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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VIII, Issue 101, 28 April 1873, Page 4

Mr John Wedliamson is actively canvassing for the Auckland Superintendentcy. The hot- water apparatus fitted throughout the Colonial Museum about twelve months ago has been found to be so defective that it has been removed as a nuisance. The Late Land Sale at Patea proved a great success, the amount realised being £12,600. - Mr E. E Mcßae of Nelson, we. notice, was a large purchaser, 103 acres having been knocked down to him at 60s, 71 acres at 425, 107 acres at 455, 25 acres at 495, 25 acres at 41s, and 26 acres at 445. The Scandinavians settled at Norsewood, Hawke's Bay, are early manifesting an interest in the public affairs of the colony, about fifty of them having made application to have their names placed on the electoral roll. In the Supreme Court Christchurch, Alfred Robert Sturge, a young man highly connected in England, and who out of the eleven years he has been in the Colony has spent ten years in gaol, received a sentence of nine years' penal servitude. He pleaded guilty to two charges of forgery, and one of larceny as a bailee, and there were five other charges of forgery against him. An Auckland telegram of Monday last pays : — The s. s. Hero has arrived from Sydney. In consequence of a telegram from New Zealand, over fifty passengers for the Nebraska, were left in Sydney, and the mail was also put on shore. The Nebraska was detained for the Hero's arrival, and the agents are accordingly much disgusted at the passengers not coming. In reporting the proceedings at a concert that took place the other day at Bannockburn, the Cromwell Argus says : —'•The dancing that followed was kept up for three or four hours by some thirty males and two females. Struggles for the possession of the fair demoiselles were the source of fun not included in the programme. It is pleasing to add that the fun did not include fighting, but that it was good-natured and of a pacific description." The Marlborough Press discourses thus pleasantly upon earthquakes, which so frequently visit that province : — Another shock of earthquake was experienced here on Tuesday morning, about 430 o'clock. The shake on this occasion was rather severe. What with light shakes and heavy ones, this constant recurrence of earthquakes is becoming monotonous, and its effect will be that terrestrial movements will excite no observation, and the shaking of the earth will be regarded no more than a downfall of rain. It will require a little time to educate the people to stand this kind of thing' with equanimity ; but as familiarity breeds contempt, earthquakes, to be regarded with proper awe, must not come so frequently as they have lately. Eastek Services at Canterbury. — The Press says: — The services at St. John the Baptist's on Easter Sunday were full choral. The music sung during the day was as follows : — Processional hymn, " Onward Christian Soldiers," during the singing of which, the choir, entering at the south door marched to their stalls ; Easter anthem and proper psalms chanted to single chants from Mercer's Psalter ; Te Deum, Benedicius and Credo to Dyke's service in F. The anthem ** Christ our passover," was composed by Sir John Goss, and the hymns were selected principally from the appendix of " Hymns, Ancient and Modern." The responses were intoned to Tallis' festival service, and the offertory sentences to Barnby. The church, we may add, was also prettily decorated with arches of evergreens, &c, The Absurdities connected with the Colonial Volunteer system was never more apparent than in the case of New . South Wales, which is supposed to be the seat and stronghold of all that relates to military volunteering. "The Volunteer forces enrolled for the defence of the colony comprise a Naval Brigade — an effective corps of 200 men, 7 cadets, 13 superior officers, and 13 petty officers -—and several companies of Rifle and Artillery men, making in all 3203, inclusive of the officers, of whom there are a lieutenant-colonel, 8 majors, 40 captains, 63 subalterns, 17 staff, 194 sergeants, and 47 buglers. By this it will be seen that for every ten privates there is one officer, and for every 66 officers and privates there is one bugler. "Can the force of folly any further go ?" The following amusing account of a somewhat remarkable exploit is given by the Greymoutk JStar :— Paroa Road Board has had tp : part with its common seal, books, and paraphernalia, intact, at the hands of the bailiff of the RM. Court, In the dead of night, it is alleged, and through an op^en window— the repairs to which could not be effected with the bank balance^ the unwelcome £.>. Vvisitbtfente^

dition of impecuniosity on the part of the Board, there was no safe to seize, nor lock to unpick. Open and above board, like unto their transactions, lay their books. Elmer's groping euded in invisible smiles. His seal-hunting at night proved successful. He captured one and landed it with Messrs Nancarrow and Co, the auctioneers, who placed it in the market. It was dulyslaughtered, and the bailiff has been in due course threatened with a' writ for a thousand pounds, which he states positively he is not personally at present prepared to liquidate. The Grey River Argus of Monday last in alluding to the drought that has prevailed on the Coast for so long says : — People had lit fires in the native forest which still penetrates parts of the surveyed township, and these fires were promoted in a manner which their originators, perhaps, never anticipated. At one time these, as the papers say, " assumed alarming dimensions, " and some excitable alarmist rang the fire-bell, the sound of which was the means of concentrating, beside a clump of burning bush, nearly every member of the Fire Brigade and a crowd of those who, on such occasions, contribute to the picturesque by being simply spectators. Fortunately there was more picturesqueness than practical work provided for the Fire Brigade, and there was no actual necessity for the employment of the engines. Their labors were limited to the use of buckets, and with these humble appliances, they did, it is said, some good service in preventing the fire from spreading from growing timber to localities where food for the fire existed in the shape of quartering and weatherboards. After sundown the scenery of the neighborhood was much improved, by the prevalence of bush-fires, and many encomiums were passed, after the /ashion of the Cockney who, on witnessing an eruption in Vesuvius exclaimed, "Very good ; very well got up." At and after midnight there were people who discovered more than picturesqueness in the pyrotechnic display, and who were energetic with broom-handles and other accessible implements in subduing the names. Yesterday the fire took a Sabbath. " Send us wives," is the piteous plea that comes from Washington territory, and naturally the question arises," "Whose j wives shall we send ? "