Local and General.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 255, 8 March 1869, Page 2

Local and General.

X ~ New Zealand Insurance Company. — We understand that the new ofiices of this company, in Hereford street, were opened on Saturday. Aquatic — The new hoats which have recently arrived for the Canterbury and Railway Rowing Olubs, were launched on Saturday last, and advantage was also taken of the occasion to present the cups recently contested for in two matches between the same clubs. The absence , for some time past of aquatic displays in the city, tended to create more than ordinary interest in the event, and the weather being of the most inviting description, one of the largest gathering, we have yet seen on the river took place. Expecting this, the promoters were not wanting in provision for the comfort of visitors, and' some attention had also been paid to decorative display. Several tents for public use had been pitched near the !tepot selected for conducting the ceremonies, two flagstaffs had been erected, and each of the boat sheds was surmounted by a banner. No open land being available near the boat sheds, or ' on the city side of the river, it was rendered necessary to make use of the north bank, where an excellent site was afforded for the proceedings directly opposite Ward's brewery. Some inconvenience resulted from visitors having to be ferried over by club boats, and many were \ thereby unable to witness the ceremony' except from the opposite side of the river. By three o'clock a large throng had assembled onboth banks, and the river itself was scarcely less busy, some eighteen or twenty boats of various sizesandbuildbeingconstantlymoving to and fro. A few minutes after four o'clock the proceedings were opened by the crews of the various boats being marshalled in two lines in front of a table on which the prize cups were displayed. Mr Harman, commodore of the C. R. C, then stepped forward on behalf of the club, and requested Mrs Herdson to present the cups won by the crew of the Lurline in the match originating from the challenge issued by the crew of the Isis on the day of the Heathcote regatta. In doing so, he referred to the past season, saying that the club had, by increased spirit and practice, shewn a desire to carry, out boating more in the true English style, and that, although beaten by , admittedly superior men, they bore the same good feeling and friendliness to their opponents as before. Mrs Herdson handed the cups separately to the respective recipients, accompanied by a, few appropriate words. Mr Ollivier then requested Mrs R. P. Crosbie to present the cups won by the Lurline in a scratch match with the Isis. He replied to Mr Harman, acknowledging a reciprocity of feeling by the Railway Rowing Club, and said that although hitherto successful, the appearance of the new boats impressed him with the opinion that the club would next year have to fight hard to hold their own against the Canterbury Rowing Club. Mrs Crosbie then handed the cups to the winners, with a few words of encouragement to each. VThe. party then adjourned to the edge of lhe river bank, where the new boats having been laid in readiness were launched with the usual sprinkling of champagne, cheering, and wishes for future distinction, Mrs Herdson naming the CR Cs boat " The Kiwi," and Mrs Crosbie that of theR.R.C. "The Syren." The boats were then manned with picked crews, and the Isis and Lurline having been brought out, a race took place between the new and old boats of each club, with the object of testing the capabilities of the former. The distance was about one mile, and the new boats won in each caseVf

