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Oamaru Mail, Volume IV, Issue 1319, 21 December 1880, Page 2

Thompson, the interpreter; ivlio was lately dismissed' by the Government for protesting against the sale of the Waimate Plains without some provision first being made to satisfy the claims of his native wife and children to a portion of that land, explains that he intimated to the Royal Commissioners that he wished to bring th?s matter before the Commissioners, and that he abstained from doing so in open court in compliance with a request from them that he would wait upon them and endeavor to settle the manner in what he terms a " holeandrcorper" manner, He acceded to this request, and was promised that a, separate reserve should be set apart for ]jia wife and children. Finding that this promise was not carried out in any of the three reports, and that the sale of the Plains was announced, he wrote to the Native Minister protesting against the sale without a provision being made for his wife and family, for which he was dismissed. The Duntroon school was dismissed for the holidays on Friday, when prizes, books given by" Mr. Duncan Sutherland, were awarded to the following scholars :—Attention to his lessons, M'Bean j reading and spelling, Elizabeth Richmqnd; gflod conduct, Donald Fraser; diligence, Charles Grant; best attendance, Walter Middleditch ; arithmetic, Isabella Griffiths ; good behavior, Helen Lamont; improvement, Annie Aubrey and David Grant; generrl gpo.4 conduct, Elizabeth Middleditch. We are requested to state that tl)e tigljets of thpse who have promised tp subscribe to the Apsted art union are ready, and may be procured on application to Mr, P. Williams, hon. secretary. The Philharmonic Society's rehearsal will, take place at the Volunteer Hall to-morrow evening, at S o'clock sharp. The Committee; desire us to intimate that the band parts are to hand; and to invite instrumentalists to be present. The concert, we understand, is to be given in the middle of January, The High School Cadetg, to the number of over thirty, competed at the butts yesterday for prizes, under tbe command of Captain Peattie. The ranges were 100, 200, and 300 yds. The scores were poor, and "X'olo^-'Sergean^ 1 A jfewat and Cadets Milmine, Mitchell, Hedley, Ferens," Rodgers, fja§tie, and Murison. It is notified in another column that the date for the payment of the rate iniposed by the Hampden Koad District has been altered from March 31, ISSI, to February 4, 1881. At the Resident Magistrate's Court this morning, before T. W. Parker, Esq., R.M., a first offender was fined os for having been 1 drunk and disorderly. John Russell was charged with having stolen 7s from the till of the Royal Hotel. The eyidepee showed that the prisoner was in the bar of the hotel yesterday in the company of another man ; that he was discovered with his hand in the till ; that he denied having taken any money; and that he went outside and threw the money on the stairs, where it was afterwards found. His Worship postponed his I decision.

Captain Edwin telegraphs : —Bad weather is approaching from any direction between north-east and north and west, within S hours, and the glass will further fall.

A telegraph station is now open al Sydenham, Christchurch, in the County o: Selwyn.

Cole's Circus and Menagerie were well patronised last evening, the immense marquee being literacy packed, The special train arrangements enabled country folk to attend the mammoth show, and large numbers availed themselves of the opportunity thus afforded. We have not space to speak in detail of the circus, but this we may say, that it is the best that has ever visited this country. The programme presented last I evening was an admirable one, containing a large variety of items all of a pleasing nature. As we briefly said yesterday, many of the items presented were new to us in this part of the world, and, as such, were exceedingly welcome, for circuses are generally made up of the same stereotyped material. One and all of the performers had apparently been selected for special excellence in some particular line, and thus the proprietor was enabled to give a more than ordinarily interesting performance. The perfox-mances of the trained animals were really excellent, and alone were worth a visit to the circus.

Within a short time after the performance the greater bulk of the immense paraphernalia of the circus and the animals were placed on board a special train for Palmerston, where a performance will be given this evening.

