THE MAYORALTY ELECTION.

Evening Post, Volume XVII, Issue 514, 20 May 1879, Page 2

THE MAYORALTY ELECTION.

A large and enthusiastic meeting of Mr. Hunter's supporters was held last evening, the Hon. P. A. Buckley, in the chair. A very strong and influential Central Committee was formed, including the representatives of all classes of the community and working committees for each ward will be enrolled after the various meetings, the first of which takes place to-night, when Mr. Hunter will address tho electors of Cook Ward, at the New town Hall, Adelaide Road.

At the meeting of the creditors of Thomas M'Clellaud, jun , bootmaker, which was held yesterday, a rather singular discovery was made. It appears that some time ago the bankrupt entered into an agreement with his father to take over and cairy on the lattor's business in Maoners-street. He was to receive £3 per week as manager, and it was agreed that ho should place the takings in a cash-box and hand them ovor to his father every week The name of the son was painted on tbe signboard. Fur a few weeks all went woll j but some days ago, on going to tbe cashbox at the end of a week, the father found that all the money except £1 had disappeared. He then turned his son out, nailed up tbe door, and got his own name placed on the signboard. The trustee was instructed to obtain possession of the goods and books left by bankrupt at bis father's house, and also to get the money which he had paid over to M'Clelland, sen. The Wellington Artillery Band have deserted their old colours, and are anxious to have their services transferred to the Naval Brigade. An application for the sanction of the Government to this course being adopted was sent in to-day. It appears that several of the members wished to enter the brigade, and the band would he so reduced by their leaving it that it was thought better that the whole of the band should go over together, rather than it should be split up. It will be a pity, however, if the Artillery should b9 left without a band, and we hope another will bo organised in connection with tbe corps as soon as possible. When we went to press yesterday the case of Carlson v. Carlson and JKay was proceeding in the Divorce Court. The petitioner applied for a dissolution of marriage, on the ground

of respondent's adultery with co-respondent, sad the Court granted a rule nisi. Am the outward 'Frisco mails close here on the -24th instant (her Majesty's birthday), it has been decided that the Chief Poet Office shall be kept open as u»ual on Saturday next, and that Monday, the 26th instant, be observed by the Post Office officials a? a holiday instead. The Chief Po3t Office will therefore be closed on Monday next. The Royal Commissioners appointed to make tfth<?rdnornifirest!j»ation Into the circumstances under which the s.B. Taupo was wrecked off Tauranga, leav« for that place by the Wanaka to-night to commence their labors. All the allegations which have been made so freely relative to neglect on the part of the Harbor Master at TaUranga and the Marine Department at Wellington, and both in regard to the shifting and non-replacement of one of the Tanranga Chancel buoys, will be carefully sited,. although, as we explained very fully a short time back the evidence of Captain Cromarty himselt proved conclusively that the shifting of the buoy had nothing whatever to do with causing the diiagter. ■ A Government surveyor is now engaged in making an exact plan of the locality, showing the position of the steamer, buoys, &c, so that the Commissioners may have all particulars before them. The Commission consists of Commander Hewitt, R.N., Captain Rose (of the New Zealand Shipping Company), and Captain Cross (Harbor Master of Nelson). Such, a Commission will command entire confidence, and their report, doubtless, will be received as final and conclusive. Proceedings are about to be taken by the Inspector of Nuisances' against several tradesmen, who, in defiance of repeated warnings, persist in exposing goods for sale outside their shop windows, in cantravention of the city by-laws. A letter appeared yesterday in a morning contemporary mildly deprecating the severity of some remarks we made in reference to the Tiraaru Herald. Immediately below this letter (which is appropriately signed " Casust") is published another signed by the brother of the Editor of the Timaru Herald. It is not difficult to ♦« put this and tbat together." Councillor Diver has given notice that at the next meeting of the City Council he will move the following resolutions :—": — " That in future a list be kept of the contractors who shall fail to carry out any contract entered into with the Corporation, such list to ba a guide to the Corporation ia the acceptance of future tenders." — " That no further