Local Manufactures. — Messrs G. Coates and Co. have submitted for our inspection a very creditable specimen of . local .manufacture, in the shape of a conjoined knife and fork intended for the use of a person who has lost his riglit arm. The workmanship, as a whole, appears to be excellent. Theatre Royal. — The pieces played at the theatre on Saturday night, were " Robert Macaire," " Family Jars," and the '• Illustrious Stranger." There was a numerous and appreciative audience. On the termination of the performances, Mr Simmonds came before the curtain, and on belialf of the management returned thanks to the Christchurch public for the support they had accorded to them during their stay, which was necessarily brief as they were under engagement to return to Dunedin. Mr Simmonds expressed a hope that the company would again pay Christchurch a visit, and this remark was warmly applauded. Mr Taylor, Champion skater, and Mr Black, Scotch delineator and vocalist, -tfill appear at the Theatre Royal for the first time this evening. Accident. —On Saturday afternoon a labourer named Fletcher, residing in the Caledonian road, met with a severe accident by an injudicious attempt to stop a runaway horse in Colombo street. The horse was harnessed to a cart and had bolted from the bottom of Papanui road, where its owner, Mr Howard, carrier, had left it whilst he delivered some flour to Mr Wood, builder. Seeing it come through Cathedral Square, Fletcher ran towards it at right angles, was knocked down and the wheel passed over his left leg above the knee. He was taken to the hospital in a cab. Sergeant Jeffrey also had a very narrow escape whilst attempting with Constable Wallace to stop the horse. The horse continued its career along Colombo street, nearly capsizing two carts with which it came in contact, and inflicting a severe flesh wound with one of the shafts on the near shoulder of a horse belonging to Mr Stewart, carrier. Ultimately it was stopped by one of Mr Mem's men, whilst turning into Cashel street. The Doke of Edinburgh. — The following resolutions will be proposed at the meeting to be held to-morrow evening: — (1.) That this meeting learns with great satisfaction that His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh will shortly visit the colony of New Zealand, and desires to express its gratification that an opportunity will be afforded to the people of . this Province to testify their loyalty to Her Majesty the Queen by welcoming His Royal Highness among them. (2.) That his Honor the Superintendent be desired to forward the foregoing resolution to his Excellency the Governor, with a request that he will communicate the substance of it to His Royal Highness, and that his Honor be further requested to express on the part of the people of Canterbury the pleasure which they will have in again seeing his Excellency among them on the occasion of the visit of His Royal Highness. (3.) That the cordial cooperation of the several districts, and towns of the Province should be invited to secure a fitting reception of His Royal Highness during his visit, and that with this view the following gentlemen be requested to form a general committee to make the necessary arrangements. Thb Government Programme. — Commenting on Field Marshal Sir J. F. Burgoyne's letter on warfare in New Zealand, which we published a day or two ago, the Government organ says : — The present evils must be regarded for practical purposes as likely to be chronic, within such a period as belongs to the view of a legislature. We have tried sudden exhibitions of vast force ; we have overleaped ourselves and fallen into a state of bitterness on one side, and financial exhaustion on the other, worse than the condition from which we wished to escape. Our next policy must be steady, modest, and economical. We must play the long game. Our force, much smaller than that raised as auxiliaries to General Cameron, must be much more highly trained and more select. The plan now adopted in several places in a small scale, of employing the men on opening the country by tracks, must be extended and applied as part of the strategy of war, and of the exercise of peace. Bass' Straits Cable. — We take the following from a Launceston paper of Jan. 28 : — From the Mail we learn that the hon, the Colonial Secretary has received a letter from Captain Gilmore on the subject of the submarine cable. The manufacture of the cable at tne time Captain Gilmore wrote was nearly complete, and a screw, ship named the Investigator had been purchased to convey it to its destination. This vessel had been fitted with a tank, and was in every way prepared for the service she had to perform. The shipment of the cable was to be commenced in the second week of December, and the Investigator was to sail direct for Lauceston about the 26th of that month. As it. was intended to steam part of the voyage, and to Call at the Cape de Verd Islands to coal, she can hardly be looked for in these waters before the beginning of March. The staff of electricians are to come out overland by the next mail, to await the arrival of the cable. All necessary information as to the survey of Westport, and the landing place chosen for the cable near Cape Schanck, has been supplied to Captain Osborne, manager of the company, by Captain Gilmore." How to Make a Cheap and Good Barometer. — The Paris correspondent of the New York Tribune says, " A new inscrument called a baroscope is realising a lurge sale. It comes to Paris from Havana, and you probably also have it. At any rate here is a word of description. It prognosticates the weather twenty-four hours in advance, by changes in the fluid contained in a tube. To make one, take a glass tube a foot long and three and one third inches in circumference ; fill it with the following liquid ; camphor, two parts ; saltpetre, one part ; salts of ammonia, one part dissolved in alcohol and partially preci-

