Untitled

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XX, Issue 3902, 30 April 1877, Page 2

We arc informed that we were in error in stating that £500 out of the 4-1000 allotted to hospitals in Hawke's Bay had ever been placed on the provincial estimates by the Superintendent ; £1000 was placed on the estimates for hospitals in Hawko's Bay, Waipukurau applied for some of it, and the Superintendent answered the application favorably, saying that the Waipukurau institution would get assistance out of the fund, though he could not say how much as yet. Subsequently WaipaAva also applied, and in the end the Superintendent decided to give it to the Napier institution. Mr Tift'en, we hear, has written to the Mayor informing him of his intention to apply for an injunction to prevent the reservoir on the hill, above his house, from being made nse of. The communication will be laid before the Municipal Council, to-day. Mr TiiVen suggests that Mr Knorpp's presence in the district should be availed of to obtain from him an opinion on the safety of the reservoir. A meeting of the Papakura ratepayers was held on Saturday at Mr Yaughau's Hotel, Meanee. They confined themselves, however, to passing accounts, and deferred the election of wardens till the question of the legality of the Olive election should be decided. The Puketapu ratepayers held a meeting the same day. We have not yet ascertained, however, what course they adopted. In reference to the Clive election, we understand that the writs of quo wtti'rantu ■will be served not only on the new members nf the board, Messrs Hollis and Stoddart, but on the old ones (Messrs button, Bennett and Caulton, also) ; it being held that the fact (if their being n.-clcck-i/ implied the resignation of their former seats. A special meeting of the Municipal Council was held at 11 o'clock last Saturday in the Town Clerk's oflicc. Present : His Worship (in the chair), and Councillors Vautier, Tuxford, Swan, and Lyndon. The minutes of the previous meeting having been read and confirmed, his Worship laid the burgess roll on the table and stated that as there were no claims or objections thereto, it was only necessary to approve of the same and to sign it. That would have to be done by himself and two Councillors, the latter being appointed by the Council. On the motion of Cr. Swan, seconded by Cr. Tuxford, Crs. Lyndon and Vautier were appointed to sign the roll with the Mayor, which having been done, the Council adjourned. On Saturday evening a committee of the Napier Artillery Volunteers met the Napier Brass Band at Sergt. -Major Gray's, according to advertisement. After some discussion, the band was sworn in. The uniform is to be the same as the Artillery with the exception of the braiding being white, with a lyre above the Austrian knot on the arm, red band on the shako, with a red plume in front. We believe this is a step in the right direction, both for the company and the band, as it will enable the latter to procure better instruments, and add to the strength of the former. The gentlemen who canvassed the town on Saturday for prizes, to lie shot for on the 24th proximo (the Queen's Birthday) by the Napier Artillery Volunteers were most successful. Only one, out of the twenty-eight tradespeople asked, refused to contribute. The collection obtained as the result of the canvass is both varied and amusing, as will be seen from the following enumerations : — There is a case of wine, a round of beef (or a whole sheep if necessary), a silver cup, a meerschaum pipe, a box of handkerchiefs, a box of sundries, a box of :v.?oni, 2 pairs children's bouts, a " tin plate and spoon," eve. We believe it was impressed on those asked that money was not required. We arc sorry to hear that the drainalic performance of the battery is unavoidably postponed until the end of May, the hall being engaged till the 24th. We hear that the church which is being built at Ponrerere will, when completed with allits appurtenances, be quite agem of ecclesiastical art. It is to be regretted that its position is not more accessible.

