NEWS OF THE DAY.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 3106, 15 March 1883, Page 2

NEWS OF THE DAY.

The prize at the Auckland regatta for the winner of the schooner’s race, will be £l5O.

The Sailor’s Best is being well supported by seamen in Auckland.

j Nine men have deserted from H.M.S. I Diamond at Lyttelton.

Henry Whitaker Duvil has been committed for trial at Auckland for horsestealing. Mrs Janet Bruce, who arrived in New Zealand in ’39 died yesterday at Auckland.

Mr James Russell has been elected President of the Auckland Acclimatisation Society.

Messrs D. Goldie, D. H. McKtnzie, and S. Duke have been elected members of the Auckland Education Board.

Mr J. Murray, Inspector of the Bank of New Zealand, was followed by a hooting crowd through the Thames streets. They mistook him for Mr Bryce. Yesterday, on the Timaru cricket ground a match was played between the Geraldine and Otaio clubs, the latter winning in one innings. The scores were 101, and Geraldine 60 and 40.

At the inquest at Auckland, it transpired that the woman Susan Duncan, with the sailor Baker, both being drunk, were trying to get on board the schooner Saxon on Saturday night, and were lost in the attempt. Mr W. U. Slack, L, Walker, C. Q. Tripp, W. S. Maslin, and B. Fish have been appointed by the Governor a licensing committee for the Geraldine district.

Mr J. L, Poirier has left a legacy of about £8,700 to the Paris Geographical Society, to be expended by them in life annuities to deserving geographical explorers of French origin. None of these annuities is to exceed £6O.

The latest development of “woman’s rights ’’ is reported from New Brunswick. At the funeral of a woman the other day in St. John, the pall-bearers were six women, wearing black dresses and white veils and gloves. They carried the coffin from the house to the hearse, into and out of the church, and lowered it into the grave.

A meeting of Mr J. Oram Sheppard’s creditors was held yesterday, at which the liabilities were stated to be £50,000, and the assets £50,500. Of the liabilities £40,000 are secured by £50,000 of the estimated value of the assets. Messrs Stead, Boper, and A. C. Wilson were appointed a committee to investigate the position of the estate on behalf of the creditors.

Leopold Harrired is the name of a new tenor secured by M. Yaurcobeil for the Paris opera. He was a conscript, had just finished his term of service, and was seeking engagement in a Parisian cafe chantant when the opera director heard of him, made him sing a couple of operatic airs, and engaged him right off for three years. Of course M, Leopold must have hard study before he- can make his dehvt.

It is belived by the police that there are in Melbourne and its suburbs no less a number than 2000 fallen women. Six hundred of the class called unfortunate are known to reside in the streets and lanes that extend from the Parliament buildings in the west of the city. These are lodged in at least 230 houses. Indeed, were the total number of houses in the city and suburbs, with all their occupants, placed on one area, a considerable town would be formed, and what a town 1 Those who have recently travelled in the King country, and endeavored to sound the Natives on the amnesty question, state (says the “ New Zealand Herald”) that if the Europeans ate under the impression that the Natives humbly accept the offered pardon for their past offences, they are sadly mistaken. The Maoris simply accept the amnesty as a cry of “ quits ” after a drawn battle—a formal token of peace-making and reconciliation. But as to anything like the idea of pardon and forgiveness they simply laugh at it. They are none the less pleased, however, at the step, as they were sick and weary of the suspense and uncertainty which hung over the relations of the two races. The London correspondent of a contemporary says :—Louise Michel the noted Frenchwoman, a communist, if not something more, has been over in England trying to excite our staid matrons to a sense of their downtrodded condition. She considers the present status of women as one of absolute slavery, and denounces the « family” as the chief cause of degradation. Be volution alone in her opinion, can produce any satisfactory alteration. I fear she must have found her speculation a losing game, as she charged 7s 6d to 2s 6d for seats, evidently supposing people would rush to hear her, which, however, they declined to do, considering, apparently that half-a-crown for a Republican programme was dear for the article in question. She has gone home wiser and poorer, I hope, and not likely to repeat her visit.

