The Westport Times AND CHARLESTON ARGUS. TUESDAY, MAY 26, 1868.

Westport Times, Volume II, Issue 255, 26 May 1868, Page 2

The Westport Times AND CHARLESTON ARGUS. TUESDAY, MAY 26, 1868.

Council papers in reference to the population of the South-West Goldfields, as ascertained by census in December last, and also detailing the number of miners rights, the expenditure, &c, have been furnished by the Commissioner and printed. As they contain much information that may be useful to our readers, we make a tolerably full abstract of them. The census returns for the Buller district proper, which would include Addison's, the Caledonian, up the river, and those resident to the northward, gave 4501 ; for the Grey, including the diggings on the north bank of that river, 2579 ; for Charleston, 2235; and for Brighton, 1293. The number of miners rights issued for the half-year ending 30th June, 1867, in each was—in the Buller, 1131; at the Grey, 920; at Charleston, 1510 ; and at Brighton, 888. Prom that period to March 31 this year, there were issued at the Buller, 1679 ; at the Grey, 1255; at Charleston, 1369; andat Brighton,s96. The large increase is most marked, and shows how steadily population is working northwards. A singular fact is brought under notice by the Commissioner, and it is to be hoped that it will not be forgotten by the Nelson folks. An enquiry was made as to how many permanent qualified electors there were on the roll. He says in reply—" There were on the electoral roll on June 30th last, three persons qualified in respect of property in the Buller district, but I have no means of ascertaining where they were residing at that time or since. No person was qualified by reason of h olding property in any of the other districts." This, mark, was in districts containing according to the above just quoted census returns 10,611 persons. According to the Electoral Act an electoral roll should be made out in March of each year, but though the Coast has now been opened two years at least, no roll has been compiled, and cannot be till next year. The expenditure on the West Coast roads is also stated, but the full items we cannot give. It will however, we imagine, surprise some of our readers to have thelumpsums mentioned. The expenditure from Ist April, 1867, to 31st March, 1868, has been in the Grey valley, £lll4 ; between the Grey and the Buller —Cobden to Kazorback, £1340; Cobden, £1977; Eazorback to Brighton, £5835 ; Brighton, £435 ; Brighton to Charleston, £1289; Charleston, £3674; Charleston streets, £1920; Charleston to Westport, £685 , Westport, £2732; Westport streets, £2027; making a total of £21,918. Where nearly £SOOO has been spent on Westport proper,roads and streets we really cannot well divine. Eroin the Buller to the Inangahua, £659. Branch roads to new diggings—Cobden, £742 ; Charleston, £341 ; Westport, £2660 ; Brighton, £ls; Buller to Mokihinui and Karamea, £304. The signal stations on the coast have cost £217 ; the Ahaura road to Waiau, £2128. The buildings have caused an expenditure as follows : Westport, £3,165 ; Charleston, £1306 ; Brighton, £999; Cobden, £171; Mokihinui, £4O. Another mysterious item is again brought to light, viz., assistance to tramways, £IOO. The Government wharf at Westport, which was so substantially built as to be destroyed in the first year of its existence, figures for £1356, and a very significant item, respecting which we shall have more to say on another occasion concludes

the return as " Roads and other public works between Nelson and West Coast, £10,293. The above will form food for reflection, and the people on the coast cannot take such items too seriously to heart, in order to fit themselves for the inevitable separation that must shortly arise between the north-eastern and western portions of the province of Nelson.

