Untitled

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XX, Issue 3896, 12 April 1877, Page 2

One police case was heard before Mr Beetham, R.M. , at Waipawa, yesterday. It was a charge of assault with intent, brought by a woman named Burslem and her husband against a man named Peder Pedersen, one of the Makaretu settlers. Mrs Burslem'a evidence was to the effect that about 11 o'clock last Saturday morning, Pedersen came to her whare, and asked her, first, if she had seen any horses about there ? Having been answered in the negative, he asked for a drink of water, and then, being satisfied that she was alone, he made an indecent suggestion. His next act was to seize her by the neck and tlirow her down. After a struggle, as she alleged, she escaped from him. When she was some little distance off, he struck a match and set fire to the whare. Her husband gave evidence to the effect that he had been absent in Waipukurau during the greater portion of Saturday ; on returning home, he met his wife about a milo away from their house, with her face covered with blood, and her clothes torn. She then told him what she had now told the Court, describing accurately the appearance of Pedersen. On behalf of Pedersen, evidence was adduced to show that he could not have been at Burslem's whare at the hour mentioned, he having been seen at a place a considerable distance away very shortly after. It further appeared in evidence that the prosecutrix had recently — about eighteen months ago — passed six months in the Auckland gaol, having been convicted of stealing a watch when in Poverty Bay. Her husband had been prosecuted on tlie same occasion for being in possession of the watch, but had been acquitted. The prisoner, it appears, had always previously borne a good cha-

iSicter. He was committed to take his? trial before the Supreme Court in. Jttiie next, but was admitted to bail— •liiiAse'li ': injßiOOandtwosnretieAiA^^a'chv : Besides the police <£a&e $Xsfte described, the business fee£di*b &ie Resident Magistrate At WMpawa yesterday consisted 6f ; , atitteftta against the report of the In^beeHJor " (Mr Donald Ross) by seta's on the MakarctU Deferred Payrt&nts Block, and of some debt eases. In the former the appellant Were Messrs Rathbone, Olley, Stoliberg, Erikson, and Ingolbrisen. They adduced evidence, mainly, intended to show that the delay in the survey oF their blocks rendered it impossible to get their : improvements so far advanced as to meet the '< requirements of the Act, stringently interpreted^ also, in some cases, to show that then" improvements were in ft belter condition than Mr Ross had reported them to be. In all the. cases mentioned, except Mr Olley's\ Judgment will be given in Napier, 'vim the 16th inst. Mr Ollqy'a cftso is adjourned to the Bth May, at Wr.ipawa, to hear further evidence. The principal debt case Avas Rathbono v. Pardoo for £C>o Vjs 9d for goods sold and delivered. A set-oft' of £12 10s was pleaded and admitted, and judgment was gif en for the balance £48 7s 9d, with costs*. T~he others were M'Greevy v. Neville, £7 ; Pritchard v. Olley, £3 Us 3d ) Corskie and Robb v. Austin for £49 ; Spiller v. Owen, for £$ 2s sd ; and Ooi-skit; and Robb v. Bunting for £11 173. In all of them judgment was given for the plaintiffs : for the full amounts claimed with costs. : : Mr Carrington, whose illness was res cently mentioned in the Herald. Wo hear is about to take his departure iov his home \ in Taranaki by i!ha next trip of the Wanaka-. -He was tended at Waipukurau s with All possible solicitude by Mr Ramsay L Davidson. Still, in s\ich unfoi'tunate ■ circumstances as his there is unquestion- \ ■ ably no place like home. We published on Tuesday VlVe amounts contributed to the. funds of the Napier Fire Brigade by fcHltt insurance offices. r We have since received a statement from > the honorary secretary of the Napier Fire \ Insurance Association, confirming, in j every particular, the account we gave of 3 the amounts contributed by the different F offices, these amounts being in proportion r to the risks taken by each office. ; The Fire Brigade will hold a steam t practice at 7.30 sharp this evening, after b which the usual monthly meeting will , be held, and some additional officers elected. v Mr Tye*s sale of Maori horses yesterday was the centre of attraction at Waipukurau, in spite of the counter allurements of the County Council. The horses I offered were a lot of unbroken colts and - fillies, mostly from the Ruataniwha - Plains. About 100 altogether were sold. They fetched prices varying from £1 to £5 ,' 15s. c An Auckland paper has hit upon an exg pediehl by which it says County Councils may have all the powers of borrowing without the attendant pains. Empower c them, says he, to issue county scrip, with c which they could pay all their contractors n and all their accounts, such scrip being a c legal tender for the payment of county g rates. It has been suggested that the subscribers to our contemporary should initiate the system forthwith, and demone strate its happiness by paying their quarr terly bills in the delightful currency, just o to see how it answers, as a preparatory >- step towards more general adoption.