Intercolonial News.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 244, 22 July 1876, Page 17

Intercolonial News.

On dit, says the Tasmanian Tribune, that we are to be visited by one of the younger princes of the Royal Family in a few months, or even at a shorter time, for rumor goes so far as to say that our distinguished visitor is already en route for this colony. We are informed that preparations have been commenced at Government House for the prince’s reception, by the refitting of the suite of rooms occupied by his Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh when on a visit to this city. Signor Eerani, who will be remembered as having visited Wellington with his trained monkeys, has, says the Dunedin Star, “ fretted his last hour on the stage.” He died at Tenterfield, New South Wales, of general debility. He was then a member of Ashton’s Circus Company. A rather painful occurrence happened at the funeral. The horses backed into a creek) and the hearse upset, but in a few moments it was extricated without anything unseemly happening to the corpse, which was then conveyed to its last resting place. iEgles, in the Australasian, says : The auctioneer’s advertised reasons for selling are ordinarily simple enough. The furniture is usually the furniture of a gentleman about to visit Europe, or giving up housekeeping. No one ever announces that he is selling his property because he wants the money. That is a contingency too absurd to contemplate. In this week’s papers there is, however, an example of real candor. The advertiser takes the world fully into his confidence. He throws open the closet and introduces you to—his mother-in-law. This is how he prefaces his desire to sell his brewery and malthouse : “ The owner being about to leave the colony on account of the estrangement in his house that has been caused by the contents of a letter addressed to his wife, and fallen into his hands, and also to get rid of a mother-in-law and her family.” In Victoria recently a young man died from the effects of dancing. Deceased had been dancing all night at a wedding at Footscray, and had returned by the early morning train to Carlton. In the train he complained that his arm was powerless, and soon afterwards he became unconscious, in which state he remained till he was taken home in a cab. Dr. Fletcher was sent for, but on his arrival the unfortunate young man was pronounced quite dead. Deceased was a steady young man, unmarried, and lived with his mother. Dr. Fletcher, who made the post mortem examination, deposed that, with the exception of the liver, the general organisation of deceased was healthy. The brain was slightly congested, and one of the air vessels was choked with blood. Death resulted from sanguineous appoplexy, probably caused by over-excitement. Dancing all night would groduce appoplexy in one similarly constituted. The jury returned a verdict in accordance with the doctor’s evidence. Alluding to the improvement which has taken place in the performance of the San Francisco mail service, the Sydney Morning Herald observes : —“ The outward and homeward voyages of the Zealandia, on her recent trip, have given us another proof of the efficiency to which the Pacific mail service can be brought, when its capabilities have been fully developed. The mails which left here by the Zealandia on the 7th of April were delivered in London bn the 22nd of May, three days before the contract time, notwithstanding the detour by way of Auckland, and detentions at the different ports of call amounting to thirty hours. The mails which were delivered in Sydney on the 19th inst., two days before the contract time, left London on the 4th of May. They were a day late in leaving San Francisco ; there were detentions of 12 hours at Honolulu and of 11 hours at Kandavau ; but the time lost was made up, and the two days saved by the speed of the Zealandia. We are therefore having a 45 days’ service between London and Sydney, if this trip be a specimen of what the new steamers can average, with the possibility of saving two or three days more when the land transit service and the Atlantic route shall be made to work harmoniously with the Pacific service, and useless detours and unnecessary detentions reduced to a minimum.” Signor d’Albertis, writing from Somerset to Dr. Bennett, of Sydney, under date May 18, gives (says the Herald) the following details relative to his exploring expedition to New Guinea: —“I have got a living ‘ eclectus,’ which I consider a new species. To-day lam going to kill it, to ascertain the sex, though I have no doubt it is a female; but it is very different from the one I gave to you. It has been bought from the natives of Kirapune, about 100 miles east from Port Moresby. I am promised a male from Mr. Smitharts, from whom I bought my present specimens. He tells me that this is a male bird, and he has been told by the natives that the female is all green; but this may be a mistake, for I do not believe that in this new species there is the inverse differences between the sexes as there are in the eclectus polichlorus. By dissection I hope to find that the diversity is constant in both species, and that the males are always green and the females always red and blue.” On May 21 he writes from the Neva, off Warrior reef, as follows:—“We left Somerset on the 18th inst., and anchored at Harvey reef at 7 p.m.; left the following morning for Long Island, and anchored there at half-past 10 o’clock a.m. Mr. Hargrave, the engineer, not being quite well, we did not leave before the 20th at 7 a.m., and anchored at 5 p.m. west of Warrior reef for the night. Everything is all right for the present. There are only ten of us on board—six colored men, a Chinaman as cook, Mr. Hargrave, Mr. Wilcox, and myself. If the weather continue as fine as it has been during the last three days, I hope to be in the Fly river in two days more. The want of fresh water has prevented our making greater speed.”