honorarium be paid to the Wharf Sub-Committee until the question already raised as to the legality of the same is settled, with the exception of the Mayor, who is entitled under the Act to receive a salary." At & soecial meeting of the Wellington Licensed Victuallers' Association, held yesterday, the resignation of Mr. John Maginnity, the President, was accepted. Another meeting will be held on Monday next, when a new President will be elected. Complaints have reached us from several quarters as to the terrific noise occasionally made last night by the occupants of the pit at the Opera House. Possibly this hint may induce those whose exuberant spirits vent themselves in this way to abstain from annoying tbeir fellow playgoers. A musical entertainment in aid of the St Mark's Organ Fund will be given in the school-room, Sussex Square, this evening, at 8 o'clock. We understand that a very attractive programme has beon provided. A man fell 'down in an epileptic fit on the wharf last night, and Dr. Diver was sent for, but,. by the time he arrived the man had recovered. We regret to hear that some fresh cases of typhoid fever have made their appearance at Karori, in the vicinity of the dairy farm where the disease was first imported into the district. The Couit of Appeal resumed its sitting this morning. When we went to press the case ol Henderson v. Napier Harbor Board was proceeding. Considerable excitement and speculation was caused on the wharf this afternoon, by the specticleof the steamer Patea, which had left about noon for her namesake port, making all possible speed back towards the wharf, while the signal calling for medical assistance was flying at her masthead. Dr. Collins was immediately in attendance, and on thesteamei coming along side it appeared that just as she was leaving the Heads, a passenger named Lett (a Patea resident, and brother of Mr. Letl of Cuba-street,) suddenly fell down in a fit All efforts to restore him proving vain, the steamer returned with all celerity to the wharf where Dr. Collins took charge of the patient! and had him conveyed to his brother's house. There was a good attendance at the Theatre Royal last night, when the diorama of the Russo-Turkish war was exhibited for the firsl time in Wellington At the close a number oi gifts were distributed. The accounts o£ tho Hutt County Council for the' year ended 31st March last, have jusi been published. They show receipts amounting to £9126, and there is a credit balance at the bank of £1196 4s, as against £1275 19s Id last year, The receipts include the following items :— Subsidies from Government, £3837 14s 4d : tolls, Kaiwarra and Hutt toll-gates, £3342 5s 7d ; Collector of Customs license and transfer fees, £616. .Of the expenditure the Mun-garoa-Waikanae road absorbed £2325 12s 6d and repairs and improvements of existing roads, £3764 183. ' A. football match between Wellington and Wanganui is to be played on the Queen's Birthday at "Wanganui. The Wellington men leave here on Friday, and return on the following Tuesday. The following team has been chosen to represent Wanganui : — Montgomery j back; A. Smith and G. Bayly, half-backs: Hole and J. Walker, quarter-backs ; Wheeler, Fltzherbart (2), Smith, Cross, Barton, Fort, P. Smith, M. J Smith, and Powell (captain), forwards. The Wellington team has not yet been quite definitely settled, but will probably be made up as follows :— Gillon, Lambert. Davy, Berry (2), Thomson, Cowie, Wright. Campbell, Cooper, Black, Lynch, Hickson, Burns, and R. Leckie. The Wanganui Club met a team from the Rangitikei district on Saturday last, and succeeded, after a closelycontested battle, in wresting a victory by one goal and two tries against one try. The play all round (says tho Herald) was very fair, the presence of one or two English public school boys in the teams being useful in setting a good example. Mr. Darrell's new drama, " Back from the Grave," met with a very warm reception at the Opera House last night. The stalls and pit were crowded, and the dress circle was well attended Yesterday we gave an outline of the play, and it is unnecessary, therefore, to say more about the plot. The drama had evidently been carefully rehearsed — it ran smoothly throughout. Every character was well sustained, and the leading performers (Mr. and Mrs. Darrell, Miss Navaro, and Mr. Vincent) were frequently called before the curtain. Judging from the enthusiastic reception the drama met with on its first production in Wellington, we should say it will have a good " run " here. The fire scene was particularly well managed. The way in which the play wa3 put on the stage — the scenery and mechanical appointments being especially goodreflected the greatest credit on all concerned. Rarely has a play had a more successful