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Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 1860, 26 February 1892, Page 2

Letter from J. F. H. baa been received too late for our present issue. The proposed cricket match Arrow v Queenstown, has been postponed till to-morrow week. The Sew Hoy Big Beach Co., obtained 80$ ounces of retorted gold for last week's work, and the dredges are all on good payable ground. The Gallant Tipperary Co., obtained 650z of amalgam for seven days' work, and the stone since crushed shows an improvement. In reference to resolution passed at a public meeting at Invercargill, with regard to assistance for repair of the Garston-Nevis road, the Hon. Mr Seddon, says that the Government having found fundi for making the load, the local authorities must maintain it. Mr John Marsh, the well-known proprietor of the Bridge Hotel, Cromwell and one of that town's first inhabitants, passed away on Thursday evening last week, at the age of 62 years. " Deceased (says the local Argus) was a man of marked individuality of character, a sturdy pioneer who, along with his wife, landed in Victoria in the early fifties" We understand that the ladies of the Catholic congregation met yesterday evening and decided to hold their bazaar on St. Patrick's Day and the two ensuing days. As the time is very short we are requested to ask that those who purpose giving aid to this work will, in the meantime, make the steady and dilipent effort so necessary to rendering the project a success Whilst riding home from Arthur's Point, on Tuesday afternoon, Constable Jones met with an accident which, though serious, was a providential escape from what might have been a worse mishap. It appears that the constable was coming quietly along a piece of flat road when the horse fell, throwing its rider forward and, by a summersault as it were, falling across his thighs. By the assistance of Mr James M'Neill of this town, Jones was got to the house of Mrs Findlay, who kindly looked after him until the evening when he was removed to his quarters here. We are glad to hear that no bones are broken, but he sustained a severe shaking or bruising in the lower part of his body, which is helpless, and he will no doubt be some weeks before he can resume duties. This is not the first mishap with the horse that was ridden, which is said to be a very clumsy animal, and the sooner the department get rid of it the better for their officers. The following is the statement in bankruptcy filed by D. Matheson, carpenter Queenstown :—Liabilities (secured)— William J. Thomson, £154 6s 6d, value of security £286. Uusecured— Queenstown : F. St Omer, £4 ; Edward Monson £3 7s 4d ; W. C. Cochran, £3 13s lid ; J. J. M'Bride, £2; Oavin Donne, £2 Is 5d : total, with small sum«, £23 17s sd. Assets—Stock-in-trade £6 ; surplus from securities £l2B 13s 6d (furniture £8); total £134 13s 6d. Surplus £ll2 168 IdMr T. Ball will offer for sale on Monday freehold , own •wtione lately owaad by Mr D. Matbcvoo, I t

It will be seen by announcement elsewhere that the Rev Mr Mayers, accompanied by a number of 1 boys from Dr Barnardo's Homes, London, is about ! to favor this district with a visit; we say favoured because Mr Mayers has been obliged to refuse several invitations from other places. Our ex- j changes speak very highly of many successful entertainments that have been given and there's little doubt that the party who are to arrive by to-morrow night's boat will meet with a hearty reception at the Lakes District. The Rev Mr Mayers is said to be an able preacher as well as an excellent lecturer. We understand that the meeting at the Town Hall on Sunday afternoon will be a service chiefly for children, who will no doubt be brightly edified thereby. Mr Tennyson Smith, the well-known English Temperance orato? (the second Gough as he is termed) has recently been conducting a very successful mission in the Theatre Royal, Invercargill, commencing on Sunday, February 7th. The theatre was crowded every night of the week. Mr Smith's powerful recitals —supplemented by powerful addresses of his own—seem to have been greatly appreciated. During the mission over four hundred signatures to the total abstinence pledge were obtained. Many are hoping that the lecturer will pay a return visit to Invercargill. We are informed that, Mr Smith has been induced to pay the Lakes District a visit, and that his stay here will be from the 7th to the 11th of uext month. In order to relieve the Melbourne unemployed, the construction of two lines of railways, costing £116,000, is being started. The drink bill of Great Britain for the past year amounted to £141,220,000, being an average of £3 15s per head of the population The Advocate says Mr W. Kirkland, of Elm Grove, will be the heaviest loser by the recent floods on the Taieri plain, and that his loss is fully £ISOO. There is scarcely any feed left on his farm for live stock. The Sydney Morning Herald, in a eulogistic article in a