pitated with distilled water. Then close the tubPßynd:pj*pe it in a sheltered , and upright position fawng towards the north, and odt of the way of the sun. You will then observe the following barometric phenomena :— For fine weather, the liquor in the tube will be 'transparent ; for rain, there will be crystallized stars floating about in the liquid ; for a tempest, the liquid will be full of crystals, in an apparent state of ferment ; for wind, the crystals will adhere to the side of the tube from which the wind is going to blow. This simple invention is more certain and cheaper than any other barometer in use," The Ambrican Indians. — The New York Tribune of Jan. 8, says : — The trouble with Peace Societies has been that they are too good for this world. We cannot say that the memorial on behalf of the Indians, sent up to Congress by the Universal Peace Union, shews it to be any exception to the rule. A very humane and generous, but likewise a very unworldly* spirit pervades it. Nobody can read it without acknowledging the justice of its strictures upon our dealings with the Indians, or smiling at the innocence of its practical suggestions. " What diabolical inhumanity and wanton indiscretion," it exclaims — " destroying the Winter supplies of the Apaches, at the very time when they are most needed!" "Instead of erecting fortifications in their very faces we should relieve " their pressing necessities, furnish them seeds, "agricultural implements, tools, and teachers !" Could anything be sentimentally more humane and practically more foolish ? Imagine a member of this most excellent and benevolent Peace Union remonstrating with our Army officers about the cruelty of destroying the supplies of tbe enemy ! Conceive Sheridan's rough riders stopped in the midst of a charge on a party of painted Apache or Kiowa braves, while some peaceful sergeant rides forward to ask the savages if they wouldn't rather have some seeds, tools, and teachers instead of the impending carbine balls and sabre cuts ! The excellent members of the Peace Union do not need to be assured o e our entire sympathy with their general views on the Indian question, as well as with the humane purpose that prompts their present effort. But we must assure them that their error is the grave one of being right at the wrong time. We cannot stop in the midst of a fierce fight with savages to talk farming at them — much as the subject of farming concerns them. We are into a war, and must either fight our way through or submit to a humiliation in their eyes which will render subsequent efforts to control them by peaceful means futile. Having undertaken the tamiug of our horse Cruiser, we must first conquer him, or he will conquer us. Kindness is excellent, but even on the Rarey plan the objects of the kindness must first be taught that it is backed by irresistible power. Suffrage for the Indians, railroad building, constitution amending, may come in time; the work now in hand is to enforce peace with a vigorouslyused army. \ Meat-preserving Prospects.— The Argus* London correspondent, writing on Jan. I, supplies the following information -.—The warnings of the Argus, about two months since, in respect to the fallacies born of the enthusiasm with which the meat-preserving idea has been caught up, were very seasonable and necessary. There is one fundamental principle which must never be lost sight of, by individuals or companies in providing preserved flesh for the English market. It must be cheaper, and considerably cheaper, than the fresh meat sold by our own butchers, or it will never secure an extensive popular demand. When the alternative lies between preserved joints at 7d per lb. and a fresh joint of good meat at 8d per lb., the latter will be sure to be preferred by the vast majority of buyers. My own impression: is that if the imported beef and mutton cannot be retailed here at 6d or 6_d per lb, it will never create for itself a brisk market. An extract from the Argus, in reference to the extraordinary development of the meatpreserving business, having been . inserted in the Daily News of the 29th ult., a short letter appeared in that journal on the following day from John M'Call and Co., " sole consignees " of the preserved meats of some Melbourne Company, in correction of some of your statements. These zealous agents say : — " The return of exports there given evidently does not embrace all the Australian colonies. It may be interesting to your readers to know that there was imported into London, from the works of the Australian Meat Company of Ramornie, New South Wales, in the year 1867, 286,526 lb; and in the year 1 868, 878,444 lb ; we estimate the supply from this source for 1869 at 2,000,0001 b, and from the new works of the Melbourne Meat-preserving Company at a like quantity. The first shipment of the latter company, amounting to 150,0001 b, were made in November, and may be expected to reach London in February next." These dead meats are quite lively in this dull season of the year. I, went a few days ago to a dinner given by Mr Tallerman, of the Australian meat agency, in Norton-Fol-gate. The Hon. F. G. Verdoh, C.8., agentgeneral for Victoria, presided ; and amongst the company were Francis S. Sutton, Esq., the agent-general for South Australia; W. E. Mayne, Esq., the agent-general for New South Wales; several leading colonists in London, representatives of Australian banks, and some of the metropolitan medical officers of health. The dinner was prepared solely frbm the preserved meats which Mr Tallerman imports, and included beef and mutton prepared in several ways. The meats were in excellent condition and can be sold at rates far below the ordinary market prices. The potted meats in particular, for which there is always a demand in this country, compared advantageously with those produced by our best manufacturers. The warmest interest in the experiment was expressed by the company, for the question is one of not less importance — perhaps even of more urgency— in Kngland than in Australia.. But the general feeling was that such a dinner would not be eaten of

(choice, and tbat until the meats can be offered in their fresh condition their use will be reitric'ted; for the prejudices of the poor conumera are found to be stronger even than Njioae of the wealthier class: