North Otago Times. MONDAY, JANUARY 31, 1881.

North Otago Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2690, 31 January 1881, Page 2

North Otago Times. MONDAY, JANUARY 31, 1881.

Barracouta are again in season. A large number were caught on Saturday and sold in town. The last three or four days have proved exceptionally tine for harvest work in this district, and a consider ible portion of the crop has been cut, and placed in stook, The yield will be a fair average, and the quality of the grain is good. A horse attached to a spring cart came to grief in Thames street on Saturday afternoon by falling on the road. Some difficulty was experienced in getting the animal on to its legs again, though h did not appear to have suffered any injury. In the case of Michael Collins v. William Collins, heard at the Resident Magistrate's Court on Friday, being * claim for alleged wrongful impounding of a cow, judgment was given in favor of defendant, with 21a costs, and not in favor of plaintiff inadvertently given in our last issue. The cricket match between the Australian Eleven and a Canterbury Fifteen, which w»3 expected to ">e a close affair, at present looks like a one innings match to the Australians. Saturday's play shows the superiority of the visitors. As yet Oamaru has made as respectable a stand as any of the clubs the Australians have played with. Attentions haye been made in the dates of the Suez mail steamers leaving Melbourne. In February and March they leave two days earlier than the dates given in the guide time table, and in consequence the steamer conveying the mails from New Zealand will leave the Bluff on the 10th February, Dunedin on the 9th, Christchurch on the Bth, and Wellington on the 7th. Business men and others should take note of this." The times of depression appear not to have subsided, and the tightness of money is being felt by the retail traders. One firm in Oamaiu employing a large number of hands has given its employees notice each to take a fortnights holiday in rotation. The plan is certainly a more generous one than retrenchment by a permanent reduction in the amount of pay or number of hands em? ployed. Two persons made their first appearance in the dock of the Resident Magistrate's Couit on Saturday, before Mr Parker, and were each fiued in the minimum penalty. The notorious Micha«l Sheehan was agiin brought up for drunkenness and resisting the police, and was sentenced to seven days' imprisonment on the two charges. Sheehan has been seven times convicted for drunkenness, twice for fighting, and once for resisting the police. The return match, Excelsior First Eleven v. Eighteen, was played on Saturday on the old cricket ground, the afternoon being fine for cricket. The matting did not play so true as usually, the ground being very rough. Notwithstanding, some good scoers were made, Ham for the eighteen showing good form. With the exception of three the Eleven showed careful play, Finch 36, not oufc, being the best. The bowling was also very good, A- 0, Hardy for the Eleven taking 11 wickets fop 14 runs ; D. Hewat for the Eighteen took 3 wickets for 0. Both sides played two men shorb. The Eleven won by 75 runs. The Eighteen scored 35, the Eleven 109. { Messrs Fraser and Co. are now executing I an order at the Oamaru foundry for a class of work nevep before done outside the provincial towns in the colony. They are making for the Timaru Waterworks twenty flanged 14 inch iron water pipes, each fqur j feet six in length, with spike and fascet 1 bends. 1 here are also some eight and nine feet long, varying in weight from ten to twelve hundred-weight, and one ten feet long, weighing fiifteen hundred-weight. Some of the finished pipes have been sent to Timaru and given perfect satisfaction, while they have been turned out in shorter time than they could have been obtained from Dunedin. J The success which attended the colonial forces in the Transvaal has suffered a reverse, and a severe reverse too, While the Afghans are a semi-barbarous race, the Boers are a hardy and civilised people, innured to hardship, and have given proof that they are j not devoid of courage. It is not difficult to I anticipate the result of the war. The I colonists at present are fighting their own i battles, but assistance has been promised j from Home and India, and when trained troops take the field the Boers will probably realise the advantages they have missed in n r >t taking annextion in a spirit of meekness and quietness. Lord Beaconsfield's ambition to annex every piece of land he could conveniently lay his hands on has not proved a fortunate one for England. The reverse has been the case ; and it is no doubt owing to the fact «hat the present British Ministry desire to withdraw from Afghanistan, that has caused Russians to affect a disinclination to continue hostile operations against the Tekke Turcomans in Central Asia. A cable message in another column gives us this information, and although it may he difficult to find out what Russia really means to do, and difficult to believe any assertion she makes as to the line of conduct she intends to pursue, yet the policy of antagonism set up by the Beacontfield M wintry wa j p*loula.ted

if anything to make Russia push forward her conquests in Central Asia instead of drawing back. The profit to the exporters of the shipment of fresh meat and butter to the Home market has resulted in the attention of I breeders of stock being more particularly drawn to the capabilities of 'New Zealand for developing an export trade of thii description. We are told that a meeting will shortly be held in Dunedin for the purpose of taking initiatory steps towards forming a company and that its promoters are determined to make the most of so favorable an opportunity. There are difficulties in the way, as there are in every new undertaking; and it will devolve on the promoters to smoothen the rough edges off these. In the success of fresh meat exportation there is perhaps an uncomfortable outlook for consumers. They will have to pay more for this ' commodity ; but the successful development of an export trade «f this kind will materially advance the prosperity of the colony as a whole, and thn will far more than counter- j balance the trifling additional expense to colonial consumers. The profit on the Protos' shipment is encouraging and is calculated to have quite an opposite effect to that of the Strathleven shipment, which left hardly any profit to the exporters. The Presbyterian Church of Otago and Southland supports two missionaries in the New Hebrides — the Rev. O. Michelsen and the Key. Mr Milne, the former of whom, stationed at the Island of Tongoa, is now on a visit to Otago, and addressed St. Paul's Presbyterian Church Sunday School yesterday afternoon. There was a large attendance of children and a number of their parents present. The rev. gentleman also conducted service in the evening, and choae for his text the 9th verse of the 16th chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, " And a vision appeared to Paul in the night ; there stood a man of Macedonia who prayed him saying, Come over into Maoedonia and help us." Mr Michelsen commenced by stating that now-a-days God does not appear to us by visions as he did to Paul, bul still there was a voice in the condition of people, which was the voice of God ; just as the beggar soliciting alms was a voice from God to those who could help him, and the degraded condition of the heathen was a call of Christ to send the Gospel to them. He gave an interesting account of the moral and social state of the New Hebrides natives, especially of the young, contrasting them with the boys and girlsi of New Zealand. Attention was drawn specially to two things : first the moral, intellectual, and social condition of the islanders, and the various sins which prevail amongst them, the preacher instancing polygamy, infanticide, cruelty to parents in their old age, the barying alive of widows with their dead husbands, and cannibalism. Secondly he proceeded to show that the Gospel was the true remedy to remove those evils, and gave instances of what it had already done in some of the islands such as Aneityum, where the population is almost Christianised ; and Aniwa, Taana, Fatuna, I and Eromauga, where the missionaries Williams, Harris, and the brothers Gordon were murdered, are partially Christianised. He also described the work in which he himself was engaged in the island of Tongoa. There were seventy thousand natives in these islands in a heathen cannibal state, their condition being a lou'l call to the Christians of New Zealand and the colonies to send them the gospel. At the close he intimated that there will be a meeting on Tuesday night at 7 30 in the church, at which he will exhibit a magic lantern illustrative of the islanders and islands, and also a number of curiosities including utensils of houses, ornaments, &c. No charge will be made for admission, but as was the case yesterday a collection will be made to aid Mr Michelson in building a cottage at Tongoa.