Untitled

Auckland Star, Volume I, Issue 87, 20 April 1870, Page 3

In the Highways case of Bowen v. Johnson, respecting the payment .of certain rates in the Matakana District, judgment deferred, will be given by Mr. Beckham on Friday next. An inquest was held yesterday afternoon, at the Suffolk Hotel, College-street, before Dr. Phil son, Coroner, and a respectable jury, upon the body of a man, name unknown, who expired suddenly about ten o'clock on Monday morning, near the Convent, as detailed in the evidence published in another column. A number of witnesses having been examined, the jury found that deceased had died from a rupture of the heart. The firing for the revolver, put up by Mr. Hopkins, came off at the Thames on Monday. Owing to three extra members entering the lists, a secoiid prize of fifteen shillings was given ; the day was five, and the firing was very good; a close contest was kept up by Hopkins, Jackson, and Constable, Hopkins winning back-the revolver lay three points. Ihree cheers were given for the winner, and the company separated. The firing was at the Hythe position for three hundred yards ; any position at the other ranges. Hopkins' total was 48 points, Jackson's 43, and Constables 45.

Hitherto it has been supposed that Tasman was the first discoverer of New Zealand, but lately a claim has been put forward that /u'abic geographers were acquainted with the existence of New Zealand. The editor of the English Mechanic, for December 3, 1869, p. 279, states, in answer to a correspondent, " Urban," that various Arabic geographical works of the ]3th and 14th centuries, mnuy of which have been translated, as "El Ideasee," hy M. Jaubort, are to be found in the fine libraries of Vienna and Paris, as well jis in the various Asiatic Jithonological Societies?, both English and foreign, describes New Zealand as a large and very mountainous island in the farthest Southern Ocean, beyond and far south-east of both Eav (Borneo) and Ikrtailie(JN"ew Guinea), and as being uninhabited by man, and containing nothing but gigantic birds known as the " Seemoah." \

A meeting- of shareholders of the Auckland Consolidated Gold Mining Company* (limited), will take place on Tuesday, May 3rd, at half-past 7 p.m., at the Star Hotel, Albert-street. -