MISCELLANEOUS.

Inangahua Times, Volume VIII, Issue 1276, 25 May 1883, Page 3

MISCELLANEOUS.

♦ The City Council of Melbourne ■propose to spend £100,000 in wood paving. More than a thousand deaths resulted last year from mining accidents in Great Britain. 'Two .female fiends stripped and had

a fight at Brisbane in the presence of 100 people. It is reported that 5000 French convicts will shortly be despatched to Noumea. The British and Australian Trust and Loan Company has declared a dividend of 7 per cent. It is reported that the Earl of Zet land will probably be appointed to the new office of Minister of Agriculture. The funeral of Sir John O'Shanassy was very large. The Premier and such members as were in town attended. The Hon. Ivoßligh was a passenger for England by the Rosetta, which left Melbourne last week. In Sydney, 8104 persons have signed a petition against barmaids, and 7300 another petition in favor of local option. The Government analysis of 200 samples of liquor collected at Sydney "shows that they are free from any poison-ingredient. The Hauroto on her last trip from Wellington to Sydney, took away a full cargo of colonial produce, including 50 tons of Nelson hops. Five bacon factories in Oamaru (Otago) cure some fifteen hundred carcasses per year. The industry is on the increase. Mr W. R. Haselden of Westporthas been appointed Grown Prosecutor for the Buller district. Some idea of the danger the public are at times exposed to in hotels conducted by unscrupulous persons may be gathered from the fact that a man who appeared before a bench of J. P.'s in Wellington on Wednesday, had on him a number of written recipes for making spurious brandy, whisky, and other liquors subject to excise duty ; and it was proved that he had offered to manufacture liquors for one publican at a low price. These recipes stated ingredients and quantities. The danger of locking .drunken men. together during night timejna lock-up celljaas jusfcbeen-, sadly- demonstrate^ ,• at Home. At Ntiifih -•■ Shieltls^p-olice ; station, on a. recent- nigh#' T-homaSlieat-head and Patrick Eourke," both'' mad drunk, were put together.' During the night, Leathead hacked Rourke to death with a knife, inflicting wounds on his neck, scalp face, and hands. About the same time and under precisely similar circumstances, George Miller kicked to death Robert Frew in a cell in the Southern District Police office at Glasgow. Frew was one mass of kicks on his head, chest, and sides. The responsibility of these murders; rests with the . police, officers ■■ wiho : fastened men, temporarily mad, together in the same cell. There was "blood and fire" says the Auckland Star at the Temperance Hall the other night. During the progress of the Salvation Army meeting, several persons " testified," while one young woman was affected so as to be seized with a fit of hysterics. She was removed by her friends after some difficulty. Captain Ted Wright improved the occasion by informing his audience that the young woman had been troubled with serious misgivings, concerning her spiritual state for some time, but now she was repentant. . He thought it was a good sign that they were saved. It was better, in his opinion that they should screech there than screech when they were beyond all hope of mercy ; better kick up their heels in that room than kick them up with the rich man in h well, in Hades. The Sydney Morning Herald, in an article referring to the singular outburst of violent crime which has been witnessed in Australasia, recently, says :— " We can sum' up a list of crimes committed within the last month such as have seldom in modern times shocked, and injured, and insulted humanity. We have seen cases of cruel murder followed by determined suicide, of rash murder committed by a girl — we have seen school-boys plotting to wreck train's and destroy many human lives ; youths shooting men down because 'they were, alive,' or because it was better fun than rabbit-shooting ;. alsoa father mutilating his son with a square of cedar board; arid we liayd .heard of the larrikin element— insolent), obscene, offensive,, and m manycases practically triumphant. The jaw, proceeds, " may do its best, and should and must do its best; 'but there is much to be • done which is as far, beyond, any legislation as is 'religious conviction or sceptical denial. Certain it is that we have not looked to our schools enough. We have not recognised that we must teach morality as we toach arithmetic ; that the child and the man is onesided and eccentric without it; as likely to break off at a tangent, and with much annoyance and destruction to others accomplish its own ruin, as to move with regularity upon the broad social plane, rising or progressing by legitimate paces in equitable ways. The State must look to its schools in the matter ; and taught

by many terrible examples, surely tin people might be expected to look t< their homes."

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