Untitled

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXI, Issue 5907, 26 February 1881, Page 2

The amount of Customs duties collected at the port of Napier during the week ending yesterday afternoon was £600 8s 6d. Madame Lotti Wilmot's lecture, " The Enigma of Life," was not given last night, it being announced that Madame was ill. To-morrow evening she lectures on " The Devil." Mr Thomas Purvis Russell, the wellknown Hawke's Bay runholder, has been appointed a Justice of the Peace for Kinrosshire, in Scotland, on the recommendation of the Lord-Lieutenant. The following weather forcast was received here yesterday from Mr George Drury, acting for Captain Edwin : — "Watch barometer. Bad weather approaching between north-east to northwest. Glass fall." We are requested to state that any jurors who attended the late criminal sittings of the District Court, and have not yet received payment, can obtain the same by applying at the Registrar's office on or before Tuesday next, after which the money will be no longer available. The Post laconically and cruelly remarks : — lf a steamer crosses the Otago bar without striking, the noteworthy fact is reported to the Harbor Board as if it were something to be jubilant about. Mr Taiaroa has, says a Southern contemporary, a longing for political warfare. Having lost his seat in the Legislative Council owing to his being disqualified by reason of his having failed to resign his assessorship before accepting the seat, he has now induced Mr Tainui, who was elected for the Southern Maori district in his place, to resign, that he may regain his old place in the House of Eepresentatives. Mr Taiaroa has taken care to resign the assessorship now in order to prevent accidents in the future. Alluding to the arrival of the steamer Protos, in London, the European Mail says : — " The general belief here is that the meat trade between .Australia and ; England is likely to become one of great : magnitude, and, besides being highly lucrative to the colonists, will prove of great benefit to the public at Home, condemned to pay the prices now charged for butchers' meat. We should be glad, therefore, to find the producers in the colonies taking more interest in the matter." Among the funny devices for the extermination of rabbits (says the Ballarat Star) is one by Mr Thornell, who has submitted a plan to Government for approval. It is described to be the coating of some of the animals with a "stinking" specific, and then sending them into the wild rabbits' burrows. The latter will then be driven out, netted, killed, and their skins sent to market. The Minister has requested the scheme to be submitted in writing. What guarantee does the inventor give that the rabbits are not like a good many of the human species, regardless of stinks, however horrible P Bishop Moran, in his Lenten pastoral this year, is again very strong upon the " Godlessness " of the present national system of education and the injustice done to the Catholics by the State, and the necessity for establishing Catholic schools. " Nothing," he says, " "but Catholic education can save the rising generation from the baneful influence of infidel systems of education, and from becoming the victims of the secret societies, whose hatred of the Christian religion is the characteristic and opprobrium of this age." The sixteen prisoners tried with Parnell for sedition were a very miscellaneous party, some say chosen especially on that account to humiliate Mr Parnell and make the affair ridiculous. Mr M. O' Sullivan was described in the information as " Malchy," and refused to accept service on this ground. A messenger from the castle arrived in the course of the afternoon with the Lord Lieutenant's compliments, and would he say what his name really was ? Egan is is a miller ; Harris, a builder ; Hally, a farmer, and not a member of the Land League at all. All but three of them are under 35, Mr Parnell being only 34. That " fortune smiles on some men " is evidenced by the action of the vendors of a farm of 150 acres, at £18 per acre, situated south of Dunedin, which wis recently sold by public auction. Shortly after the sale, says the Morning Herald, they visited the purchaser and offered him an advance to recover possession, gradually rising to £400 on his bargain. He declined to part with it under a premium of £1500, and eventually they gave him a present of 50 acres in Mosgiel, together with cash to make up the amount. This lucky individual considers himself a gainer on this day's bargain by several thousand pounds. Mr Milner Stephen, " the healing medium," has challenged the medical profession of Melbourne to prove that he is a humbug. It seems that the retiring president of the Medical Society, Mr Gray, referred to him in his address as a charlatan, and spoke of his red flannel and magnetised water in very much the same terms as a policeman would speak of the tools of a thimblerigger or a magsman. To this Mr Milner Stephen replies by offering to submit to the examination of Mr Gray and nine of his fellowmedicos, three persons whom he will select, and then to cure them in their presence. A warm valedictory leader appeared in the Waikato Mail the day before Mr Ivess handed it over to Mr C. O. Montrose, the new proprietor. Thus : — " The rings of all kinds, the pawnbroking institution of a certain kind, do not want a paper in Cambridge or elsewhere, unless they have the power of pulling the wires, and the writers are puppets that will dance to any tune they may think fit to play." Again the proprietor says :— "In taking leave of the public of the Cambridge district, he does so with great pleasure, for the treatment he has received at the hands of those who chiefly control public affairs here lias been of the most scurvy kind." '