Some languid interest, says the “ Home News,” has been created by the publication of an encyclical letter from the Pope to the Irish bishops condemning the secret societies. Although the advice contained in this letter has certainly come rather late in the day, it is more than doubtful whether the Pope, however much be might hawe exerted himself, could have done any good. Nothing is more patent, in the present state of affairs in Ireland, than that the priests have wholly lost their influence with the disaffected and nationalised portion of their fllockg. This is abundantly clear in the case of Cardinal M'Cabe, who, because he has denounced agitation, is looked upon by the lower classes with quite as much distrust, and probably an equal amount of dislike, as is the Lord-lieutenant himself.

The Bockhampton papers tell a terrible tale of a series of disgraceful incidents which occurred at the late Jockey Club races, and Which may thus be enumerated : First, the clerk of the course so misbehaved that be had to be dismissed on the spot; second, the owner of the horse which won the Hurry Scurry was tackled with the owner being a well-known racer named Little Hick, instead of a mere hack ; third, three jockeys were severely fined for engaging in a drunken row, and another was disqualified for doing “ Johnny Armstrong ” ; fourth, a heavy horseowner and a light-weight came to fisticuffs, and had two sharp rounds ; fifth one of the stewards was with difficulty stopped from following suit with a respectable gentleman ; sixth, a local tramer went shamefully drunk into the stand, and had to been ejected for foul language ; and lastly, a hulking fellow—who had quarrelled with a mate and knocked him down—began to bang the fallen man’s cranium with a heavy stockwhip handle, and then the spectators chased the cowardly offender for his life, and might almost have lynched him but for the interference of the police.

A private telegram, received in town today from Major Atkinson, states that he will address public meetings on Monday and Tuesday next at Christchurch. He will deliver an address at Timaru before he leaves Canterbury. The telegraph Department have sent us the following memo re the interruption to the cable : —Port Darwin is expected to hear from the repairing ship at any moment. Both cables are interrupted. The repairing ship in grappling for the new cable caught the old one, which it seems hai been faulty since February last, A young lady in Wigan, who is suffering from consumption, sent to Mr Gladstone on his birthday, which was also her own, a letter containing a bookmark, on which she had worked in silk, “ The Bible our Guide,” The young lady received in return a box containing fruit and hothouse flowers, together with the following letter in Mr Gladstone’s handwriting : “ Hawardcn Castle, Chester, Jan. 1, 1883, Dear Madam,—l am greatly touched by your kindness in having worked a bookmark for me under circumstances at which you glance in such feeling and simple terms. May the guidance which you are good enough to desire on my behalf avail you fully on every step of that journey in which, if I do not precede, I cannot but shortly f ollow you,—l remain, dear madam, faithfully yours, W. E. Gladstone.”

An extraordinary affair is reported to have occurred at Greenvale, North Carolina. K appears that a large number of bales of cotton had been received there from Bell’s Ferry, and in one of them, when being cut open for examination, was found the body of a negro pressed nearly out of shape. Inquiries were at once made, andjhe body was ultimately recognised as that of a colored man .named James Bradley. Bradley, it was stated, was about to get married to a young woman from Pitt’s County, when two women turned up and claimed him as their husband, each one of them had a child in her arms, of which they said he was the father. Bradley thereupon ran into a cotton gin-house while the laborers were at dinner, and nothing more was seen or hetrd of him until his body was found as stated. It was thought at first that he had been thrown into the press by one of the laborers, but an investigation showed that this supposition was not tenable, and all the facts pointed to the conclusion that> *n a fit of despair, the unfortunate fellow had thrown himself into one of the partially filled presses during the absence of the workmen, and had been pressed to death. At the Town Hall, Blackburn, on Jan 17, Lord Wolseley, who was accompanied by Lady Wolseley, was presented by the Town Council with an address of welcome and congratulation. In reply, Lord Wolseley said he did not think anyone who had not had the unpleasant experience of being in Egypt during the hot season and spending some time in the desert could fully realise the discomforts and hardships undergone by our soldiers. The limited means of transport prevented them from the shelter of tents, and nature denied them shelter from trees, consequently the troops from morning to evening were exposed to the sun under the most trying circumstances. There was always great want of food, and that obtained was by no means of an appetising nature; while the only drink the men could obtain was the muddy water of the canal, which resembled pea-soup more than wholesome water. He declared that great strides had been made in raising the character of the soldier since he entered the service; and, adverting to the abolition of flogging, said that in the recent campaign, without flogging, there were only three courts-martial, and one was upon a Frenchman. During the whole time he was in Egypt he never saw a drunken sailor.