— o- N.Z. Times. n The Melbourne correspondent of the c Ota go Tim es says : — ' c ln theatrical matters ;0 we have at last Mr Sothern in the part ' which Mr Sothern has made one of world wide reputation, Lord Dundreary, II in "Our American Cousin." The mis;e fortune is that our Mr Sothern is not the right Mr Sothem — not the one who made . s the part. Our Mr Sothern is the son of c that gentleman, and if we could have c chosen one, should have much preferred to have had the other one. To see the x * part of Lord Dundreary indifferently d played is no new experience in Mele bourne, but it is hard to have it poorly d played by anyone bearing the name of , s Sothern." >. The last population returns, it appears, fc are computed by the Registrar-General L^ on a new method. In a late number of the J\~etc Zealand Gazette he says : — ' " The estimates of the population of the 11 boroughs given here are not, as before, c merely an addition of the excess of births s over deaths to the census of March, 1874, s as it has become evident that such estiy- mates are not sufficiently accurate. The c number or persons to a house has been assumed to be the same as when the J census was taken, and the population cale culated on the number of inhabited c houses in each borough at the present - time, as shown in returns supplied by the 3 municipal authorities." The Otago j Times remarks : — '•' Anyone who may a take the trouble to examine the con- " elusions to which the Registrar-General l> has arrived by this method of procedure, 3 will be quite satisfied that, as a way of finding out the real state of the population, the method is simply idiotic. Dunedin and Wellington are shown by this novel method to have increased — the former over 3000 souls, the latter over 4000 souls in one month. The Thames and Auckland both show a decrease — the former of more than 4000, the lattei- of over 1000 — all, be it remembered, within a month. It does not need pointing out that these are impossible amounts, and the only result we arrive at is that such idiotic returns are not worth the paper they are made out on." A pleasant little story (says " Atlas") comes to me from Sweden. The church of Wexio, the principal town, in the province where Christine Nilsson was born, lias long been disfigured by some very insufficient and shabby lamps, having all the failings, but none of the interest, of antiquity. When the great songstress was there last autumn, she asked whether the town could not afford some new ones ; but was told that its finances were by no means equal to the necessary expenditure. At Christmas three magnificent large gilded chandeliers arrived anonymously at the church. Where they came from nobody knows ; but some people think they can guess. A correspondent of the Bay of Plenty Times, writing about the Wellington hotels, says: — "The houses with the brightest exteriors and cleanest windows are undoubtedly the hotels. When in Nelson, I was told they could boast of forty-two hotels. How many there are here I don't know, but I should think about every sixth house has a license. Alas, they have all vanished — I mean the pretty barmaids of four years since. Tlie first thing that strikes the visitor of today is the singular similarity of height and general outline amongst the young ladies of the present. They are all round-faced, small-nosed, short-fingered, dumpy, and bright-eyed. Taking little girls, but perhaps rather over-talkative. I have not been to any town in the colony where I 2ioticed such a number of tall, well-built men. I wonder lias ' nature, ' as one of your worthy hosts would say, fated them to become the husbands of the young ladies .above referred to." The Aii(/i(sta Herald retails the following incident, showing the effects of tobacco upon a rat : — " Yesterday one of the young ladies in a family living on Greenestreet noticed a large rat eating a couple of cigar stumps, which had been thrown into a spittoon in the hall of her house. She was afraid to disturb him, and let him eat until he had finished them. Shortly afterward she mentioned the circumstance to her younger brother, and he went to the spittoon, and finding the rat inside shook him out. The animal attempted to run, but was so drunk from the tobacco that he couldn't navigate. Ho would stagger a few steps and then fall down. In his drunken condition there was no difficulty in putting an end to him.' 5

From the '!Pcst "we learn that a warrant Msire'erj issued for the apprehension of a; Vjs!§on named Moffat, , who. has bo.eu '■ 'manufacturing pbiyder wholesale 'fov 'the , natives, north ; 6f district. A body of frWdiy natives have been sent to apprehend Moffat. An English paper shows that French lawyers are doomed to wear clean-shaven lips. It says: "Although the Paris students may fairly claim to be more free j and disorderly than th6se 6f London or ' Berlin, it is quite clear that i&e Iftii-is bar is under as strict a tiisc'ijjlihe as that of airy city "in [tlie w orf d. An edict has gone forth to the effect that moustaches are 'At 'once and irrevocably to disappear from the upper lips of all advocates in the Palais de Justice. Of late years the dread authorities of the Faculte de Droit had connived at the wearing of these unprofessional ornaments, and grave professors had even carried into the leeti\reroom the forbidden embeiHshiuenlS. But i the Minister of <l\\Sti<!e lifts interfered to correct the scandal, and the learned coiuisel will, no longer be permitted to dispense with their razors. The incident has given occasion not only to a great deal of grumbling on the part of those gentlemen, but to some considerable amount of discussion in the public Press as to the history of moustaches. The New Zealand Times records it as a fact which may not be generally known that the horse Fishhook, winner of the Dnn'edin Cup, ft a Wellington bred horse, having been bred by Mr Walker, of the Wanganui district. The horse was sold by Mr Walker to Mr O'Brien for £50. In Wellington, the names of persons ' desiring to be put on .the electoral roll, were received till ]2 o'clock at night, on the 31 st ultimo, and after the usual office hours applications were received by the Registration Officer at his private