Untitled

New Zealand Herald, Volume XIII, Issue 4485, 29 March 1876, Page 2

The Town Clerk some time since -wrote to 1e Colonial Secretary, with reference to the <aths in the Auckland Hospital being iniided in the Registrar-General's returns of \e deaths in the city. This practice caused i error in the death rate of the city, inasiich as many of the diseases which resulted tally were contracted outside of the trough. A reply to this letter has been iceived from the Colonial Secretary's Office. tie reply states that the Town Clerk is in Jror when he asserts that it is not the rule j include the hospital deaths in all the iroughs. At first the deaths in the Auckind and Otago Hospitals were not included, Wause these hospitals were outside the broughs, but as their exclusion led to reirns unfair to the other boroughs, they fere subsequently included. Measures are bout to be taken to remove any error that lay occur from the inclusion of hospital eaths in the borough returns. The Regis-tar-General will request the hospital authoities, when registering a death in the lOspital, to give information as to the residence of the deceased immediately before dmission into the hospital. If this request 3 complied with, the Registrar- General will ie able to introduce greater accuracy in the lortaUty report of the boroughs. Mr. J. Clare, the -well known boatbuilder n Custom-house-street, is now employed in he construction of two boats, which are ivorth inspection, on account of their adaptability to the work required of them. One is a pilot boat for one of the South Sea Island harbours, and is 24 feet long, carvel built, and constructed of kauri, with pohu'tukawa timbers, eopper-fasteued and roved ithroughout, with a large centre-board. This boat, to all appearance, would live in any sea. She will be taken to the Islands by the brig Vision, which will shortly take her departure. The other boat is a smaller and lighter one, intended for the use of the Mission schooner Southern Cross during her projected trip among the Melanesian Islands, and is to all intents and purposes a surf boat, and is likely to pull as lightly as waterman's skiff. She, also, is provided with a centre board. An accident happened shortly after noon yesterday with an express cart, belonging to Mr. John Cutler, who was driving down the Kyber Pass Road, with a load of furniture. He had his son, a lad o£ twelve, with him in the cart. When opposite Seccombe's brewery, the reins with which he was driving broke, and the horse commenced to kick. Being thus unrestrained, the animal made lively times with the vehicle and its contents. The lad was pitched off the trap into the road, and received in his fall a severe cut on the right cheek near the eye. lie also complained of being hurt in the sloulders. Mr. Cutler was also slightly injired. The shafts of the van were brok-jn bf the violent antics of the horse. Assistaice arriving, the boy was taken to Mr. Elite's, the chemist, in Newmarket, who dessed the wound, and he was afterwards onveyed home. The injuries received are frtunately not of a dangerous nature. jA most extraordinary circular has been ant us from Liverpool, by Dr. de Courcy ~|oung, late surgeon-superintendent of the aip Celestial Queen, which, as our readers •ill remember, was in Auckland harbour ime time since. It seems that the Colonial jovernment would not sanction the appointlent of Dr. Young again, and Sir James fergusson stated that a Court of Inquiry had pen held. Dr. Young thereupon lashes out l a most absurdly furious style on Captain Patts, of the Celestial Queen, on Sir James lergusson, and indeed on all concerned. [e accuses the captain of the grossest imiorality. He says that the chief immiiration officer at Auckland is "a rank fapist, and only a quack doctor." "We have een not a few specimens of strong language, >ut we have seen few compositions to beat tis. . ■:. : Some very necessary works are now in rogress on the College Road, in the " Dedirood, and or Ponsonby" district, in the fhape of the formation of water channels. There is another part of the district to which lome attention ought to be given by the Board before the winter sets in. The Ponlonby Road, near Cox's Creek, requires mealling very badly. • In rainy weather it is, is at present constructed, a matter of ex;reme difficulty for vehicles to travel along t.

Some very necessary alterations are beiaa ■■'■ effected to the building in Shertlond Crescent known as the City Club HoSeL- When '■:' the adjoining edifice, formerly known as tVo ' Q.C.E. Hotel, was pulled down, two or three months ago, a considerable portion of the support of that attached to it was re _ moved, and as the edifices in that localitv are principally built on piles on the edge of some swampy ground bordering the old , sea - beach, there was sufiicient deviation fjom ■"■ the perpendicular to warrant the authorities in issuing the requisite notice to alter the' ' building. The front is now being taken; : ' down, with the view of re-erecting it on » v better principle. In the meantime the coa - : struction of the contemplated shops on the - ; adjoining site is necessarily delayed. i' While a collection was being made last evening at a tea meeting held in the Ponsonby Baptist Sunday School, one of the collectors, very solicitous in regard to the reporters, of whom there wero three present, enquired of the chairman hi a -'- ! loud tone of voice, and amidst much laugh- ' ter, if these gentlemen jw-pe to be considered : free. The members of Mie fourth estate,. : while duly appreciating the kindly interest manifested in them by the collector, would '■-' have preferred if he had dispensed with his enquiry, passed the plate, and allowed them to contribute or not,, as they thought fit The proceeding of the geutleman in question, ■•' though pleasing to himself, seems to us to • display a want of good taste on his part ■ which certainly does not redound to his credit. ' The annual inspection, parades of the Vic-" toria, Hobson, aud Scottish companies were held in the Drill-shed last evening. The.)

