General Intelligence.

Clutha Leader, Volume II, Issue 83, 10 February 1876, Page 6

General Intelligence.

r . The. officers of the Telegraph Department, Sydney, gave the. electricians aboard the Edinburgh a' dinner, . A seizure of £2,5 ; 00 of jew:ellery was made: on board- a Sydney steamer kt Melbourne. It has ,been traced to a presumedly respectable firm. . ,, 3 . , , „ A case has occurred at Kangaroo Flat, Victoria, where a .priest refused "the burial rites to a deceased woman, because her children attended a State school. ■ •' , „ „ The Secretary of State, in a! despatch to the Governor of Fiji, insists as a basis of the land question,, that ttie right of the. Crown to all lands shall be firsts insisted on. ' •

The American ship Tuscarora is engaged surveying for a cable from America to Australia. She proceeds on the 17th to Kandavau for coals.

,:An exiled Chinese nobleman, who died in Melbourne, had a gorgeous funeral, and was followed to the grave by, 500 mourners, headed by a brass band. ,: . .. - • , : A recent Cooktown paper says : — ".Scarcely a person you, meet in the street of Cooktown but who are of two descriptions, — one in the enjoyment of perfect, health for the. time, and the other stricken down with the all-ruling demon— fever. Halloa! What, have you got it, too ? is an" ejaculation that occurs at every step ; and indeed there is no need of asking the question, for the tottering gait and vacant look would answer, it. The 'Courier' wants to know what causes the fever, arid it denies that the climate has any thing to do with it.

The *• Wairarapa Standard ' says :- — "One of the most interesting incidents of the late election was the Scandinavian .vote,, and more than one candidate made sure of. it. On, Tuesday morning about 4p Scandinavians, duly shepherded, marched four abreast to the polling booth, singing their national anthem, and, we believe, plumped for Bunny, except one man, who, yielding to.the influence of a Sabbath address, gave a solitary plumper for another candidate.

A gentleman born in Denmark and well versed in Dansk, who is at present on a missionary visit to this Province, gives us ?(' Taranaki News'), the pleasing information that our Danish settlers at Oraata are delighted with Taranaki. He says that most of them came from the north-west of Jutland, a cold and sterile district, where the labourer's wage is, often as low as 6d per day. The change, therefore, to them is indeed pleasant. Our informant says that these people avow that they have received more kindness from tbe settlers of this Province than ever they' did from their own countrymen in their native land.

A novelty at the Centennial will be the mammoth grape vine, of Monticello, near Santa Barbara, Oalfornia. This is to be transported to Philadelphia, and set up there in the same way as it has stood in its native soil for over half a century. The body of the vine is over 5^ feet in circumference, it foliage covered over 10,000 ft, and it has borne six tons of grapes annually. Eight feet from the ground it branched into 20 large limbs, one of which is 27 inches in circumference. This limb is the exact size of the body of the Queen's vine at Hampton Court, England, which is the largest and most celebrated growth in Europe.

11 An extraordinary accident hapto the Falmouth mail coach lately, and the passengers experienced an escape from an awful death, which," says the ' Hobartown Mercury,' " seems little short of miraculous. After leaving, the little township of Cullenswood, the coach emters St. Mary's Pass, noted both for its extreme beauty and for the danger with which the journey through it is somtimes attended. About. 400 yards from the mouth of the pass on entering the road is not more than 12ft wide. A lofty wall of rock bounds the road on one side, and on the other is a precipice plunging almost sheer down to a depth of between 150 and 200 ft. When Page's coach araived at this dangerous spot on the day in question, a lad with two horses happened to be coming in the opposite direction. Instead of retreating into one of the recesses made for the' purpose,, while the coach passed, the lad, persisted in going on, and drove his horses between the vehicle and the cliff, one of the horses backing across the road in front of the coach, the horses in which took fright and fell, hanging over the precipice. With great presence of mind the coachman cut the harness, and the horses thus freed fell through the brushwood down to the bottom of the. precipice of . which :we have spoken. , Fortunately for the occupants of . the coach (Messrs Wickborg and Rattray, who were on their way to George's . Bay), the. wheels caught in a log on the outside edge of the road ; otherwise nothing could have preventsd coach' iand passengers, from following ? the ihqrses in their headlong fall, with what j would , almost certainly have been a .fatal result. The horses, strange . to. .say, were found almost uninjured, and ;an attempt was made to get them, up : ■thej cliff again, but when one of the animals had. . sucqeeded ,in climbing iabout 50ft from , the valley, he slipped, md fell to the; bottom. Subsequently; 'a track Vas; .put ' by one of tbe ! natives; jo J? ithe district) and both horses were got out safe and? sound,'*

