LAKE COUNTY.

Otago Witness, Issue 2251, 22 April 1897, Page 25

LAKE COUNTY.

April 17.— Lake County Council held its ordinary monthly meeting on Wednesday last, when it was decided to call for tenders for the erection of the new Shotover Bridge at Skipper's Point, a most important and necessary work. The estimated cost of the work is, I believe, XO'ooo. The bridge will be thrown across the river at such an elevation as to avoid steep pinches impracticable for wheeled traffic, so that drays loaded at Queenstown or Arrowtown will be able to proceed right up to the Achilles mine, and will not; have, as at present, to unload at the Shotover, whence the goods have to be packed on horseback or dragged up on sleighs. At the same meeting it was also decided to construct, or miscoustruct, another section of the Macetown dray roid. It is to be hoped that the fiasco of the last section, which is still incompleted, will not be repeated. In fact it would be preferable to finish that section on which £600 was utterly fooled away, and not leave it in its present disgraceful state. A motion to tax livery stable keepers' vehicles was rejected. The item available <rf the £300 Government grant to be expended on roads between Lake Wakatipu and the West Coast Sound* created much lively discussion, and it was ultimately agreed to spend it on a track between the Lake and Milford Sound. Mr Wilmot, head of the Queeustown Survey department, has just returned, mapping considerable portions of the country west of Lake Wakatipu which hitherto was practically terra incognita. He reports the discovery of several saddles by which Milford Sound might be reached. Deaths. — During the week now' closing we have had three deaths in our small community— namely, those of Mr James M'Kay, who died of

hemorrhage while suffering from consumption ; and Mr Thomas Mitchell, of the same fell disease. Both were young men, and leave friends in Southland. At Gibbston Mrs Don, who has been ailing for some time, passed away peaceably last Thursday, leaving a daughter to mourn her loss. A Warning.— There has been a good deal of rain during the past week, which seems to have been especially heavy in the Shotover Valley. The river was iv flood for several «!ays, and overflowed the embankment at the Lower Shotover Bridge, giving warning that sooner or later the river would cut out for itself a new channel, leaving the present bridge high and dry by flowing lound the Q leeustown end of it. A Dastardly Act. — Od .Sunday last, when returning home from church, Mr and Mrs Ball, living on the Frankton road, a short distance out of Queenstowu, found the scrim in a b.ick room pirtly destroyed by fire. It is biinpoied that somebody must have raised the window and dropped "in a lighted match which be 1 - fire to the scrim, the blaze being foitunately checked by the sill of the window. It is not long sikcp Mrßjll had an outhouse and buggy partially destroyed by fire, for which there is no accounting I'xctpt on the supposition of incendiarism. Mr B^ll offers a lewardof £10 for information that will lead to the detection of the offender.