The encroachment of the sea yesterday on the North Spit gave rise to well-founded alarm on the part of many who have recently erected houses on what is the surveyed township. At the point where the Palrnerston-street Tramway terminates the sea broke in furiously and, as a very meritorious portion of its work, destroyed some score or two yards of tramway line. It reached up to within a very few feet of the Educational Reserve, and apparently intended to sweep the buildings in progress right away. Fortunately however, it stopped before that point, though it is very clear to any one visiting the spot that had the water been one foot higher the town would have been flooded. As may be naturally supposed the inhabitants were anything but satisfied with this state of things, and are anything but thankful to the gaol authorities for. making a canal whereby the sea can be let into the town. The sand has been taken from a place a little further down than the school now building, and the hollows thus made were yesterday filled to the brim with the effects of the tide. It is ver/ certain that if this sand carting is permitted a little longer, it will be necessary for Westport to adjourn to a safer site, and a large number of property-holders will suffer in the same way as those of Hokitika. Without doubt, the sand excavation at the extremity of the tramway has a good deal to answer for in admitting the sea, but that is not wholly to blame for the threatened danger. The logs and wood on the beach which, a year ago, formed a kind of breakwater, and were the means of stopping the silted-up sand, have almost disappeared, and in places where it was scarcely possible to walk through the beach wood,.there is not a stick left. The same clearance took place in Hokitika, and the result was that a large quantity of property was destroyed, and the residents now on the remaining portion of the beach, can scarcely depend on the security of their dwell-ing-houses at any high tide. It is quite time that this system was put an end to, if it is not, serious consequences will ensue. At every fresh, logs and driftwood of one kind or another are brought down the river, and, by the northerly current, generally washed on the North Spit. If the beach had but rest for a short time, and the removal of wood was interdicted it would rapidly make up, but if the present destructive consumption of natural defences is permitted, the flat of the North Spit as far as the Orawaite is doomed. This practice is the more reprehensible and uncalled for, because there is any quantity of excellent wood for fuel purposes obtainable within a few hundred yards of the township, and the clearing of this, instea of being dangerous would be positively advantageous. Self-preservation is said to be the first law of nature, if our readers coincide in this theory they will at once bring the subject before the Commissioner in order to protect themselves. We might add that since Hokitika has been a municipality a bye-law has been passed which prevents the removal of beach wood, and under it some persons have already been fined heavily. We hope before long that a similar law, emanating from a similar body, will prevail in Westport, but in the interval the authorities clearly are called on as far as possible to avert what is so obvious a danger. The Melbourne Argus acknowledges receipt of the following brief but very pertinent comment on the political " situation" sent in by a correspondent in the language of " Josh Billings," the well-known American humorist. He writes : —' One of • Josh's' little productions, purporting to he an answer to a correspondent, is so identical with the late despatches received from the Duke of Buckingham that I enclose a copy:— ' Gertrude.—Tour inquiry stumps me, the darndest. The more I think on it, the more i can't tell. Az near az i kan rekolek now, i think i don't kno. Much mite be ced both ways, and neether wa be rite. Upon the whole i rather recken i wud, of i wuddenr, jist az i thought best, or otherwise.' " What undoubtedly is a most ridiculous canard, has been published in the Hokitika Leader, to the effect that Mr Commissioner Kynnersley is about to enter the literary field and edit a newspaper on the West Coast " in the high Government interest."' Our contemporary may imagine because the ex-Commissioner for Westland has turned his attention to literature Mr i

Kynnersley will follow suit. We should be most happy to have so distinguished an opponent, but have not the slightest idea that any anticipations on this head will be realised. Journalism at all times is a ticklish ■speculation, and it is by no means beyond the range of probability that gentlemen in an adjoining county will find so to their cost.

The enquiry in reference to the statements of Mr Tyler and Detective Lambert in a recent R.M. case will not be held to-day as originally arranged. The reason of the postponement is that the affair has assumed altogether a new phase. Alice Macfarlane, the late prosecutrix was arrested yesterday afternoon by Mr Inspector Franklyn, on a charge of perjury in connection with that case> and the authorities propose to dispose of this before going into any further proceedings. Without doubt an apparently trivial charge of larceny will become a cause celehre in the legal records of Westport, for the present prosecution is only another link in what may be expected to be a perfect series of enquiries into other matters surrounding. The prisoner, Macfarlane, will be brought before the Bench this morning at 10 o'clock.