different companies were exercised by their respective officers, \inder- the supervision of Major Gordon, who afterwards wheeled the i whole into line for the general salute, de-- '■'.. ployed into column, reformed into line, and put the whole through the manual, firing, and bayonet exercises, also skirmishing;drifl. This being the last of the capitation year, a . most searching trial of the capabilities of the different corps was made, the parade lasting till after 10 o'clock. Three handsome shops are in course oE erection for Messrs. K. Whitson and Son, in '... their allotment between Messrs; McArthur, Shera and Co.'s fine premises and the Albert Hotel, in Queen-street. The shops will be ■'■' constructed on the same design of frontage as the adjoining hotel. Mr. Watson is the I . contractor who has the work in. hand. The Hon. Dr. Pollen and Lord. Hervey Phipps arrived in town by the Bing. leader on Monday evening. His Excellency . the Marquis of Nornianby has gone to Napier, where he will remain till about the. sth prox. He may be expected in Auckland : about the 7th of April. A Homo correspondent of the OtagoDaily Times writes :—Some points in the conduct of the Prince of Wales during his tour in India were singled out by the Rev. Dr. Duff, the eminent Free church missionary, for attack in a speech made by him at .a. meeting of the Anglo Indian Christian Union, held in Edinburgh on January 12fch. Dγ, ; Duff began by referring to the visits paid by . the Prince to " idolatrous temples, "(and Ms . inspection of the tooth of Buddha. He also ; spoke with righteous indignation of tho Prince's patronage of the wild beast fights at Baroda, where he calmly watched animals tear and gore each other. But Dr. Duffs' heaviest animadversions were made upon tho Prince's attendance at exhibitions of nautch, or dancing girls. Dr. Duff said he wp.3 shocked that the Princo "should have had obtruded upon his eyes a dancing t . company of women wlio were in India known to be degraded, and low, and vile;" and again, that "it was contrary to British usago* to be introduced into a company of low ani vile women, and see thein exhibiting them--.-selves in low aud vile dances." This is tho substance of Dr. Duff's remarks, to which I may add that he blamed the Prince's advisers more than the Priuce himself,, and said that perhaps the fuller accounts might place matters in a less black light than the telegrams appeared to do. Dr. Duffs observations have obtained a wide currency, and . many journals have also commented upon them editorially. Some blame him much for speaking as he did, these papers being almost in variably sceptical in their religions theories or aristocratic in their predilections! '■ Others not biassed against Dr. Duff, like the Scotsman, because he ia a Free Church minister, and not believing in the infallibility of princes, have not hesitated to openly commend Dr. Duff for his manly protest agaiust iniquity in high places. Some few, such as the Times, have discreetly preserved silence on the topic. If anyone who does not know what the performances of the ' nautch girls are wishes to acquire that, knowledge 1 would refer him for a taste of it to the World of January 12th. There hewill find a letter from an Indian correspondent, in which, in a few carefully chosen, words, the fact isplainly stated that on one occasion at least the Prince, despite Ins familiarity with ballets, was actually put out of countenance by the behaviour of one of the girls in question. The Duncdiu livening 2Tcw3 says:—A bullock killed at the Slaughter-house on Saturday was found to contain in its stomach i a rather peculiar assortment of articles, amongst which may be mentioned half a pound of duck shot in the form of ahattya quantity of pins, several hair pins, half a dozen buttons, several nails, a four bladed penknife", and other things of a like sort-Jn fact a small hardware shop. This ordinarily indigestible diet appeared to have agreed with it as the animal was in excellent condition. How it could have obtained the luxuries mentioned is a mystery, but it evidently fattened on hard fare. Stupid as the dipsomaniac becomes, says the Quarterly Jieview, he is never so stupid as not to pursue that which is the main business of his existence—"to procure and conceal liquor." A gentleman who was ashamed to drink at home, and was not in the vicinity of a public-house, is knoirn to have procured a dozen bottles of ardent spirits at a time, aud buried them in different places in the fields near, taking his rounds periodically till the stock was exhausted J all the time denying that be had touched a drop. But ladins arc generally tlie'Sf&rrf, as far as untruthfulness is concerned. A curious fact in the history of this disease is the length of time before it tells its own name. In this respect, again, from their greater interest to evade suspicion, their greater imputed innocence, and their more limited liberty of access to what they desire, - the worst offenders are women. Their supplies have to be clandestinely sometimes from the grouer or confectioner whose power to sell such articles is anotner form of temptation entitled by nustaKn legislation—and entered to them under tauw names, aided also by contributions from mo chemist, ostensibly for the family medicinechest, or her own dressing table-meaicmai tincture, red lavender, chloric and sn¥""g ethers, quautities of eau de Cologne, spiro of wine, or in whatever form the odioW thing with its cant name of " pick-me^ ay can be contrived. Tha husband, meaniriule, sees her much on the sofa, depressed, or ei 'cited, given to tears-kysterical-ana per haps recommends the things she most; long for, a little brandy—and then goes ton* daily work, not dreaming that it is anvtWDg more than some feminine infirmity. /«™ - it goes on, till perhaps the arrival of un» countable wine and spirit bills, or the per sistent going-out of the table and baE l^?, or the strange disappearance of the drawWg room ornaments, and finally, the sn<*«g hints of some house-servant, reveals all ™ domestic misery. Even the doctor, in cases of unimpugnablo respectability, 'S to account for symptoms, and is . little less than a maniac himself « nee. tempts to open the cyea of husband or father. . , The Waihato Times states that a secoe case of typhoid fever has occurred in «™"