Untitled

Bruce Herald, Volume XII, Issue 1137, 5 September 1879, Page 31

Messrs Duthie, Moore & Co. will hold a sale of furniture, teat, seed potatoes, etc., at 7.30 to-morrow evening. See advertisement. Mr W. A. Murray will address the electors at Fairfax schoolhouse on Monday evening at 8 o'clock. Tin quarterly licensing day, which was to have been held at iiiltoa Courthouse on Tuesday, has been adjourned to that day fortnight, the 16th instant. The nomination of candidates for three vacancies in the Milton Borough Council will take place this day at noon ; they are for the East, West and South wards, and a poll, if demanded, will be taken on the 11th instantWe hear that Mr John M'Neil, of Balclutha, has sent in his resignation as agent of the New Zaaland Loan and Mercantile Agency Company, there. The re ison is his leaving the district to permanently reside in Dunedin. A bakiko establishment at the Thames recently supplied one of the war vessels lying in Auckland with no lees than six tons of biscuits. This t peaks volumes for the manufacturing capacity of the Colony in the line of breadstuff's. DtriUNG last month mullet have been so plentiful in the Thames harbor, that one party of fi«heimen caught a ton and a half of this delicious fish in about two hours, filling th«ir smack to the deck. At the usual weekly meeting of the Waste Lands Board the only item of local interest is that the application by Geo. Fraser, for a small island in Waipori Lake, of about 6 acres, adjoining section 43, l-lock VI, Maungataa district, was declined. News from Gisborne, Poverty Bay, states that some private speculators are going to send 25 Maoris, comprising 18 men and 7 women, to the Sydney Exhibition to dance the •• haka." They are afterwards to make the tour of the colonies, and it is expected that they will be •way for about six month?. A rumor having gone abroad that Mr Mun ay if elected for Bruce, only intends to retain the ■eat for one year, we are authorised by him to state, that this is not the case ; but should a majority of the electors at any time request him to retire, Mr Murray would consider it his dmty to meet their wishes. The usualj monthly commanding officer's parade and Government inspection of the Bruce Rifles took place last Wednesday evening. There were present— 32 rank and file, 3 Sergeants and 3 officers. The Company was roved by Lieut. Reid, and Sergeant Harrison inspected the arms and accoutrements, after . which the men were drilled for an hour. We would call the attention of the public to the Tokomairiro Road Board advertisements in this issue. Mr Jame« Elder "Brown's appointment is publicly notified by the Chairman, as Clerk, and Collector, and a final notice given that all rates unpaid on the 19th inst., when . the Board meets, will be sued for by the Beard.

