LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume VI, Issue 944, 7 November 1879, Page 2

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Monday next being the celebration of the Prince of Wales' Birthday, and a general holiday, the Herald will not ap> pear that evening. A meeting of creditors m the estate of Mr H. E. Webb will take place at the offices of Messrs. Bourke <fc Smith, on Wednesday I next, at 3 p.m. The postponed meeting of persons who are interested m haviug a race meeting at Te Arai, will be held to-morow afternoon, at 5 o'clock, at the Bridge Hotel. The ahip May Queen, from Plymouth, with immigrants, arrived at Napier this morning, among whom are several coming out to their friends m the Poverty Bay District. Mr. James King, late night watchman, notifies that he will discontinue his duties as such after this date, the support accorded to him not being sufficiently adequate to corapcuseuate him. Members of the Orange fraternity will be glad to learn that Mr. Donald, the G. W. Secretary, will arrive m Gisborne by the Wauaka on Wednesday next. A rather unusual case of a troubled conscience foroiug the guilty owner thereof to deliver himself up t<> the administrators of the law was brought to light m Dunedin last week when a man named James Warren Parkinson was charged at the City Police Court with embezzling 10s, the property of George Milliar. Inspector Mallard stated that the accused, who pleaded guilty, had given himself up to the police on the previous evening, saying that he had stolen 10s from the Steam Laundry Company, and his conscience being troubled, he could not rest. The prisoner was discharged. A horrible rumour say the well-known Wellington correspondence of theLyttelton Times, is being circulated respecting the disappearance of a man, formerly residing not a hundred miles from Wellington, and although the police pooh-pooh the matter, personal enquiries made on the spot • convince me that there should be a searching enquiry. For obvious reasons I will not mention names. The man disappeared some weeks ago, the police alleging that the last time he was seen alive he was coming out of a public house. But neighbours allege that for two hours afterwards they heard his voice m altercation with his wife aud her paramour, and that next day and for several days afterwards, enormous, fires were kept m this house, and the smell of burning flesh was so horrible that complaints were made to the Inspector of Nuisances. Surely there is a cause here for investigation. Renata Kawepo, a well-known Hawke's Bay chief, is an eminently practical man. He declines to bring the Native Licensing Act into force at Omahu, because the fines imposed under it can only be spent m administering the Act. He has however passed a strict law of his own, by which any of his people getting drunk are fined £2. The fines, too, are rigidly enforced, and Renata has now over £400 m the bank, as the result of the fondness of his people for liquor. He follows on the subsidy idea, and has announced his intention of giving from his own pocket £1 for every £1 received for tines. The money is to be devoted to metalling the road from Taradale to Omahu. This is a genuine novelty m temperance legislation, especially the subsidy part of the business. "* Here is an aristocratic Parliamentary scrimmage, narrated by a Wellington paper : — " A passage-at-arms, m which something more substantial than verbal abuse was exchanged, took place m the lobbies of the House of Representatives last night. A certain member taunted another with breaking his hustings pledges, on which member No. 2 replied that he was astounded at the impudence of member No. I—a wretched little grocer like him indeed !— venturing to address him, one of the distinguished family of , and that if he dared to repeat his impertinence he would knock his head off. Member No. 1 promptly mad« a defiant rejoinder, on which member No. 2 proceeded to fiulfil his threat to the extent at leaßt of punching No. l's head, knocking his hat down over his eyes, and then snatching it oft and tossing it into a pail of water. At this stage some other logis-