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Southland Times, Issue 2821, 5 July 1877, Page 2

MusJcal .J'ESTiVAL.-rA full practice is, tofbe held in f St. John's Ciurch this evening, when instrumentalists and vocalists are requested to attend. Coursing- Club.— Names ad pedigrees of dogs must be sent in addr&sed to the secretary, Club Hotel, befori 4 o'clock to-day , at which hour the drjwing takes place. _.. '„. ' '^, Police Court.— At this Court on Wednesday John Palmer, clarged with embezzlement and larceny, ws remanded for eight days; also Neilsoc Johnston, charged with being of unsouni mind. Pbesb-eteet. — The Preibytery of Southland held its quarteily meeting yesterday. The Temperanci Committee brought up a report, which tos discussed at some length. A Pine Prospect.— lt is said that in about thirty years' time the Wellington Corporation will be the riclest in New Zealand. jk New Riß.-The wife pi Elder Pratt, of .Salt Lake, has just gone East to attend medical lectures. The. elder meanwhile solaces himself with another " rib." Gaelic— The Gaelic language is dying out, though still p used in 200 parishes in Scotland for preaching,, and though spoken by probably 250,000 people. j A. Handsome Gift. — Mr Charles Nairn's manificent gift of £10,000 to the EDglish Church Endowment of Hawke's Bay is now bearing an interest of 5 per cent, per anaum. Mistake Sostewhebe,— -The Mangaroa tunnel has proved too small for a Fairlie engine, and the latter has had to be cut down as far as possible to allow it to go through. Protective "Works.— The protective works at the entrance to the Wangauui River have cost L 1,515. and thß Chairman of the Harbor Board, at a recent meeting, said they were standing well, Money Well Applied.— The English Grand Lodge of Freemasons has handed over to the National Life boat Institution the sum of L 4,000 to establish two life boats as a memorial of the Prince of Wales' visit to India. Convenient.— The Bank of New Zealand's building in Wanganui has just been fitted up with Saxby's electric bella. Besides their ordinary use as means of communication, they act as fire-alarms and thief-detectors. Eesioving JSTCNES.~The Patea Mail says that had a royalty of only Is per load been levied in .New Plymouth years ago (as had frequently been urged by the Harbor-master) upon all stones taken from the beach, the money would have gone a long way towards providing funds for forming a small harbor. Rail-way Slaughter. — So many sheep aDd cattle have been destroyed by the engines on Hawke's Bay railway that it is said, says the Telegraph, that three of the railway engines are to be re-christened. The • Eel' is to be named ' The Cleaver,' and the other two are to be termed respectively, ' Sausage Machine ' and 1 Butcher.' A Blacksmith's Skill.— A novel trial of skill came off on Wednesday morning, in Mr S. Riley's forge, Timaru. Mr O. W. Wood, of the Old Bank Hotel, laid a wager of L2O that Mr Eiley could not make two dozen horse shoes within 45 minutes, a bet which the latter instantly took up. He won the wager weli, accomplishing his work thoroughly in 38 minutes. Opekatic Concert.— Signor Carmini Morley publishes elsewhere the programme of an operatic concert to be given in the Exchange Hall oa Monday evening, isignor Morley was the leading tenor in Madame Siraonsen's Opera Company, and will be favorably remembered by all lovers of good music. He is to be surrounded by a host of local talent, and a musical treat may therefore be expected. An Elopement. — The Toi Tois correspondent ot a Dunedin contemporary says : — The elopement of a married woman with a young man late of Dunedin, took place on Tuesday night. Not a word is known of their whereabouts at present. The exasperated husband, oblivious of the advice given by the old ballad— " When a lady elopes down a ladder of ropes," to consign her to Hong Kong, intends taking out a warrant for the apprehension of the guilty abscondress. A Big- Scheme.— Mr Thomas Russell has proposed that the Piako Swamp Company with 85,000 acres, Firth with 100,000 acres, Douglas and Walker, Morriu, and others, owning in ail over half a million acres, shall combine to form a company. Their land would extend from Hamilton to the confiscated boundary. They propose to form a new township near Hamilton, and run a railway twenty five miles through the Piako Swamp to the Waiho River, arid introduce inarai: I grants and small farmers with capital from England, and in conjunction with English capitalists who wjll put in money. County Council Chairman.— At the conference of chairmen of Couuty Councils, held in Duuedin on the 2nd ingtant. i Mr V. Pyke, while the meetin' 1 ' * sideri^secUgß ru <;- c Qq^ ™- sam • ,-c Were some important questions involved, bhould the chairman be elected by the ratepayers or by the Council 1 ? It sleeked to, him that the office would be somewhat degraded if the chairman were elepted by the body of the ratepayers. He waa also of opinion that the chairman should be elected annually, as it would be rather hard for a Council to be saddled with a chairman they did not care about. Meaning of " Fkeig-ht."— ln a case which was recently decided by the Court of Appeal the question turned upon the meaning which was to be attached to the phrase " fpeiyht payable in London." The I'aetg were hrie% as follows :— Goods were shipped in London on a steamer bound for .Rouen. According to the contract the freight was "payable in London." The shipper of the goods asked >

