The Evening Mail. MONDAY, AUGUST 21, 1876. LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Oamaru Mail, Volume I, Issue 104, 21 August 1876, Page 2

The Evening Mail. MONDAY, AUGUST 21, 1876. LOCAL AND GENERAL.

The Canterbury members appear to rank very high id the estimation of the Wellington .-t Our contemporary says of tiiem : ** Very early In the session we took occasion t<> express a very favorable opinion of the Canterbury members, and to say that we thought that Province the best represented iu New* Zealand in the itew House. Tiie action taken hy those members since has fully justified this opinion. They deserve the xvur.-nest admiration. Tlieir conduct in this matter of Separation is beyond all pr;i;jt«. We do not place so much stress on thutr refusing the vulgarly-offered bribe of having Christehsirch made the seat of Government for the -South Island. Their natural ins tt nuts a* tneti of honor would lead them ti> rejeet a I>ribe of this kind, and even to resent its being offered. They have, however. at least many of them have, overcome a greater temptation. It is no secret that a number of the Canterbury members are not favorably disposed to tfic Government personally. and generally differ with it politically. To stteh men as Mr. Ilolleston and Mr. Montgomery the temptation to act with those they usually vote with must have been a strong one, hut it was resisted nobly. There tan be no doubt that their votes will be given entirety on public aud conscientious grounds, and we make the same allowance to Messrs. Wason and Fisher, who, it is understood. wilt vote on the other side. Altogether the Canterbury men seem to fully recognise tluir duties as members of the Parliament of the Colony, arid we only wish the members of eertain other Provinces followed their example." "" Autotyeus." in his Thespian Notes to the (farijtshi l rrh f.Uyiwl VirtU'dlrr/ il»zrt'>", writes Of absent friends just a few words. Mr. Charles Hright is in .Sydney, doing well with his lee tares, having evidently given " Paradise Lost " best. The Fakir is back to Melbourne, where also is Mr. O. W. Carey, who desires me to remember him to old friends here. Miss Clara Stephenson—that lovely and fascinating young actress,

rirf.- my gusliing friend of the Olof/o Guardian - lias lK;en fined £2 2s. at the Adelaide Police Court for refusing to attend rehearsal. In the course of the evidence it was proved that she had frequently appeared under the influence of—cau de cologne, of course. Mr. Towere for summoning the fair Clara, gets rather roughly used every night by the gallery hoys, who not only hiss him, but throw* ghigerbecr bottles at him, which, to say the lca.it of it, is very rough."

Tit-; Wellington Ar>/»i is responsible for the following: " A few days ago a fancy drc.w bail was given by a gentleman residing .> few mile-3 from Wellington, and a number of batch',!oi*.i being invited, thought they would do the thing properly, and hire a 'bus to .•niivcy them to the host's residence. The entiling youths, however, little knew what v.a.-; in store for them. Decked in their <;>.-4ly robes of silk and satins, they £•»>!: their seats in the 'growler,' and were looking forward to a pleasant drive. They had not gone many miles, or at least not many yard:;, when the horses came to a standMil!, and would not budge an inch, until route gentle pressure was brought to bear hi the >ir.m'j of kicks, blows, &c. lurther o:i tit" journey another stoppage occurred, when a " devil T might have been seen riisiiiiji; iorth lroni the bus, seizing the horses' heads, but the "devil a bit" would tiiev move. Then came a Matador all furious at being thus delayed, knowing that perhaps miiiic 'fairone' was waiting with impatient ! anxiety for his arrival. Still the fretting ! steeds did not move, until at last the whole of the occupants stepped forth into the muddy road, and carried horses and 'bus along, and the animals, finding their load considerably lightened, started off at full gallop, leaving their freight to lind the best of their way through the miul in the dark. When at length they were prevailed upon to .stop, and the youths entered, the two chargers would not again move until gently reminded. Ihe most curious part of the affair is that none of the guests that arrived in the 'bus were seen to dance.'"

A Wanganui paper states that since the l.ite earthquake in the Cook's Straits district. a subterranean commotion takes place every morning between six and eight o'clock. This is anything hut *omfortable to those who have to hear the disagreeableness and eons-jipiences ot the commotion. A correspondent, writing from Taupo, says:—"The earthquake last Wednesday was simply awful. All the chimneys were knocked down, and I was pitched clean out of hed. The shock occurred between four and five o'clock in the morning."

The General Government (says a Wellington contemporary) has just received by the •Sarah IJoll, from London, a most valuable collection of meterological instruments to be used lor the purpose of the .system of storm warnings, which has become so valuable and permanent an institution here as in Europe and America. The instruments are designed exclusively for this object, and not for purposes of climatic data, which latter branch is undvr the charge of the Meteorologial Department of the Geological Survey. The instruments consist of the following : —23 standard mercurial barometers on Gortin's principal, registering from a fixed zero point, and reading to 'Ol inch; 4 portable standard mercurial barometers, specially adapted for mountain use, and fitted with millimetre scales ; 26 anemometers, on Dr. Robinson's principal, registering up to .">OO miles ; 22 sets of wet-and-dry-btilb thermometers, (/.<•., (M therometers) for hyirrometrical observations: 2 hypsometei'3 for determining mountain heights by the temperature at which aqueous ebullition takes place. All these instruments are of the best possible class, and are manufactured by Mr. L. Casella., F.M.S., the famous London maker. They are beautifully packed and have arrived quite uninjured. They -will be distributed shortly to the various stations from whence weather telegrams are obtained. All the instruments have been tested and verified at the Eoyal Observatory, Kew, Surrey, and each has its own special certificate of accuracy and index errata. Their total cost was about £3OO.

There lives near Xapier a Maori chief named Manaena, who seems to think lie can do just as lie pleases. The other day lie was disabused of this idea, as the following from the Xapier Tkliiji'iijjh will show : —"As the 4.1.1 train to Ante was Hearing the bridge at Waitangi yesterday aftsrnoon, a serious disturbance took place, caused by the misconduct of the native chief Manaena, who was intoxicated and annoying every one 111 the carriage he was in. A clerical gentleman was sitting opposite Manaena, and the native rudely took his hat from his head and put it on his own. One of the other passengers remonstrated with him, whereupon this respectable influential chief squared up to him and challenged him to fight. The guard at this time entered the carriageaud endeavored to induce Mr. Mauaena'to keep quiet, but instead of doing so, he proposed to fight the guard afco, who thereupon stopped the train and proceeded with the assistance of some other passengers to eject him. This was accomplished with some difficult}-, and another native who interfered, was put out to keep Manaena company. They both got handled rather severely by the guard and engineers who went to his assistance, and were left

lying on the side of the line to get home as best they could. Manaena is a great nuisance, whenever he is a passenger from town by the train, as lie is almost always drunk, and evidently presumes that from his size, &c., he can insult people with impunity. The prompt and decisive action of the guard may perhaps teach the gentleman a lesson."