Daily Circulation, 1500. The Oamaru Mail. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 1, 1891.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XVI, Issue 5093, 1 October 1891, Page 2

Daily Circulation, 1500. The Oamaru Mail. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 1, 1891.

The latest news from Holy and aristocratic Russia is that her nobles are embezzling the funds intended for the relief of the sufferers through the famine. The cruelty of such conduct can only be realised by those who are capable of picturing the dreadful sufferings of the famine-stricken people ; and who is there can do that ? It is only a few days since a cablegram announced that starving and desperate mothers were eating their children. The Government was driven to the necessity of alleviating the distress that led to such shocking inhumanity ; and possibly the nobles were entrusted with funds with which to purchase food for distribution to the starving multitudes in their localities, and appropriated these funds to their own uses. However this may be, it is impossible to imagine a more dastardly outrage on society, of which the offenders profess to be the bulwarks. These inexpressibly greedy and brutal Russian nobles, who snatched the bread out of the mouths of famished women and children, have added fuel to the fire of revolution that threatens to consume the Russian autocracy. They have also helped to establish the fact that high social status and wealth do not ensure respectability, much less honorable conduct. Position and wealth seetn to deaden the moral sentiments and to create in their place ail insatiable greed ; and nothing could be more strongly illustrative of this than the action of these Russian nobles, who, in the midst of starvation and death, stole the food fund of dying millions that they might add to the luxuries that they already enjoyed. How hardly shall a rich man enter the Kingdom of fleaven.

We hope that it will never be necessary for a Liberal Government to please the great city papers of Australia, and that they will never attempt to achieve such an impossibility. This colony has never lacked counsel from the other side of a kind that was worse than valueless to it. When the Tory papers here became discredited and ignored because they had been an important element in the careless, and corrupt, and selfish class legislation and administration which led to the crisis that has weighed so heavily on the colony for several years past, the party whom they served pulled the journalistic strings on the other side of the water. We do not blame anybody for this. It is natural enough that capitalists should do the best they can for themselves, and just as natural that even newspaper conductors should fall down and worship money. But we have warned those who are not capitalists, and we warn them again, that what is food for the capitalist may be deadly poison to the commonwealth. •Just now the Australian metropolitan papers are particularly industrious and solicitous in our behalf. The Sydney Morning Herald, true to its conservative instincts, announces that the New Zealand Parliament virtually did nothing during the recent session. The general impression was that it had done a great deal; and the Tory papers on the other since, as well as here, were understood to say that it had done a great deal too much. After having told us that the new system of taxation was going to drive capital away from the colony, it seems strange that they should now call that nothing. Did the Legislative Council, too, do virtually nothing when it picked the heart out of the Government's Land Bill ? The people of the colony will shortly pronounce a different verdict on the Council's conduct.

The recent rains have had a most beneficial effect upon the crops, which, we learn from all parts of the district, are looking splendid. The ground has been well moistened, and if we get occasional showers during the growing season an abundant harvest will be thoroughly assured. With a good yield and prices for wheat about 4s a bushel, of which there is every prospect, things will look much brighter in the town and district than they have done for several years.

Several of our chief citizens waited upon the Hon. Mr Ward, Postmaster-General, as he was passing through by the express on Tuesday on his way south, and held an informal interview with him on matters concerning the welfare of this district. The special train for Kurow took nearly 200 passengers from Oamaru this morning, and this number was, of course, largely increased at the wayside statious, the total being brought up to fully 300. We are informed that the Clydesdale entire horse Salisbury Fancy will be at the disposal of breeders in the Hakateramea, Kurow, and Otekaike districts, this season. To-day's Otago Daily Times says : —The Mayor congratulated the City Council at the meeting last night upon the considerable reduction that had been made in the debit balance in the banking account, the balance at date amounting to L 11,082 18s lid. The position of the Council, we understand, is between L3OOO and L4OOO better than it was this time last year.

Mr Harry Smith seems to have very soon worked his way into the favor of the musical people of Mount Zeehan, for we hear of him taking part in several concerts there. A letter to a friend states that Mr Smith has got a quartette together, which has the operetta, " The Eose of Auvergne " in active preparation. —Globe. The National Mortgage and Agency Company received advice by wire this morning from Auckland that potatoes are now worth 2s to 5s per ton there.

Captain Drew, head of the Salvation Army here, informs lis that he lias just received a telegram stating that the General will be in Oamaru on the 2nd November. Mails for the United Kingdom and Europe (per Ruapehu, specially addressed) close at Lvttelton on Friday, the 2nd instant, at 8 p. m. The Board of Governors of Canterbury College 011 Monday last recorded their thanks to Dr de Lautour, Mr VV. Meek, the Commissioners of Railways and Mr H. O. Forbes for their services in connection with the recent find of moa bones 011 Mr Meek's property, at Enfield.

The New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Agency Company, through Mr Burbury, submitted to public auction the whole of the property of the Kakanui Manufacturing and Meat Preserving Company at Kakanui yesterday. The whole property was first offered, but the best bid—that of LIOSO by Mr J. Barraclough—did not reach the reserve, and it was passed. The bare land was then offered, and for this Mr A. Thomson made a bid of Lls an acre, but this was also not up to the reserve. Some of the buildings and plant were sold for removal, and we believe that the vendor is in treat}' for the sale of the property by private contract, and that it is probable that a sale will be effected.

