(FROM THE "RECORD" FEBRUARY 29.)

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XXIV, Issue 3319, 6 March 1868, Page 3

(FROM THE "RECORD" FEBRUARY 29.)

On Monday last Messrs. Gundry, Dean, and Potterton, with the°ir parties, returned to tswn from the Katikati, having completed the surveys of their respective block* in that district. The natives have throughout maintained a very friendly bearing towards them, Buffering the survey to proceed without molestation, and even exhibiting a degree of iaterest in the successful termination of the undertaking that bespoke a feeling anything but hostile. Ibis intelligence is gratifying, and gives us reason to hope that,tince the surveys have been thus initiated without any serious opposition on the part of the natives, they will become more extended, till at length not a part only, but the whole of the Katikati will be thrown open to the enterprise of the European portion of the population. Since the land has been drawn for, it has naturally become an object of great interest, and numbers have visited it, hy far the greater portion of whom speak in the highest terms of the quality of the soil and natural qualifications of the country generally, thus bearing out the character it has always borne as being a district admirably adapted for the purpose of settlement. Seventy-five Arawaa were put on pay last Saturday, and sent to Opotiki. Six Arawas left here for Taupo on Tuesday to act as mounted policemen. The p.s. ' Sturt ' arrived in harbour oa Wednesday morning from Opotiki, with Colonel Haultain, and Messrs. Goring, H. Clark, Smith, and McLeod. She left on Thursday morning at five o'clock, with thirty-two volunteers under Captain Skeet. She purposed calling in at Maketu for 100 Arawas for Opotiki. We have been shown some very good specimens of quartz containing gold by Captain Goldsmith, who found it on the Katikati block. On Wednesday morning by the arrival of the * Sturt ' we learn that another expedition, consisting of cavalry, went out under the command of M«jnr St. John, and that the rebels endeavoured to draw them into ambush. The Major, not being aware of their numbers, thought it advisable to return. Colonel Haultain ordered oat another expedition of eighty militiamen on Tuesday afternoon.

The Italian journals relate a singular story. A ■oldier who hud deserted and taken to brigandage was captured and condemned to death. Being brought out to the place of execution, a firing party of five performed their painful duty, and the sergeant commanding them, perceiving that the man wm not quite dead, gave him point blank the coup-de-grace. In the belief that this was really a finishing stroke, the body wm handed orer to the gravedigger ; but as night urat approaching the latter postponed his office until the morning, leaving above ground what he naturally supposed to be a corpse. The unfortunate man, however, was still alite, and the cold night air, by irritating his wounds revived him. Painfully he dragged himself to the wall of the enclosure, against which he managed to place a ladder which happened to be there, got over, although all bleeding, and with his arm broken by the bullets, and delivered himself up as prisoner at the nearest guard-house. The | \ ministers of war and of justice each claim this resuscitated victim of martial law, but the belief is that he will be pardoned. His wounds are not mortal, and his arm has been reset. Despatches of January 3 say :— A Brussels newspaper states that the French police seized the Fenian head-quarters in Paris, where they discovered most important documents throwing light upon the conspiracy against England. Among the documents was, it is said, a plan for the burning of the British Cbanmel fleet. All the papers were forwarded to London. The Commander-in-Chief of the British army was in extraordinary activity agaimt a Fenian movement. His precautions were mainly directed to the counties of the south and west coast of the' island, where a revolutionary " landing n was looked for. The magisterial investigation in the case of the Clerkenwell explosion has had no results. The prisoners are remanded, and the case is enveloped in mystery. On Monday evening, while a little boy, about ■even years of asje, named Warrington, was playing along with some companions at a game which they called "Fenians," two Irishman came up and laid hold of him. They then put some powder, or a similar substance, in his trousew, and ■etfiretoit. I Tb* poor child was much burned,— English paper.