Country News.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 220, 27 November 1875, Page 16

Country News.

The late high winds did considerable damage to Maori crops in the Hutt district, such as vegetable-marrows, kumeras, &o. A man named Charles Lavery has been committed for trial at Wanganui ou a charge of rape upon a girl aged fourteen years.

The Oddfellows in the Lower Hutt District have determined to celebrate their anniversary by a dinner, on the 4th January, and call for tenders from caterers. In reference to a rumored attack of Waikatos on the Taupe natives which we mentioned some time ago, it is pleasant to know that the rumor was without foundation. In the first place, the party supposed to he aggrieved were not Waikatos ; and secondly, the party aggrieved have not come down as threatened.

A Wairarapa paper undertands that Mr. C. Pharazyn will ho a candidate for a seat for that district in the House of Representatives at the ensuing election, and that his address to the electors will probably appear before the end of the week. He will support, if elected, the unity of the colony, county and local government, careful and economical administration, as the only chance of averting a disastrous crash, which must come if things continue as at present, and a reform in the laud laws, so as to stop selling lauds merely for revenue purposes, and to assure having proper quantities available for the settlement of the immigrants we are introducing. The Wairarapa Standard in its last issue has the following complimentary remarks:— “ Our big brother, the New Zealand Times, writes of us now with ponderous playfulness, as an ‘ up-country print.’ Possibly the phrase is a convenient one to denote a locality which is probably a terra incognita to our contemporary, and a paper which possibly has that ‘ far-off touch of greatness to know it is not great !’ With all due deference, we hardly exjiect too much courtesy or consideration from our great contemporary. It is ‘so near and yet so far.’ On the threshold of Mannersstreet, and yet so distant from it. The ‘ Intelligent Vagrant,’ it is said, never ventures to wander into that particular street till after the Mail has gone to press.” Mr. Lee, the inspector of schools, is now in the Wairarapa. On Friday last (so the local paper states) he examined the children attending the Greytown school. The number of pupils in attendance was 105 ; and all except one was individually examined. A very talented boy, 14 years of age, Joseph Hawke, a son of Mr. John Hawke, passed Standard IV., which is the highest Standard of the Board. The following pupils passed the 3rd Standard, namely Helen Fuller, Margaret Morris, Feargus O’Connor, George Terry, William Thomas, and Rudolph Hirschberg. Helen Fuller passed with the highest credit, having obtained all the marks in Standard 11., and more than 75 per cent, in Standard 111. The whole of the above will receive certificates from the Education Board. The strong points of the school were arithmetic, composition, and dictation, hut in reading the pupils, even in the higher classes, 'were not so proficient. Until all the reports from the other schools have been received a comparison between them cannot of course be instituted.

Mr. W. A. Murray, M.H.R., is not partial to the Press. Addressing his constituents at Milton recently, he is reported as having said : —“ I would take this opportunity of disabusing your minds af the misrepresentations which a certain section of the Press has cast upon men who are doing what they believe to be best for the good of the country—more especially with regard to Sir Geoi-ge Grey, a gentleman who, though my acquaintance with him. has been brief, I have learned to reverence and esteem a gentleman who has left the comfort and the learned leisure of his princely home to come forward at the call of his fellow-countrymen, who say that the country demands his services. That gentleman has been the theme of abuse by a certain section of literary vagrants. And not only so, hut to Sir George Grey, I regret to say that certain prominent members of the House have behaved in a way which is altogether inconsistent with the position of Ministers, the policy of statesmen, or the politeness of gentlemen. And, with regard to the Press, the most of the contents of newspapers is made up of stale quotations from other newspapers, and the only original matter they seem to contain is a combination of fallacy and falsehood. It appears to me that their whole action is dictated by a spirit of ignorance and malevolence. Indeed, there are in connection with the Press members of the House who are, I consider, a discredit to any Legislature.

Just as the evening train was leaving the Balclutha station last night, says the Brace Herald of November 2nd, twelve men arrived from Gatlin’s River hearing a stretcher. On inquiry we ascertained that a young man named James Brunton, in the employ of Mr. McPherson (late Guthrie and Larnach’s sawmills) on Tuesday last, while employed at the foot of one of the skids, over which logs of timber arc slid from the hush to a point from which they can he conveyed by bullock teams, did not observe the approach of a log, which fell upon him, breaking one of his legs. It being considered advisable that lie should be conveyed to the Dunedin hospital for treatment without loss of time, twelve of his mates volunteered to carry him the whole distance of from thirty to forty miles by road. Having prepared a stretcher, so fitted up as to prevent the covering over the body from passing over the broken limb, they left Gatlin’s River at 7 o’clock yesterday morning, conveying the sufferer by relays of four men. Reaching Port Molyneux, they struck along the river bank road, and reached the railway station just in time to catch the train, showing by their jaded and worn-out appear-

anee that a rapid march had been made, particularly during the latter portion of the journey. Such a feat on behalf of suffering humanity is, in our opinion, worthy of the consideration of the lloyal Humane Society, as yesterday the weather was so very close and hot that so rapid a march must have been accomplished under very great fatigue to the twelve young men who thus performed a selfimposed deed of mercy worthy of the utmost commendation.

