Untitled

New Zealand Herald, Volume VIII, Issue 2422, 30 October 1871, Page 2

"Wβ notice an advertisement in a Thames evening contemporary, by Mr. John Sheebun, Goldfields Secretary, notifying that he will, on "Wednesday next, hold a public Court of luquirj, at Grahamstown, in the Courthouse, into the truth of any charges which shall then be, or which previously thereto shall hare been made of breach of trust or duty, collusive with private parties, or other misconduct in connection with the Providence claim, on the part of any officer of the several public offices on the Thames G-oldfielda over which his Honor the Superintendent has control. At the request of the Inspector of Miners' Rights his office will be included in the inquiry. Complaints must be made in writing, addressed to Mr. Sheelian, or before him at the Courthouse, Grahams - town. We are glad to sec that this step has been adopted—not an hour before the time. We learn that the whole of the shoemakers of Auckland have consented to join the Early Closing Association. We hare no doubt that the employees in this branch, of trade will be highly delighted at this, and we should like to see inanj other trades and professions also keep somewhat shorter hours than they do at the present time, so as to give those employed an opportunity of having their fair share of the recreation and enjoyment of this life. Notice ie given that on and after November 4th the Victoria Steam Carriage and Wheel Factory will be closed at half-post 12 o'clock on Saturdays. Mr. Thos. Macffarlane's lecture on " Government Life Assurrance," which was to have been delivered at the City Hall this evening, has been unavoidably postponed. A meeting of the shareholders of the Just-in-Time Gold Mining Company is advertised for the 16th November. A requisition, signed by a nunibor of gentlemen, lias been presented to Mr. Thos. Young, late Inspector of Nuisances, asking him to apply for re-appointment to that office. A dividend of four shillings per share has been declared in th'e Nonpareil Gold Mining Company, payable next Wednesday. An inspection of the whole of the "Volunteers in Auckland will take place on Thursday evening nest, in the Albert Barracks, at 5 o'clock. The programrun of sports in connection with the Waikato Turf Club, to be held at Hamilton on the 28th and 29th February, 1572, will bo found in our advertising columns. Although the question of tb/j publication of an organ devoted to the iuterests of the Church of England has been shelved by the Dioe;r»" Synod, we see no good and valid reason why an attempt should not be made by members of that Church to start a periodical of the kind. We feel convinced that were thi3 done, good support and encouragement would be met with, and we need hardly say that the united talent of the Church—clerical and lay—would be capable of producing a mass of readable and highlyinstructive matter. Where other denominations have succeeded, we think that the Anglican Synod should not be behindhand. The process of flagging is being steadily proceeded with on the east side of Queenstreet. The value of property at the higher end of the street will be greatly enhanced when the pavement is complete. The Mayor of Auckland writes us as follows : —"Allow me to correct a very serious error your reporter has made respecting the probable days the Borongh Council may appoint for market-days. I am reported to have said, ' the Council would fix Tuesdays and Saturdays !' This should read, ' That I believed, after public expression for the farmers, that the Council would not fix on Saturday for a market-day, but probably Tuesdays and Fridays.' " At the St. Sepulchre's entertainment, to be given next Thursday evening, we understand a novelty is to be introduced in the shape of an original comedietta, composed expressly for the occasion by a friend to the cause, who ie known to possess considerable ability. Altogether the programme is such as to ensure a large audience, and a complete success. The Shcrtourne Journal describee a touching occurrence which has 3 ust taken place at the little villago of Longburton, in .Dorsetshire. The curate was engaged to be married to the only child of the vicar. He was taken ill, and the marriage service, at his earnest wish, was celebrated by special dispensation as he lay on his death-bed. The day after his burial was to have been that of his marriage. The wedding-cake was provided, and was cut at hie funeral. The coffin of polished oak, with gilded furniture, was placed in the drawingroom, having upon it a purple and white pall, upon which was placed an exquisitely beautiful heart-shaped garland of lilies, orange blossoms, and other delicate flowers. In the centre was a small cross, similarly composed. The mourners wore white crape hatbands, those who preceded the body white silk hatbands, and all, including the bearers, white kid gloves. A hymn was sung in the church, and another in the churchyard, after the coffin, with its floral adornments, had been lowered into the grave. A soiree dansante was given at the Hotel de Gouvernement, New Caledonia, on the 3rd of October. It was an official affair, at which between 30 and 40 ladies formed part of the company which partook of the Governor's hospitalities. State of Her Majesty's Gaol, Auckland, for the week ending 28th October, 1871:— Oβ remand, 1 male; awaiting trial, 7 males j sentenced to penal servitude, 55 males; sentenced' to hard labour, 75 males, 29 females ; default of bail, 2 males, 1 female ; debtors, 9 iu:ile:s; received during the week, 13 males, 7 jeujales ; discharged, 7 niale3, 2 females ; total in.gaol, 149 moles, 30 females.