recent issue- refers to New Zealand's abstention of debt and borrowing, and mentions the building up of the great meat industry. The article concludes : —" New Zealand, in extricating herself from her embarrassments, has shown us all the way and the only way by which true prosperity may be gained." "It's an ill wind that blows nobody any good." The Oamaru Times says that a farmer on the Kakanui river, whose wheat sheaves began to float about as the river rose, employed men to recover as many of them as possible. Before the flood he reckoned that his yield would be about fifty bushels to the acre. The exertions of the men, however, agreeably surprised him as to the yield, for he now estimates it at about 120 bushels to the acre. The wheat, too, is not all of the same variety. He thinks bis wheat must have got mixed with somebody else's. * The following Yankee description of the average footballer is interesting if not strictly correct Even a blind man can tell a footballer at first sight. He never wears more than one ear, and about the same number of eyes. His nose looks like a piece of liver stretched across a thimble; one arm is bent backwards ; he appears to have two left legs, and he carries about as much scalp to the square inch as a cattish. The principal part of the game seems to be for one player to run until he falls. If he falls on a broken bottle, so much the better ; he gets more bonor and nearly all the bottle. Thirty-seven players then fall on the top of him, punch his ribs, ohawoP his ears, gouge out his eyes and kick plugs off his cheeks as big as Hobart potatoes. Then they lift him, stick him together with giant cement, and cart him to the nearest duly qualified circular sawyer. Taking it altogether, it is an extremely healthy game—for the spectators behind the fence. It is mostly played by married men who are tired of their existence. The Cromwell Argus states that the damage done to the road between Clyde and Cromwell by the last flood is estimated at £4OO. The road is passable for traffic, but permanent repairs will take some time to complete. The Wellington Racing Club have decided to charge the public in future only the original 10% (instead of lli%) on the totalisator, after the Steeplechase meeting. Referring to Sir Harry Atkinson at the banquet given in his honor at Wellington, Lord Onslow said that, whether he chose to continue in the dignified position he now occupied as speaker of the Legislative Council, or whether he returned to the battle of political life, there was no one amongst them who would not recognise that the services Sir Harry had rendered to New Zealand in the field aud in the forum would ever be amongst the brightest pages of her history. A recent cable from Perth, Western Australia, says that an extraordinarily rich find of gold is reported from Parker's Range—the stone yieldiug thousands of ounces to the ton 1 If this be true — that is from a reasonable quantity of stone —the yield is the most wonderful ever chronicled in the world's history. The truth will probably turn out to be something like gtains—the increase to ounces having been magnified after the old style, a? the report was circulated. Or, may be the large landholders in that latest self-governing colony are trying to work up a rush of immigrants. The South Australian Register decribea what promises to be a very important improvement in reapers and binders. At present, it says—" Delay is caused by twine breakage, some sheaves are bound loosely, and others too tight ; all due it is •aid, to the present method of tension being unable to accomodate itself to the unevenuess of the twine. The inveuter of the new contrivance has had considerable experience in the use of string binders, and it was the annoying delays that caused him to cast about for an impovement. His advice is to discard the spring principle altogether, and place an iron rod about ten inches long with an eyelet at one end just over the twinebox. The twine is made to take two or three turns round the rod, according to the tension required, and then passes through the eyelet. By this arrangement it is claimed that when once regulated the tension is always the same, no matter how uneven the twine. A well-known farmer has tried the contrivance on his M'Cormick machine throughout the hay harvest, and speaks of it in terms of high praise. A day or two ago the machine was put through a plot of straw, and the merits claimed for the invention seemed to be amply demonstrated. The farmers expressed their surprise at the simplicity of the contrivance, and were much pleased with its work. The Tuvpeka Times thinks that there is still hope for the Railway Commissioners. They have made some reductions in the railway tariff, intended as concessions to mining companies and farmers ; and if only they could persuade themselves that the path of duty lay in that direction, their rule might even yet be a lengthened one and, at the very least, their fall would be easier and less