt A number of carpenters are now fully emoloyed, under contract, converting the brig. Thomas and Henry, into a prison hulk for refractory seas men. Since the hulk was used as a station for the water police, there has been a limited number of cells for the ‘ incarceration of offenders, but this ' number is to be increased, and by the ■V erection of a deck-house in the fore . part of the vessel, the accommodation for w’arders and prisoners will be con- , siderably enlarged. That übiquitous individual. Gardiner, the bushranger, who has for so long been wanted by the New South Wales Police, appears to have at last fallen 1 ■- into the clutches of the law. A telegram from Queensland, under date the 14th inst.. states that Gardiner lias : ' : been captured and lodged in the Queensland gaol. He had for some time been keeping an inn under an assumed name, and his identity having been discovered, he was arrested in his own domicile. It is said that his inamorata, adheres to him in his illfortune and will accompany the modern Turpin to Sydney, where he is to be tried. “Hindon, the once-famed township of the West Taieri gold field, although famous only through the magnitude 1 of the rush to it, and the subsequent disappointment and loss caused to almost all those who went there, seems to be entirely forgotten, both by the Government and private individuals, writes a Daily Times correspondent. “ Only a sorry remnant now remains of its former greatness. The once thronged streets and the tent-covered hills are now silent and deserted, and the crowd of busy diggers is no longer -to be seen. But still to those who •/ prefer this gold field to others of -* greater celebrity. Hindon offers as gieat ' a field for their industrious persever- , *nce to be handsomely rewarded in ' - the end, as any other gold field in this province.”