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Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXI, Issue 6130, 26 July 1881, Page 2

We 1 have received £1 from Mr J. M'Lean, Pohui, for the Sutherland family. The name "William Ryder" in our list of successful pupil teachers should hate been " Robert B. Ryder." The most important property sale announced for a long time past will be held by Mr Lyndon to-day. It will afford a good test of the values at present ruliner for town and country properties. A meeting of creditors in the estate of John Madden was held at the Courthouse yesterday afternoon, Mr James Irvine in the chair. The liabilities were stated to amount to over £700, and the assets, consisting of a few book debts, were estimated at £150. Mr James Irvine was appointed trustee. The following weather forecast was received here at 4.30 p.m. yesterday from Captain Edwin : — " Watch barometer. Bad weather approaching between southwest and south and east, Glass fall) but rising after 12 hours. Sea heavy in the bay after that time, and exceptionally cold weather, with rising glass." The Maori entertainment is to be given this evening in the Theatre Royal, Mr Levison requests us to state, in answer to many inquirers, that ladies need not hesitate to-go and see the haka, as nothing indelicate will be permitted. The Maoris who are to take part in the affair are expected this morning. The list of directors of the proposed East Coast Land Company has been amended and, we venture to think, improved. Seven of the directors resident in the North Island have been chosen as a managing board for the first twelve months, and this is a further improvement, as men living in Otago could not be expected to attend directors' meetings. At the Resident Magistrate's Court yesterday morning, before Captain Preece, R.M., Alfred Long, I'rank York, and Alexander Chaplin were each fined 5s and costs for drunkenness. Charlotte Butwell, failing to appear in answer to a similar charge, her bail of £1 was forfeited. Chaplin was further fined 10s and costs for indecency in Hastingsstreet, but a third charge against him of resisting the police was withdrawn. George Richards was fined £1 and costs for resisting the police in the execution of their duty. The ease of O'Donnell v. O'Donnell, for wife-beating, was adjourned for a week. A -correspondent writes : — Your extract from the Hokitika Star in reference to Te Whiti's prediction of the eclipse is paralleled by an alleged prophecy of the late Paul of Wairarapa. I send you the following extract from a letter from Castlepoint, dated 22nd June: — "Paora Potangaroa, the Whakataai prophet, who has been living at Masterton since he became great, died at Masterton on the^ 12th, and was broaght through to Matai- " kona on Saturday, and buried yesterday. At the time of the big comet sixteen months ago, one or two of the Maoris told me that Paul had put it up, and he had two more ready to put up when ho ' thought proper. I suppose the fact of two appearing just before his death will strengthen their belief in him, They say that the moon put on mourning on Saturday, the day he died, on account of his death." The coincidence of the appearance of the two comets in apparent fulfilment of the prediction is more remarkable than that of the eclipse, and was well calculated to impress a credulous people with the idea of supernatural knowledge in possession of the seer. A local paper says that the Parihaka natives are preparing for a great feast, and that twenty-five cats went into New Plymouth on the Bth inst., and returned, taking in them fifteen tons of flour, three tons of sugar, and twelve boxes of tea, besides other things. These cats must have been uncommonly hungry. A Maine correspondent of the Boston Journal tells this incident. In a certain town in Maine some farmers went out haying and carried with them a jug of cider, which they put in the shade of a tree. While they were at work a snake swallowed a toad, which swelled him greatly. He then crawled near to the jug, which was tipped over on the ground, and espied another toad on the other side. Seeing the quickest way, the snake stuck his head through the handle of the jug and quietly swallowed the poor toad. Now, to the snake's amazement, he couldn't move either way, as he had swallowed a toad on either side of the handle. In that peculiar position he was captured by the farmers. The Secretary of State for the Colonies, in a despatch to his Excellency the Governor, alluding to the anti-Chinese representation of the late Sydney Conference, says — " I should not, of course, desire to see a large Chinese population in trodueed into Western Australia, and I shall carefully watch the results of the small immigration to which my attention has been called by the Conference ; but, under the circumstances as at present known to me, I am not prepared to interfere with the action of the West Australian Legislature." This would seem to imply that serious opposition need not be apprehended on the part of the Imperial authorities to the Chinese Bill just passed in the New Zealand Parliament. The Poverty Bay Standard, in an article on Mr Ormond's no-confidence motion, supplies us with one of the choicest specimens of coarse abuse we have seen for a long time past. It says :