house. — Wanganui Chronicle. In his discussion of public questions Governor Hayes is noted for his persuasiveness and candour. Probably he never made a political speech in his life that did not win votes to his party. In some of the up-country districts physicians are few and far between, like the traditional friendly call from an angel. In one of the small mining camps far away in Black Hills there lay a big Oornishmaii stricken with fever. His wife, being unskilled in remedies for the ailment, hunted high and low for a doctor, failing, however, after a long and patien search, to discover anything better than a veterinary surgeon. "What would you do, doctor," she cried, "if your brother was delirious with f ever V "Madam," replied he "I know 110 more than you. I can only cure horses and other animals." " Well, doctor," she said, "my husband's as strong as a horse. What would you do for a horse ? And for heaven's sake be quick in telling me !" " Madam," replied the vet., "I should open his mouth, pull his tongue out on one side to prevent his biting me, and give him this fever powder, paper, string, and all." Blinded with tears of gratitude, the poor woman paid for the fever powder, and hurriedly dejiarted. History says that the man got well, but he has a hole in his tongue, and his poor wife goes round with only three fingers on one hand. Three gentlemen left Wellington on a shooting excursion to Otaki last Thursday morning, and bagged between them in two days over one hundred and fifty duck. Tins we think for gentlemen not experts in the handling of the fowling-piece something extraordinary, and it speaks well for Otaki as a district for the enjoyment of sport. — Times. What will ladies not do nowadays, and will any of the sports and pastimes of men long remain unopen to them I The last new and ladylike game introduced is "tilting in the ring," which was brought out at an assault of arms last month at Gibraltar. One sort of "tilting at the ring," cynics may say, has prevailed among Eve's daughters ever since rings were tirst used for matrimonial purposes : but the new game is played on horseback, foils being used instead of the lance. " At "Gib" there were three lady-knights — a Miss Major (good name for a garrison) winning the prize — who contended, and I am happy to hear that there were no bones broken. I have not heard whether there was a " King of Beauty" to give the prizes to the fair competitors. We shall hear of ladies playing polo at Huiiingham next, I suppose. — World. We (Oamaru Times) learn, through a well-informed channel, that Parliament will be called together for the despatch of business on or about July 6. The Auckland Star says that no less than twelve thousand pounds sterling was spent in Auckland by tlie crew and officers of the German war-ship Hertha, during their recent stay. It is rumored that a new morning paper is shortly to make its appearance in Wellington. The appearance on the scene of a Northern newspaper proprietor gives confirmation to the rumor. It is also said that the new paper is to be started in the Grey interest. The Wairarapa News says : — The demand for fat cattle for the Southern market is at present very great ; the supply being far short of the demand. One stockowner alone in this district, Mr. T. H. Murray, of Te Ore Ore, received an order from one of the firms in Drnedin for as many fat cattle as lie can supply between this and the end of June, at a sum of thirty shillings per hundredweight delivered free on the wharf at Wellington. The highest figure offered by the local consumer varies from 22s 6d to 255. per hundredweight. The Duke of Connaught, commanding the Ist Battalion Rifle Brigade, gave a , Christmas box to each man of his battalion of 5s ; privcites witli three goodconduct stripes received 2s 6d extra, while . sergeants had £1 each. * The latest proposal for utilising the Alexandra Palace is to turn it into a huge small-pox hospital. The extraordinary fecundity of the orange-tree is quoted by the G-ardenerti' Chronicle, which mentions that a single tree at St. Michaels has yielded 20,000 oranges fit for exportation. The Vincent County Council has struck a rate of 8d in the pound on all ratable property. At the same meeting tenders were accepted for Avorks amounting to £1380. When the question of a clog tax came up for discussion, two of the councillors endeavored to show that it would be a great hardship to tax dogs kept for killing rabbits. The Chairman said the Council had no power to forego the tax and suggested that the laAV be carried out, and that station oAvners memorialise the Council to refund the amount of tax paid on all dogs kept for rabbit killing. Road Boards (says a contemporary) are the only real system of local government, and they Avill flourish like a green bay tree long after County Councils are dead and buried. Mr M. R. Miller, instructed by W. Lingard, Esq., of Wanganui, Avill hold an important sale of race horses and stud stock at the Farndon sale yards to-day at half-past 12 o'clock. Particulars of the sale Avill be found in our advertising columns. Messrs Routledge, Kennedy and Co. Avill sell to-day, at 2 p.m., the lease of a shop in Hastings-street, lately occupied by Mr Digby ; also, fruit. Messrs Margolioutli and Banner will sell to-day, at 12 noon, a quantity of household furniture, grass seed, &c. Church of England service Avill be held (D.V.) on Sunday next, the 15th instant, at St. Luke's Church, Havolock, at 11 a.m. ; at Hastings at half-past 3, and at St. Mark's, Olive, at 7 p.m. The offertories Avill be for the benefit of the Napier Hospital building fund. "My Avife," said a critic, "is the most even-tempered person in the world — she's always mad."