painful. In future, dogs of droves with three or more trucks of live stock will be carried free. Stock, implements, etc., for agricultural shows and horse-parades gain a concession of half-rate one way, and free carriage on return journey if unsold. It has been further decided that the added rate of Id per ton for minerals and mining machinery and Id per 500 ft of timber has been removed on the Lawrence and some of the other branch lines. The Court of Inquiry at Invercargill last week delivered judgment on the wreck of the Star of Erin. It was (found that the loss ban been caused by over-confidence in estimating the distance from Waipapa liyht; but, taking into consideration that no opportunity was offered for verifying the position of the ship by cross-bearings, the misty condition of the weather, the sudden ohanges of wind, and that the master was still in hopes of getting through to the eastward, the court returned the certificates of the master and officers, aud made no order against them for costs of the inquiry. The Pall Mall Oazette publishes an interview with Mr R. B. Wise, ex-Attorney General of New South Wales, who gives it as his opinion that the labor movement in the colonies is the safety valve for the dangerous element, and therefore really a source of security. He considers that the Protectionist movement in his own colony is due to an accidental majority and to the treachery of certain I membn*.

We are informed that several oLthe members of the local rifle club intend to take partjq jtheNew Zealand Rifle Association meeting to open-Friday week at Wellington. The total of the Property Tax received op to 23rd instant was £334,000. As a large quantity of revenue from insurance companies and other sources has still to come in, the Treasurer's estimate of £335,000 will be considerably exceeded. At the weekly meeting of the Land Board held on Tuesday it was resolved, subject to the approval of the Governor, that £'22l6s 9d be paid to Timothy Whelan, late lessee of section 5, block V., Lower Wanaka district, out of £49 17s 6d valuations for improvements on the forfeited perpetual lease of said section. It is reported that Government intend to enforce the retirement of a number of senior officers in the Audit Department on pensions. It ia also understood that the Ministry are also considering the propriety of retiring several officers in the Justice and Postal Departments on the grounds of age, as | has already been done in the Customs. At the annual meeting of the Equitable Building and Investment Company in Wellington, the chairman said the shareholders would be disappointed that instead of the usual 5% the dividend was only 4%. This was the result of the Government taxation, by which the company would have to pay an amount equal to a property tax of in the £. As a large proportion of the company's deposits consisted of small sums, which under the Property Tax were exempt, he did not think that small depositors had much to be thankful for to the Government. Increasing taxation might mean a lower margin between depositors and borrowers; eithtr the deposits would come down or borrowers would have to pay a larger rate of interest. The Patent Designs and Trade Marks Act, 1889, section 104, provides that all goods of foreign manufacture bearing any name or trademark of any manufacturer or trader in the United Kingdom, New Zealand, or other British possessions, or having on them a name which is identical with or the colourable imitation of the name of a place in the United Kingdom, New ZeaUnd or other British possessions, are liable to be dealt with under the Customs Act as goods prohibited to be imported under the penalty of £IOO and forfeiture of the goods; and that, by the regulations issued under the Act officers of Customs are required to detain good illegally marked or described. The Oamaru Mail has been informed of an instance of cleverness in animals in connection with the late flood that is worth recording. Four horses were upon one of the many islands in the Kakanui river, among the number being a mare with foal at foot. While the river was in a high flood the horses were imprisoned on the islaud without a blade of grass to eat. But the old mare was equal to the occasion for, venturing cautiously into the stream, she caught with her teeth sheaves of gram that were being carried away by the flood, and carefully drew thim up on the island, thus providing food for the whole of the animals. Time after time she went through the performance to the intense delight of a number of onlookers. The present fruit crop at Coal Creek is expected to give a net yield of £2OOO ; one orchardist being creditod by the Tuapeka Times with gettiug a return of nearly £4OO. The Earl of Glasgow was on the eve of setting out for China when he was offered the governorship of this colony. He and bis Countess had hooked for Hong Kong in the s.s. Arcadia, to leave on February sth. The Melbourne Leader strongly recommends Australian farmers to adopt the American system (which England and Scotland are likely to follow) of selling live stock l«y weight: Our contemptory remarks-.