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New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4215, 23 September 1874, Page 2

It -will not be forgotten by the electors that this evening Messrs. Pearce and Hunter, the members for the City, will address their constituents, in the Odd Fellows 1 Hall, at the usual hour.

The Act passed in the late session of Parliament for the Abolition of Imprisonment for Debt in New Zealand, comes into operation on the Ist of October.

Wo observe, from tbo Melbourne papers to hand by the s.s. Otago, that Lady Bowen and family, who were passengers by the B.M.S. Nubia on her last outward voyage, are proceeding to England by way of Venice,

. The Premier of Now South Wales—Mr. Partes—was entertained at dinner by a number of friends, in Scott's Hotel, as he passed through Melbourne on his way to Kiverina.

It is probable the Tararua, from Melbourne, will be heard of in the course of the day from Hokitika. She is appointed to carry the outward mail via Suez, which will close here at seven o’clock p.m. on Saturday first, and with which she will sail early on Sunday. The Golconda, the P. and 0. Company's steamship, which brings the incoming English August mail, sailed from Galle on the 29th of August, for Melbourne—or two days before her time. If she makes an ordinary run, it is possible the Albion, which will bring down the mail from Melbourne, may reach the Bluff before the week is out.

A complaint is made'that a few mornings ago, at about eleven o’clock, several men were indulging in a bathe in the harbor just off the boat sheds, in full view of the wharf, and a portion of the neighboring street. If this conduct is repeated in so public a place, complaint to the police will doubtless be the means of making an example of the offenders.

The death is announced of Robert Rodger Strang, one of the oldest colonists of Wellington, at his residence in Woolcombe Street in this City. Mr. Strang, was at one time a solicitor in Glasgow, and arrived in Wellington in the Bengal Merchant early in 1840. After practising his profession for a bx-ief period, on a Government being fonned in the Colony he entered its service as Cleric to the Police Court, and afterwards became Registrar of the Supreme Court. Some four years ago he retired on a well-earned pension, Mr. Strang’s daughter became the wife of Sir Donald McLean, and long ago preceded her father to the grave. Mr. Strang was one of the ti’ustees for St. Andrew’s Church, and was long one of the office-bearers of that congregation. He had attained the age of 79, and had long been in indifferent health. The funeral procession will leave the residence of the deceased on Thursday, at three o’clock p.m.

It may interest the members of building societies—which are now increasing in number in New Zealand^—to know that, some doubts having arisen of late in England, a Bill has recently been passed by the Imperial Parliament to consolidate the laws relating to all such institutions. Victoria is about to follow the example of the United Kingdom, and pass into a law a measure to meet, on the model of the Imperial Act, the wants and requirements of Victorian institutions.

The weather on the Australian coast of late appears to have been not less severe than it was in New Zealand waters. The Melbourne Daily Telegraph of the Bth inst. says : —“ The accounts from all quarters are of stormy weather, and detention of intercolonial mail steamers. The Ellora and Dandenong, from Sydney, are both overdue, the former having the English mails for transhipment to the Nubia on board. The Derwent, with the Tasmanian mails, was detained all Sunday at Launceston Heads, and the New Zealand mails are also overdue. From Hobart Town we learn that there has not been such severe weather there for years. The steamer Tasman, which sailed from Melbourne on Saturday, had a stormy passage, having lost a large number of sheep. At Sydney, the fiercest gale known there, commenced on Sunday, and continued yesterday. 0