The' h^fat'iplAy^^j^'inS^ r x ffdm all accou nts exceed 'recent; eip'ebtatioias. , A railway , .porter named ,-. Lawaon, was run oyer. and killed on the Bathurst line through being forced in front of the train by, the passenger"*.

Mr, James /.Norton + formerly • in r -the Customsi^ Auckland and Thames, walked off the Grahamstown. \vrharf on Saturday morning, and was drowned* < ijeceased had just landed from the ; steamej?. -Tljie night was-dark, and efforts to save him were unavailing, as ;he. could not be seen, and no cry escaped him.. . Mr Richardson, the schoolmaster at Quandongs, Victoria, .'■ met ;with -his death recently by mistaking ! laudanumfor aark. brandy. .. He is said to'Mve been drinking during the holidays. . The Telegraph Commissioner has; on behalf of the Goyerri.me'nt,.diyided -£2.00 as a bonus between, the folio wing officers, who were engaged in recovering the cable :— Capt. Johnston, Messrs^ Floyd, Roch, Nancarrow, . M'Gregor, Smith, and Mathieson. . Mr. Lemon and Capt. Fairchild were;, in compliance' with > their . own wish, not included in this acknowledgment. \[ From a private letter from, Bombay, datad December 9, the/ Hobart, Town Mercury-' takes the following extract : — " The two Miss Carandihis have been removed' by Hymen from the.st'ag i e,:npt of life, but of the concert-r00m.. : The youngest made a rapid- conquest of young Mr Adams, an engineer in the Public Works department ; .] sixkd . the elder of Capt.AMo.rland, the Transport Agent and Assistant Superintendent of Marine, who is about ;. to marry her. Mr Adams married right off— a ten days'. campaign." . . ;., : . ; Speaking of the. three men who were so dangerously wounded by an axe in tha Hutt. affray a Wellington 'contemporary says :. — ReidalFs improvement is a poser to the medical profession. How he has managed to exist has been the great surprise aU along, but that he should improve after such, a period' of lingering uncertainty, with wounds that would. kill ' 99 out of 100 ordinary men, is a marvel. ,He is Afeeble and weak, but becomes more intelligent day by day. Young and Paul are beyond danger.

We /Daily Times,' ..regret to hear that scarlet fever has appeared in the neighborhood of Port Chalmers. A family named Kingstreet, recently .from the Caversham district, took up their abode in a detached cottage near Wales's Quarry, between Sawyer's Bay and the Portland it is in the person of one of the children that the disease, has appeared. So far, it is confined to.the one subject, and, as the family strictly, complies with the sanitary precautions advised by Dr Drysdale, there aire strong hopes that the disease will nos spread. It is not of- a malignant type^ : The following are the entries for the Christchurch Great Handicap, to be run on Easter Monday : — Mr Yeend's Rory O'Mpre, Mr Yeend's King Philip, Mr Goodman's Blair Athol, Mr Coombe's Right Bower, Mr Malloch's Ranolf, . Mr Webb's- filly, by Ravehsworth— Bar- : bary ; Mr Shand's . The Chief, Mr Shand's Wild Rose, Mr Ray's Tadmory Mr, Ray's Cloth of Gold, Mr . Fauville's Aremier, Mr Nos worthy's Tattler, Mr Redwood's Korari, Mr Redwood's Guy Fawkes, Mr Redwood's Amohia, Mr Lunn's Nectar, Mr C. F, Eiurke's Investment, Mr P. Campbell's Tommy Dodd, Mr P. Campbells. Daniel O'Rorke, Mr Vailance's Defamer, Mr O'Brien's Fishhook, Mr Watt's Paravvhenua, Mr Buckland's Ariel, MrDelamain's Templeton, Mr Delamain's Pungawerewere, Mr Delamain's Elfin King, and Mr H. Prince's Cocksure.

