NEVIS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2623, 22 June 1904, Page 35

NEVIS.

June 15. — The reason which vc usual'y call winter is upon u=, but so far as the -weather is concerned there is an utter absence cf what ait the usual characteristics of winter. As 1 write iheic is a gentle patter of mild ram, and the air i<? balmy and far more like December than the middle of Jime — and within a few days of the =- ! iortest day, too.

Health ICote.— Wo Lave had a vejy severe type of influenza going the rounds, which seems to ha\e pretty we.l laid us all by the heels, and has left many of us— especially the elder members of the coninuuntj — very weak and poorly. Therefore some ct us .ire more than tLankful that the *hoit clays and lo'ig nights make no severe demand upon our energies. Nevis-Cromwell Road.— There is a good b.t of discontent as to the pobiiion of traffic b.tween Nevis and Cromwell. The sheep bridge, vhich was the only means of cics&irig the R"evis, has been removed to enable the rock o:i which it was bml't to be blasted away for the piers cif the new bridge, leaving us without e\en £• temporary means for ioot-pasf.engcrs to cioss the river. It v pretty lough on pedestrians, after crossing tije Nevis Hinge, to have ta wade through th? cold writers of the A r ~vis almost up to the w-tst. It is thought tii?t the least +he county authoiities could do would b=- to put up a chair, especia.ly as in the veiy nature of things the new bridge cannot be completed before midsummer.

Medical. — "We have had the Cromwell medico cut twice- very recently at Ihe call of ose of the oldest residents — Mrs A. Graham, — who, J am sorry to report, is still lying in a very precarious condition md is hardly expected io recover.

MINING AND DREDGING

All the claims and the dredges are shut down and the wa+er races are turned off and people are asking one another wli9t they stopped working for. And indeed it would bo hard to find a satisfactory answer to the query.

The old identities have been saving any time the last three weeks, "' Wait liil to-morrow " ; but ths morrows come, and they bring netiher frcsfc nor snow to make good the prognostications.

As al} tlie dredges are deferring their necessary overhauling till the spring, most of the hands have gone to other fiekls for winter work.

Thera arc rumours of various changes in ths personnel of both nviiiageis and men on the dredge?, and I am sorry to say there are- also lumours of a disquieting nature anent tampering with the go-Id; but, so far ph I have baeu able to ascertain, nothing \-pry definite can b» found out. We have generally been known as a law-abiding community, md it is a very serious set back to us if sv>ch a rumour should piove to have good 'foundation.