for the bill of lading, and was told he could not have it except, on the terms.of his paying the freigut^aud accprdingly^the ; freight was paid. All this time the owner of the steamer was well aware that vthe i steamer had been lost. An action-was subsequently' brought;! t&^recover the. • money, arid a defence waslvseti, up 'which had certainly the m'erifcv^f ingenuity. What ia the meaning of " payment in London ?" According to the defendant's counsel it could be shown that by the custom of steam-shipping trade you could add tw^, most important, wpr.ds, and the, meaning would then; oe}" t>ayable Cinf advance in London." Thef .Court^ hojv-: ever, we are glad to say, for the credit of English mercantile law, refused to take this view of the case. Freight " payable in London" means payable in London, and not elsewhere, and the words have nothing to do with the time of payment. Good Advice.— " Clerkiiom" (says the Wellington Post) is a sort of incubus upon this grand new country which is growing' less bearable every day. There are hundreds upon hundreds more clerks in New Zealand than thers is work for, and the evil is daily becoming worse. Parents i should look to this, and bring up their boys to some less overdone occupation. Let them be taught a useful trade — to do some one or more things well — the i doing of which will always be required in the colony, and command a certain remuneration. A young man with a useful trade at his finger ends can always, make a living in any part of the colony, whereas a clerk out of a billet may starve, or live on charity^ before another turns up. Fathers of families should look to this, and teach their sons to seek for better things than those so-called " genteel employments." If they do not, in course of time New Zealand will be overrun with a useless class of the community " who cannot dig, and wko to beg are ashamed." Dtjnedin and the Railways to the Intbbiob.-— The Mount Ida Chronicle, which represents one of the districts interested In internal railway comma- j nication, discusses the subject as follows :— Now, what has the Danedin Chamber of Commerce done ? It were well if the answer to this could be, nothing ! It has in one afternoon damaged the cause of Dunedin more than all its enemies could have done in a year. . Never before were unrivalled selfishness and utter disregard of the interests of the old province more honestly expressed. " Let us fight Oamaru and Palmerston with their own weapons;" as if poor Palmerston had any weapons, or wished other than to plead Dunedin's cause. The Chamber has offended its representatives, and insulted the twenty • one members of Otago, and, for the second time since the elections, has played a Northern card in undermining Otago representative influence. If the Chamber is the true representative of Dunedin, its decline is certain. Fortunately the City electors have long ago decided that it is not. The spectacle of a growing young town, with a fair prospect of a future before it, deliberately; through its mercantile men, inviting the antagonism of the whole country at its back, was probably never before observed in ancient or modern times. Mr Davie gave out the honest ring of battle. The position he took as a Dunedin merchant can be understood and admired. For the rest, what can be said ? The whole proceedings were a semi defiant whine for assistance, for more pap from the Government spoon. The only trace of independence in the proceedings was Mr Driver's munificent offer of L2O towards the cost of a begging party to Wellington, of which he was to be one. Independently of the railway question, we can fancy it might suit Mr Driver to visit Wellington to ! force (it is his own word) Ministers into favorable consideration of Mr Larnach's proposals, tabled last year, as to the dis- | posal of the Southland pastoral lands ; but, giving him credit for his L2O investment in railway enthasiasm, we do not think it will hurt him mucb. The Theatbb. — The pantomime has a perennial attractiveness about it s for notwithstanding the unpropitious weather last night it drew a good audience to the Theatre Royal, and the company succeeded thoroughly well in delighting their patrons. It will be repeated this evening, and to-morrow night the entertainment will be under the patronage of Captain Heywood, commander of the Southland District, Captain Hannah of the Artillery, and Captain Macrorie, of the Rifles. On Saturday at mid-day the pantomime will be performed for the convenience of children.