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Marlborough Press, Volume XIII, Issue 791, 13 March 1872, Page 2 (Supplement)

The revenue derived from tolls in Victoria is about £05,500 per annum. For kicking a policeman and sitting on his bat. a Melbourne lough was fined £2O, with the alternative of three months imprisonment. At the Inler-colonial Wine Show, to be held shortly at Adelaide, there are two entries of spirits and five of ale and porter from New Zealand.

Miss Schiller, the pianist, has commenced teaching in Melbourne. Site appears to know bow to value her services, for site announces her terms:—“A lesson weekly' of forty minutes duration, six guineas per quarter; two do. do. ten guineas.”

The return of gold for IS7I for the Lake district. Otago, was 44,000 ounces. The populaiion representing this yield is 19,000 Europeans and Chinese, or at the rate of twenty-three and one-six ozs of gold per head. This valued at £3 17s Gd per oz. gives the average earnings of the populace at £B9 10s Gil per man. On the 2nd February, a man named Thomas Williams was killed on the Melbourne and St. Kilda railway line. The body bad some extraordinary marks upon it: —“ A tree of life ” and Adam and Eve on the upper part of his right arm, n man and woman on the lower part of the same arm, the cruciSxion on the upper part of the left arm, and the words : “Have communion with God ; Be familiar with one ; Deal justly with all ; Speak evil of none.”

At the monthly meeting of the Directors of (he Wanganui Steam Navigation Company, held ihe other day, a memorial from a number of shareholders and other inhabitants of the town was laid before the Directors, complaining of the sailing of the steamer Wanganui on an excursion trip on Sunday, and praying the Directors to discontinue all Sunday trading. A resolution was passed, acknowledging the receipt of the memorial, explaining that ihe sailing referred to had arisen through circumstances which the Manager could not control, and placing it on reeo’d that none of the Company’s steamers should lea ve port on Sundays, except in cases of absolulc necessity.

Tue Bishop oE Nelson recently, and ,as we think wisely, if the rule is not drawn too tight, deprecated the in'n-ouuoiion into our literature of" vulgar Americanisms. The Editor of the Hawke’s Bay Times does not like the Bishop’s expurgatory—per Imps it comes too near home to be relished—so he shows fight at once. “ For our part,” he says, “we confess at once to a keen and unaffected relish for the racy absurdiiies of .he A’temus Ward tvpe, and if his Lordship can see nothing in their effusions but gross and ignorant expedients for raising a smile by means of had snelling. &c., all we can say is that men possessed of far higher intellectual qualifications than those with which lie is endowed have been able to see in them humor of the highest order.’’

Some remarkable facts are disclosed in the Fiji estimates. Immediately after the grant of oOOdol. per annum to a messenger, come several votes of 250d01. each to a number of lieutenantgovernors. each of whom appears to receive only half the salary oE the menial. This sum, small as it is. was only passed on its being pointed out to the Assembly that tiie lieutenant-governors," who are all chiefs, had just imposed a large tax upon the natives ; the bargain being that they in return should receive a proportion of the proceeds. It is quite clear that civilisation is rapidlv progressing down in Fiji. The next institution will be a branch Tammany Ring at Levuka. From cannibalism to jobbery in a single generotion is highly creditable to the Anglo-Saxon colonists who have condescended to teach the noble savages. Beau both Sides—The New Zealand Mail says ihat newspaper editors, and correspondents, stock owners and Government officials, appear to labor under the delusion that bush land is best adapted for agricultural operations, and that such operations have nothing in common with .hose of the grazier on the one hand, and those of the dairy farmer on the other. No opinion could be more opposed to common sense and the experience of practical men. Bush land, especially in New Zealand, is least fitted for agricultural operations, which, under no circumstances. can be canied on after the first crop has been garnered on any extensive scale. Unlike the forest laud of Canada, or the open bush of Australia, it cannot be ploughed, nor can those labor saving implements and machines, so advantageous and necessary where labor is dear, be employed amongst the roots and stumps which for years encumber the bush land in New Zealand, after the greatest care has been employed to get rid of them. It is true that the finest crops of wheat can he grown for the first year on bush land, because wheat has a remarkable affinity to wood ashes ; but after > he first year, unless the land be of small extent, it <s absolutely impossible to crop except wbb grass, and consequently the wheat-grower has to become a grazier or dairy-farmer in spite of him'self.