Latest and General.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 682, 30 July 1870, Page 2

Latest and General.

* Masonic. — The new hall in Manchester street, erected by the St. Augustine Lodge, will be opened on the 10th August next. Representation of Christohurch. — A telegram received from Wellington this morning is to the following effect: — " Travers says he gave the Speaker his resignation last night." Ltttelton Winter Readings. — The readings advertised for last night were postponed by the managing committee, in consequence of the sudden death of Mr B. Buchanan. St Albans Winter Entertainments. — The next of the series will take place in the schoolroom on Tuesday evening next, August 2. The programme, as will be seen from an advertisement in another column, is especially attractive. Theatre Royal.— -The pieces played at the Theatre last evening were "The Hidden Hand " and « The Area Belle." The last appearance of Mr and Mrs Steele is announced for to-night. Mr Searle's benefit is fixed for Monday. Lecture.— The lecture in aid of the f undß of the Maori Mission, which was to have been delivered by the Rev J. W Stack, at the Kaiapoi Institute, on Thursday evening, was postponed on account of the very unfavourable state of the weather. Coach Accident. — We are informed that a telegram was received in Christchurch yesterday, which states that the South Road coach from Timaru to Dunedm met with an accident when crossing the Waiho, and that the horses were drowned. ■ No f uriher particulars are to hand. S^Acclimatization.— A Hobart Town paper f July 9 says:— A flne looking specimen of rown trout {Salmo Farid) was caught on Thursday afternoon in the River Plenty, and forwarded to the Hobart Town Museum, where it was on view yesterday, and was inspected- by large numbers of our fellowcitizens. It weighed ten pounds, and measured thirty and one-fourth inches in length, and fifteen inches in girth. Obituary. — We aro sorry to record the death of Mr B. