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Evening Star, Issue 7197, 27 April 1887, Page 2

A Brisbane telegram states that Mr Da vies, ohairman of the Murweh Divisional Board, has been murdered near Mills by his servant.

The Taamanlan Exeoutlve have commuted the death sentences passed on Morgan for rape and on Mrs Orlando for the murder of her husband.

The Senate o! Aberdeen University have conferred the degree of LL.D. on Sir John Hay, president of the Legislative Council of New South Wales.

At the public reception of the new Bishop of Melbourno the Bishop of Goulbourn mentioned that when his cathedral was being built a deputation of Chinamen waited on him and presented him with a contribution of Lls towards the building fund.

Ihe Volunteer officers of the Dunedin district met at the Garrison Hall last night, Major Burns presiding, and discussed a proposal to form an officers' club. The idea was taken up enthusiastically, and Captain Proudfoot elected treasurer and secretary of the club, which will have a room in the Garrison Hall to be used as a library.

Mr Adye Douglas has resigned the AgentGeneralship of Tasmania, and returns to the Colonv in August. The Fysh Ministry intend to propose a property tax on unimproved values and a separate land tax on improvements. It is thought that the Assembly will reject the proposals, and that Mr Reibey will come into office after the general election. The' Birmingham Gazette ' publishes the following letter, which has been addressed by Mr ftuslrin to a Cumberland gentleman who had communicated with him respecting the Ambleside railway project:— " Ist March, 1887. My clear sir,—l do not write now further concerning railroads here or elsewhere. They are to me the loathsomest form of devilry now extant, animated and deliberate earthquakes, destructive of all wise social habit or possible natural beauty, carriages of damned souls on the ridges of their own graves.—John Ruskin." A correspondent who resides in Palmerston North writes: " Never has such dry weather been known in the district. The heat in the middle of the day is almost as oppressive as it was in the height of summer. On.the Napier side they have had no rain for the last eight months, and the consequence is that the pastures are bare of feed. All the hay obtainable has been fed off, and no alternative remains but to sell the stock for what it will fetch. Droves are sent away to wherever there is a likely market. A mob of 3,000 passed thi-ough Palmerston last week, and a second lot of 5,000 will be coming along shortly," A trial df ia very unusual character has just terminated at Brisbane. Robert and Gilbert Wilson, directors of the Queensland Mercantile and Agency Company, were charged with misappropriating over L 3,000 of the Company's fund. The defence was that the money was an advance. On the first indictment there was an acquittal, and the Crown entered a nolle prosequi in respect to the ethers. Immense interest was taken in these cases, on account of the exceptional nature of the charge, the large amounts involved, and because all the parties connected with the case hold high positions in mercantile and social circles in Brisbane.

The last Legislature of New York appointed a committee to examine into the most expedient method of inflicting the death penalty in case 3 o£ nuirrter in the first degree, and to report on the subject to the present Legislatuuo, whether by Bill or otherwise. The Committee, having examined the question, have, as we understand (says the ' Independent') agreed to recommend the abandonment of hanging as the mode of punishing murderers, and the substitution of the eleotrie battery so heavily charged as to produce instant death. The theory of such a recommendation is that death by electricity is most humane, because entirely painless, and more absolutely certain to produce the result on the instant, and at the same time less barbarous and offensive in the outward aspects of the process. Mr David Buchanan, who has returned to Sydney after his visit to England, gives the following opinion on Home Rule for Ireland :—" They will be driven to grant Home Rule as Mr Gladstone has expounded it, and when that takes place it will be the signal for as fierce and bloody a civil war as ever convulsed any country. The North of Ireland will rise in its might, and be largely enforced from Scotland and England, and officered by numbers of England's ablest generals ; and the result will be a struggle that will ultimately put at end to all further agitation in Ireland. The Irish have had the Church disestablished. They have got a most liberal Land Bill proposed. They have all the rights and privileges enjoyed by Englishmen or Scotchmen; and, under such circumstances, any further agitation can mean nothing but separation, entire and complete, from England. Mr Gladstone's Bill if carried will bring this about at once."

The result of the inquiry into the Bulli disaster is condemned in the strongest terms by the Sydney Press as inconsequential and unsatisfactory. The verdict of the jury was that the deaths of the eighty-three victims were attributable to an explosion of gas, and a rider was added " that this explosion was brought about by a disregard of the Bulli Colliery's special rules and the Coalfields Regulation Act, in allowing the men to work where gas existed." The ' Telegraph' declares the verdict to be ridiculously unmeaning, and the ' Sydney Morning Herald' says : " Every word of the rider points to the fact that the jury have shirked the responsibility cast upon them by their oath. The inference of the rider was intended for either the Government officials or the manager of the Bulli Company. It now becomes necessary to ascertain which of these two is liable for that negligence which the jurv say brought about the explosion."

A harvest festival service was held in St. Matthew's Church last evening. The church, which was fairly filled, was appropriately decorated for the occasion. The Rev. A. R. Fitchett delivered a short address, in which he made pointed reference to the debt on the churches. He said they were from year to year doing nothing to reduce the debt, but on the contrary the ordinary expenditure was considerably more than the ordinary income, and the difference had to be made up by extraordinary efforts of a kind of which perhaps tho less said the better. The clergy were all overworked, and the Church was paying on her debt interest that would be sufficient to support more clergy. They talked of hard times ; but let them think of the amount spent on luxuries, costly amusements, ostentatious 'dress and entertainment, and then think of the amount—the pitiful amount—of self-sacrifice an ordinary Christian man was capable of and exhibited for the sake of his Church. It was a ridiculously infinitesimal self-sacrifice any one of them—clergy or laity—exhibited for the sake of the Church. The present condition of things, he argued, would tend to cripple the Church in the future.

In an apparently inspired letter published by the ' North German Gazette,' concurrence is expressed with the view that it was through fear of French soldiers being billeted upon them, and of the imposition of war contributions, and other burdens in the event of an early French occupation, that the inhabitants of Alsace-Lorraine decided to ingratiate themselves with their compatriots by voting for members of the Protest party at the recent elections to the Reichstag. "Frenchmen," continues the writer, "regard the result of the elections in Alsace-Lorraine as affording convincing proof that French sympathy is paramount there, and further that the inhabitants are longing for re-union with France, and are determined to employ all che means in their power for the attainment of that object aa soon as the French Army shall have crossed the Vosges. These considerations have strengthened the war party in Paris. Should war break out the responsibility for it will rest to a certain extent with the population e-f Alsace-Lorraine. Germany is, therefore, not only justified in taking this fact into account, but is bound to do so. In 1871 the German Empire compensated Alsace-Lorraine for all damage suffered by those provinces during the war. In the event of Germany being again involved in a war with France, suoh liberality would bo I out of place, and would be regarded as a sign of weakness. '

To-day's meeting of the Land Board lapsed for want of a quorum. The Hon. Robert Bourke, Governor of Madras, has been raised to the peerage.

Prendergast, the wife murderer, has been pronounced sane and removed to the Mount Eden Gaol.

A Commission of independent persons is to be appointed to inquire into the cause of the Built explosion. Mr Pain, the London pyroteohjaist, whose displays in Sydney have been so successful, has given LSOO to the charities of that city, A threshing-mill and elevator were destroyed by fire on the Greenfield Estate on Saturday. The loss is estimated at L 875, and there was no insuranoe,

Mr W. A. Stout, 8.A., LL.B. (New Zealand University) was to-day admitted by His Honor Mr Justice Williams as a barrister and solioltor of the Supreme Court, Though several of the English tenders for the supply of forty-four locomotives for the New South Wales railways are below the colonial prices it is thought that that of the Hudson Company will be accepted.

The New South Wales contributions to the Bulli relief fund are a little more than LB.OOO, which will give a trifle over half-a-crown a-week to each widow and orphan. Victoria has contributed nearly L2,G00. At Wetherstone's on Monday night the townspeople failed to elect a school committee because the chairman was unable to give a ruling as to the eligibility of a candidate, and the meeting consequently broke up.

On it being rumored that the Government proposed to introduce a systehi of electric for the Sydney tramways, a wesiflthy capitalist in that city, it is said, purchased the colonial right from the patentees for LIO,OOO. A cable message has been received by the Governor, Lord Carington, from the Secretary of State for the colonies, as follows : —" Her Majesty commands me to convey you her sincere regret at the Bulli disaster, and her sympathy with the sufferers."

