NEWS OF THE DAY.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 3128, 12 April 1883, Page 2

NEWS OF THE DAY.

Parliament is prorogued to May 5. The Auckland Harbor have promised a site for the proposed meat-freezing works. The Pareora Licensing Committee yesterday elected Mr Elworthy their Chair, man, and agreed to meet on Thursday at noon.

The supposed diamonds from the Ash. burton, have been tested, but not sufficiently to make sure of their genuineness.

Mr A. Ivory of Rangiora, while out shooting yesterday at Loburn, was wpunded severely in the leg by the accidental discharge of his gun. Attention is drawn to a large and important land sale by Messrs Miles, Archer, and Co., at their sale rooms, Timaru, to-morrow at 2 p.m. Mr Turner’s offer of the Derwent as a training ship for Lyttelton has been declined, the Charitable Aid Board having no funds wherewith to fit her up.

A guard was disrated the other day as a result of the enquiry into the recent railway collision at Clinton. Deeming himself unjustly treated, he resigned. A labourer at Lyttelton was yesterday struck on the head with a chain hook which inflicted a2J inch wound. He lost a good deal of blood but was able, after receiving attention, to walk home, The N.Z. Shipping Company’s vessel Otaki has arrived in London, all well. The White Star liner s.s. lonic, under charter to the company, is on the berth for this colony. This is how fortunes are made in London. “ Truth ” states that the gentlemen who negotiated the sale of Caen Wood Towers, at Eighgate, to the ex-Khedive Ismael, purchased the property at £40,000, and resold it on the following day to Ismael’s agents for £90,000. The goodwill of the Christchurch “Globe -1 has been purchased from Mr Prichard by the “Telegraph’’ Company, who also purchased bis share of five-eights of the “Press” Company, The “Press” Company purchased the “Telegraph,” which in future will be published instead of the “Globe,” The Primary School Commissioners of Otago propose to try the leasing system, and have agreed that a block of 20,000 acres in the Winton and Waikai districts should be leased on the perpetual system of deferred payments, and the remainder by cash sales. This laud is said to be some of the finest agricultural land in Otago.

The dead whale is not yet disposed of. The Harbor Board received an account for £5 for his interment, which they handed over to the Finance Committee. Mr Jonas remarked that it evidently cost as much to bury a whale as to bury a man, and Mr Acton said that the whale having come from the Bluff, the Bluff people ought to pay for burying their own dead. From what source Mr Acton derived his information as to it having come from the Bluff, no one knew, and he was regarded with awe as the possessor of supernatural or submarine knowledge. The railway management is not to blame for the recent error at Southbrook, for neglect to comply with the standing rule, viz.—“ Every special train advice, or advice of train alteration to be delivered under this cover, the officer delivering the’ same to the person to whom it is addressed to take an acknowledgment on the cover which he will hold as evidence." The Kaiapoi stationmaster was adjudged at fault, but being an excellent officer of long standing, he was leniently dealt with.

At the annual meeting of the Temuka Fire Brigade, on Monday, Mr J. M, Ollivier was re-elected Captain, and the following resolutions were cafried—“ That a map be procured for the purpose of marking thereon the situation of the wells.” “ That in consequence of the Brigade’s ladders being borrowed and not in reasonable time returned, in future all officers will be held responsible for their immediate return.” “That an entertainment be organised for the Brigade funds.” At the half-yearly meeting of the Amateur Athletic Club on Tuesday, Mr Orbell in the chair, a considerable amount of routine business was transacted, and the following gentlemen were elected members of the Club W, E. Barker, O. P. MurrayAnysley, T. P. Smithson, B. Hawkes, P. W. Anderson, W. G. Inman, H. W. Smith, E, V. Hamilton, G. Palmer, A. H. Ala' baster, J. Reid, jun,, Oakley Archer, H. J. Beswick, A. Chapman, W. Bannerman, H. V, Houghton, W. Morton, W. C. Martin, A_ B. Spalding, G. H, McHaffie, A. B. Smith A. Stedman, H. Newbould, Gray 'Hassal, Wm, Hay and C. G. Tripp.

An important question arose yesterday at the Charitable Aid Board Meeting in Christchurch. A woman had applied for a passage to Wellington, to meet her husband, about to be discharged from gaol there. It was stated that long sentence prisoners convicted in Canterbury had been transferred from Lyttelton to Wellington Gaol, and on being discharged at the latter place they had no means to re - turn to their families here. The Board resolved to ask the Government to discharge them at Lyttelton. Mr Bryce left Auckland yesterday on his way to Taranaki through the King Country. Owing to heavy rains, which have caused floods „in the rivers, Mr Bryce believes that be will be detained at Alexandra for a day or two. The journey to Waitara will take five days, after which he will proceed to Wanganui, remaining a few days there. He then visits Parihaka and the neighborboring settlements, returning to Wellington at the end of the present month.

. i The railway Commission, for the purpose of inquiring and reporting regading the feasibility of the proposed direct railway from Christchurch to tbe West Coast of the Middle Island, has now been appointed, and will consist of the following gentlemen :—Mr Wilson, M.H.R. for Rangitikei; Mr Napier Bell, engineer, of Christchurch, and Captain Russell, of Hastings, formerly M.H.R. for Napier. The Commission will commence work, in all probability, about a week hence, that being about tbe time when Mr Bell will bo at liberty to act.