—"The farmer guesses now how much his bullock or pig weighs, which cow gives the most milk in a year, which milk is the richest in cream, how much it takes to feed his horses, his cattle or pigs, and as a rule he has but a very imperfect knowledge of the actual value of his beasts. He guesses the size of his cultivation paddocks, the quantity of seed required and the yield per acre ; in fact the whole business of farming appears to be conducted on a system of guesswork. Selling or buying fat stock on ideas based upon guesses'is a principle which has so little to recommend it that the wouder is that it has not been improved out of existence long ago. The weighbridge should be an accompaniment of all sale yards, and the live weight , of the cattle should be declared at the sale. The ! system only needs properly introducing to prove its ! fairness to both buyers and sellers." • Sir Robert Stout contributes a long article to the " Age showing from statislics that secular education 1 in New Zealand has not resulted in an increase of '■ crime, but in a marked decrease. The percentage of serious crimes was highest in the year 1878, namely, 66 per thousand of population. In the [ the year 1890 it had falien to 031. The proportion , of young criminals has also largely decreased since ' secular education was established. Sir Robert says ! Act would have been blamed. Ii having fallen, ■ may I ask in fairness, ought not the Education A.'t \ to get some meed of praise for this result ? The Age, commenting on the article, says : —lt is worthy of note that the colony which is so frequently set I up as an example in its devotion to Scripture lea- ' sons is at this moment bewailing its phenomenal increase in criminal developing. If State School ' Bible lessons would make people moral, New South 1 Wales should by this time be approaching a millen- ' nial condition ; and if their absence be as fatal as we are sometimes told, New Zealand ought to re--1 semble a pandemonium. In connection with the many spots now visible on the sun, the Lyttelton Time* remarks" Sun spots j of more than ordinary size made their appearance in April, 1882, and ab >ut the middle of the month vioi lent magnetic storms were experienced on the earth. | This is but one instance from a large number of observed coincidances between sun spots and magnetic „ disturbances, with consequent auroral displays. I The consensus of opinion seeim to be that there is a periodical law governing the appearance of sun spots the average time between two successive maxima \ being a little more than 11 years ; but it is pointed out that there is frequent and considerable deviation from absolute regularity. It is ot interest to note that the frequency of sun spots has been supposed to have some connection with various meteorological conditions, such a3 violent storms, raiufall, good or bad harvest years and so on. Whether any of the theories projected have a de6nite basis has yet to be determined. In connection with the auroral displays that are being observed in the northern hemisphere it is, of course, possible that 1 the Aurora Australia may become visible in New Zealand." 1 The Woodville Examiner exhorts its subscribers thus :—lfc is a notorious fact that more credit is given to the public in the form of newspaper accounts than in any other kind of business. \\ hy should this be ? A newspaper is a most expensive thing to run, involving as it does so much mental and mechanical labor and costly machinery. . . . . In Ametica, and England we believe, it is strictly a rule that all subscribers who don't pay daily or weekly, pay yearly in advance. This, too, is necessary to the good conduct of a newspaper business. How ridiculous is it that newspaper sub. scribers should lequire not only a quarter's or year's credit, but often two and three years. This thing is preposterous. We have many hundreds of subscribars on our books who take very good care to let us know if they do not receive their paper regularly, but who won't pay their accounts. This is unfair and unjust to us, and we hope they will take the hint. Holloway's Pills and Ointment.—The attention of all sufferers is drawn to these well-known remedies, for they possess conspicuous advantages as a safe and reliable aid in all those emergencies to which travellers, emigrants and sailors are so especially liable. They have been largely patronized by wayfarers by land and sea, and, in fact, by all classes of the community, to their very great advantage. The Pills are beyond all doubt one of the most effective remedies ever discovered for cases of obstinate constipation, confirmed indigestion and colic, complaints which are engendered by exposure and irregular feeding. The Ointment will be found of the very greatest service in cases of piles, abscesses, erysipelas, and all kinds of local ulcerations,