The members of the Victoria and Bush Mills Special Settlements Associations are still kept hanging on waiting for the issue of the amended rules. The rules, though sent to Wellington some six weeks ago, have not come back. We regret to hear that some of the best men in the associations are talking of throwing up their shares and going to some other province to look for some land. All, apparently, that the Wellington officials had to do was to say that they agreed to the Waste Lands Boards' amendments, which were, we believe, very unimportant, or if they did not, to say in what respects they found them objectionable. They have done neither as yet, but have, to all appearance, put tho rules in some of their pigeon-holes and thought no more about them. Messrs Margoliouth and Banner will sell at 2 p.m. to-day, at their rooms, Tennysonstreet, several valuable properties, particulars of wliich will be found in our advertising columns. Messrs Routledge, Kennedy and Co. will sell at their stores, Tennyson-street, to-day, at noon, forty pairs of Australian ininalis. The Berlin correspondent of the Times that General S. Cerdan, of the United States, has invented an instrument which will greatly improve and cheapen the art of killing. He calls his invention a " range-finder." It consists of a telescope and other instruments, all of which can be carried on a dog-cart, and which enable the engineers to measure with perfect accuracy up to 2000 metres, or say 1500 yards. The time needed to ascertain distance is only two minutes, and the General believes that his invention will double the accuracy of artillery tire, and quadruple that of infantry. The Berlin War Office is already trying the instrument, and the British Government is also asking for particulars. It is curious how much science just now does for the attack, and how little for defence. The only recent idea of the latter kind is the spade-bayonet, which enables irregulars to throw up earth-works almost as rapidly as a corps of navvies, a groat advantage to a population trying to defend itself. What is now wanted is a weapon by which a population like that of Bosnia could render tho advance of all but the very best troops impossible. The Wanyanui Herald of the 18th says : — •' The steamer Wallace took away today two of our young settlers who have embarked on an enterprise worthy of the true colonial spirit. D'Urville's Island, on the other side of the Straits, has been leased by Messrs D. M'Lellau and W. Symes. Joined in the venture arc the Messrs Cowling, who have relations in this district. The island is owned by the natives, who had leased a portion of it to a Nelson man, but the Wanganui party have purchased his right, and secured from the owners a lease of the remainder, thus obtaining possession of the whole country. From seven to eight thousand sheep are at present on the island, but it is capable by good management to cany many more. The steamer had on board a quantity of other stock for conveyance there. We heartily wish the company the best possible success." The Sjicctator gives a highly favorable account of President Haj'es' newly-ap-pointed Cabinet: — "Mr Evarts, the Secretary of State, is one of the ablest and most trusted lawyers and politicians in the Union, — a man whose views will be embodied in despatches worthy, at all events of the digiu'ty of the Republic. Mr Sherman (brother of General Sherman), named as Secretary of Finance, is thoroughly competent, and though, like most other prominent men of the Union, he has been occasionally bespattered with mud, and though his record is not quite clear as to the propriety of separately taxing bondholders, he must agree with the President as to the necessity of financial honesty. He has been selected for that end. Karl Schurz, the reported Secretary of the Interior, has from the days when he took prizes at Bonn among men now high in Prussian service, perpetually risen in the confidence of the German citizens of the Union, and would absolutely terminate peculation in some of the worst managed divisions of the Union business, notably the Indian Office, wliich is administratively one of the many sub-oiiices under the Department of the Interior. Mr Key's nomination is a proof that the President is not a party fanatic, and is a compliment not only to the South but to the hard-money Democrats who may yet ally themselves with Con-servative-Republicans. But then all these men have to be confirmed as well as appointed ; and the Senate dislikes two of them (Messrs Schurz and Keys) very much, and is probably not very eager to accept the third (Mr Evarts)." A Melbourne spiritualistic journal, the Harbinger of .Lit/lit, thus writes on the Davenports :— " According to last accounts, the Davenport Brothers were in New Zealand exhibiting their phenomena. They do not say they are Spiritualists (which for the cause of Spiritualism is well) ; neither do they affirm that the phenomena witnessed in their cabinets are produced by spirits. And yet, for some reason or other, they are largely patronised by Spiritualists. When in our city they charged £20 for a private seance. And what, with other things, was to their discredit, they had as a travelling companion Mr Keller, a noted conjuror and illusionist. This one of the Davenports admitted to one of the most infiucnitial Spiritualists of Melbourne. And this Mr Keller (now in our colony) asserts in public that he had travelled with the "Davenports more or less for eight years." Hitherto the Chancellor of the Exchequer hn.s been the singularly fortunate and nearly exceptional recipient of conscience money. Lately, however, a Fire Company, the Scullisli, has tasted the .sweets of restitution, ;i sum of £10 