The Goldfields Act of the Colony is evidently not appreciated by some of the Wardens. In the Wahatip Mail’s report of a case heard in the Warden’s Court at Queenstown on the 4th inst., Mr. Warden Beetham “does not hesitate to express an opinion that the Act of this Colony was a complete hash—a hash that was' perfectly inexcusable. It deprived him, and he would venture to say the_ same for every brother Warden throughout the goldfields of the Colony, of the bcliefit of the precedents laid down affecting mining laws in the other Colonies. He intended to apeak strongly, because he was so frequently asked to consider cases, when he found the New Zealand Acts would not allow him to apply them to matters. He saw the same thing occurring in the District Court, and the sooner the Legislature relieved the goldfields of this difficulty the better it would be. The Mining Acts of New Zealand were a jumble, and a disgrace to the Colony.” A benevolent suggestion to peripatetic representatives of commercial houses within and beyond the Colony is contained in the following paragraph in the West Coast Times ;—lt has been suggested by several commercial travellers, at present in Hokitika, and it is a hint which might well be extended to the good people of the Grey, that a subscription should be set on foot on behalf of the widow of the late James Johnstone, of the Melbourne Hotel, Greymouth, and formerly of Dunedin. It is alleged that Mrs. Johnstone has been left in Invercargill in anything but affluent circumstances, and the old lady is now at that time of life that she cannot well commence the world anew.

A memorial tower to Abraham Lincoln, the late President of the United States, is about to be erected in London. The fact is looked upon with considerable interest in America, where the feelings which animates the subscribers to the memorial are properly understood. The subject is referred to in the following terms by the New York Herald :—“ The Lincoln tower, apart from being a grand tribute in honor of a pure, self-sacrificing patriot and earnest friend of humanity, one who struck off the fetters of thousands and removed from his country the stigma of slavery, is a significant proof of the hidden bond of sympathy and esteem that exists between England and America. The proposed tower will be worthy of the great man to be commemorated, and will be the first monument ever erected to a foreign ruler upon English soil.”

Out of a total area of 37,319,000 acres in England and Wales there are only 1,453,000 underwood. Sussex, relatively to its size, is the most heavily timbered country, nearly 11 per cent, of its entire extent being covered with plantations find coppices. Surrey follows, with 10 per cent.; and Hampshire with eight. The Hawaiian Gazette speaks in the following terms of the San Francisco mail service : “ There is no doubt the line will continue, and after January will be efficiently managed, with new and superior vessels ; but until they come into the service nothing certain can be depended upon,” The same journal reports that on her last trip up the Mikado made the run from Sydney to Honolulu in seventeen days. Temperance seems to have conquered John Barleycorn in Havelock. The Good Templars there have just purchased the Old Commercial Hotel, which they are about to convert into a hall for the special purposes of their body. The traffic returns of the Southland railways show that in the month of August there was an increase of a hundred per cent, as compared with the corresponding period of last year.

£>The advocates of women’s rights will be gratified to learn that the cause is advancing at Westport. At the municipal election last week, two lady voters, each proprietress of a well-known hostelry, recorded their votes “ like men.”

The Grey River Argua notifies the early departure of Mr. and Mrs. Bunten (Miaa Aitken) for Scotland. Misg Aitken intends to make a professional tour throughout America on their way home. CANTERBURY. Professor BieTierton has lately been delivering, in Christchurch, a series of lectures on scientific subjects, the last of. which was " Matter and Energy." • The Timaru-Temuka Railway has been opened experimentally, but without any demonstration. " A complimentary benefit has been given to Mr. H. Eastwood, of Bachelder's Diorama, in the Odd Fellows' Hall, Christchurch. The four-oared boat Mayflower, 5n which the Lyttelton crew won the first Interprovincial Champion Race, and a new pair, imported by the Lyttelton club last year from Biffin, of Hammersmith, were lately sold by auction at Tattersall's, Christchurch. The pair-oar, which is fitted with nil the latest improvements, and has never yet been launched, was first put up, and purchased by Mr. Watson, of Sumner, for