It seems by an up-country print that on Tuesday night Mr. Butler, the surveyor, had a narrow escape in the Waiohine. He was crossing with another man on one horse, when the animal got into deep water, the riders were swept off, and saved themselves by clinging to a bridge, from which unpleasant predicament they were rescued by Mr. Alexander Ramsay, who fortunately came to their assistance. About the same time a native named King crossed on foot with an European, both were swept off their feet by the current, the pakeha clung round the neck of the Maori, and probably both would have been lost had not King persuaded his companion to take hold of his jacket instead of throttling him; the latter did so, and the gallant Maori swam down the stream till he landed his comrade on a sandbank.

The Waikato Times, by the courtesy of McGregor Hay, Esq., has been permitted to see a curious relic of “ Old New Zealand” in the form of a copy of the Wellington Independent of date January 21st, 1846. The imprint of the paper shows that it was then “ printed and published every Wednesday morning by William Edward Vincent, Thomas McKenzie, James Muir, and George Fellingham, Lamb-ton-quay, Wellington, Port Nicholson, New Zealand.” The title of the paper, the Wellington Independent , is printed in rustic letters upon a black scroll, with a central design representing a beehive, surrounded by a floral decoration. The motto is, “Nothing extenuate or set down ought in malice.” It has no page headings, it is about crown size, four pages, with four thirteen em columns in each, and is printed in bourgeois and minion. There are altogether about four and a-half columns of advertisements, two and a-half on the front page, and two on the second. The shipping news records the arrivals and departures of a few cutters and schooners. There were in port three schooners, two brigs and a French whaling ship. The shipping paragraphs contain information regarding the building of a schooner of twenty tons by Mr. Mathieson at Wanganui, and another by Captain Taylor and Mr. Watt of thirty-five to forty tons, at the same place. The leading article commences, “We are still without recent news from Auckland.” It goes on to refer to the expected arrival of “Captain. Grey,” (the present leader of the Opposition,) and the claims for compensation to be submitted to him by settlers. The article says : “It is not merely the holders of land-orderswhich were unavailable as a means of acquiring possession of land who have suffered; it is also those who have been induced by the representations of the New Zealand Company, backed since 1840 by the sanction of the Government, to emigrate to this place, either as laborers capitalists, in the belief that they might find this a profitable field for the employment of labor and of capital, and ivhose expectations have been falsified.” How completely the condition of the colony has been altered since that time ! The arrival of two whaleboats with wool is made a subject of congratulation, and the Independent says : “We believe that there will he more than five tons of wool exported from Port Nicholson, instead of four tons as previously stated.” This reads comically enough at the present time. There is also in the same issue a reference to the progress of the war' against Hoani Heke. The rebels not having assented to Captain Grey’s terms, he was about to send reinforcements of troops and militia, and the war was to be resumed with vigor. There is next a report of a debate in the House of Commons on a vote for a sum of £22, 565 for the Colony of New Zealand. In this report we find Mr. Roebuck saying : —“ He was convinced that with a little care they might strike out a self-sustaining system of colonisation. Let there he a Governor and Executive Council appointed by the Crown, and a Legislative Assembly by the colonists. Let there be the Legislature, and the administration be the Governor, with the advice, not by the consent of the Council. Let the colonists in local matters govern themselves. He entreated the Government not to allow an hour to pass before they formed a uniform system for the colony.” Sir Robert Peel, referring to the Legislative Council, said : “In some way or other it ought to represent the public opinion of the colony.” Judging from the following remarks there must have existed a singularly happy agreement between the various denominations : “Mr. Hindly complained that the present Bishop of New Zealand had consecrated for tlie exclusive burial ef Protestants, a portion of the cemetery which had hitherto been used for the interment of the inhabitants of the colony generally, without regard to religious distinctions.” We gather some curious facts from advertisements. In those days William Fitzherbert sold groceries, whaler’s slops and hoop iron. Robert Watt, Esq., father of the manager of the National Bank at Hamilton, occupied almost half the advertising space as a merchant.