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Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXI, Issue 5623, 27 February 1880, Page 2

To-day's Weekly Courier contains tho usual summary for the out-going San Francisco mail. Catherine Philip* the wi£c of a laborer eitlpl dye A Oii llie rA3 lvf&y works at Kopua, on Wednesday evening, attempted 'to .commit suicide by cutting her throat, V/'iieh her husband rctni'-Qcd ftom work in the evening lio found her lying on the bed, bleeding profusely from a wound two inches long, which had been inflicted with a carving-knife. The woman was brought into town yesderday,.aud appealed before Mr SnullV; 'J\r\ the evidence showed that slid Was of very drunken habits, and last week she was in town, "on the spree." On Saturday her husband took her home, and symptoms of delirium tremens appeared, culminating in the attempt at sel --destruction-. Mr Smith remanded her for a weekj ordering her to be sent to the asylum*. t . We learn frdrri. & Delano settler that the" men employed in making the approaches to a bridge on the Petane-road, near Mr Villcr's hotel, have thrown a lot oi timber upon the.. road, much to the danger of persons driving past tlie place. Qo.r informant was driving a buggy through there yesterday and narrowly escaped a serious accident by his horse taking fright at the timber lying on the road. The matter should be* looked to by the road overseer of the Hawke's Bay County Council, At. ihe District Court yesterday, before his Honor Judge .Kenny, the following civil cases , wcvfe called : — NcVrniaU v. Ebbelt, dldim £61 Gs. Mr Lascelles, on behalf of Mr Cotterill, applied for an adjournment of the case, which was granted. Leach v. Firth, claim £83 12s 10_d. Mr Lascelles appeared for the plaintiff and Mr Lee for the defendant. Mr Lee asked for an adjournment, as a material witness for the defence was absent: . His Hondr' granted thd applicaiidiij thd defendant to' pay costs of the day. The adjourned case of Robert Douall (a bankrupt) came on for hearing, but, on the application of Mr Sainsbury, a further adjournment was granted. At the Resident Magistrates' Court yesterday, before Mr H. Eyre Kenny, R\M., John O'Niel was fined 5s and costs for drunkenness, with the Usual alternative, We yesterday reprinted from the Auckland Free Lance the stdry of a CUridus bet. The facts, we are told, were not quite correctly stated. Two or three years ago Mr J. S. Macfarlane said that a certain prominent politician, a "native of the soil," would in twelve months "be in Mount Eden," or in other words, in gaol. Mr Swanson, a warm friend of the slandered M.H.R.', at once offered to bet that he would bo a Minister within twelve months. Tho member for Newton turned out correct, and received a cheque from Mr Macfarlane for £80. This cheque he never cashed, but keeps in his pocket-book, and shows it when he tells the tald Bachelder's panorama was again ex= hibited last night, the chief prize, a silver watch, being won by Mrs Parsons. This evening a morocco writing-desk will be given for the best conuudrum on ventriloquism, as woll as a prize for the worst. Mr Chalet, who is a proficient with the rifle, will also shoot a number of glass balls. Mr 11. Monteith, the secretary to the Hawk's Bay Racing Club, requests us to state that Mr Honare Tomoana has withdraw his opposition to the use of the Pakowhai racecourse by the club, the action he took in the matter having been induced by a misrepresentation of the facts. The Napier Artillery Band gave an open-air concert last evening, in front of the Fire Brigade station. The baud was under tho leadership of Bandmaster Garry, and went through the programme in a most creditable manner. Sergt. Ross and Corporal Mogridge, of the Napier Volunteer Artillery, were passengers to Nelson yesterday by the steamer Penguin, to represent the Battery at the annual contest of the Rifle Association. The shares in the Napier "Working Men's, Club Art Union are being rapidly duhC posed of, and the Coininitteo are sanguine that the whole of the tickets will be sold prior to the date fixed for drawing. Mr Allan M'Donald, the member for the East Coast, addressed his constituents at Gisborne on Tuesday evening in the j Masonic Hall. After giving a history of the session he declared himself to be an independent member, and. not wedded to either party in the House. He was followed by Mr llees, who was well received. A vote of confidence was passed in Mr M'Donald. We have received a copy of the Goulbourn (N.S.W.) Evening Post for the 12th inst., containing an account of the opening of the new St. Nicholas' Church, and the induction of the incumbent, the Rev. D'Arcy Irvine, M.A., late head-master of the Napier Grammar School. Mr Irvine first spoke in public to his new parishioners, a tea meeting in the evening. In another column appear portions of a letter from Mr Irvine, which he forwarded for publication. The Rev. A. Shepherd will hold Divine Service on Sunday next, at Havelock at 11 a.m. ; and at West Clive, at half -past 3 p.m. A Wellington regatta is very like " sweetness long drawn out," remarks the Wanganui Herald. Originally fixed for the 22nd ult., a proportion of the programme was got through on that day. On the 23rd another portion was successfully negotiated, and on the 24th everything promised well for the completion of the list. But alas, that rarity for Wellington, a calm day, intervened, and the yachts could not finish. So much wind had been used on the 22nd, that being holiday time, a fresh supply had not been prepared. The yachts, instead of walking the water like things of life, lay like painted ships upon a painted ocean. Nothing daunted, the Committee recovering from the astonishment caused by tho want of wind, fixed on Saturday for the concluding scene of the regatta. The yachts wore thore, the wind was there, but when half tho raco was concluded it was found that the buoys were not there, and so the race is still an open question. It is now proposed to make a final attempt on Saturday next, showing that want of perseverance cannot be charged against the Wellington stewai'ds. These gentlemen must look upon their oflice as permanent, their only responsibility being the necessity of completing the oue programme before the noxt one is advertised. The Victorian Review for Fobruary contains two well-written articles by New Zealand writers. The first, entitled " The Maori and the Moa," by C. W. Purnell, is a discursive essay, which first treats of the origin of the Maoris, and debates the question from whence thoy came, and then goes on to consider whether the Maoris really exterminated tho moas or not. Mr Purnoll certainly treads on debatable ground in tho concluding lines of the article, whioh aro as follows : — " The moa is gone to his long home ; the Maori will soon follow him ; and so far as human advancement is concerned, each will have been about as useful as the other. The philo-barbarian has extolled tlie Maori as tho perfection of the savage, and he is a noble being, as

sayages go ; hut during all the ages of his existence he never contributed one jot to human knowledge in art, science, or literature, or the principles of government ; he lias placed on record no distinguished examples of hitman virtue, whether 'dis* played in the- disdliai'jfe of public or" df private duties ; and when ho dies his fellow men will have no more reason to regret his disappearance from the earth, than the washing away of a grain of sand fi'onl tile sea-slidre; The liabilities, of tlie. bankrupt^ .who filed in Wellington during tlie list tHred years are thus giveii by the New Zealand Times : -1877, £116,835 ; 1878, £92,354 : 1879, £584,691. An extraordinary case of suicide is reported by. tke WditWdpd Stanford.. On Tuesday p v Spkttj tlie coroner &jr file" district) held ilri inquest at TJpperMauriceville, twenty miles above Masterton, touching the death of Elve Nilson, which took place on the 15th February. The chief witness, a very intelligent girl of ten, the daughter of thd deceased, de* posed that liei 4 father liad died sis tf delis previously by a lack froni a horse, when aii inquest wds lield by Eir. _ Hoskirigs, and a .verdict of accidental death, was returdech Sinee 1 that tlirid Hei 1 nddtlier had been in a very low way, and had been seen to scrape the phosphorus from lucifer matches, which . she had evidently swallowed, as ,f rom the post mortem exaainatipn of the stomach, which liad, been ade' by Di*. Hoard, traces df phosphorus were found. From the evidence of anothor witness it appeared that ever sinco tlm death of her husband she had shown sigus of insanity. The jury returned a verdict to tho effect that the deceased died from the effects of having taken phosphorus from lucifer matches while suffering froni temporary insanity. . The t Post is responsible f dr. tile f allowing — With the object of accelerating the San Francisco mail service and providing for probable trade requirements, the Pacific Mail Company have applied for and obtained permission from tho contracting Governments to send the City of Pekin or City of Tokio from San Francisco to the colonies, for tho purpose of being inspected and substituted, if necessary, as a niai.l boat liiidei 4 the contract, for, either the City of New York or City of Sydney. The vessels are the largest and most magnificent of the steamers of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company's fleet. "The threepenny-pieco " nuisance, which is so much complained of by church officers here, is, it seems, as rife at Homo. " Atlas," in tho World, says : — " An interesting correspondence has been in progress in The Times touching au alleged lack of sixpences. The gentleman who raised it was smartly answered by 'A Churchwarden,' who explained that the coins are all given in the offertory for the poor on Sundays. On Saturday ' A Vicar ' caps the churchwarden's story by declaring; that dt his church ' the offertoryplates are filled, not with sixpences, but with threepennies.' 'On payment last week in threepennies of my greengrocer's bill,' he ingeniously adds, ' she expressed her thanks thus : — " These threepennies are such a convenience to me, as I can now oblige so many of your congregation, who come to me for them on the Saturday." ' This is a very good story ; only, as a layman I should like to know how ' A Vicar ' camo to be paying his greengrocer's bill out of the offertory ?" "A Maj'o landlord" sends an English contemporary some examples of the secret intimidation which prevails in his county just now. "Everyman," he writes, "is afraid of his neighbor ; rich and poor, landlord and tenant, priest and people. My rent day came last week, and two tenants paid their rent who had been working for me during the year. A stack of hay belonging to one of them was burned down the same night ; and since then a threatening notice has been stuck up on the chapel door naming each individual, about ten in all, who has paid his rent this year. Tiie general cry is ! that the people have tho money and are ready and willing to pay, but that they dare not. Every man of any position has to go armed, and neither landlords nor farmers are happy at being out after nightfall. Within seven miles from whore I write there have been one murdor and three attempts at murder, aud I do not think that I am wrong in stating that every landlord and large farmer in the barony has received one or more threatening letters within the last few months." We (Poverty Ray Herald) learn that there has been no such gathering as that at the tangi over the late Paul Kate since the death of Karauria Te Kani, threo --years ago. Tho usual funeral feasts were provided in great abundance, and what has been unusual at these gatherings, there was no waipiro, the use of whick was strictly prohibited. Although Paul has been ailing for some time, there was a suspicion in the minds of somo of his death having been caused by witchcraft, an old man named Rapata Wakapuhia being the suspected party. Some of those present on Wednesday wished to press the question, but the better sense of others prevailed. From what wo can gather, it might have gone hard with the old man if he had shown up at the tangi that day. In tho old days no chief could be ill or die a natural death without a suspicion of witchcraft. Some old man or woman who affected the black art would be picked upon as the offender, and in most instances summarily disposed of. It is not ten years ago since an old man up the Coast was shot dead in front of his own door, because he was believed to have bewitched a man who had died. The Government of the day were quite aware of the facts of the case, but did nothing in the mat ter.