By way of Christchurch, We have later news from Auckland. The Southern Cross, in a leading article upon the present financial condition of the Province of Auckland, says that " the Superintendent has endeavored to borrow a small matter of five thousand pounds from the General Government to enable him to carry on until the meeting of the Assembly, proposing to repay with the chance of something turning up —a kind of security which was declined.—Some gold had been found at Kennedy's Bay, on ground owned by a native chief. A report was also afloat in town to the effect that from one dishful of washdirt a very large number of ounces of gold—Bo—had been obtained. A Corromandel correspondent also mentions the discovery of superior gold at Kennedy's Bay, and states that a number of Europeans are already working and prospecting in the district. The chief Bopata, to whom the island is said to belong, threatened to close the field, if Mr Commissioner Mackey had not visited the place to meet him. Some specimens of quartz, thickly impregnated with gold, had been brought into Onehunga from Matetuna Heads by the natives." Without doubt the Gladstone-streat tramway will be the death of somebody if it is allowed to remain as it is. We have iu another place referred to its fitness as an aqueduct for the inundation of the town, but it has already achieved greater success in damaging the inhabitants of the place. Two persons fell over it and had narrow escapes previously, but Mr S. Turner was more unlucky on Friday night last, for he tumbled over it, and by a miracle almost, saved himself from fracture of the leg. As it is, he is so hurt that he could only go about yesterday for the first time by the aid of crutches, and he is likely o be unfitted for business for some weeks to come. We previously expressed our belief that whatever officer laid the tramway would be responsible for any accident that occurred, and we believe that Mr Truner intends to test the question by suing to recover damages in this case. The tramway is a dangerous nuisance to horse and man, and we do hope to see it abolished as soon as possible, as far as street crossing or the G-ladstone street portion goes. The paltry advantage gained in smoothing the road for Camp corns is dearly purchased at the risk of the limbs of the general public. The Queen's birthday was celebrated yesterday, and a more wretched day for any description of enjoyment, could hardly have been picked out. The Westport Volunteers, however, turned out for parade between ten and eleven o'clock in the morning, and proceeded to the Orawaite where they marched, counter-marched and skirmished to their hearts content. After this they returned, marched through the town and were then dismissed. Subsequently the weather having cleared a little, they made a fresh start between four and five in the afternoon and on both occasions their drill was creditable in the extreme, considering the short time they have been organised. In the morning they were under the command of Lieutenant Harrison, and Ensign Downe, but in the afternoon Captain Pitt, who returned by the Bruce took charge of the companies. Balls were successfully given at the Little Grey, the Nelson, and at the Apollo Music Hall, rockets, crackers, &c, wereat a preminm, and altogether the community made itself as jolly under creditable circumstances, as the weatherwould permit. The Launceston Chronicle, of the 18th ult., relates the subjoined singular story, on the discovory of a fortune:—

" The following episode in hunible life has just, come to light in connexion with which ail inhabitant of Driffield* Yorkshire* Mr William Blakey, is largely interested. Borne forty years ago a man named Thomas Blakey, of Bishop Wilton-, near ]?dcfclington) ' left his country for his country's good,' having been convicted and sentenced to seven year's penal servitude for an offeuce for which he would not now be liable to more thai! six months at the treadmill. Blakey left a wife and six children behind him in England to provide for themselves. It seems that Blakey on obtaining his liberty made Van Diemen's Land—to which he had been transported —his adoptedcountry, and that he entered into speculations which proved eminently Nothing, however-, was ever heard Of him by his family until lately, when information respecting his death and fortunate career was accidentally obi tained. His son William, who has resided in Driffield many years, casually met with a Bishop Wilton man, who recognised him as a playfellow, and expressed much surprise at seeing him in England, as he had been led to expect that all the family had gone to America Much to Blakey's surprise} the Bishop Wilton man informed him that a letter had lately been received by a man in that village from Tasmania, inquiring for particulars of the family} and reqtiesting certificates of the registers to be procured and forwarded: In consequence of this unexpected information, William Blakey went to Bishop Wilton on February 18. to ascertain the truth of what had been told him. He found that his long-lost father after regaining his liberty had married a woman who went out in the same ship with him s and that he had two sons and one daughter by her; that his father accumulated a large fortune, and when he died left something like £7,000 behind him, which on the death of his wife, who is now sixty-five years of age, will be divisible amongst the deceased's nine childeen or their representatives. William Blakey immediately took steps to establish his claims to a share of the property.