HONOLULU.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XII, Issue 738, 3 December 1859, Page 5

HONOLULU.

(Prom the ' Melbourne Herald.') 'v.By the Caesar we have news from Honolulu to the 25th August.

The country appears to be in a very prosperous condition, and though a perusal of our files has not put us in possession of any important news, we subjoin some interesting items of intelligence. From the Appropriation Bill for 1858, which was ; passed in due form by the King, the nobles, and representatives, it appears that the total expenture for 1858-59 was $606,781, or about £122,000. This includes civil list, department of war, of foreign affairs, minister of the interior, and all the usual paraphernalia of the most civilised governments. The allowance to his Majesty Kamehamieha IV. is $32,000 per annum, a sum larger than the income of the President of the United States.

The birthday of the heir apparent was celebrated by a " drawing room and ball;" the latter seems to have been a very brilliant affair. .

The Orestes, the ship referred to in the subjoined extract, was from Puget Sound to Melbourne, and put into Honolulu for provisions :—" Capt. Thomas Mason, master of the barque Orestes, charged with the murder of Joseph Watson, one of the crew of that vessel, was brought before Judge Davis, of the Police Court, on Monday, the 22nd instant, but owing to the illness of Mr. Blair, who was to have acted for the defendant, it was postponed to Tuesday. On Tuesday morning, Mr. Blair continuing unwell, Mr. Lee acted as counsel for the prisoner, and the case was examined. Mr. Bates, district attorney, acted in behalf of the crown. Mr. Thomas Fitzgerald, second mate of the Orestes was the first witness called. Mr. Fitzgerald testified in substance that he was one of the party sailing in the boat on Sunday afternoon. When outside the harbour, a mile and a half to windward of the outer buoy, pretty close in to the breakers, the captain (who had had an altercation with Watson before, at the time of the surveyor's visit) began to bandy words with Watson. He asked him if he would go to Melbourne in the boat with him, and on Watson replying in the negative, declared that he would make him go in the ship. Watson answered that he would go in neither boat nor ship. The Captain then said he had read a tract about 1 Poor Joe,' and Watson remarked that perhaps he meant' Poor Joe' on board the Orestes living on bread and water. The Captain told him to give him no more insolence, and on Joe's replying that he was not insolent, he seized the tiller (a heavy oak stick, perhaps two inches in diameter) and struck him on the left shoulder; a second blow was warded off by witness, and the third blow struck Watson on the right shoulder, and Watson, who had been bailing, sprang up, and exclaiming,' Captain Mason you must not kill me in the boat,' leaped over the side, as if to seize the boom —some three or four feet from the' quarter. He missed the boom and fell overboard, and though the Captain endeavoured to approach and save him, their efforts were ineffectual, owing to the unwieldiness of the boat and the want of rowlocks. Watson sustained himself above water some 8 or 9 minutes and finally sank for a third time to rise no more. When he sank the boat was perhaps 30 fathoms distant. Watson was a quiet man. He was a deck hand, working his passage. Witness had never known him to be insolent to the Captain except on one occasion when lie was in irons in this port. Wm. Lamb, a seaman, testified substantially to the same facts as were' testified by Fitzgerald. He stated that the Captain preceded the first blow with the words,' D —n your soul. I'll knock you down with this tiller if you give me any more of your insolence.' According to. Lamb's nccount, it was the third blow which Fitagerald warded off, both first and second blows having struck the man. Previous to the attack, Watson sivid to the captain, ' You dare not strike me.' Mr. Clomonts, representative of the owners of the .* Orestes/ testified to some slight discrepancies between the accounts of