News of a horrible murder was recently telegraphed from the Hodgkinson goldfield, Northern Queensland. “It appears,” says the Brisbane Courier, “ that a man named Sam Lover (or Lovett), and a woman named 4 Curley,’ with whom he cohabited, had been for some time living and working together at McLeod’s—the woman doing her fossicking with the dish, or digging work of any other kind, as regularly and as skilfully as the man. But whenever fortune favored them with a nugget, or a few pennyweights’ patch, a drunken orgie was the inevitable result, and a fortnight back, in addition to whatever else she might have possessed, it appears the unfortunate woman had in her possession a 25dwt. piece. Both had been drinking considerably just previous to the time when the woman was last seen alive. At this time she was accompanying a man (not Lovett) into the bush, after which nothing was seen of her for some days. The discovery of her body in an advanced state of decomposition, and with one arm chopped off, apparently with a tomahawk, was made some days afterwards by a man in search of his horses, about a mile from the nearest tents. Lovett (who had apparently made no attempt to get away) was arrested on suspicion of having committed the murder. It is stated that he was covered with blood, and that he made no resistance, nor denied the charge. The man with whom the unfortunate woman was last seen alive has not yet turned up.” In reference to the case in Melbourne of the Bank of New Zealand against Mr. Sincock, which has excited some interest in this colony, the Melbourne Argus of July 4 gives the following particulars of its settlement:—“ When the case in which Mr. William Sincock, late manager of the Land Mortgage Bank of Victoria, was charged with forging and uttering an endorsement of his bank to a bill of exchange for £7OOO was dismissed by the City Bench, Mr. Stewart, of Malleson, England, and Stewart, who prosecuted on behalf of the Bank of New Zealand, by whom the bill was discounted, intimated that a fresh charge of having endorsed the bill without lawful authority and withintent to defraud, would be brought against the defendant, Civil actions relative to the same bill had been previously instituted by the Bank of New Zealand against the Land Mortgage Bank, but these were held in abeyance while the proceedings against Mr. Sincock were pending. Since the decision given by the City Bench on the first charge against Mr. Sincock, the Bank of New Zealand has delayed taking any further action, expecting that the Land Mortgage Bank would make some advances with the view of settling the matter out of court. Last week an arrangement was made whereby the Land Mortgage Bank released and agreed to transfer Mr. Sincock’s shares in the Land Mortgage Bank which were held by the Bank of New Zealand as collateral security for the bill, and in consequence of this the Bank of New Zealand has withdrawn all claims and actions against the Land Mortgage Bank. Mr. Joseph Snowball, by whom the bill of exchange was accepted, has purchased the shares referred to, their number being 2687, at £2 10s. each, and has given other security to the Bank of New Zealand. It is not probable that any further proceedings will be taken against Mr. Sincock.” $9 TRANS-PACIFIC MAIL SERVICE. (From the Sydney Morning Herald.) The outward and homeward voyages of the Zealandia, on her recent trip, have given us another proof of the efficiency to which the Pacific mail service can be brought, when its capabilities have been fully developed. We have often had occasion to complain of unpunctuality, and in England the complaints have been louder still—almost suspiciously so in some cases, as if some vested interest or other there were being threatened, and were resorting to the unworthy expedient of crying down the service unfairly. Nor can it be said that the passengers by the vessels first employed in the present service always found life at sea the most agreeable thing in the world, with such accommodation as they found on board. But the new management appears to have changed all that, and to have secured speed, comfort, and cleanliness. The mails which left here by the Zealandia on the 7th of April were delivered in London on the 22nd of May, three days before the contract time, notwithstanding the detour by way of Auckland, and detentions at the different ports of call amounting to thirty hours. The mails which were delivered in Sydney on the 19th inst., two days before the contract time, left London on the 4th of May. They were a day late in leaving San Francisco ; there were detentions of twelve hours at Honolulu and of eleven hours at Kandavau ; but the time lost was made up, and two days saved by the speed of the Zealandia. We are therefore having a forty-five days’ service between London and Sydney, if this trip be a specimen of what the new steamers can average, with the possibility of saving two or three days more when the land transit service and the Atlantic route shall be made to work harmoniously with the Pacific service, and useless detours and unnecessary detentions reduced to a minimum. All these facts point to the conclusion that it would be a pity to permit intercolonial jealousies or political partizanship to mar this enterpi’ise just when success appears within reach. From Philadelphia we learn that New South Wales and Queensland were the only two colonies to represent Australasia at the Centennial Exhibition on the opening day ; and therefore, in spite of our misgivings; the determination to forward our goods by our own mail route was a wise one, and our neighbors might have done well to have sent theirs by this route too. Let New Zealand accept the Bay of Islands as the port of call, let the necessity for detention at all other places be reduced to a minimum, let every steamer which the (company puts on the line be equal to the Zealandia, and let there be the same consideration for the comfort of the passengers which those who made the last voyage gratefully acknowledge, and there can

