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New Zealand Mail, Issue 117, 12 July 1873, Page 17

A letter appears in the Auckland " Herald," purporting to be from the ship's company of H.M.S. Dido, at Levuka, complaining of a letter which appeared in the " Southern Cross" stating that "in less than twelve months more than one hundred men have escaped from the Dido, which has been described at Auckland as a floating hell, owing to the intensely severe discipline or tyranny systematically practised on board the ship." This statement the ship's company deny, and proceed : — l ' As the Dido has been a most comfortable ship during her commission—over two years—and as she has in that period only lost twenty of her crew, most of whom could be well spared, you will perceive how false that statement is. In (point of fact, she has lost considerably less men than any other ship on the station ; and wherever she has been in New Zealand or the Cape of Good Hope, &c, complimentary paragraphs have appeared in the local papers relative to the good behaviour and general contentment of the ship's company." At a recent meeting of the Philosophical Institute, Christchurch, Mr F. E. Wright as chairman of the committee appointed to secure the establishment of village greens in townships throughout the province, reported that the following reserves for this purpose had been made : —Timaru, 50 acres ; Little River, 200 acres ; Mandeville district, bounding rural section 1623, 85 acres ; Upper Christchurch, near rural section 6379, 20 acres ; Upper Christchurch, near rural section 14701, 14 acres ; Oxford district, near rural section 1500, 200 acres. He congratulated the Institute on having been so successful in instituting what will in time become a great boon to the province. Mr Fereday then read ahighly interesting paper upon observations on the occurrence of a butterfly new to this colony of. the genus Danais Berenice.

The Chief Justice of New South Wales has at last made up his mind to resign his office. He has been talking about it for a great number of years, and begging vainly successive Governments to let him, retire on full pay ; but none of them has had the courage to propose it, so he has made up his mind at last to accept the inevitable. Sir James Martin is likely to be his successor.

New Zealand colonists may obtain ahint from the following extract from a letter of the Canadian correspondent of an Edinburgh paper : —lmmigration Aid Societies are forming in several counties. Individual immigrants are engaged in Britain by the Government agents for individual members of the society, at certain fixed rates, for six months—at, say fourteen dols. a month for farm laborers, and four dols. for girls for house work. This includes board and washing. The society then pays the passage out in full ; and the " articled" immigrant comes direct to his employer. The sum the society has expended on him—twenty-oner dols. —is kept out of his wages. It was tried last year on a considerable scale in th© Ottawa country, and wrought well.