The following is a paragraph from a London correspondent's letter :—Yesterday (November 3) an event occurred on the Stock Exchange which is well worthy of note. Consols were sold at par for the first time since the year 1853, and only the third time since the wars with Napoleon ! This result is attributed in great measure to Mr. Gladstone's skilful provisions for facilitating the investment of small sums in consols, through the agency of the Post Office Savings Banks, j Both in Great Britain and America (says the Builder) popular education (so called) has not yet sufficiently taught the dignity of labor, either to boys or girls; otherwise there would not be the present rush of the former into poverty-stricken clerkships, or of the latter away from the old-fashioned ranks of useful domestic servants. One of the best I of Sir. Gladstone's letters that note | written on this subject (dated February, 1877), in which that great statesman said : —"Working men should for themselves, and especially for their children, try more to elevate handicraft, afld lesg to escape from it into the supposed paradise of pen and ink. This conviction and its practical recognition becoming generally popular, the cells of prisons and the wards of workhouses would also become far less crowded by miserable inmates.

Mr. Paul, a Christchurch resident, who

lias just returned from a tour through the United States, obtained while in Chicago three samples of wheat and one of bartey grown in that State, all of which are now on view at the rooms of the Agricultural and Pastoral Association. The wheat is small, hard, and somewhat poor-looking, but makes some of the finest flour in America. The barley is a very inferior sample, such as would not be looked at in the colonial market. All the samples are labelled with the prices they were fetching in Chicago in November last.—Lytteltori Times,

The Christchurch Telegraph says:— The specious manner in which the Govern* ment organ here glosses over the deliberate intentionof Ministers to reduce the standard of wages all over the Colony is reprehensible tQ a degree, and is -deserving of. the highest

reprobation. Here is a case in point. On Saturday last the casual hands employed by. the Railway Department in Port were -notified that tbe rate of wages in luturei would be tenpence half-penny per hour instead of one shilling. Anticipating that there would immediately arise a howl of execration among working men from one end of New Zealand to the ; other; the Press newspaper endeavors to explain away the action, and to bring it out in the light of a sound stroke of judgment. It will, they say, in the majority of instances place the, casual employes. on a more equal footing with the regular workmen of the' same class; "and whose rate of pa.y was reduced some time since, when the new - schedule :, came into operation ! Our readers no doubt will appreciate such a line of-argument to its fullest extent! A Bill being under discussion which greatly affected the interests of a noble family of extensive connection, the galleries were daily crowded with the female relatives of the party, most of them, as may be easily imagined, full of the highest- possible attractions, as youth, beauty, wit, &c. Upon which a member got up and begged to put the question to the Speaker, "Whether the credit and character of House did not most peremptorily require that in all their deliberations they should be free from any undue or extraordinary influence ; and whether any of that honorable House could cast their eyes up to the galleries and say they were so at that moment? He should, therefore, move that the., bevy of beauties should immediately retire," The ladies obeyed, In the days when it was believed that Hebrew was the language spoken in the Garden of Eden, it was not to be wondered at that the alphabet should be regarded as a Divine invention and a direct revelation made to Adam. In the discussions which arose after the discovery of the Rosetta Stone, a, certain Dr. Warr denounced as blasphemous the attempt to trace the .human origin of the alphabet. - But there are one or two reasons which may. justify us in""asking fresh'attention" to the subject on the part of any persons whose opinions were formed 20 years ago. In the "first place, the doctrine of evolution, now accepted by so many, naturalists, and found so fruitful of results when applied to other cjomains, suggests to us a new method of inquiry.. Nothing springs into being full-fledged ; ' everything full-formed is a growth, and -has had a history, the record of which it retains some traces of. Connected with this, yet still separable frojij it, js t}io. fagt that r-ecent ethnological researeh has traced the parentage of oiviljsed nations to savage tribes, and of the arts and inventions of civilised life to a rude and crude original; so that the origin of the alphabet can no longer be thought of as specially Divine. And a third reason is the discovery, in the year 1868, of the famous Moabite Stone, a monumental inscription in thp so-galled Phoepicifin character, dating from nearly 900 years befpre Christ, and bringing us nearer, by at least a century and a half, to the earliest forms of our alphabetic letters. The operation of these causes may account for the difference of view between " T. J. H.,'' who wrote t}ie article pn Alpha; bets in the Encyclopaedia jEiritannica edition 1853, and "J. P.," who wrote the corre* sponding article—l mean an article which does not correspond—in the edition of 1875. —Modern Thought.