the two previous witnesses in the court-room, and the accounts which they had givou to him on hoard. The discrepancies, however, wore trilling. Ho said that Watson had been insolent at times to Captain Mason, and ho always appeared on board to bo an unhappy and melancholy man. Judge Davis ordered that tile prisoner be committed to trial for murder in the first degree, before a jury, at the ensuing term of tlio Supremo Court. A subsequent motion by Mr.' Montgomery, before the Ohiet Jua1 tieo in Chambers, that tho prisoner bo admitted to bail, was negatived on the ground that bail could not be taken for a person charged as in the present case with a capital oifence. In connection with this case, we would state that the Hawaiian law recognises two degrees of murder and one of manslaughter. Under the charge of murder of the first degree a jury can find the prisoner guilty of either of the inferior degrees. The general principle of law on which the charge is founded in the present case is embraced in the following two lines from 'Russell on Crimes :' 'Forcing a person to do an act which is likely to produce his death and which does produce it, is murder.' " The subjoined extracts give a good idea o f i\ xe state of society in the isles of the Pacific:— An Exciting- Bathing '.Scene.—Waikiki lias answered the purpose of a Newport this season for our Honolulu people—surpassing Newport, however, in one respect, facility of access. The residents of Honolulu may enjoy all the pleasures of seabathing and beach wandering there in the day time and evening. With its cocoanut groves and its beautiful sand beach, Waikiki is decidedly the watering place of the islands. The residents at the beach had the pleasure of witnessing a curious, and to many of them a novel display last week. The heavy rain, so unusual at this season, which refreshed our gardens and fields early last week, swelled the little streams that sink into the sands just before reaching the sea, until they burst their way through all obstacles and rushed, roaring and foaming, to meet the ocean surf. The large fresh water basin near the house which Mr. Gregg recently occupied, increased until the water attained the level of the sand bar, and then beginning by forming a narrow channel through the yielding material, the flood soon tore away the bank, and made for itself a wide and deep channel to the sea, and in half an hour the whole basin was empty. As the waters went leaping and tumbling through their new channel, the natives of the neighbourhood—and their name is legion— amused themselves by plunging in above the rapids and floating down, men, women, and children, sometimes above and sometimes beneath the surface, through the new made flume. It was curious to see the black heads bob up through the foam, and vanish to reappear again, an instant after, far down below. Now a cluster of backs, legs, and arms, protruding for a second above the water, showed where a group of amphibious islanders were enjoying themselves;' and the next moment they would all appear away outside among the heavy surf rollers that the southerly wind brought in, and shaking their heads like water dogs, would make for the shore and repeat the programme of the hour. They seemed to enjoy the sport highly; and to lookers-on as well as actors, it was a most amusing performance.

East Riding.—His Majesty the King is an affectionate father and a good horseman. , A few nights since, under the powerful influence of parental solicitude, he performed one of the most remarkable feats of riding, perhaps the most remarkable ever accomplished in these islands. While on a pleasure excursion, passing the night at an, encampment on the.summit of the Mount Hal?akala, on Maui, he was aroused from sleep at midnight by a messenger from Wailuku, bringing information that the young Prince of Hawaii, who had remained at that place, had been suddenly taken ill. JHis Majesty immediately ordered horses to be saddled, and in company with two of his suite, Dr. M'Kibbin and Mr. Jesse Crowingsburg, started down the .mountain by moonlight, for Wailuku, and arjrivedLthere, a distance of v about thirty'iniies, in1 the sliortspace of three hours and ten minutes. Dr. Mc'Kibbin came in second, about twenty minutes after. Considering the nature of the road, half the distance being the descent of a mountain ten thousand feet in height, over rocks and clinkers and break-neck^gullies,,this is one of the most remarkable ,feats ,of j<horsemahship on record. The remainder' of t6e party were three hours and three-quarters in. Reaching Makawao, a distance of sixteen miles, pnlyT-and thought they had made very cjuick time. "PTe ajre happy to state that the illness of the young Prince did not prove a serious affair.

