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New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4233, 14 October 1874, Page 2

1 Up to the time of the office closing hist night communication with Christchurch had not been restored. The lines are down on Riley’s hill on the East Coast; and, as the linesmen have been at work for the past two days, the injury the lino has sustained must be more serious than was at first anticipated. The department informs us that we may expect communication to be restored in the morning; but there can be no certainty about it, as the extent to which the line has been damaged lias not as yet been ascertained. Tho_ lines in this island have suffered no less severely. Masterton is tlie farthest station north with which there is communication. _The West Coast line, which had been down the greater part of yesterday, is now repaired, but occasional interruptions arc still experienced. The Vice-Admiralty Court was formally opened yesterday morning, and adjourned until Saturday next at 9.45 a.m. The s.s. llangatira was two days overdue on Tuesday evening, but the Directors of the Steam Shipping Company did not think there was cause for apprehension on that account. They presumed that she had taken shelter at Castle Point. She was from Napier, and the telegraph line being down rendered the procuration of intelligence respecting her an impossibility. A mooting of tlie members of the Young Men’s Association was held last night in St. John’s schoolroom, Willis-street. There was a gratifyingly large attendance. Essays on interesting subjects were read by two of the members.

A meeting of the Victoria Cricket Club was held at Donecker’s Union Hotel last evening, but owing to tlie unavoidable absence of the secretaryno business was done. At the Wanganui Police Court this week a Native named Rereopa, who is of the extraordinary stature of 6ft. 2in., and weighs nineteen stone, has been sentenced to four months’ imprisonment for assault, and to two months’ imprisonment for resisting the police in the execution of their duty. A young man named Edward George Clark, who, having good introductions, was received in AVairarapa society on favorable terms, and had evidently a good knowledge of cattle, was recently despatched to New South Wales to purchase some'draught and other stock. lie was entrusted with drafts, from throe well-known settlers, to the amount of about £IOOO, and another just missed giving him a draft for £ISOO. In Now South Wales he was believed by tlie police to be identical with a cattle stealer, who formerly made some raids upon cattle in thac colony, and arrested on suspicion. A description of the robber appeared in tlie New South Wales Police Gazette, published in 1872, and a warrant was issued for the apprehension of the individual there described. The settlers in Wairavapa, who entrusted Mr. Clark with money, are naturally anxious to secure a return of as much as is possible of this, and, wc understand, a telegram to this effect has been forwarded to Sydney. The New York correspondent of the Argus has the following pertinent remarks on the Beecher-Tilton scandal :—“ What is most singular in the whole of this affair, is the state of opinion ami morals it discloses in Plymouth Society—-a society in which everything seems to have centred in preaching, while very little attention has been given to practice. Wliile tlie great body of the society is probably ns good as the average, some of its prominent men show in a curious form in the light of tlie current investigation. Mr. Beecher’s case is conducted by. a couusollor-at-law who was tlie confidential adviser of the notorious Jim Risk, and he is also the secretary of the society.

One of the parties most implicated in the testimony is* an officer of the society named Bowen, who, a few years since, made himself famous by demanding that Beecher should leave the pulpit, because, as it was then reported, he had seduced his wife. Another party to the affair is a dashing and wealthy young fish merchant, who claims to have acted throughout as a peace-maker, and whom, in one of his letters, Mr. Beecher alludes to in terms of praise little short of blasphemous, but who now seems to have been no more than a common confidant, obstinately bent on repressing the truth. Meanwhile, the society of Plymouth Church uphold their pastor with blind fidelity, and their attitude only shows how the congregation of modern times is getting to be a contrivance supporting a popular preacher, rather than an association of men and women bent-on strengthening their own and each other’s moral natures. This, I fear, is true to a very considerable extent in all Our larger American churches. There is an intense competition for 4 eloquent ’ preachers, and they obtain princely salaries. Mr. Beecher’s is 20,000d0L, and he has time left to earn by writing and lecturing nearly as much more. Now, it so happens in a majority of cases that the qualities which fit a man to be an eloquent and impassioned preacher, do not fit him to be such a teacher and exemplar as in this* work-a-day world most of us stand in need of. Still less do they fit him to so organise and direct a society that its energies shall be expended in the development„of self-restraint;, moderation, rational conduct, and the modest practice of the homely virtues of common life. A * great’ preacher stimulates the emotions at the risk of great reaction. He inspires and arouses, but he does little, so far as my observation goes, toward sustaining the hearts and strengthening the wills of his hearers., I very much doubt whether, in most cases, he' actually raises the standard of morality in daily life,- and, unfortunately, that is precisely what we most need. I believe it is generally understood, also, that that is what the Pounder of our religion essayed to do.” The Otago Guardian says : —“ In whatever light the public may regard the proposal of Mr. Vogel to develop the trade between this colony and the Polynesian Islands by means of a company formed under a Government guarantee, and carrying on its operations under Government control, there can be little doubt but that an extensive and important trade is waiting to be opened up between these islands and the civilised world. The natural tendency of this trade would be to flow towards New Zealand. Our geographical position with respect to them, the natural productions of the two places, each producing what the other requires, what it cannot Itself produce, and what it canmot, in anything like a. civilised state, do without, give us this advantage over every other country.”

We find the following in the San Francisco Chronicle , of the 14th August :—“ H. Hackfeld and Co., of Honolulu, yesterday, by their attorney in fact, C. T. Hopkins, filed a libel in the United States District Court against the steamship Macgregor. The libel sets forth that on the 12th of February last this firm shipped from. Honolulu to Sydney, New South Wales, in the Macgregor, 6725 bags of sugar in good order, to Learmouth, Dickinson and Co., the freight and customs on which amount to 2103d015. 13c. ; that the steamship aiaivedat Sydney on the Bth of May, and notwithstanding these libelants, by their agents, have been, and still are ready to receive said merchandise, and to pay the freight, no part of it has been delivered ; wherefore they claim damages in the amount of 20,000dols.” The sugar was lost when the Macgregor went upon the reef, and the action promises to be a protracted one.

The laws of the French in New Caledonia appear to be somewhat sharp. It is now,, as it was in Sterne’s time, “ they manage these matters better in France.” From the Momtcur, of New Caledonia, of the 9th September, we "see that the Supreme Court has decided to “expel from the colony Madame Juliette Lopez, who arrived at Noumea on the 23rd of October, 1873, by the merchant vessel Fenelon, ,for ‘ holding a behaviour contrary to good order,’ and allows her a delay of three days to prepare for her departure.” The Sydney Empire of the 2Gth instant says :—“We learn that Mr. Vogel had an interview with. Mr. Pavkes respecting the San Francisco mail service and telegraphic communication between New South Wales and New Zealand ; and later in the day Mr. Russell waited upon Mr. Parkes. Nothing definite resulted from the interviews.”