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Cromwell Argus, Volume XXVII, Issue 1374, 27 August 1895, Page 4

Practice to-night: " Pirates of Penzance." Mr P. L. Dignan has been appointed Inspector for the North Island of the Bank of New Zealand. We hear that a big house is expected at the "Pirates of Penzance" performance at Alexandra on Wednesday night. The river/ since the thaw set in on Wednesday last, has risen several feet and all the beach combers have left it. Our Alexandra correspondent wires this morning that Hyde and party's dredge obtained 20oz lldwt 9grs for the week. The Education Board have consented to have the playground of the Cromwell School asphalted—a much needed improve ment. When the river was at its lowest this season, about a week ago, it was ascertained by measurement at the Cromwell Bridge that it'.was 60 feet lowpr in the perpendicular than the time of the '7B flood. The Rev. K. S. Allan, of Oamaru, has been chosen by the Queenstown district Presbyterian Church, as their pastor. The Rev. Mr Gellie had retired from the contest, and according to the last issue of the Wakatip Mail, the choice rested between the Rev. Allan and the Rev. J, dimming; The Bannockburn dreJge started work a few days ago, but has not got into smooth working order yet. We notice that the Cromwell correspondent of the Daily Times informed that paper that the dredge had struck payable gold. If it has done so, we, cor indeed anyone else, have cot heard of it. The residence of Mr Thomas M'Kay of Albertown (a five roomed cottage, we believe) was completely destroyed by fire on Wednesday night. Mr M'Kay and his sons, unfortunately, were away from home at the time. The loss is only very partially covered by insurance—£7s in the New Zealand office. It is likely to be some little time before work in the Cromwell Mine will be staited by the new company. The old shareholders here only received notification of the reconstruction scheme last week, and their acceptance of terms offered must, we presume, go Home before the new company is finally constituted.