The Blight.—A few weeks ago we noticed the fact that the blight, .which. hitherto has troubled only the coffee plantations,;.has commenced its attacks on the orange treesj, and now threatens seriously to curtail, if not destroy, the produce of this fruit ihKono, Hawaii. We. were beginning to rely with some confidence on this as. a new and important branch of our export trade, which now, unless some remedy can be found, will, we fear, be nipped in the bud before it has fairly begun. For. several years past, the foreigners of that district have been planting and rearing orange trees with great care and outlay of money, waiting in hope and patience for their reward at some future day. We do not know the exact number of trees, but, including all sizes» probably not less than 20,000 are growing in the district. These, with the new trees being constantly planted, promised a large and profitable export trade. It is a matter of importance that some remedy should be devised, if possible, to counteract the effects of the aphis, which causes the blight. It is a small insect, resembling somewhat in appearance an oblong scale. The trees are almost literally covered with these scales, which in some countries ravage the whole orange family. It is destructive in Florida and Central America, and. we learn from the • San Francisco Bulletin' that it is now ravaging the orchards in that State to a considerable extent. We quote from a letter by a Los' Angeles gentleman to that paper:—'lt was not known here a few years ago, and the orange, &c, did so well that many people of this place engaged extensively in its culture. Mr. Wolfskill has an orchard of 2000 trees, between five and six years old. But he is getting discouraged, and already talks of planting the orchard with grape vines. The writer has tried the remedies proposed by Downing—that is, injecting gas-liquor, in full strength, daily, for weeks, and at intervals for months, on the trees affected, both last summer and this spring, when the insect was young and tender—but with very little apparent effect. The insect is coming again in millions * * * On turning over some of these scales, as found on the orange leaf, with the aid of a microscope the young may be seen running about on the under side of the scale and on the leaf. As they get a few days older, they adhere along both sides of the stem and ribs of the leaf like a shell-fish to a rock, and seldom after move, but derive their subsistance from the leaf's juices, till.having grown nearly to the size of a grain of wheat (but much flatter), they have fulfilled their functions ; they lose their vitality and drop off. I have seen one, and but one, of these insects that could move when half grown., It had a very slow, cumbrous motion. Ants frequent trees here infested by these scales, in large numbers."

Novel Use of Brat's Traction Engine,— The vestry of St. James's, "Westminster, lately adopted the suggestion of levelling the new macadamised pavement in Regent street by means of a large iron roller weighing 20 tons, and of the diameter of 9 feet; but when in action there arose not only the objection on account of the space occupied by the space of'the' large number of horses required to draw it, but no means could be devised for safety taking it down the incline of Waterloo place. In this dilemma application was made to the directors of Bray's Traction Engine Company for the loan of one of their engines. This was readily granted, and on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings of this week the large roller might be seen quietly following the engine, which had such perfect control over the load behind it that, for the purpose of showing this, it stopped several times on going dowp Waterloo place; also on ascending the hill it stopped half way up and started again with perfect ease, notwithstanding the dead pull of twenty tons behind it. Several men were in attea-

dance with large blocks of wood, to act as breaks in case of need, but their services were not required. The road surveyor appointed by the vestry to accompany the engine reported that not only was the experiment most successful, but that the engine, so far from doing, as was apprehended, damage to the roads, rather assisted in rolling it, on account of the width of its wheels.— Globe.

A certain judge, after hearing a florid discourse from a young lawyer, advised him to pluck out some feathers from the wings of his imagination and put them in the tail of his judgment. A very fat man, for the* purpose of quizzing a doctor, asked him to prescribe for his complaint, which ho declared was sleeping with his mouth open. " Sir," said the doctor,' your disease is incurable. Your skin is too short; so that, when you shut your eyes, your mouth opens." What did the cat say as she looked out of the window when the ark got aground ? "Is that 'ar-a-rat ?" '

The young lady who caught cold by drinking wate from a damp tumbler, is convalescent. A merchant lately advertised for a clerk • who could bear confinement.' He received an answer from one who had been seven years in gaol.