TELEGRAPHIC.

Evening Star, Issue 4941, 3 January 1879, Page 2

TELEGRAPHIC.

SPECIAL TO THE STAR. Sydney, January 2. The strike is expected to terminate for certain to-day. The A.S.N. Company yields to the seamen’s demands, January 3. The seamens strike has been settled mainly through the instrumentality of Mr Lockhead. The terms on which it has been arranged are shortly these: all the .men return, and as far as practicable to be reinstated in their former positions ; the company to retain the services of 180 Chinese who are to be reduced to 120 within'three months ; the wages due to the men to the 18th of November to be paid by tho company ; and ship’s discharges to be given where necessary. (From Odr Own Cohkkspokdeots ) Wellington, January 3. Numbers of volublo individuals with ‘ wheels of fortune” and other instruments for gaming opened at the Caledonian sports yesterday, but their little game was speedily stopped by the police. During the month of December 113 births were registered in this city, being the largest number ever recorded in Wellington. The deaths were 25, and the marriages 33. The Government steamer Stella leaves for Cape Campbell at twelve o’clock to-night She takes Captain Johnston and two surveyors, to take soundings in tho vicinity of the place where the ship Southminster is said to have struck, causing her wreck. A most extraordinary escape from drownmg was reported to the police yesterday Some boys, sons of Mrs Redman, were plav! mg on the beach nearGrecnfield andStewart’s sawmills at about S o’clock in the morning when they saw a child, about three years old, floating in the water. They managed to get it ashore in an insensible state and took it t® their mother, who undressed the little waif, bathed it in warm water, and poured wine down its throat. She was at last rewarded for her trouble by seeing the child return to life. Mrs Redman then dressed it in some of her own children’s clothes, and evciy attention was paid to t 1 e little stranger until evening, when its father appeared to claim it. The parents, named QumKven, live in Taranaki street. Ihe child must have wandered down to fhe beach fully a distance of a mile, when somehow it managed to get into the water., The father, who, it is stated, was intoxicated, never even thanked Mrs Redman for the *«eand attention she had bestowed on the child, nor has he since had the common decency to return the clothes which-it Was wearing when it was taken away. Some specimens of stone from the Golden Fomt mine have, on a rough teat, yielded Rom six to thirty-six ounces of gold per ton. The richest of the stone was thrown awav by the miner?, as it did not show a trace of gold It was taken from what appeared to bo a break in ono of the reefs.

Dr Hector brought back with him specimens from the Longdown reef on the West Cowt, which have yielded from two' and a-half ounces on ordinary stone to thirty, two and eixty-hiue cfcaoes to the ton. With

a email quantity o£ silver from the Rabgiloto silver mines' the teste give from 4oz to soz of gold, about the same quantity of silver, and 5 per cent, of zinc per ton. - Notwithstanding the fact teat during the last three years Wellington has nearly doubled in population, crime has decreased 33 per cent. The committals in 1876 Wore 616; in 1877, 527 ; and last year, 430. The inmates of the gaol are now only 3 per 1,000 of the population. James Alien Mackie, manager of the Bank of New Zealand at the’ Upper and Lower Hutt, was charged tp-day. with forging a cheque for L 1,300, vfith intent to defraud the bank,, and also with the larceny of L1,310v. ‘Defendant, it was alleged, filled up a blank cheque, given to him by _ a customer for the purpose of transferring a small amount from Carlyle for E1,300 to cover defalcations, which he admitted to an accountant who was sent to examine his.accounts had been going on for two years. He was committed for trial. There are eighty-three nominations of assisted emigrants by the outgoing mai 1 . Auckland, January 2. Mr G. M. Read has arrived en route for England. He visited the .Lakes and came overland to Auckland from Napier. He mot with a buggy 'accident, but escaped unhurt. ‘ ;

[Pul Prise Agency.] ; . Christchurch, January 3. The criminal sessions commence on Monday. There are fourteen cases. The conduct of the committee in taking action agiinat Francis Valpy, late secretary to the Railway Employes Society, who has been committed for triad for embezzling its funds, was last night confirmed by the general meeting of the members. A man named James Hallows was admitted into the hospital suffering from injuries inflicted at Springfield coal mine through a piece of stone falling on him. There are now six reaper and binder agents in toWQi Wellington, January 3. Mackie, who is charged with embezzling E1,300 from the Bank of New Zealand, at the Upper Hntt, was brought up this morning before the resident magistrate. Mr Izard, the Crown Prosecutor (assisted by Mr Buckley, solicitor for the bank), prosecuted. The charge of embezzlement was withdrawn, and one for forgery and another for larcepy substituted. Mackie was committed for trial on the forgery charge. The other will be gone into this afternoon. Mr Wood, late Chief Justice of Fiji, appeared for the prisoner. John Hill, who sometime ago was committed to gaol for contempt in disobeying an order of the Supreme Court, will be released to-day, an order to that effect having been signed by the Chief Justice. A petition was presented on behalf of Hill, and the Chief Justice said that under the circumstances he would impose no conditions, but he warned Hill that a repetition of his offence would inevitably entail a much heavier punishment than he had already experienced. A deputation waited on the Government to-day regarding the building of a railway station on the newly reclaimed land. The Government intimated that they would build one alongside Mr Mills’s foundry. They also said that they intended to reclaim twenty acres at Papitea Point for railway purposes. Of the three; projected, routes for the Foxton and Waikanae railway the most satisfactory one is nearly completed, and the formation will be commenced as soon as the reclaimed land is sold.

Napier, January 3. The return of births, etc., for .this town shows that for the past year the births were 440, the marriages 115, and the deaths 224. It is rumored that Mr E. H. Bolt, engineer for the Hawkes Bay and Waipawa Counties, succeeds Mr Floyd as chief electrician on the East Coast.

A man named Alder was run over yesteray by a dray horse which had bolted, and Alder in attempting to jump off the dray got his legs entangled in the reins and fell, the wheel passing over his left side and wrist. He lies in a precarious state. Colonel Whitmore, accompanied by an engineer, is to-day taking soundings near his estate at Clive.

It is proposed that a company should be formed (Mr Murray, with Mr M. R. Miller is at the head of the movement) to purchase the Grange estate, to form a township, to erect a breakwater, and to form a harbor.

The continued drought causes much apprehension ia the fanning districts. >