NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Auckland Star, Volume XVII, Issue 243, 15 October 1886, Page 1

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Yesterday's telegrams contain good news for Coromandel, and we may hope to see things there a little livelier soon than they have been for some time. The Union Beach Goldmine, which now goeß by the name of the Telephone Mine, has been floated at last on the London market for £80,000. The London Syndicate, we understand, have decided to place £20,000 down, in hard cash, to pay for the working of the mine, which will be commenced shortly. The Syndicate also allot the New Zealand shareholders 20,000 paid-up shares, keeping for themselves 40,000 shares, and placing another 20,000 shares, as a reserve on one side. The whole matter of the negotiations has baen concluded by cable, and it is expected that an early Engli: h mail we shall learn full particulars as to the appointment of directors, manogers, 4c. We need hardly point out what good news this is not only for Coromandel, but for Auckland, and it is to be hoped that this change in the affairs of the company in question may prove to be the herald of a new term of prosperity to gold-mining on the peninsula.

Some comment has been made at Wellington this week' on the fact that at the criminal sessions of the Supreme Court, out of thirteen indictments on which true bills were returned against 9 prisoners, there were as many as eight verdicts of not guilty, besides one case in which the jury disagreeing the Crown entered a nolle pro.ie.gui, while with regard to one of the four convicted prisoners, a point has been reserved for the Court of Appeal, which may prove fatal to conviction. The "Evening Post" says:—"There must surely be a screw loose somewhere, when all the machinery of the Supreme Court judge, bar, and jurors—is engaged for eight days, with the result that upwards of twothirds of the cases break down. If tbe verdict of the juries were justifiable, then have the persons who were acquitted some reason to complain of having been put to the trouble and expense of having to defend themselves We cannot undertake to cay where (he fault lies; whether there i? in the lower Court too great a readiness to commit for trial ; whether the cases are' nob got up v:Uh sufficient care; or whether Welline'on jurymen are too much inclined to lean to mercy's side, or too ready to give_ weight to ingenious arguments on prisoners' behalf, but we think the general vgrdict of the people will be that the result of the late sesnion has not tended to increase public respect for the present system of trial by jury, which is always declared to be the palladium of British liberty. There will remain in the public mind a suspicion that the system occasionally conduces to the protection of license as well as liberty, and results in a miscarriage of justice."

The New South Wales Government and their London representative, Mr Kandolph Want, are deserving of all praise for tne manner in which they have pushed on the project of a trans - Pacific telegraphic cable, until it has now reached the stage of registration of a Company. The undertaking is a gigantic one, as the length of the cable from Australia to Canada will be 8,900 milee, made up r.s follows : — From Brisbane or Sydney to North Capo, New Zealand, 1,300 knots ; North Cape to Fi)i, 1,240; Fiji to Fanning Island, 2,270; Fanning Island to the Sandwich Islands, 1,260 ; Sandwich Islands to Barclay Sound or Port San Juan, Vancouver Island, 2,730; Barclay Bound, acro=3 Vancouver Island and the St-ait of Georgia to Vancouver city, the terminus of the Canadian Pacific Kail way, 100 knots. The above composes the Pacific sectian ot the cable; but to carry communication ripht through to London, a telegraphic lino across the American^ continent will be required, and possibly a new Atlantic cable will have to be laid. The cost will bo very great, but with the hearty co-operation of the colonies and tho Mother Country it can easily be borne, while it is calculated that the cable would be eelf-supporting if the charges were fixed at the rate of 4s per word for ordinary messages.