£22. The Mayflower was started at £ls, and the hammer fell to a bid of £l6 by Mr. Savage, Lyttelton. Dr. Haast has read, to the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury, a most interesting paper on "Results of excavations and researches in and near the Moa-bono Point Cave, Sumner Road." The publication of the paper has not yet been completed. OTAGO. As two fishermen were proceeding down the Lower Harbor, they noticed something swimming across the channel towards the Heads, and on proceeding to it discovered it to be a deer, which, after some trouble, they succeeded in capturing. The project of a railway from Dunedin to the Ocean Beach and Portobello seems to be actively promoted. Mr. Proudfoot has undertaken to give gratis that portion of his land at Anderson's Bay required for the railway. TARANAKI. The Hon. Major Atkinson (says the Herald of the 19th inst.) has been actively engaged since his arrival here, in making arrangements so that the Provincial Public Works policy he so successfully inaugurated during the last session of the Council, should in no way be impeded by his taking a seat in the Ministry ; but he will put things in such order that the opening up of the country and the peopling of it will be carried on as is intended it should be. The action he took when he ioined the Provincial Executive, has already had the effect of causing the Agent-General to despatch a vessel direct to New Plymouth, and as will be seen by our telegrams, the ship Hourah, with-|three hundred and eighty emigrants, left England during August, for this port; and another vessel, with two hundred, on board, was to leave in September. We also learn that two hundred and fifty emigrants, selected by Mr. Burton, will be despatched from Home every other month, so that twelve months hence we may reckon on having an addition to our population of about two thousand persons. Major Atkinson'b stay will not extend much over a, week longer, and although he will not be able to visit the settlements in the out-districts, as he wished to have done, yet we are authorised to state that he will meet his constituents and the settlers in the Taranaki ] Institute, on Saturday next.

Of the meeting of Natives at Parihaka, already referred to in telegrams, the Herald says ;—“ The half-yearly meeting held by Te Wliiti at Parihaka was to have been commenced on Thursday last, hut, owing to the stormy weather, and to there being no building large enough to accommodate the visitors, it was postponed for a few days. There were between six and seven hundred Natives m attendance, besides most of the iufluentia chiefs in the Province. Tito Kowaru was present, and was very sociable with the Europeans. Everything was quiet, and the Natives very friendly ; it is. natural to suppose, there- - fore, that nothing of any importance troubles their minds. At Punui an opposition meeting is being held by a rival prophet to Te Whiti, named Motu, who has secured an audience of about a hundred. At this gathering, however, like the one at Parihaka, the most important part of the business will bejhgj when all the provxsiojtgrtfregone, the meeting will terminate.)!-'-^ NELSON. The old coal workings on Higgs’ land, at Richmond, have been recommenced by Mr. Denne, who has after considerable labor, cleared the 40ft. shaft, and having sunk a few feet lower, has again come to the seam, but, apparently, better in quality than the upper, of which for the last four years something like a hundred tons have been got out, and used in the neighborhood for steam and other purposes. A ton of coal from the newly found part of the seam has been sent to town, and will be tested at Mr. Baigent’s steam sawing yard in Waimea Street. On Tuesday evening there was a report on the beach that the large whaleboat Eangitoto had been overset at D’TJrville’s Island, and eight Maoris drowned, but subsequently (says the Colonist) the story took the shape of two Maoris having come to that sad fate while attempting to cross the French Pass about ten days ago. A Maori named Timoti, an old Maori woman, and a half caste girl named Eliza Smith (who was going to see her father, since dead), were the occupants of the craft. The boat got into an eddy and went down with the Native man and woman, but the girl kept above water until a boat from Elmslie’s, where her cries were heard, came to her assistance,, and succeeded in saving her just as she was

sinking. The City Council of Nelson advertise for a Town Clerk and Collector of Kates, at a salary of £3OO a year. Nalder’a Boarding-house, in Hardy Street, has narrowly escaped destruction by fire. Owing to an alarm being speedily given by the ringing of the fire-bell near the police station, members of the brigade wei-e quickly on the ■ spot, although the hour was four o’clock in the morning, and the fire was extinguished, the ceiling of the sitting-room being partially destroyed. Mr. Cockram, who was an exhibitor of pottery in the Nelson Exhibition, has applied for a lease of the Cattle Market Keserve, where'he intends to commence manufacturing articles in this industry. A ball to the Captain and officers of H-M.S. Blanche took place at the Provincial Hall ou Friday evening, and, despite the bad weather, there was an assemblage of about one hundred and fifty persons. The band of the Blanche attended.