We are obliged to hold over an obituary notice of the late Mr Hosking tillnext week. • The proposed local Government bill abolishes all boroiglis wish a population under 4000, and extends' considerably the limits of county control. A a Ofcago Chinaman, on learning from Rev. A. Don, the Chinese missionary, that his father's name was John, exclaimed, " Then you're a half caste I " ]n Australia, horses and cattle are now being branded by electricity from storage batteries. The temperature is uniform and the brands safe and artistic. A premature explosion of dynamite in a copper mine at Coba, New South Wales, killed an Italian aud seriously injured two other miners. Included anions the applicants for the clerkship of Waimate County were bankers, lawyers, accountants, schoolmasters, students, an ex-G ivernor's son, aud even a representative of the Church. A cablegram to the Rev. W. Ready, chairman of the Bible Christian Church Conference, intimates that the English Conference has consented to the union of the colonial church with the Methodists. The .anti-tobacco movement seems to be making progress in the United States. Fifty thousand public schoolboys are now numbered in the Anti Cigarette League of New York, which has been organised in all the 95 grammar schools of the city. About 30,000 acres of mallee wheat lands in Victoria have been sold within the last few days. It is expected that the whole of the Mitapre area, consisting ot 100,000 acres of good wheat; land, will be sold in time for cropping next season. The purchasers include many South Australian farmers. Wages in agricultural districts in England have recently risen to an appreciable extent. In Lancashire and Cumberland they now range from 16s to 20s per week, in Rutland from 9s to lis per week. In the Kent hop gardens 14s is the usual wage, but. piece workers can earn from 18s to 20s per week.' The secretary of the Confederate Miners' Association has corresponded with the Government re exemption of miners' gu.mboots from the taxation upon imports, stating that gumboots cannot be dispensed with in connection with ground-sluicing, and that such taxation, not bearing equally upon every! #dy, would simply be a class-tax equal to about 153 per annum upon miners engaged in ground-sluicing. A Hawea correspondent writes that the frost, which has been very severe, has broken at last, A heavy rain set in on Friday afternoon, continuing more or less until Saturday night. We have had a very hard winter, the stock, which has not been hard fed, faring very badly. The Tarras and Morven Hills Station's sheep, I learn, are in a bad condition, the young sheep especially, many thousands have died, and others are still dying. The autumn sown oats will have to be sown again, the frost having lifted the seed out of the ground. Presbyterians in Australia have been discussing the advisability of putting a "time limit" on elders. At present they have a life tenure, and it seems to be the opinion of the majority that a sort of safetyvalve is required, by the opening of which an objectionable elder could be shot out. As the Rev. Alexander Marshall said in the Presbytery of Melbourne North : " A congregation can get rid of a minister, but not of an elder, and something is required to put the preaching elder and the ruling elder on an equality." " Bohemian," in the Press, says: Christchurch next week, as everybody knows, will be full of parsons. As usual at the Synod time, they are billeted to preach at the various parish churches in and around the city. In making the " usual announcements " in one of our suburban churches the other day the incumbent in charge-said : "Next Sunday the Reverend Rabbit Island, will preach at the morning service; and the Reverend , of Rakaia Gorge, at the evening service." And then he gave the text: Matthew vii., 15. Turn it up ! The fact of there being three eclipses has not been noticed in the local newspapers. There was an eclipse of the sun on the 20th of August, and there will be another on the 18th September, with one of the moon between on the 4th September. This is a phenomenon which occurs at regular intervals of 3, 4, 4 and 7 years : thus—--1859, 1862, 1866, 1870, 1877, 1880, 1884, 1888, 1895—and is always two of the sun and one of the moon. When more than one eclipse, a correspondent says, occurs within a month the weather is always affected unpleasantly by them,— North Otago Times. The Wyndham Farmer in its last issue places before its readers a summary of Mr John Werner's letter to this journal on the statistics furnished us by Mr Cowan re the Rabbit nuisance. The Farmer concludes an article on the subject thus : —We have now placed before our readers the views of an experienced paatoralist on the one side and those of an intelligent man of democratic sentiment on the other, both of whom agree that "bunny" is an unmitigated curse, look at him how one will. There is no doubt that Mr Werner, while sympathising with Mr Cowan in his losses as a squatter, has scored a point also on behalf of small settlement—which not only would mean a large and thriving population where a "shepherd and twa collies" at present fill the census register, but would also ring the death-knell to that most destructive of rodents, the rabbit. •

As showing how effective the new School Attendance Act has proved, the Minister of Education informs the Lyttelton iTimes representative that within about six months, during which the law has been operative, there were no fewer than 206 prosecutions to compel the attendance of children, and most of which were successful. This is a record unprecedented in the history of the education system, and proves that school committees generally have been alive to their duty under the Act. By way of counteracting the danger that exists of committees ignoring their responsibilities, it may be stated that any citizen has power to compel committees to take action by applying to the Supreme Court for a mandamus, when the members of the Committee would be individually cast in costs if they were shown to have neglected their duty of enforcing the School Attendance Act.

Our local, re Vincent County Horticultural Society accounts, has evidently raised the ire of the Dunstan Times. Our contemporary does, however, what we wanted it to do—viz., let its readers know that the Cromwell Committee handed over not one Shilling, as its first local would make its readers believe, but £l6 odd to its successor. There was nothing to prevent the Cromwell Committee from granting their secretary a bonus before they put the money on fixed deposit. The Cromwell Committee, one and all, had the interests of the society more at heart than secretaries' bonuses. Their object was to make a success of the show, and they did so ; and, had they not launched out into what they deemed, and still deem, necessary expenditure, would have handed over as large a monetary addition to the funds as the Clyde Committee did. Besides this, our contemporary fails to notice that some of the assets handed over by the retiring Cromwell Committee saved the finances of the society last year. The whole business is an unjustable attack by our contemporary on a body of men who worked hard and unselfishly in the matter of the society. Our contemporary is certainly taking a strange way of booming the V.C.H.S. This mode of requiting past services is not likely to secure future ones of (the same quality.