A Firo Brigades' Bill, read a first time in the New South Wales Parliament, provides for the maintenance of efficient fire brigades by the insurance companies, payment of salaries, and contributions upon a scale according to the gross amount held at risk. Returns aro to be made annually, showing amount held at risk by any company by the preceding end of [December, less the siims re-insutfed With other offices, .prdperiy attested j in default the company is rendered liable to a fine of £5 for every day during which the default continues. The Governor is vested with power to constitute ,a. board j to which shall .be paid Parliamentary grants in aid of the fire brigade establishment, and this board may make regulations, having the force of ,law, for the purpose of giving effect to the Act. The Hon. Mr Dick, speaking at a picnic given by the Mayor of Sydney to the Conference delegates, said he was quite sure that their meetings had drawn them closer to each other every time they met, and before long there would be a basis of federation that would extend and increase every year. He quite thought that the I Customs duties was one point on which there wi*s a necessity for union to some extent ; But ke did not think we must be absolutely united on everything in the tariff before we could be united at all. (Hear, hear.) He should like to see lis united in reference to the .three ot four articles of intercolonial consumption, and exchange those productions with one another* and bye-and-bye we should find out what other productions there were upon winch we could unite for the purpose of introducing them into the different colonies free of charge. (Cheers.) The woman who, under the name of De Lacy Evans, some time ago gained a short-lived notoriety throughout the coloniesj and who exhibited herself in Melbourne as " the man-woman," recently attended at the Police Court in that city and applied for relief. The applicant, who presented the appearance of a hearty, well-conditioned woman of middle age, stated that she had recently arrived from a neighboring colony, where she had been the victim of a speculating showman, who had at length left her to her own resources. Evans, or by whatever soubriquet she is known, added that, being heartily sick of the show-life she had recently led, she had managed to obtain a passage back to Melbourne. She stated that she was suffering from a physical infirmity which incapacitated her from severe labor, and her desire was that she might be admitted to the Benevolent Asylum. Mr Panton gave the woman a letter of introduction to a member of the Committee of Management of the Benevolent Asylum. A Maori madman is reported to be at large in Auckland. Mr John Robinson writes as follows to the Star : — I was coming from Kaitaia on horseback to Ahipara between nine and then o'clock in the evening, and when about halfway a man jumped up behind a hedge on one side of the road and crossed over to the middle of the road and crouched down aud knelt on one knee and levelled a gun at me. The horse would not pass him. He reared and plunged terribly, and flew to one side of the road and then the other. The man jumped up and presented the gun right in front of me. The moon just peeped from under a dark cloud, and I could see very plain the man's hand on the trigger. I shouted loud to him, and said, " How dare you stop me on the highway. Let me pass, else I will shoot you with this pistol which I have got." I said it to him four' times. He. never spoke, and would not move then, but kept the gun pointed at me. I might state here that I had not a pistol with, me, but thought it would frighten him if I said I had one. After I had broke my stick all to pieces over the horse, and I found he would not pass the man, I turned back and galloped as hard as I could to the first farmhouse- -a Mr Robertson's, who very kindly sheltered me, for which I was very grateful. Since the above occurred, I have heard that . it was a madman, who is a Maori.