LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume VI, Issue 919, 11 October 1879, Page 2

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

The splendid steaming powers of the Union Company's new s. s. Rotomahana was shown yesterday, when she steamed from Wellington to Napier, a.distance of 230 miles, in 14 hours. The Rotomahana is expected to be off the port the time we send the Herald to press. The Gisborne Football Club contracted liabilities in entertaining the Napier team on their visit here, and now are minus the cash wherewith to meet them, and go on to state that not being incorporated by Act, that they are not in a position to go in for liquidation, or in a position to avail themselves of the prevailing system of filing a declaration of insolvency, and getting out of their troubles under the Debtors and Creditors' Act, have deter* mined on giving an entertainment on Saturday next ; of what description they will decide early. Being anxious to secure a good house, they intend, in conjunction with a farce played by them a year or so back, entitled "The Pigskin," in which our local comedians made the best impression on the Gisborne public as yet produced. Among the many novelties proposed to furnish the other part of the programme is a haka, the " Conspirators' Chorus " or the " Umbrella Chorus " from the operas of "La Mile <le Madame Angot" and" "Chnperic" respectively, by the Club in uniform, a sparring match between a ! couple of local celebrities, and an assault at arms by the Club members. We have no doubt that the Club will provide a good evening's amusement as in all their prior entertainments they were always successful caterers to the public taste. A new Post Office regulation has been issued. It is this : that all letters containing coin are to be registered, and that if not registered, the Post Office will register them and charge a double fee, the fee to be paid by the receiver. But then how are the Post Office clerks to know whether a letter contains coin unless by opening it; and can this be justified ? If a sender likes to risk his money in a letter what has that to do with the Post Office clerk, and we may add. or any biker man, However, in the present condition of things in Poverty Bay, we do not think there is any great likelihood of sending much coin away and still less of any coifljng to hand. We wish to remind our readers that the concert to be held this evening will be found well worth attending. The selections as will be seen' by the published programme in our advertising columns are admirable, and we feel certain that for high-class music, vocal and instrumental, there has not been the like in Gisborne on any previous occasion. The ManawcUu Times learns from an excellent authority that notwithstanding the depressed rates now ruling for wool at Home, it is confidently anticipated that this season's clip will be at least £10,000 better than that of last year in this district alone. This satisfactory result is due to the operation of the Amended Scab Act, which renders dipping compulsory for sheep affected with lice, thereby improving the quality, and increasing the yield of the wool. A Western editor had a remarkable dream. Here it is : — I had a dream the other night, When everything was Btill ; I dreamed that. each subscriber Came up and paid his bill. jJac'h wore a look of honesty, And smiles vrQT? round each e y e ' As the handed me the stamps .. They yelled " How's that for high ?" . And. he said, " Good enough." I

The Southland Times says that as the train from Winton was coming along on Thursday evening, and had just crossed the first creek this side Winton, it suddenly brought to a standstill. Passengers were quickly looking out of window to ascertain the cause, when, to their astonishment, the bridge the train had just passed over was observed to be on fire. Evidently burning embers from the engine had fallen upon the dry timber and ignited it. The guard, noticing this, stopped the train, ran back to the bridge, and succeeded in extinguishing the fire by dipping water with his hat and throwing it on the burning timbers. It is luckily the fire was observed or the bridge would, in all likelihood, have been destroyed. A Wellington correspondent says : — You have heard about the Hinemoa and the rate of speed at which she has been driven for electioneering purposes. The outward visible result was that the engine gear of the gallant craft was knocked out of time, and at rather a critical moment in the history of the elections the headlong career of Ministers was interrupted. Another result of this extravagant mode of despatch is that the Hinemoa's vote for the past year has been exceeded by the modest sum of five thousand some odd pounds. The fact was brought to light the other day in the statement of accounts rendered by the head of the department preparatory to the Financial Statement. Ministers knew better than to allow an item of this kind to go forth for public information. By way of preventing an exposure, and at the same time making two ends meet, the item is to be manipulated ; — secret service and other mystified accounts being credited with it in equal proportions. What is to be said or done in view of a procedure of this sort ? The appropriation of the steamer in the first instance for election purposes was nothing short of a gross outrage upon the fair and proper performance of representative government, and then the "cooking of accounts " consequent on the abuse of power, how and by what name is it to be designated? In private life it would be called falsehood, fraud, and wilful imposition, and the probabilities are it would be dealt with accordingly ; but being the act of a high-minded patriot of the Grey Government cast, it is allowed to pass as a legitimate expedient of the party. Writing on the" subject of the present political position of New Zealand, the Dunedin Herald says : — " The fact is that Colonial Governments and Colonial Parliaments are becoming a byeword among the nations. While the Monarchies of the Old World are for the most part improving year by year, growing more honest, more popular, and (to quote the Governor's Speech) more accordant with the spirit of modern times, the constitutional democracies of the New World, Australasian as well as American, wax worse and worse. . This is a lamentable fact enough, and hardly justifies us in expecting the return of the Golden Age which has been so often promised as the result of certain political conditions and arrangements." A correspondent writing from California :to a contemporary says that the price of wool continues firm, and speculation is active. A great deal of the fall clip in California has been bought on the sheep's back. This country lacks an annual product of fifty million pounds of wool to meet its manufacturing requirements ; but, although the heavy protective duty does not enhance prices anything, being regulated by the London and Antwerp markets, -American producers and manufacturers cling to it tenaciously. It may interest your pastoral readers in New .Zealand to know that great objection is being raised to washing -sheep, it being contended that fleece is bought without any judgment, the majority of buyers not knowing whether it is washed or in grease ; that washing is only a pretence after all ; that it Bpoils the lustre of the. wool, and injures the eheep. I don't know how it is with you, but the difference in price between washed and unwashed wool here appears to me to support the non-washing argument. So long as men can sell dirt and grease within a mere fraction of washed wool, they would, be fools to trouble themselves about it ; at the same time I must say that very little care is taken in either case to make up the fleece for market. Rabbits are becoming such a terrible scourge in Victoria that the farmers are petitioning Parliament to be allowed to keep dogs free of taxation in the infested districts. 'The farmers in the county of Normandy state that many farms, once flourishing and yielding to their proprietors a good living, have now become a desolation, and some of them had been altogether abandoned. Although the farmers in the district have nearly finished ploughing and sowing their land, they have little hope of a prosperous harvest, because ,the rabbits are eating the springing crops as fast as they appear above the ground. — i