first night on the Wellington stage, or met with a more flattering reception from the audience. A meeting of persons interested in the Pollhill Gully road to Karori is advertised to be held at the Chamber of Commerce to-morrow evening at 8 o'clock. A number of the traders in Napier, it is said, have it io contemplation, to co-operate togethei for the prevention of fraudulent bankruptcies, and for adopting means to have all bankruptcy "cases' properly sifted. , The Revision Court for the Electoral District of the City of Wellington will be held to-mor-row morning at 10 o'clock, before Mr. H. S Fitzherbort, Revising Officer. The stray buoy which was found adrift bj the Star of the South, and picked up by her at sea, turns out to be one of the buoys belonging to Cotlingwood harbor, which had broken loose from its moorings and been carried away bj the tide. Tho Nelson Harbormaster, Captain Cross, happening to be over here, recognized il at once, and it will be sent back again. The National Insurance Company has just declared a dividend for the half-year ending 31st March, at the rate of 20 per cent, pei .annum. This notification will no doubt be highly satisfactory to the shareholders. We are informed by the local manager, Mr. Bruct Wallace, that the last half-year has been an exceptionally good one for the company. A football match, under the Victorian rules, will be played by tbe Reform and Te Aro Clubs in M'Nab's (late Ludlam's) gardens, at tbe Lower Hutt, on Saturday, tbe 24th May. The gardens are well worth a visit, and s-hould the day ba at all fine no better place aboul Wellington could be found for picnic parties. The "New Zealand Wesleyan" for tbe present month contains another of Rev. Jas. Buller's chatty letters about scenes and friends in old England. The following are among Mr. Buller's jottings :— " I have just now received a letter from another very old New Zealand friend — the venerable and Rev. James Stack, who is at present living in the Isle of Wight with bis two daughters. He was one of the trio of missionaries who were driven away from Wangaroa in 1847, when the savage native* burned the premises. He says in his letter to me: Wben you write to New Zealand please to say that when I wrote on tbe 24th I was hale and strong — frost and cold notwithstanding — and still able to cry aloud, 'Behold the Lamb!' To all my old New Zealand friends I send my hearty good wishes." Mr. Buller went to Brixton and heard the Rev. Morley Punshon give readiugs on the poets, bat gives no opinion thereon, perhaps wisely so, for Mr. Punshon, a princo among Wesleyan preachers, is a stranger to poetic sentiment. Mr. Buller concludes bi* letter by saying : — " Our good ship the Waimate, Captain Peek, is loading for Lyttelton, to sail next r week. I send by her two promising young men as candidates for our inistry. They both bear the well-know*

name of Jones, and will, I hope, be made very useful as preachers of the Gospel in their adopted land." The boy reported to the police yesterday as being missing, has turned up, and is now staying at a house in town. On Sunday evening Mr. Vines preached at the Princess Theatre, Tory-street, to a large audience, the room being quite full. His subject was Hebrews 11, 14-15. Yesterday eveniog his address was on Rom. VIII., and was much appreciated. It was announced yesterday evening that Mr. Vines' final lecture will ba given on Thursday evening, at the Theatre in Tory-street, and that the subject will be " The Second Coming of Christ." A philosophic discussion anent the hindrances to courtship is going on in the Marton paper. As far as we can make out, the bachelors allege that the trains and frillings of the fair sex are the prims agents ia quenching the ardour of the love-lorn swains, while the spinsters maliciously retaliate upon the bachelors by referring to the burden which the average bachelor finds his own feet and elbows to be, vthe former being 'tacked away under the sofa," and the elbows less innocently employed in ruthlessly sweeping little knickknacks off sideboards and tables, during the epoch when skirts were hardly allowed to "reach the ground." " Depend upon it," they add, •' the evil will never be radically cured, until we can devise some way of having them safely deposit their feet and elbows with their bats and ulsters, and so relieve them of an anxiety and burden that seem at present to be the bane of our young men's existence, as their solemn visages and silent tongue;, not to say anything about their frantic efforts to look as if they didn't know that they had feet and arms, amply testify." The fair spinsteri viciously wind up their letter to the Rangitikei Advocate by Quoting a little anecdote about a young man who returned from a ball and solemnly advised his friend " not