A prisoner named Evans, who had been convicted at Melbourne under various names for different offences, is believed to be Dr Richard C. Brandeis, for whose capture, dead or alive, the New York police offer l.OOOdol. Ho strongly resembles the photograph of the man wanted. The Customs Department at Melbourne has detained a shipment of American Bibles on the ground of infringement of the Imperial copyright law. The book contains a number of engravings that are declared to be copies of Gustave Dore's drawings, but the importer impudently answers that there are plenty of artists in America of the same name as the great Frenchman. The ordinary meeting of the Benevolent Institution Trustees was held this afternoon, and attended by Messrs A. Solomon (chairman), Calder, A. Rennie, and H. Goarley. Accounts amounting to LI 24 4s 8d were passed for payment. The Town Clerk wrote stating that Cr Lee Smith had been appointed trustee of the Institution vice Mr G. Esther. The chairman stated that he had communicated with Mr Bucklaud concerning the statement made by him at Waitati about a man who was paying taxes for three greyhounds being in receipt of relief from the Institution. Mr Buckland, in reply, said that he had been told of it by an expressman. The chairman added that he had caused every inquiry to be made, but it appeared to be merely " a cock-and-bull story." It was a very improper thing for a public man to make such statements in public without ascertaining the truth of them. The case referred to was the third or fourth which had been reported to the Trustees, and on inquiry found to be untrue. The average number of applications for relief were dealt with. The larrikins of Melbourne and suburbs have once more gone on the rampage, and assaulted a policeman. Inquiries in connection with the affair led to the discovery of places at North Fitzroy in which the proceeds of inuumerable robberies were stored. The spoil included fourteen canaries, clothing, merchants' books, and whips. Several arrests have been made. As a cure for Lurikiniam, the Inspector-General of Prisons .suggests the usa of the birch rod on youths up to fifteen. He says that summary chastisement is far preferable to association in gaol with old criminals. He approves of the probation system in the case of first offenders. The Dean of Melbourne blames the education system of the Colony for a good deal of the larrikinism, and says : "I say deliberately, knowing what I am saying, that the children of this country had much better bo reared in gross, intellectual apathy than to have their faculties quickened while their ideas of morality are allowed to be unawakened." The new Bishop of Melbourne is a firm believer in religion being taught in the State schools. The syt'tem adopted in London works well, and he cannot see why it should not do so here. He would have the Bible read, but there should also be Bible-teaching on all the great cardinal truths of Christianity on which all Protestant Christians are agreed. The teaching must, however, be undenominational. At present he sees no way of getting over the Roman Catholic difficulty. .

W.C.T.U. tea-mefiting on 3rd May. Otago Harbor Board meeting on sth May. Mrs Macpherson's cookery classes aro now going on.

Membe s of Lodge Otago Kilwinning attend funeral to-morrow.

Rev. R. Waddell lectures to-morrow evening in St. Andrew's Church.

The new St. John the Baptist Church, at Caversham, a description of which appeared in our columns about the New Year, is to be opened for service on Sunday next. Mr J. L. Gillies, chairman of the Union street school, lias received an intimation from Messrs Whitcorobe and Tombs, Christchurch, that prizes in connection with the art drawing competition have been awarded to the following scholars at Union street:—John Kilgouv, Standard VI., first prize, LI Is; John Rodgers, Standard VI., second prize, 15s. The following new patents have been applied for: —Henry Chamberlin, Auckland, for an invention for a reverberating marine-sounder; Esau Fish, Christchurch, a new straining fencing wire; James Welham, Otago, engineer, for an improved method of h.draulic dredging; Elijah Aldis, of Auckland, for a floor-cramp; James Henry Mackie, Auckland, for an improvement for the protection and support of buggy and carriage-hoods, when down; Heinrich Wessel, of Hamburg, Germany, merchant, for an improved construction of barrel; Marcus Bebre, Lombard street, London, for improvements in mechanism or apparatus for printing railway or tram-car tickets; Thomas John Edmonds, Ashburton, storekeeper, for an invention for self-raising egg flour for making cakes, puddings, etc.