be no ground for doubt that the Pacific service will become thoroughly efficient in less time than the P. and O. Company did, and win its way in a few years to a foremost place among the great line of steamers that conduct the world’s traffic, and have already paid Australia the compliment of acknowledging that her commerce is worthy of their competition. TO THE EDITOR OF THE HERALD. Sir, —On sth instant we handed you copies of letters from the commanders of the American mail steamers City of New York and City of San Francisco, regarding the Fiji navigation and the New Zealand coastal service, and as the opinion of the commanders of the Clyde-built steamers Zealandia and Australia will doubtless be equally interesting, we hand you copies of letters from Captains Ferries ’and Cargill on the same subject:—We are, &c. Gilchrist, Watt, & Co., Sydney, June 21. It. M. S.S. Australia, Kandavau, June 9, IS7C. Dear Sirs,— Inreplyto your letter of the 2ndinstant, I beg to say that I consider Kandavau harbor a very fair one, and pretty easy of access by daylight, but I do not think it would be prudent to take it at night, the entrance being so contracted, unless the place was well lighted, and good sized buoys with beacons laid down. If there is to be a junction at Fiji, it seems to me the most suitable place to touch at, as thereby a vessel need not go through the group, but can adopt the eastern route. With regard to the navigation of the Fiji group generally, I can scarcely express an opinion; but it seems to be pretty safe, provided clear weather could be depended upon. The coastal service of New Zealand seems a great mistake, and the ships quite unfitted for it, as exemplified by the Australia grounding at Port Chalmers, and again by her having to lie outside nine hours, to wait for the mails, which were shipped with great difficulty: apart from this, in our case there was not sufficient traffic to cover half the expenses. Of course the most direct route from Sydney would be via Fiji, with a branch from New Zealand, but as the route from Sydney via Bay of Islands and Honolulu is hardly 300 miles more than via Fiji, I certainly think the latter the most preferable and economical route. —I remain, &c., War. Cargill. Messrs. Gilchrist, Watt, and Co., Sydney. Sydney, June 21, 187 G. Dear Sirs, —With regard to the present route of the San Francisco mail steamers, I am decidedly of opinion that sooner or later the “forked service” must be abandoned, and that it would be much to the general interest were the Bay of Islands made the depot for receiving the Now Zealand mails, passen gers, and freight. The direct course to Honolulu would then lead by the Navigators’ Group, where a small steamer from New Caledonia and Fiji could meet the mail steamer at an appointed rendezvous, and without any delay tranship mails and passengers. I am satisfied that the present contract time can be quite as surely accomplished, if not with greater certainty by the route I propose, than by the present route. The delay occasioned by calling at Fiji, together with the uncertainty of reaching Manukau passage by daylight, are my chief reasons for proposing the alteration. Should one of these large steamers be caught in a hurricane amongst the Fijian Group, a terrible disaster might be the result. With regard to entering Port Chalmers, I can only say that the recent experiences of other commanders lead me to believe that it is not a port to be entered safely and successfully by such large and heavy vessels. —I am, &c., J. S. Ferries, Commander R.M.S. Zealandia. Messrs. Gilchrist, Watt, and Co., Sydney. THE REGENT MASSACRE AT THE SOLOMON ISLANDS. We had news by cable not long since of the massacre of a trader’s crew at the Solomon Islands. The Sydney Morning Herald of the sth instant, to hand by the s.s. Albion, contains the following : By the schooner Dancing Wave, which arrived in Sydney early yesterday morning, we have received intelligence of one of the most bloodthirsty massacres recovered for some time past. Mr. Richard Davis, who was formerly chief officer of the barque Sydney, has kindly furnished us with the following particulars of the event. The Dancing Wave sailed from Sydney on a labor cruise, her ultimate destination being Somerset. She proceeded to the Solomon Group, and had engaged a certain number of the natives of Florida Island. On the 22nd April, at 10 a.m., the labor was all on board, and Captain Harrison was taking down their names, when suddenly there was a general rising among the natives on board, and instantly the crew, with the exception of one man, were tomahawked. The captain went into the cabin and died at once.- The chief officer and steward, who had taken refuge in the cabin, being badly wounded, shot themselves to avoid more torture. William Broad, the man saved, jumped overboard, and getting hold of the ship’s boat, escaped, and made for Savo Island. Broad, the seaman saved, was placed on board H.M.S. Sandfly, at Makera, and she at once left for the scene of the massacre. The following are the names of the murdered men :—Captain A. Harrison, Mr. J. Dare, chief officer ; Thomas Hellier, steward ; Sanderson, Nicholson, and Thompson, seamen.