The following are the liabilities and assets in the estate of Sarah Elizabeth Gloag, of Waikouaiti -. Liabilities, unsecured— Ross and Glendinuig, L 402 6s Id; Thomson, Fox and Co., L 77 18s Id; A. M'Dugald, Lls 4s; Drapery Importing Company, lis; Scoullar and Chisholm, L 7 8s; Jas. Muir, 10s 6d ; James Morrison, L 29 10s; Wilkinson and Co., L2 10s ; D. Malloch and Son, L 3 ; J. G. Findlay, LlO 10s. Total, L 549 7s Bd. Amount due to the children of David Gloag, deceased, under will, L 461 17s 3d. Total liabilities, LlOll 4s lid. Assets —Stock-in-trade, L2OO ; book debts, L 450; cash in hand, L 36 ; furniture, L4O. Total, L 726. Deficiency, L2SS 4s lid.

In order that our readers may the more thoroughly enjoy digesting the whale yarn contained in our last night's issue, we reprint the following letter from the Dunedin Star, which was evidently written by a horrid sceptic, who interposes all sorts of ridiculous physiological difficulties to render unacceptable the swallowing theory : Sir, — That second Jonah and Star of the East yarn is .intensely diverting. Like the poor coopedup flenser and blubber-stripper it refers to, it is hard to digest. First place: I have had the special chances of measuring the transverse diameter of the commencement of the gullet in many large whales, and on referring to my notes I find the largest I got in a 90ft monster was lOin, and as the gullet goes backward towards the stomach it becomes very much contracted. Then the residence in the stomach is rich, seeing that the organ in these large whales is not a simple chamber, but is a four-roomed house, and in others ixas five compartments ; and it is a pity that JSarkley did not complete his mythical journey and travel through the SOft to 90ft of small bowel, and thence through the SOft to 30ft of the large bowel into the outer world. If Barkley had been thoroughly digested—as he and his mates, for telling such a whopper, deserved to be—he might more easily have persuaded me that, in the shape of solid blood bodies, he travelled through the main blood vessel of the creature, which in its calibre would rival one of the main water pipes of this city. I measured one in a 79ft whale 3ft 2in in circumference. But 1 must stop, or else this chapter on blowers may lead my readers to think lam spouting.—l am, etc., M.C.

The Oamaru Garrison Band intend going in for systematic rifle shooting, and a programme for the season is in course of preparation. They have already several valuable trophies to be competed for, and these will be added to. At a meeting of the Shooting Committee last evening it was arranged to open the season with a match Married v. Single on Thursday morning next.

The fishing season opened to-day, and a large number of anglers gathered on the banks of the Waitaki to try their luck.

The Oamaru Rifles will inaugurate their shooting season to-morrow morning with a handicap sweepstake of 10 shots at 300 yards. It is hoped that there will be a good muster, and that members will show a real interest in an important branch of the training of Volunteers. The Shooting Committee have arranged a good programme for the season, and some valuable trophies are offered for competition. With the laudable object of encouraging lads to play cricket according to sound methods, the Oamaru Cricket Club are endeavoring to form a junior cricket club as an addendum to the senior club, and a meeting of those willing to enrol themseh es in this will be held in the A.M.P. Offices at 8 o'clock this evening. The youths who join will, we believe, have the advantage of instruction from members of the senior club, and this fact should be sufficient to induce a large membership. Mr Proud, a Canadian gentleman, is now in Oamaru with a novelty in musical instruments called the autoharp. The new instrument is a mechanical contrivance which requires no prior musical knowledge to enable the performer to play upon it. The strings are all numbered, and the key is changeable by an arrangement of padded bars stretching across the instrument, and worked by the left hand. The instrument is laid flat upon a table, or any good sounding surface,-and the strings are picked with tortoisesliell pick, the music played from being numbered to correspond with the strings. The instrument has a nice tone, and is adapted either for playing melodies or accompanying songs, and, to those who are not the possessors of pianos especially, it should be very welcome. We particularly commend it to our country friends. A well-known offender with a variety of aliases, hailing from the North, committed an impudent theft at the Baptist Church on Sunday evening, 20th ult. He went into the porch and carried off an overcoat belonging to Mr T. Hilliker, which he afterwards sold at Alma. The fellow made his way to Dunedin, fleecing a number of people on the way, and selling stolen articles as he had opportunity. It is probable that he will shortly answer a series of charges at the Oamaru Magistrate's Court.

Another band of young Australians, making the fifth in all, left Sydney recently (says a Sydney journal) for the China Inland Mission. The party numbered seven, two of whom (Mr and Mrs Jose) are members of the Church of Englaad ; two—the Misses A. and C. Garland —are Baptists ; two belong to the Methodist Church—Miss Malcolm and Miss Harrison ; and one, the only member of the party from New South Wales (Miss Coleman), has been an honored worker in the Rev. Mr Walker's Presbyterian Church, Woolahra. The pan-sectarian character of the mission is thus firmly represented in this latest contingent. Excepting Miss Coleman, New South Wales, and Miss Harrison, who is from New Zealand, these missionaries are from Victoria.

At the meeting of the Waste Lands Board yesterday, Ranger Hughan reported that it was inadvisable to deal with Mr J. E. Wade's application for an extension of his coal lease on section 3, block 4, Kurow district, at present, as W. B. Cairns and others were still prospecting on the reserve.—Consideration of the matter was adjourned for a month. In connection with portions of quarry reserve in block 3, Oamaru district, recently licensed to Messrs Kelly and and Robertson and R. Wilson, Ranger Hughan recommended that the rent on each license be reduced to 29s per annum. Mr C. Martin appeared for Mr R. Wilson. It was decided to reduce the license fee to 20s per annum in each case.