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Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 19, Issue 1245, 9 February 1872, Page 2

In the Resident Magistrate's Court to-day the following cases were heard : M'Lean v. Richardson.—Claim of £8 13s for goods supplied. Several items in the bill were disputed by defendant. —Judgment for amount claimed, and 19s costs. Higgins v. Parker. —Claim of ,£2 for boot*. Judgment by default for amount claimed and 9s costs. Miss Robina M'Kain has received the appointment of schoolmistress to the Petane School; and Mr Thomas Gilpin that of schoolmaster to the Havelock School. Messrs. M. Boylan, J. W. Go wing, and F. Tuxford, of Napier, and Mr. F. EL Drower, of Waipukurau, are gazetted as vendors of poisons for the Province of Hawkes Bay.

The Saucy Lass?, which arrived from Mercurv Bay last night, was the bearer of 16,000 feet timber and 68,000 shingles. Intelligence of the arri val of the mail steamer Nevada at Auckland, on Tuesday last, having been received, that si earner may be hourly expected at this por«;. A .large fire raged at 81-ieskin (Otago) on Wednesday, Jan. 24. Mr Hitchcock's premises had been destroyed, and his wife and daughter were carried through the flames in a most exhausted state. In Christchurch the drought has lasted over nine weeks, and great damage has been done to the crops by grass fires. The Little River bush has been on tire for several days. On Tuesday, Jan. 23. the thermometer stood at 110 in the shade ! By the late fire at Carterton, says the correspondent of the Wellington Independent, several settlers have lost their all, and rind themselves houseless and homeless, from no fault of their own, at a time of life when they are ill-fitted to begin the world again, and make new homes for themselves without receiving assistance from others. Possibly £2,000 would cover the loss sustained; but neither that nor any other sum would adequately represent, the extent of the suffering that has been inflicted on a number of poor and deserving settlers who have lost the sav ings of years. The Otago Daily Times says : —Mr Oeighton has accepted the editorship of the New Zealand Herald. It is said that offers were made to Mr Oeighton to resume his editorial chair on the Southern Cross, but that he could not, consistently with his political position, act upon a paper obviously bound to support a Government so much of whose policy he regarded as dangerous to the country. Mr Creighton's reputation and experience both as a writer and a politician, will do much to freshen up the Herald, which we have always understood to have a circulation more among the country people and old settlers than among business men in Auckland.

On the subject of drunkenness the Canterbury Press writes :—There is no reason for doubting that it is the crying evil of the age in which we live, and nowhere are iis baneful effects so painfully manifested as in the colonies. There is no need to recapitulate the lon -f dismal train of eonsequences which are the inc itable results of intern perate habits, they are to be found in the annals of the police court—the madhouse —the. hulks—-and the too frequent termination is the scaffold. He who could devise an adequate remedy for the evil would deserve the blessings of the whole human race, and amidst the many scheme? that have been devised of philanthropists of every shade of opinion, we are disposed to regard a Permissive Bill, in a moditied form, as not the least valuable. But while scientific savans, apostles of total abstinence, and advocates of both persuasive and repressive measures, are each and all working with the same object in view, we think, as we have before pointed out, that the Government might lend valuable aid in at lea,-t modifying the evil.

The Evening Post, February 1, says : —The maxim of one law for the European and another for the Maori is, at least as regards those civilised natives resident in our eities, one which is reprobated by all men, but which has been invariably acted on by the philoMaori legislators with which the Colony has from time to time been cursed. After what has recently happened in Wanganui, however, the rule must be radically altered. One law for the European and none for the Maori; strictness even beyond the pale of justice for the white man and favoritism for the native. This may be said to be the precedent established by the Hon. D. M'Lean within the past few days on the West Coast. A Maori named Hori Grey, well known in Wellington, accustomed to mix and reside among Europeans ior years, intimately acquainted with the laws and customs which govern our intercourse with each other, would be of all those in this island, probably the one for whom, in the opinion of unprejudiced men, no relaxation of the law as meted out to Eu-

ropeans would be necessary. And yet we find that in his case the Defence Minister went out of his way and set the machinery of the Government departments in motion, in order to arrest the law in ordinary course. Hori Grey like many other Maoris and K-iropcan* contracted a deht which he was unable to pay. He sued for it in the ordinary way by the creditor and to release him from the jail, to which he had. been committed, the Defence Minister directed that the debt be paid out of the Colonial chest, on the ground that some land belongincr to Hori Grev was in the h aids of the Government; but of course this shallow pretence is believed by n:> one. Supposing it to be true, why should the Government go out of its ordinary course to pay the debts of Hori Grey any more thai) of any one else ? Ts the Government about to set up an establishment under the sign of the golden balls in order to act as " uncle " to all Mr M'Lean's pets I If Hori really owned any land, it was ea*y for him to raise money on it without a colonial minister taking part in the transaction. The excuse,, if true, is more degrading to the Colony than the free gift of the money would, have been, and if untrue —well it's only on a par with many others put forward by Ministers and their apologists* A man named John Noonan, employed at a saw-mill at Davauchelles Bay, Akaroa, had three of the fingers of. his left hand smashed in the machinery on the 30th, January. Drs Low and Pearson amputated the fingers, and" the man is recovering.

Some time ago we recorded' the disappearance of Benjamin Townson, agardener, of Nelson, in a fit of depression. By papers now to hand, we are glad to see that lie has turned up. having been discovered in the old cemetery by Mr Clouston, the jailer, who, the Examiner reports, "asked where he had come from.. Townson said he had been in the bush for nearly three week;-*,., and that his chief food had been watercress, which he did not think very noupishing, as he felt very weak. Heconfessed however that he had a little ■ oatmeal in his pocket when he left home. Observing his pitiable condition, and that he was wet to his waist, Mr. Clouston concluded he was Lhe man for whom such anxious search had been made a fortnight ago, and to his inquiry,.. Townson at once gave his name. Mr Clouston then asked him if he would, take some refreshment, to which lie gladly assented, raying ' I knew by your face you wocdd give me something/ He was then asked into the jail, where he was fed moderately, and then obtaining a cab, Captain Clouston Townson to accompany Mm in a drive,, saying he would put him down at Bishopdale, where he believed he resided. On their way on of town they were overtaken by Mrs Townuson,. who had heard of her husband being found, and was in search of him. The weather had been favorable during all the time he was away, so that he suffered little' from the exposure. We have said be fore, that Townson had a similar fit of despondency about two years ago, from which he recovered."

A man named Robert Green, a groom, living at Leithfield, Canterbury, was poisoned on the night of tho 30th January, by drinking some lotion in mistake to quench his thirst. The lotion contained a corrosive poison,, from the effects of which he died on the morning of the 31st, though every effort was made to save him. An inquest was held, and a veidict of "Accidental poisoning " was returned. The deceased was thirty-five years of age, and was esteemed as a quiet and indus* trious man. He leaves a widow ami family. We extract the following from the* Wellington Independent.: —We learn from Wanganui that Mr M/Lean has finally closed with the for the purchase of the large block of land lyincc between the Turakina and Rangatikei rivers. The purchase money will be paid in a day or two. The remark of a contemporary,. " that many of our successful lawyers commenced life as preachers," is gracefully corrected by one ot the legalgentlemen referred to, who begs to statetba r . he began life as an infant.

The Wairarapa correspondent of the Wellington Independent writes :—On Tuesday,* January 23, a fire rushed from the ranges bounding West Taratahi and quickly extended itself over nearly the whole of that portion of the plain, burning down all the fences in its course, and not staying its devastation until it reached the Waingawha river. Mr Mitchell's house had a narrow escape, and also Mr Wilton\s, and nearly the whole of their fences destroyed. The Taratahi, during the night of the conflagration, would give the spectator a faint idea of the fearful grandeur of a prairie fire, while the roaring noise it made in its progress was equal to that of the Falls of Niagara, which indeed it closely resembled. On Saturday morning a telegram reached Grey town that the dwelling house of E. Meredith, Esq., JP , of Riversdale, Whareama, had been burned to the ground, and also the late dwelling house of Mr Yallance at Kauminga, which had been recently used as a wool shed. Probably the destruction of property by fires in this district during the past two weeks will be found to exceed, on the whole, £50,000, the result in a great measure of culpable negligence, if not of worse misconduct.