WELLINGTON.

Lyttelton Times, Volume II, Issue 56, 31 January 1852, Page 6

WELLINGTON.

The " Chieftain " arrived on Saturday from England, having left the English coast on the Ist "of September. She called at the Auckland Isles, where she landed two of the Directors of the Pacific Whaling Company, and stores for the establishment, and from whence she brought up Capt. Allan and part of the crew of the " Countess of Minto," which was unfortunately wrecked at Macquarrie Island. This vessel (the same reported in the " Sydney Herald " of 22nd October as having been blown adrift from Daddy Elliott's Island, with only two hands on board) sailed from Sydney on the 4th of November, with the intention of completing her cargo of guano, and proceeding to England or the Mauritius, according to circumstances. After visiting different islands adjacent to Australia, she proceeded to Macquarrie Island, and on the 2nd December, after being three days off the Island with unfavorable'weather, she stood close in shore with the intention of landing ; when about a mile off shore the wind suddenly failed. Every means were tried to keep, the ship with j her head off the land, but she would not steer, and a swell setting on the shore which drifted the ship towards the land, the small bower, and afterwards the best bower was let go, but the swell increasing, the ship struck and unshipped her rudder, and started the stern framing. She then began to fill fast and to roll very heavily ; fortunately the whaling barque " Lord Duncan" i was near, and by the assistance rendered by that vessel all hands were saved. Shortly after leaving the wreck, the vessel broke up. The master and crew reached Port Ross on the 11th December, and (with the exception of ilve hands who still remain at Port Ross) sailed on the 27th in the " Chieftain" for Wellington.— Wellington Spectator, Jan. 7. , It is with great concern we have to announce the death of Capt. W. M. Mitchell, of H. M. 84th Regt., at Madras, on the 25th of June, 1851. Capt. Mitchell arrived in New Zealand from India in 1848, and travelled overland in company with the Hon. Arthur Petre from Auckland to Wellington, and made himself acquainted with the capabilities of the different settlements in the Northern Island. He then went to England, and returned to the colony in the latter part of 1849. In April, 1850, he, together with his friend Mr. Dashwoo.d, undertook an expedition with the view of finding an inland route from the Wairau to the Port Cooper plains, a very interesting account of which,

from his pen, was published in the " Government Gazette" of August, 1850. He established a Station in the Canterbury block under Mount Grey, and set a good example in the energy and perseverance with which he overcame the difficulties attendant on forming a station. He sailed in October, 1850, for India, intending to return to New Zealand and become a colonist, being delighted with the fineness of the climate and the capabilities of the country, of which he was well qualified to form an opinion, having travelled over the greater part of both Islands. But these plans he was not permitted to realise, having, soon after his return to India, fallen a victim to that climate. Capt. Mitchell originally came to New Zealand for the benefit of his health, which had been much impaired by a long residence in India.— lbid.

At the meeting of the Church Education Society, at which the discussion on Church Constitution which we extract below took place, the Bishop of New Zealand, referring to the circumstance of their having met together to open the new School House which has been erected on Thornton Flat by subscription, said, that they had met together to open a school which had been erected for diffusing the blessings of a Christian education, and he felt that no comment was required from him, as the simple fact shewed the amount of zeal that existed among them. He could not refrain from expressing the great pleasure he felt from what had been clone, and not the less on that account that if any delay had taken place in providing for education in this settlement, it had enabled them to begin on a more efficient and satisfactory scale than perhaps they would have done at an earlier period. He had not been indifferent to the interests of the larger settlements, though the large extent and scattered nature of this country had compelled him to devote the greatest portion of his time to those districts in which the greatest amount of spiritual destitution existed, and he stated this as an apology for his seeming neglect in not having spent more time among them. In the course of these visitations he had become convinced that the necessity of education was generally felt throughout the Islands, not only in the towns, but even in such remote districts as the Chatham Islands, the whaling and sealing stations in Foveaux Straits and elsewhere, at which a numerous race of half-caste children is growing up and where, in the midst of many discouraging circumstances, the redeeming point is the desire of the parents for the education of their children. He would adduce in illustration of his statement different circumstances which had occurred to his knowledge in the course of his visits to these stations. " I may instance," said his Lordship, '•' an unhappy man, whom on two successive visits at an interval of

seven years, I found in a state of intoxication *, all the motives and arguments addressed to himself that I could urge failed to touch his heart, or make the slightest impression on him. I then pointed to his half-caste children, and asked him if he would like any one of them to be brought up in the same way that he was living in? 'No, not one, Sir,' he replied with considerable energy, and his whole frame shuddered as he spoke. This general principle prevailed, that even those who do not care for their own souls, do care for the education of their children." His Lordship then referred to another instance of a man who, although ignorant of reading and writing himself, endeavoured to procure the advantages of education for his children, and resorted to a very ingenious plan for obtaining a succession of teachers for them. He made himself popular with the mates of the vessels that called at his station, and, with their assistance, his children were taught to read and write, and he (the Bishop) found them answer his questions in a way that surprised him. His Lordship referred to a third instance: when he first came to Wellington, a woman, the wife of a whaler at Porirua, asked him to baptise her children. As there were no godfathers or godmothers he felt a great difficulty in baptising them, as there was no one to answer for their being properly brought up ; but he thought it better to cast his bread upon the waters, and the result was that, after an interval of nearly eight years, at 1000 miles distance, he met with one of these children at Aneiteum, in the New Hebrides, and found her able to read, and carefully instructed by her mother in Christian principles. His Lordship concluded by observing that, throughout the length and breadth of New

Zealand, there was not one single person who could dissent in word or heart, from the work in which they were this clay engaged, and he hoped that, by the blessing of Almighty God, the work would prosper in their hands.