LAKE COUNTY.

Otago Witness, Issue 2051, 15 June 1893, Page 22

LAKE COUNTY.

June 10.— At last winter is upon us, and though, of course, not welcome, it is better that he conies now than two or three months later. Frost has been the rule for the closing week, and last night there was a pretty general and average snowfall. Now that the weather has broken it may be placed upon record that during the last two years there has not been a single day during which outdoor work was stopped for the whole period of 10 hours, and which constitutes the local working day. Such a spell of fine weather is without] a precedent even in these favoured A Parting Note.— A lady who came to the district at a time when such an event was an epoch in its hiatory, and when the addition was the subject of conversation in every back gully for weeks, or until the next similar arrival, is about to depart from these parts for fresh scenes of action. The lady referred to is Mrs R. Bond, up to the present landlady of the Mountaineer Hotel, Queenstown, who intends taking an hotel elsewhere. Mrs Bond >has always taken an active, if quiet, interest in the welfare of the comniunity in which her lot has been cast, and the well wishes of ja largo number of friends will follow her in her new undertaking. Death.— Death has removed another of our early residents, [ing the person of Mrs James Travis at Gibbston. Deceased has for many months been ailing from cancer, and death came as a relief from suffering. The funeral took place on Thursday last, nearly the whole population of the place attending. The Rev. Mr Paulm, Presbyterian minister, conducted the obsequies. A Runaway. — The other day a horse harnessed to a buggy took it into its head to have a spin on its own account while the gentleman in charge, Mr W. Bright, traveller for Walter Guthrie and Co. (Limited), was doing some business with Mr J. Chegwidden, blacksmith, Lower Shotover. The horse took a cut across fields, making for a paddock where other horses were feeding, but on the way the buggy came in contact with some obstruction, with the result that the vehicle got left, and the horse, conceiving its occupation gone, quietly joined the mob in the paddock. The whole of the damage done was trifling. „,.,,, Fire.— The dwelling house of Mr T. M'Allister at Half moon Bay, Lake Wakatipu, was destroyed by fire the other day. The insurance on the building had recently been reduced from £100 to £50 in the South British. Mr M'Allister will be a loser to the tune of £150. Much sympathy is felt for Mr and Mrs M'Allister, who are old residents in the district. , „ „. „ Go Ahead, Wakatipu.— For the first time the Wakatipu district has contributed a consignment of sheep to the Southland Freezing works, Messrs W Paterson, Ellis Bros., and Duke Bros, sending between 2000 and 3000 sheep for export, all of prime quality. This speaks well for the district, especially as the sheep have been raised during one of the driest seasons ever known here, and it opens a prospect for sheepfarmers not looked forward to heretofore. Death.— Last Thursday Mr K. M'Leay lost his second son Kenneth rather suddenly, showing that, as the mortality in our midst for the past three or four months has been entirely confined to children, there must be some defined disease to account for this state of affairs. The funeral of the child (about six years of age) took place to day, and was largely attended. It presented a very doleful appearance, as the hearse and cortege had ploughed through a dense snowstorm, evidence of the amount of sympathy felt for the bereaved parents.