Alluding, to the.muddle in. connection with the San Francisco mail service, the ' Wellington Arg*us ' . observes : — '.' The New South Wales Government, it is understood, is by no means unwilling to take advantage of the continuous default made by the contractors in the performance of their contract, and piily need the concurrence of the New Zealand Government to terminate the agreement. ,, This,, we. trust will not be withheld. We have had quite enough of San Francisco mail service' and Yankee conductors, with Mr H. H. Hall as their representative, English steam com panies do not appear anxious to Undertake the service, arid it will.be better, therefore; to abandon: the American route altogether, and go in for a direct line of monthly mail "steamers, with responsible British contractors. The Government which'establishes such a service will deserve well of the Colony." „.= ..

The VSouthlaridTimes ' isrespbrisible for the following" :— ln the .Wellington Museum, a book is kept in which visi-; tors are requested to insert their naures,| occupation, and residence. Just before' the end of the last session, the clerk had occasion to look over . the ; boole, and! found during the, month of- August? about forty/or fifty " J. P. s" attached to; as many names.; :• His.vastonisHment i was great; J. P. meant Justice of the Peace certaipiy, i^t.;wffere..^piiiv..e^rjh; could so- manyj of 'them have sprung from all at.pnbe ? .Curiosity prompted' ; n^ !-9 r make^.-eriquiries, .Janll-..; shortly iafterwards? he^ found io hisiextreme disjgust that J,P. stbocLfor ff Journeyman |Printer" [aa, weU/is.'Jmticerrirf^tiie* Peace, ft appeared that most /of: the ! ;PPj% ;,in.: tfo^^TOrnment I'Priii^n^ jOffice Had; . takenvit'into their -heads?t6^ p^^%[s*3uin:tn a bpd^Aa^^ty; £ occitogjiion ! iii^tfe (book wp rather narrow, -had contracted 5 thier J profesiion to J,P. =

A man was recently found alive in the busb near c Maryborough, .Queehs- : land, , who had subsisted eleven days on grass-tree,- •.'..,. ".,:i '-.'.... r «,>w,» : We Q Evening ; Nem:),.heaJp (i it rumoured that Mr A, R. TJre .fea&jreceived the appointment pf f Officer. . and Registrar of Births, Mar* rfages, and p e afts,yiri JheWM^fafand and surrbuhnin'g "' districts.' : '; The 5 r appqinmeht ,i$ 'worth abpu^ifiSOOXy^ar, and the Hon. Mr Reynolds. r is tha donor. (ir , „', >„-.',/-„„...

A dispute has, arisen at . Samoa, 'Mji* .between-, the ,^'m.erican , Consul. , and Colonel Steinberarerj who /undertook a mission on behalT of the United States Goyernment 'some time 'ago. - The ;Consul; contends .-that.- Steinberger's authority has ceased j but the Colonel maintains that it has not. :r S!ieinb_erger has entrenched, himself ■ with \ two cannon,. .an d is. determined, to .resist . the -. authority of the (Consul ...The-jatter has, called: in the aid .pf the captain tpfAM-.S.- Barracouta, .wJiQ: would,: -not interfere; but .despatched a ; sub-lieuten-ant tp Sydney for i ntructibns from the Commodore. ]yy n :\'.yAi .^y.