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Taranaki Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 7960, 2 September 1887, Page 2

Judge Wilson is sitting at the Land Court aa Commissioner to-day to hear a Mokau lease case, in which Messrs. N. Walker and G. Stockman are concerned. The Ooutt goes to Hawera to-morrow, where it will sit for some days. j^The vital statistics for the Borough of New Plymouth for August are— Births, 21; deaths, 5 ; marriages, 6. At the Mutual Improvement Association's meeting on Thursday night, Mr. T. Gilbert read an exhaustive paper on "Education, and the duties conneoted therewith." There was a full attendance of members, the Rev.' W. H. Beck presiding. la tbe paper Mr. Gilbert argued that our system in this colony, although not perf eot, was a good one, and he claimed to have authority for saying so on aooount of being for twelve years a State school teacher in New Zealand. He considered that free and compulsory education was a necessity for the people of any country as work, in whatever form ie was, could ' be done better by educated than uneducated people. The paper took an hour to read, and was very well reoeived. A debate then began, Mr. J. C. George arguing that oar system was too costly for this country, and should therefore not be kept up as at present. The debate was ultimately adjourned to nest meeting. The following conversation was heard whilst passing through a village iv Scotland :—": — " Eb, wuooan, can ye tell me what a Jubilee is, for I bear a' the folk speakia' about it ?" "Ou ay ! I can tell ye that ; ye see when a man and a wuman hae been inarrit for five-and-twenty years that's a siller waddin ; and when they've been 1 marrit for fifty years that's a gouden weddin ; but when the man's deed, that's a Jubilee ! The crowd who seem to be always in attendance at the Resident Magistrate's Court (says the Wellington Times) waiting for " spicy" cases to turn up were at their post punctually when the Court opened on Monday morning, when it was expected the charge of criminal asßault against George Williams would be called. Mr. EL S. Wardell, R.M., in adjourning the case till 2 o'clpck, which he did in order that the civil baeiness might be done first, sarcastically remarked : " I presume you aro all here for your civil cases — don't go ;" and when be went on to say that they need not return in the afternoon if they only wanted to hear the details in tbe indecent assault oaee, as the Court would be cleared, the announcement was reoeived in solemn, silence, and the "tit-bit " mongers left the Court By a cable message from London it was intimated that the Premier had written to the Agent-General expecting defeat. Sir Robert Stout denies the truth of the telegram, and states that he never wrote to the Agent-Goneral officially on the subject, tie sent Sir Dillon Bell a private letter informing him of the events of the session and of the appeal to the country, when he 1 told him it was impossible to predict what would happen. Both sides were oonfident of success, but the Government would be defeated, if the people listened to the abuse of the opposition press. Sir Robert Stoat is amazed that the oontentß of a private letter, even, in a garbled form and utterly in.QQrre.Qt, BhouW ba mis publig,