to dance any more, for every ■ train the girls were wearing was drunk; by jove, yes, old fellow, drunk as fiddiersj " A somewhat extraordinary affair is narrated by the Wanganui Herald. While the train was travelling along about three miles the other side of Halcombe on Saturday, a cow got on the line. The speed was at once slackened and the whistle blown, but the cow started off in front of the train along the line, and could not be induced to quit it. The chase lasted for about a mile, when a bridge was reached, which the cow endeavored to cross, but slipped between the sleepers, and there stuck. There was nothing for it but the passengers getting out, and helping to remove the cow from her uncomfortable position. They all worked with a will, one individnal, however, being so energetic at the tail, that it at last gave way, and he went head over heels into the creek below. The cow at last slipped through the bridge, and was last seen going down the stream, but evidently seriously hurt. Had the engine caught the cow in the position it was in, nothing could have prevented a serious accident. As an instance of the mildness of the climate, the Manawatu Herald says:— <« Mr. Fritz Jenssen brought to our office on Thursday some most enticing-looking strawberries, the second crop off the same bush since last Christmas. Those who are skilled in that sort of fruit culture will know that this is a most rare occurrence even with what is known as the dwarf strawberry, and it is a most flattering proof of not only the fertility of the soil, but the mildness of the temperature. Considering that we have now reached almost the middle of winter, the season is of unexampled mildness, the clover, one of the surest indices of a mild temperature, being almost in full bloom." There has just been finished in Foxton the truck to bring up the boilers out of the Hydrabad. It is a formidable -looking affair, the wheels being something like three feet wide, to enable it to pass over the soft sand with its heavy load. The truck itself must be of considerable weight— it is said a ton and a half — and when loaded will take something like twenty bullocks at least to draw it. One of the " men in possession" in a hotel at Fielding applied to a local J.P. on Thursday, under the following somewhat perplexing circumstances. His comrade, under the benign influence of his host's good liquor, had given way so far as to yield up possession of the document which gave him a legal right to be there, and he was threatened with ejectment as an intruder. We (Rangitikei Advocate) did not learn the result of the application, or the nature of the advice officially tendered. It is said that Prince Louis Napoleon is desperately smitten with a handsome young Englishwoman of noble family, and that but for the remonstrances of his mother, would have proposed in the ordinary way. The exEmpress, however, is a most ambitious lady, and in her exile has not given up her old and cherished schemes, and a grand marriage, both from a political and social point of view, is what her Majesty has set her mind on. It is intended to build another grand theatre in London, to be called "Tho Alcazar." A company has bsen formed with a capital of £100,000, in £10 shares, and it has secured the freehold ground on the north s'de of Leices-ter-square, where Siville House stood. The area of ground that the theatre will cover will be nearly 16,000 ft. Messrs. Woodger and Duff have opened a greengrocer's shop, immediately opposite the Parliament buildings, and advertise in another column, that fresh vegetables and poultry may be obtained daily. The German Empire, M. Berthlllon states in a recent paper on natality in France and Germany, counts at present more than 40 million inhabitants, and has a general natality of 40 per annum and per 1000, giving annually 1,600,000 live birttis. But if shi wero limited to the French small natality of 26 instead of 40, she would count only 1,040,000 live births annually. Thus, compared with France, Germany rears an annual excess of 5(jO,000 children over what French natality would give, and this excess produces annually, according to tables of mortality, about 343,500 adults of 20 years of age. When Henry Taylor wrote, in his eminent work, " Phillip Van Artevelde," that the " world knows nothing of its greatest; men," he meant to convey that mankind was not pre-informed of the master-minds that would leave their " form and pressure," on the times in which they live. Because great men naturally moke themselves known. They stamp their glory and their genius on the world. Many a sufferer would have rejoiced, could it have been known anticipatively or prophetically, that Udolpho Wolfe's Schiedam abomatio Schnapps was in embryo, before it was born to the world,— [Advt.j