having been sent to the oih'ce " on account of money wrongfully received." We hope the conscience-stricken individual will keep of the same frame of mind until the words ■'" on account"' become "balance," and we recommend his example to the very numerous body who have secured similarly ill-gotten cash without suffering inconvenience, so far, from the inward monitor. If all claimants were honest, fire underwriting would be done at lower rates. — Post Jlaf/azi/tc and Insurance j\hinitor. The first number of a new high class magazine, " The Nineteenth Century/ was issued on the Ist March. It contains papers by several of the most eminent writers in Great Britain. Among others, Mr Gladstone, Cardinal Manning, Sir J. Lubbock, Mi- Matthew Arnold, and the Rev. Baldwin Brown, the ablest and most liberal of the dissenters. It opens with a prefatory sonnet by the Laureate. The eonnniit.ee on the Arctic Expedition has, says the Sanitary 'Rvmrd, signed its report on the outbreak of scurvy, and this report condemns the omission of the ration of limejnice, and shows that Sir George Nares, though expressly directed by the memorandum of the DirectorGeneral of the Medical Department of the Navy to use the limejuice in the sledging expeditions, and though his attention was expressly called to this memorandum by his medical officer at the time he decided to li'ave out. the liniojuici; from the ear^-o of the sledge.'*, omitted it on his own responsibility. And the coimnittoebelieve tho outbreak of s-.-urvy to have lieen entirely due to this drill u;rale neglect ]>y Sir (5. Nares of the din-e.l.ions in the memorandum. That amounts to a grave censure- on at least this one act of Sir Georgo Nares. Lt is curious to hear what efforts the New Englanders make to acclimatise the English sparrow, and how very shy that little bird is of its Yankee hosts. In Massachusetts they constantly furnish the sparrows Avith ready-made nests and boxes, placed in the trees for their convenience, and yet they are very reluctant guests.

Professor Barff, Professor of Chemistry at the Royal Academy, has made a great practical discovery. He has disveovered how to treat iron vessels so as to render them safe from the tendency to rust, so that boilers, if the iron of which they are made had been thus treated, would be safe against the corrosion caused by the water ; and cooking vessels would no longer need either to be made of copper or furnished with a tin lining ; while spades, and rails, and iron keels and plates, and the locomotives on our lines, and all the countless iron instruments of our modern life, would be safe against the most destructive of all the agencies which waste them away. The processs is to coat the iron with the magnetic or black oxide of iron, which is not only incapable of rust, but harder than the iron itself, and wliich adheres to the iron with a tenacity greater than that with which the various' strata of the iron adhere together. Professor Barff subjects the iron to superheated steam at a temperature of from 500degs. to 1200degs. Fahrenheit, and if the exposure is continued for from five to seven hours, this coating will be fairly formed, and if the latter temperature be secured, it will adhere so closely that not even a file will scrape it off. Professor Barff left iron vessels thus treated out on the lawn for six weeks during the late rainy weather, and when brought in they were as bright as before their exposure. The coating does not affect the surface, except by turning it black. If the surface were rough before, it will be rough still, and if polished before, it will be polished still. Nor in case the magnetic oxide is detached in parts, will the rust which then begins on the exposed iron, spread underneath the magnetic oxide. On the contrary, the coat clings so close, that though the rust will eat into the iron at any exposed part, it will not extend laterally to the iron still coated by the magnetic oxide. On Tuesday, March 4, Lord Beaconsfield was presented by a deputation from the factory operatives of England, Scotland, and Ireland, with a framed letter of congratulation on his elevation to the Peerage, containing the warm thanks of the operatives for the steady support he had given for almost forty years to the movement for protecting the wives and children of the factory operatives against the evils of over-toil, and other preventible dangers of the manufacturing system. Lord Shaftesbury headed the deputation, and read the congratulatory address ; and Lord Bcaconsfield reiterated his wellknown views on the duty of ameliorating in every possible way the social condition of the working classes. — Spectator. The " Own Correspondent" of the World, writing from Constantinople, takes a very ' gloomy view of the ' ' Sick Man's' 1 chances in his war against the great northern Power, and believes that in six weeks' time the Russians will be in Adrianoplc. Other English journals take the same view ; but these are mainly the opinions of civilians. British and foreign officers who have not only studied Turkish history, but are acquainted with the Turkish soldiers and their capabilities, smile at such gratuitous assertions, and predict a very different result. The magistrates of Tadcaster have sentenced a man named Leatham, who is said to be in a good position in life, to two months' imprisonment for twice audibly cursing her Majesty the Queen during public worship held in a school-room, while the prayers for the Queen and Royal family were being said. He pleaded that he had been a liberal supporter of the schools, and had apologised to the clergyman, and that his bad language came out of him without thought, owing apparently to some irritation on the subject.