The barque Sydney left here on the 12th February this year, and proceeded to St. Christoval, one of the Solomon Islands, where she remained for about four weeks, discharging coal, refitting, and making the necessary preparations for her next voyage. From St. Christoval she went to Savoa, another island of the same group, and upon approaching the island the schooner Dancing Wave was observed off the coast, to the north-east. The Sydney came to her anchorage on the evening of the 22nd of April, and at about half-past six on the morning of the 23rd, a man named William Broad, and Harry, a native of St. Christoval, came alongside in a boat, and .reported themselves as members of the crew of the Dancing Wave, whose comrades had been massacred on the previous morning. Immediately upon the receipt of this information Captain Woodhouse, of the Sydney ordered a boat to be lowered and manned to give chase to the schooner, which was still perceived bearing away in the offing. At this time the sea was perfectly smooth, and there was no wind, but about 10 o’clock the breeze freshened from the northward, and the boat, being unable to make the schooner, returned to the Sydney, when the captain ordered the vessel to be got under way, and to set off in pursuit of the Dancing Wave, the barque steering S.S. W. At about 5.30 on the morning of the 24th the schooner was observed in shore, and about four

miles distant, to the westward of Wanderer’s Bay, which is situated at the extreme west end of Gauldeanar, one of the Solomon Group. Having come up with the schooner, Captain Woodhouse, accompanied by twelve of his crew (principally natives), boarded the Dancing Wave, and found that the vessel had been ransacked from stem to stern; the natives had murdered the captain and all his crew, excepting William Broad and the man Harry, and had pillaged the whole place, carrying off everything that they could lay their hands on, and destroying life as well as property. The decks and the cabin floor were all bespattered with blood and other human remains ; and in the saloon pickle and pepper bottles were found to have been emptied, and their contents cast upon the floor, mixing themselves in heterogeneous masses with the blood, &c. Near the mainmast the head of one of the native crew was found. As soon as Captain Woodhouse could make it convenient, he had the decks washed, and removed as far as possible all signs of the fearful outrages that had been perpetrated on board her. From Gauldeanar the schooner was brought to Savoa, where Captain Woodhouse appointed his chief officer, Richard Davis, to take command of her, and bring her on to Sydney as soon as he could obtain a sufficient crew. From Savoa Mr. Davis sailed to Rubiana, where he met the steamer Ripple, and from which he enlisted a couple of European men and some natives to come on to Sydney with him. He also got a couple of European men from the Sydney, which accompanied him from Savoa. From Rubiana the schooner went to Maclcaria, a seaport of St. Christoval, where he refitted and obtained some of his supplies for the passage to this port. He took his departure from Micaree on Saturday, the 10th June, and called at Morto, Morau Bay, and Uge for yams, finally setting sail for this port on Thursday, the 15th June. The Dancing Wave arrived here at about 5.30 yesterday morning, after having made a smart passage from the islands. The Sydney left the Solomon Islands shortly after the Dancing Wave, so that she may be daily expected. It may not be uninteresting to our readers to know that the inhabitants of the Solomon Group are cannibals, and Mr. Davis informs us that when bartering with the natives he has always exercised the greatest possible caution, as they can never be trusted, and that at the moment at which they may appear to be on the most friendly terms, is the very moment at which they may be expected to turn round and make free use of their weapons. As an illustration of their treacherousness, he relates that last year, in the Kate Kearney, when he was chief officer of that vessel, she was at a place called Guize, and one day when they were landing a chief who had heen on board the ship, the islanders suddenly turned round and murdered four out of eight of the native crew that were in the boat. The crew are said to have given no provocation whatever, and without the slightest warning they were brutally assaulted by the men on the beach. The men who had disembarked, seeing themselves molested, immediately made for the boat, at which time four of them were killed. The remaining four swam to the ship, which they reached in safety. The time at which they appear to be most treacherous is at the death of a chief, at the death of a chief’s wife, or at the launch of a canoe, when human heads are in much request for adorning their “ taboa house,” into which a female is prohibited from entering under pain of death.