LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume VI, Issue 856, 6 August 1879, Page 2

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

■» Why Gisborne does not advance, as other pastoral and agricultural districts advance, may be understood by signs and tokens which cannot well be mistaken. Lately the Wanaka brought to the Bay 72 kegs of butter instead of taking that much away. Lately we imported several tons of chaff, instead of making it, as wo should, an article of export. Lately we imported three hundred dozen of eggs, when we have got space enough for hundreds of poultry farms. In Gisborne, a turkey — little more than a baby turkey, is sold at seven shillings. In Nelson it is sold at. half-a-crown ; in Tarauaki at three shillings. A man sits down to a dinner of ham or bacon and eggs in Gisborne, and this ham or bacon and eggs come from distant parts where the land is not as good as our own by 50 per cent. We import potatoes, and almost every article we consume, excepting beef and mutton. We import flour to make our bread, oats and hay to feed our horses. We import fruit, and biscuits, and confectionary. We import cheese, when we should export it in quantities. The wonder is that Gisborne has been as prosperous as it is known to have been. There will be nothing to wonder at if it goes down altogether, and sinks into a petty, insignificant non-producing district. At the Police Court this morning, Captain Porter, (Mayor), on the Bench, Matina Kaipau, Moahiahi, and others, were brought up on arrest, charged with going on to the land occupied by Phillip Bond, Matawhero Block, No. 1, and doing damage to the same. The charge was made to stand over until to-morrow, the prisoners, upon a promise not to repeat the offence, being allowed out upon their own recoguizances. A meeting of the Committee of the Football Club will be held in the Masonic Hotel, at 7.30 this evening, to arrange preliminaries for the coming football match between Gisborne and Napier. It will be observed from our advertising columns that tenders for the erection of the Albion Club Hotel have been called for by Mr. S. M. Wilson. Plans and specifications may be seen at Mr. J. Bradley's office. H. Keurick, Esq., previous to his departure, has presented the Turanga (Gisborne) Library with a handsome donation of valuable books. Will others do likewise ? For there is great need of .books for the institution. Tenders are required by the Town Clerk for forming approaches to the Turanganui punt. Tenders must be sent in not later than 4 p.m. on Tuesday, the 24th inst. Wellington enjoys an unenviable notoriety for earthquakes, but Mr. Carruthers, late Engineer-in-Chief, says, " That Auckland does not belong to the same volcanic area as the rest of New Zealand is, I think, proved by the fact that only two out of the 234 shocks of earthquake which have been recorded have been felt there. One of them was felt nowhere else ; the other was felt as a severe shock in every other town, and in Auckland only as a very slight one. This fact is very remarkable, as Auckland is situated in the centre of a perfect nest of volcanic cones, and is, of all the places in the colony, the one where manifestations of present activity would be looked for." The Wellington and Wanganui papers indulge in journalistic sparring now and then. The Wellington Post observes : — " Yet another lunatic* arrived from Wanganui in the p.s. Manawatu to-day. We shall look with some interest to the next census returnjs to, see what effect this oonstant drain upon her population has upon Wanganui." To which the Wanganui Herald retorts : — " Just by way of information for our Wellington contemporory, we may mention that most of the unfortunate persons of unsound mind sent from here came originally from Wellington, and the change from hard times to prosperity proved too much for them." If there be one thing more uncomfotable in a sleeping-car than another it is a leech. A few weeks ago the passengers in a carriage of a night express train from Vienna to Berlin were aroused from sleep by the shrieks of a lady who insisted that she was being stabbed with sharp instruments in several places. ' She would not submit to an examination, and the guard was at his wits' end what .to do, when a stout gentleman roared out that he, too, was being pricked cruelly in various parts of his thigh. Fortunately the train was near a station, at which the guard gave orders to have it stopped, and the lady and gentleman were handed out, their companions following them, witn no small curiosity, into the waitiug-room. The gentleman was promptly searched and six colossal leeches were discovered to be feasting themselves upon his leg. The lady had swooned from fright and weakness, and had to be left behind in the care of a local doctor. It appears that one of the passengers had brought an insufficiently covered jar of these blood-suckers into the carriage, and and placed it upon the seat. They escaped, and did the mischief. In a recent criminal case" at- Wellington, the names of three or four gentlemen belonging to the Civil Service were called out as jurors. His Honor intimated "that- he could not understand why the names of gentlemen in'the Civil Service were placed on the jury lists, when it must be well known that they were not eligible to serve on juries.