If the- Horticultural! Society mean to give any prizes at the ebow -arineb is talked/of for the 15th of November, it will be well for them to publish a schedule as soon as possible. We are of course aware that the decision to have a flower show was arrived, at very lately, and it could not be expected that growers should do justice to themselves at such short notice. At the best, therefore, it can only be a scratch affair; but the outside public will have want justice if they remain longer uninformed as to the classes of flowers to be exhibited. One of the first- duties of the committee of a Horticultural Society is to draw up a schedule of prizes, and make the same as public as possible. It is now only a fortnight before the proposed show is to take place. It will be utterly impossible during that interval for gardeners to make mucb. preparation, but if some announcement be not mixde at once the show will be a blank for all except the few initiated ones (if such there be) who are aware of the intentions of the committee. The meeting of the Auckland Institute has been postponed until Thursday evening, November 6. We would remind our readers that Mr. Gwynne's walking match against tim« will come off this afternoon, in Mr. Cunningham's paddock, at Newmarket. Mr. Gwynne is backed to walk eighteen miles in three hours. We have been placed in possesion of the following few particulars as to a novel mode practised recently by a free selector not many miles from our city, with a view to exterminate an accumulation of vermin in one of his cattle. In the first instance, the selector to whom reference is made, bathed the animal well with somo of the purest o: kerosene oil —having previously been apprised by a neighbour of its usefulness for tio purpose intended. After some considerable time was thus occupied, the animal, in the meanwhile, being very submissive, it was considered that an excellent job hud been accomplished; and, in order to ascertain whether any portion of the cow had siill escaped the kerosene ablution, a careM. inspection was made, when it was discovered that near the leg was a small spot which had failed to become saturated with oil, and in this particular place a large quantity of vermin had collected. To remove theee, it was decided to bring the aid of another agent into requisition, and, accordingly, without much delay, a lighted faggot of wood was held near the spot. It is almost unnecessary to mention the fact that, in an instant, the poor brute was enveloped in flames, and, seized with terror, darted off at a tremendous pace through the woods, overtaking in her flight a couple of sawyers, who for a moment stood in amazement at the scene, but speedily decamped, leaving the cow in its sad plight. The unfortunate creature, when overtaken or found by her owner, had by some means contrived to extinguish the flames, but we believe was scarcely recognisable, as the hair was completely gone, whilst the flesh also was eevercly burnt. It is to be trusted that this experimentalising upon dumb animals, with so dangerous a commodity as kerosene, will after this be discontinued by our friend, who has thus far, through his unforeseen carlessness, deprived himself for the present of the use of a valuable animal.— Newcastle Chronicle. The Engineer Volunteers inustered in the Albert Barracks on Saturday evening in considerable force, and, despite an unpleasant raiD, went through, a course of firing with blank cartridge. By the arrival of the Go-Ahead we have received full files of Taranaki papers to the 25th instant, but they contain no later information, and nothing of any interest to Auckland readers. The usual weekly meeting of the committee of the Agricultural League was held at the British Hotel on Saturday afternoon, fery little business was transacted, a report of which will be found elsewhere. The opening services iu connection with the Newton Congregational Sunday-school took place yesterday. In the morning the Rev. J. J. Lewis preached, in the evening Mr. Smith, and in the afternoon tti ."e was an address to the children. There