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South Canterbury Times, Issue 6268, 15 July 1890, Page 3

Mr John Get), jun, assistant officer-in-charge of Wellington telegraphs seeks to patent an improved Morse telegraph key, A labouring man named Samuel Perry is in the hospital at Dunedin suffering from burns received in conaequenfie of his throwing a lighted match down among powder spilled from a capsized flask. It is satisfactory to learn that the amount collected to defray the expenses of the amateur athletic team at Sydney was anlpe, a credit balance of £L 9s 6d being handed over to the O.A.A. Club. About the sharpest frost we have had this winter hardened the damp ground between dark and daylight, and an icy breeze blowing from the snow-laden ranges continued the process till late an the morning.

Messrs J. Ballantyno and Co’s great half yearly clearing sale will commence on Friday next, when surprising reductions will bo offered in all departments, ranging from two shillings to fifteen shillings in the pound. Tobacco must be a profitable crop in Egypt as it bears a tax of £3O an acre, as the equivalent of an import duty of 1b 3d per pound on foreign tobacco. The tobacco revenue in Egypt is £450,000. Sir Charles Dilke recommends the Indian Government to levy similar special duties on tobacco, and such taxes it is estimated would yield between three and four millions a year,

An old maori named Hori was lost in the bush near Coromandel for nine days. When found he was five miles off the road, and too weak to stand. He had somehow lost his clothing except an old blanket, and ns the weather was cold and wet all the while he had a bad time, and finally gave up travelling and sat down to die.

Sir John Hall, the honorary member of the Cabinet said, in the course of the present Financial debate, that “ a man who owned land that could be cultivated, but who did not cultivate it, ought to be made to cultivate it.” It is expected says a contemporary, that, these being Sir John Hall’s opinions, he will insist upon steps being taken at once to compel Sir John Hall himself to cultivate the idle land of his own estate, which according to a stotement made by Mr Seddon, in the House, amounts to 84,000 out of a total of 91.50 J.

A contemporary approves of.the idea of a farmers’ union to raiss and keep up the prices of farm produce consumed in the colony, saying: “ The suggestion is an admirable one, and it is to be hoped that it will be promptly acted upon. The best interests of the country will be served by any combination which will ensure for the tillers of the soil a fair remuneration for their work. Let farming become profitable, and especially small farming, and we should perhaps be able to get the towns depleted of some of their superfluous inhabitants ” But it this were done where would be the customers for the produce of tho increased number of small farmers ?

The trade in Australian horses says Colonies and India, appears to be developing apace in the Straits Settlements. A parcel of 86 " walers ” was landed at Singapore tbe other day from the steamer Nerbudda, and further deliveries were shortly expected, ns the demand for horses is rapidly on the increase in the Straits. Australia will soon have a formidable competitor in this trade in New Zealand, the class of cattle from the latter colony having already quite taken the fancy of buyers for the Indian market in preference to the “ walers.” Not so much is now heard of the once-threatened competition from the Cape in the Indian market.

A Taupo correspondent writing about ngerengere or Maori leprosy tells of the end of a native who died of it seven years ago after suffeiing many years from wasting of the bones which characterises ngerengere: " He had become so feeble as to be a burden to his tribe, so they dug a hole, the orthodox 8 by 2, and put him in it, and lowered his food down to him. Every morning they used to go to the edge of the hole and cry out "Are you dead yet, Hori f* and upon his answering, down wont the day’s supply of provisions. At last one morning Hori was sulky, and would not reply, so they quickly tumbled in tbe sods, and that was the end of the ngerengere.” Talk of the richness of Otago river beds (says the Inaiif/ahua Times). A private dredging party at work on the Buller river, near Fern Flat, recently lodged in the Colonial Bank, Reefton, 23ozs of gold as the product of last week’s work. The party is a small one of five or six men, and their dredge only lifts 15 tons of stuff daily, yet in this small way of working the yield gives the party £ls per man per week. For the whole time they have had the dredge at work their earnings have averaged £lO per man per weak. This is something like successful mining. Every ton of stuff raised from the river bed thus returns £1 worth of gold, which is the average of several months’ work. This is really an astonishing result, and we think it more than doubtful whether any of the dredging ventures in Otago can show an equal result. There are dredges at work in Otago which lift as much as 200 tons of stuff daily, manipulated with only a few more hands than are required to work the private dredge now at work on the Buller. It is not difficult to see how enormously profitable the undertaking could be made by being worked upon a proper scale.

Referring to some of the large estates enumerated by the Property Tax Commissioner in his instructive and interesting return, and the very moderate values attached to some of them by their owners (as compared with the alleged “ market ” values of land) the Auckland Herald says “It strikes us that it would pay the Government well to buy up some of these large properties at their owners’ valuations, and cut them up for village settlements. If, in the centre of one of the eleven or twelve thousand acre lots, five hundred acres were cut up into five acre sections, to be sold at £lO each, with the strict proviso .that a house was to be erected on each, and that no allotment should be saleable to anyone owning or occupying any other allotment in the same village, so as to compel residence, while the remainder of tbe property was divided into small farms of fifty to one hundred acres we should have them eagerly snapped up. There are thousands of gumdiggers and others who would gladly buy such small allotments if they could get them, but they cannot j and would marry, or, if married, bring their families to a place where their wives could have some society and their children schooling. At present the horror of country settlement amongst women is the loneliness of the life. They want society, and some of the decencies and comforts of civilisation. These cannot be had in an isolated farm, half a mile or a mile from tbo'nearest neighbour.”