This we understand is reudered necessary by the provisions of the Bating Act, and they would not be justified in further delay of the matter. A distressing and fatal accident is reported from Mosgiel, «s having happened on Wednesday morning, to a young man named Peter Wedderspoon, aged 19 years. It would appear that he was out shooting rabbits on the North Taieri ridge?, and while in the act of loading his gun the left barrel went cff, lodging its contents in his thigh. The unfortunate young man was promptly attended toby Dr M'Caw and his sufferings alleviated, but he succumbed shortly after. Much sympathy is felt for his parents in the district. j An accident occurred at Nelson's coal pit, near Stirling, on Wednesday afternoon, by which Alexander Arkell, a miner, 'had his left leg broken a little above the ankle. It would appear that the men were blasting in the mine, and that Arkell did not move far enough away, the consequence being that his leg was struck by a lump of coal. The accident happened about ten minutes before the arrival of the evening train for Dunedin, and with praise-worthy promptitude his two mates lost no time in placing the sufferer on a stretcher, and took him to the train, at the same ?time proceeding along with him, black as they were, to see him right into the Dnnedin Hospital. The following telegram was sent from Auckland to the Christchurch ' Press ' on 30th ult., and may be relied up3n as giving a correct idea about the Chinese : -Mr B. J. Creightou, journaVst, formerly of New Zealand and no*r in San Francisco, writes to Mr Swanson, M.H.R., on the Chinese question as fellow* : — "I have simply to say that I examined it minutely and dispassionately. 1 saw it illustrated industrially, socially, morally and intellectually, and I can conceive no greater curse to any Anglo-Saxon community than a swarm of Chinese coolies. It is worse than a dry rot. You cannot conceive of anything so utterly destructive of our civilisation. There are more adult male Chinese in California than there are American citizens on the great register of state, and they are coming at the rate of 1200 to 2000 a month, while white immigration has stopped. That means a rapid absorption of the coast by the Chinese, who preserve their own laws, practice their own idolatries, and have fifty per cent, more felons in prison in proportion ti population than any other race. This is not a pleasant state of things to contemplate. Keep it out of New Zealand." When noticing in our issue of the 26 ;h ult., the annual report of the Prisoners' aad Patients ' Aid Society, we made remarks to the efftcfc that the expenditure in the administration of the funds appeared to U3 to be too lart;e, as compared with the pecuniary relief afforded. Having received a full explanation from Mr J. A . Torrance, the indefatigable Secretary to the Society, we gladly correct our error, which simply arose from our overlooking the facb, that the primary object of tlie institution i 3 fche employment of an agent, whose whole time shall be derated to missionary work amongst the inmates of tho Gaol, Hospital, and Lunatic Asylum in Dunedin ; the secondary object being the rendering of pecuniary aid in certain cases. Of course such an agent requires a sufficient salary to enable him to thoroughly attend to his duties, and pecuniary assistance can therefore not reach a very gre it; length, unless the public ar* a little more liberal in their subscriptions than they have been. As the Mission is one in v^hich the whole of the Provincial district of Otago is direutly interested, we again gladly commend it to the liberal support of the public. An annual subscription of 5s and upwards entitles a person to be a member and contributions or communications will be re ceived by the Secretary *nd agent, Mr J. A. Torrance, Boyal Terrace, Dunedin. We have much pleasure in referring our readers to Mr T. R. Proctor's advertisement in ourcolnmns, informing them that he will be happy to attend to the wants of all who are suffering frem bad eye-sight. Mr Proctor has had 30 years experience as an optician, and has so thoroughly adapted himself to the adjustment of glasses to Buit> the various sights, that even the most difficult and perplexing cases are bound to be successfully met by his mode of examining the eyesight of any individual. He has travelled the whole of New Zealand, and is the only one who has initiated the cylindrical and astigmatic principle, in conueefcion with which he has a case of prisms and various mechanical contrivances, which is believed to be the only one of the kind in the Colony. These beautiful instruments have been constructed to suit what is known as Donder's system, which has been perfected by Professor Aiiy, though the Astronomer Koyal was the first inventor of it. We would advise one and. all to profit by Mr Proctor's presence in Milton as soon as possible, as his stay is limited to about a we* k. A very neat and genuine assortment of jewellery watches, &c, is also well worth inspection. The 'Melbourne Age' of 18th ult., has the following significant article referring to the denominational system of education : — ln consequence of the pastoral letter by Archbishop Vaughan, and in order to strengthen the position of the public school", the m embers of the Church of England at Bathurst, N. S. W. have decided to transfer their children to the public school?. In accordance with this determination it is stated, that an application has been made to the council of education, to close the Church of England denominational school at Bathurst, aad to appoint the teachers to other situation*. A numerously attended meeting was held on Wednesday night in tho Wesleyan schoolhonse, Ashfield near Sydney, on the same subject. The principal feature of the gathering consisted in the addresses delivered by the Rev. George Woolnougb, if. A., and the Uev. George Martin, two of the foremost intellectual leaders of the Wesleyan b.»dy. The following resolutions were adopted : — " That in the judgment of this meeting any measure to amend the Public Schools Act should provide for the cessation of aid to denominational schools as early as possible ; that the system known as the grant-in-aid system to primary education is tj tally unsuitable to this country, and would be well nigh, if not totally impraobicable. An amusing story came to cur ears the other day. A well known literary J. P. residing

1 somewhere in the vicinity of the Balclntba Protective works, and moreover possessed of an aspiring seul, w»s, a short time bae*, anxioun, (we wont say asked) to sit in solemn judgment on an unhappy being who had mistaken meum for tmun. Desirous th*t justice should not be frustrated, this zealous J.P. finding that law required an additional talent to officiate in the matter with himself, publicly stated that another member of tb« Peace Commiswon, living some little way off— who happened to be a gentleman— would sit with him on tha occasion, certain other memben of the Commission having said in reply to the request to sit that 1 they would be elsewhere and therefore couldn't come.' Now the country J.P. quietly remarked, when asked to sit, that he must decline as he had strong objections to the literary J. P. even going on the premises to clean out his (stable, it was supposed he said, but on this point our informant was not clear.) The country J.P. not sitting and the literary luminary not sitting either, on this occasion,— Query— What wi'.l become of the Licensing Bench under the circumstances, which Bench the literary J.P* thinks is incomplete without himself notwithstanding the country J. P. roosts there? It appears from the reports on the testing, at Newcastle, of the d'Urville Island Copper ore, that the essay shows a yield of 20A- per cent of pure ore, while the hightst percentage at the celebrated Ballade mine in New Caledoui* is only 17, which ia considered rich. By the appearance of the specimens it is believed, that the Company will not have far to siDk to come on the main lode.