were very large attendances upon each occasion, the result of -which, in a pecuniary point of view, may be looked upon as highly satisfactory. In the morning the collection amounted to £22 10s, in the afternoon to £4 18s, and in the evening to £26 12s, making a total of £54. It i 9 now placed beyond a doubt that the Sunday-school will be opened free of debt after the soiree, which i 3 to take place to-morrow evening. Commend us for one who was not a lady at all, but as handsome as any dozen of them, to Jean Glover, the Kilmarnock weaver's daughter, who belonged to the last half of the last eeutury (1753 —1801). She bounds into the arena with the dash of a gipsy, shaking musical accompaniments from her tambourine, and busking her petticoat up to her knee, to give more freedom to her dancing ; for Jean Glover was a wayward laseie. Queen of Beauty,—wild queon of a savage sort of beauty —she cast in her lot with a mountebank. She danced with him through the world, —it was not the world of the geography boots, — fantastic in costume, bright-eyed, lighthearted, or with heroic assumption of lightheadedness ; and she died in the midst of a vocation of which Jean must have begun to be weary,—for youth had long since passed away, though her mature beauty might atill attract wonder, —at a fair in the north of Ireland. Jean Glover has left her mark in Scottish poetry. " Comin' through the craigs o' Kyle," with its flavour of blooming heather and the love-making among it, is a memory of some brief bit of sunshine in her own fitful life. It is as true metal for a weaver's lassie to. have struck out as any from which song was coined by her contemporary, Burns the ploughman. — The Songstresses of Scotland. A very serious assault was committed last evening in Albert-street, by a man. named John Radloy, upon the person of Thos. Sealey. Radley '.would appear to have been drinking, and some words ensued between the parties, when Radley took up an iron bar, and struck Sealey a heavy blow over the head with it, cutting his head open, and deluging him with blood. He was at once apprehended and lodged in the lock-up, and Sealey's injuries were attended to by a medical man. Radley will be brought up at the Police Court this morning. The Lancet has the following respecting th e Queen's health : —" Wo have seen with regret the attacks on the Queen, based on Her Majesty's absence from evening entertainments and on her brief residence in London. Now, the fact is—and the more widely this fact is known, and the more plainly it is stated, the better—Her Majesty is not physically capable of bearing the effects of crowded or over-heated rooms, or prolonged residence in London. The effort of entertaining in the evening produces great and immediate discomfort, followed by sleeplessness or disturbed rest and severe headache; and Her Majesty rarely visits Buckingham Palace without suffering in a similar manner. The profession will readily, without our entering more fully into so delicato a subject, understand the necessity for Her Majesty's medical advisers exercising the greatest diligence to prevent the recurrence of these pymptons. It would appear as if some persons must forget that the Queen is a lady nearly fifty-three years of age, for they talk as if they expected her to possess the same remarkable physical rigour and nerve-power she exhibited twenty years ago." The Hawlce's Bay Btrald says :—A paragraph has been going the rounds of the New Zealand press for the last three months stating " that an extraordinary phenomenon occurred ac Napier some short time back, in 4he shape of a thunderbolt ffirolite, which fell into the harbor, &c." The last newspaper, strange to say, in -which, we noticed this paragraph is the Auckland Morning Neios of the 12th instant, the editor of which journal, to make it appear " news," states that it happened at Napier on the 31st September! The fact is that the occurrence nover happened at Napier, but at Auckland, on the 11th of July last, if we are to credit the New Zeaiakd Hebatj), in which paper the paragraph first appeared.