Accidents and Offences.

Otago Witness, Issue 1501, 21 August 1880, Page 14

Accidents and Offences.

The convict Curnow, who was sentenced to 50 lashes at the Auckland assizea, underwent his flogging of 25 lashes on the 13 th. The flogging was very severe. He had to be assisted to the Gaol Hospital afterwards. A sad accident occurred off Aratapu (Auckland) on the 13 h- Four persons were drowned by the upsetting of a boat in a squall. Cole (of "Minister of Marine" notoriety), Allwright (a clerk at Kopura), Wilson (clerk at Mangarawheie), and John Fielder (carpenter, of Mangarawhere) were drowned. The fifth (Sims) got ashore. Wilson was a married nnn, and his family are in Canterbury. A man named Frideaux fell over the cliff at the dock works at Lytt9lton some time during the night of the 13 th, and broke his neck. He had been drinking for some days, and must have climbed over a fence before he could fall over the precipice. On the morning of the 13th a man named Thomas Daly was brought from Rakaia to Christchurch suffering from fracture of the right leg, received, according to his own account, under Bomewhat singular circumstances. Daly, who is in tbe employ of Mr Storey, of Rakaia, states that he was driving along the road last night, seated on the top of a loaded dray, when a man with a mask on Buddenly sprang out from a fence as if to attack him. Daly says he then jumped off the dray, and in doing bo slipped aud fell in front of the wheel, which passed over him, breaking his light leg below the knee and inflicting a cut on the other lfg. The man with the mask then ran away. Daly was picked up by some persons who came to the spot, and his injuries attended to. 1 A man named Delaney, a carter at Auckland, got kicked by his horse on the head on the 16th instant, and now lies in the Hospital in a dangerous state. Portions of the bone of the skull were driven into the brain, and portions of the latter are exposed to view. Thomas Smith was charged at Auckland on Tuesday last with a breach of the Customs regulations by evading duty on a gold watch, valued at L4O. Mr Brookfield, who appeared for the Colieotor of Customs, said that the watch was sent by one Lyons, of Canada. It was in a case of Bibles, and Smith was informed that in a certain Bible bearing a certain mark he wonld find the watch. He was fined L2O, with costs. An act of suspected incendiarism occurred last Sunday night on Totara Park Farm, opposite Mr M'Auly's residence (aays the North Otago Times). A threshing-machine and elevators (insured), the property of Mr M'Auly, were destroyed, also LIOO worth of unthreshed grain (uninsured), the property of Mr Maloney. Constable King yesterday proceeded to the site of the fire to make inquiries, and returned to Oamaru last evening. No arrest has yet been made.

Sir Stafford Northcote lately said in the British Parliament that more than one half of the capital now invested in unlimited liability banks was already in process of conversion to limited or reserved, liability,