DEATH OF MR. C. F. HURSTHOUSE.

» One of the ablest, pleasantest, and most prolific writers on New Zealand, and one of the most energetic and successful emigration agents this colony yet has possessed — Mr. Charles F. Hursthouse— died last evening. It is sad to have to state that his career fouud its termination in the Mount View Lunatic Asylum, whither he was removed some months ago, his mind having completely given way owing to some insidious disease of the brain. Latterly his disease took the form of violent couvulsions, of which last Sunday week he had no fewer than nine in the course of half-an-hour. During nearly the whole of the last two days he was in a state of almost total unconsciousness, and he expired at (J pm. yasterday. The late Mr. Hursthouse was an " early settler" in Taranaki, and wrote a number of highly - attractive pamphlets on that province, which he delighted to dub ''The Garden of New Zealand." His best and most widely known work, however, was " New Zealand the Britain of the South," which has attained a degree of popularity never approached by any similar work. Written throughout in a pleasant, and interesting, and eminently readable strain, conveying information generally accurate, if perhaps a little too much couleur de rose, that book was devoured with eagerness by intending emigrants, and led many who, although dissatisfied with their position in England, yet never would have dreamed of such a formidable step as emigrating, to look on it merely as a pio-nic excursion on a large scale, ultimately resultng in their comfortable establishment in more comfortable circumstances than of yore. Nor was his influence in this direction exerted solely through his pen. When visiting England in the year 1856 and 1857, he was accustomed to receive intending colonists, at stated days and hours in a room set apart for him by his London publishers, Messrs. Stanford, where he furnished information and advice to them, charging a fee of one guinea. Of late years he has written but little, with the exception of occasional communications to the local newspapers, and in these the symptoms of his malady first manifested themselves in an inveterate tendency to insert a comma after every third word in his letters. His eccentricities rapidly developed into pronounced mental derangement, and the cerebral disease made steady progress until it resulted in his death, last evening. Mr. Hursthouse was greatly liked and esteemed by all who knew him, and his melancholy end will be widely lamented.