" What l can be expected of Mr Onnorid P At the best he is only a third rate man, whose vanity and . cold-blooded ambition give him all .the^hankte'riiig desires of a modern liqbeSpieiJre, miiius a millioneth partoi tke ability .-'.to fqllow so noble an example. '"-"Mr Orinond lk- determined to, reign in Hell, if he cannot serve in Heaven ; and we doubt not it would ;>b"e far more congenial to his tastes — certainly, it would" be a more, deserving fate— if it were so ; therefore, the adumbration of Mr Mephistopheles Saunders, that those little hells upon earth— yclept ' Provincial Governments ' — are about to be revived, causes no wonder, while it provokes alarm." In the Lyttelton Times report of the Canterbury Poultry and Canary Association's annual show it is stated that in the gold pencilled Hamburg class " there was one exhibit from Napier, though the venture was not a successful one j" and that in the class for black or white game cocks " there were two exhibits, one from Mr Galbraith, of Napier, which obtained second prize." As a matter of fact neither of these " exhibits " were at the show. They were sent by Mr Sainsbury and Mi? Galbraith, being put on board the Penguin, which was delayed by stress of weather, and did not reach Christchurch until after the show. Had they been in the shbw it his highly probable that two first prizes wo^ld have fallen to their lotj as competent judges declare them to be the best birds of their kind in the colony. It is rather too bad to make them appear to play second fiddle when they had HO chance of competing. During the hearing of a libel case at Dunedin a great deal of time was occupied in defining the meaning of the word " eloped." Dr Stuart was called, and gave his opinion that, as used in the paragraph complained of, it meant more than "to leave," and implied that the ; person referred to had left without paying, and without intending to pay. Mr Chapman suggested that as a clergyman 1 Dr Stuart, would be familiar with the word, and he replied, much to the amusement o£ the auditors, " I lived for 10 years on the British border and ought to know the meaning of ifc. 'Elope' generally means that people get away by moonlight." Sir James Prendergast, commenting on this part of the evidence when summing up, hinted that in his opinion the doctor was wrong in his lastmentioned remark, as people whb wanted to elope naturally preferred a night when there was no moonlight. Speaking of the West Coast railway the Rangitikei Advocate says that Mr Carruthers, late Engineer-in-Chief, reported in favor of having the line to connect Auckland and Wellington made through the Murimotu Plains instead of via New Plymouth. He pointed out that the route through the plains would be 150 miles shorter than by way of New Plymouth; and that it would pass through much less difficult country ; and that it would open up a vast tract of valuable land. Mr Wallace informs us that Mr Brown, the surveyor, who is now pushing on the scheme for connecting the east and west coasts of the South Island, intends when he has got that line started to come to the North Island, and en* dtavor to get a line made connecting the projected Wellington-Manawatu Railway with the Auckland Eailway lines, by way of the Murimotu Plains. Mr Urown has been through the country, and is quite satisfied that there are no engineering difficulties of any consequence. A Naples correspondent writes: — "A strange incident is reported from Sarno, a little town at the other side of Vesuvius, in the province of Salerno. The priests of the church of San Francisco had an automatic image of Christ made for the present festival, and curiosity to see a figure witk moving head, eyes, and arms attracted to the church an unusual crowd, who pressed round the altar, laughing and talking loudly, and disturbing the religious ceremonies. One of the priests, a robust man, mounted the pulpit and implored silence with all the power of his lungs. But it was of no avail. The noise soon became louder than ever. All at once the rev. gentleman flow into a great rage, descending from the pulpit, seized the figure of Christ, and, brandishing it like a bludgeon, hit out right and left among the orowd, till the figure was smashed to atoms and all the altar ornaments up»et. Then, finding his weapon no longer useful, he took to his fists, dealing omt furious blows, one of which broke the jawbone of a fellow priest who tried to intervene. The congregation fled in terror, and, of course, soon blocked up the door, falling one over the other. Legs, arms, and heads were broken; and at the end of this exciting scene it was found that no less than sixty persons had received injuries."