INTERPROVINCIAL NEWS.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume II, Issue 128, 6 July 1881, Page 2

INTERPROVINCIAL NEWS.

[Specially Telegbaphed to Stab.]

(from our own cobbespondent.)

OPUNAKE, Yesterday.

Titokowaru has received permission from Te Whiti for all his people to return to Waimate for enjoyment — pig hunting and pigeon shooting. The prophet enjoined them to return pure.

fpEB UNITED PBESS ASSOCIATION.]

WELLINGTON, Last Night.

At the Supreme Court, Jessie Thompson, for unlawfully wounding, and Henry Ferris, for larceny as a bailee, were each sentenoed to six months' hard labor. The Court adjourned till Monday next, when the charge against Whitelaw, late .superintendent of the Wellington Lunatic Asylum, for illtreating a patient, will be heard.

The boiler of a donkey-engine on board the coal hulk Albion exploded on Monday. The vessel was lying alongside the wharf, and was getting ready to coal the Eotomahana. The boiler was literally smashed in pieces. Fortunately, only three of the crew were on board at the time of the accident, they escaping with a few bruises. A man named Mitchell, who was on the deck of an adjoining hulk, was "knocked down and cut about the head. The crown of the boiler was carried over the deck of the Botomahana, which was moored some distance away. Pieces of iron plate were

found at a distance of fifty yards from the accident, and the noise occasioned by the explosion was heard all over the town. Numerous windows in the vicinity of the wharf were broken. The cause of "the accident is believed to have been shortness of water in an over-heated boiler. Dr. Harding died on Sunday night from diphtheria. CHRISTCHURCH, Last Night. The annual meeting of the shareholders of the Union Insurance Company was held to-day. The balance-sheet and report was read, showing a profit of .£25,200 on the year's business, and recommending a dividend of 10 per cent, leaving £12,500 to be carried, to .the reserve fund, and .£5200 to be carried for- - ward to next year. The chairman, in moving- the adoption of the report, said the business of the company showed an increase during the past year of £10,400 over the previous year. The report and balance-sheet were unanimously adopted. The criminal sessions of the Supreme Court opened yesterday. - There are nineteen prisoners for trial. In his charge, Judge Johnston said he regretted to be unable to congratulate the Grand Jury on any decrease in crime, which, according to the population, was now greater here than in England. Much of this, he added, is due to the drinking habits of the community, and to the incomplete nature of the penal system of the colony, more especially as affecting the classification .of prisoners." John Murphy was brought up, and the judgment of the Court of Appeal in his case being read, his original sentence of four years' penal servitude was repealed. John. Scott, for forgery and uttering, was sentenced to two years' imprisonment. . • ■ A slight shock of earthquake was distinctly felt in the northern districts yesterday afternoon, about six minutes past three o'clock. Arson being suspected in the case of the house recently burnt down at Ashburton, Ruxton, the tailor, who occupied it, his wife, and a girl who lived in the house, were arrested in bed on Sunday, and brought before the Court yesterday. There was some objection to giving them bail, but it was eventually allowed. There is reported to be much excitement at Ashburton over the affair. AUCKLAND, Last Night. Judge Gillies, in his charge to the Grand ' Jury, said that the cases were of average' number and usual character. Eighteen prisoners were Charged with twenty offences, four prisoners being natives. There were six offences against the person, nine against property, and three cases of libel and perjury. None were of an aggravated character, still some were of a grave nature. He deprecated the action of magistrates in sending cases for trial which they might have dealt with themselves. He referred to the difficulty of proving arson, but if reasonable supposition were shown, the Grand Jury were bound to send it for trial. He explained the law of libel in its bearings on the cases against Mr. Wickham, of the Free Lance, and said that while the public acts of public men were open to fair comment, the private character of a man was not to be so commented on unless the publisher of the disparaging statements was prepared to show that they were true. One of the cases on the calendar appeared to come under the latter category. He referred in complimentary terms to the new Registrar and Crown Prosecutor. The Bank of New South Wales is erecting handsome premises next the Herald Office. . James McGough, aged 14, was killed at a quarry at Pukekohe. The alleged leprosy Chinaman has been traced by the police. Dr. Tennent certified that Ah Wong was suffering not from leprosy, but stramous abscesses, which had been treated by Chinese doctors. The railway line through from Aucklane to Helensville is to be opened on the 18th July. John Oly Peterson, of Mangawai, was drowned by falling into the water while in an epileptic fit. A man named John Yaughan James died suddenly to-day. At a meeting of the Reception Committee it was resolved, if possible, to get the Royal Princes to visit the hot lakes. At the annual meeting of the Auckland Society of Arts, Dr. Campbell was reelected president by nearly two hundred members. Thomas Sims, for the attempted murder of Miss Caroline Riverhead, was sentenced to three years. The Grand Jury returned a true bill in the case of Hurst v. Wickham. The Te Anau shipped fifty-five stud sheep at Russell for the Rev. S. Williams, Napier. GRAHAMSTOWN, Last Night. A boy named Buckley, one of a number playing in a shooting gallery, got shot in the breast, and died this morning. It is said a nigger in charge of the gallery presented a rifle at the boys, who were teasing him. An inquest will.be held." DUNEDIN, Last Night. At the Supreme Court, Peter Cann, for bestiality, was sentenced to six months, his father making a statement in Court that the lad was wanting in the moral restraint of intelligence through an accident in early youth. ' For being drunk in a railway train a respectable resident was fined £5 and costs. NELSON, Last Night. There are no tidings of the schooner Dido, now three weeks out from Lyttelton, in ballast. All hopes of her safety

ftre now generally given up. It is thought that in the severe squalls which were experienced after her leaving Lyttelton that the ballast must have shifted, and she capsized. She was insured in the New Zealand office for £800, half of which was re-insured in the South British.

A man named Murphy was killed, on the Bellgrove railway extension works on Saturday night. He was employed by a contractor, and, whilst attending to the brake on a truck containing some eight tons of ballast, he fell across the rails, and his body was out in two.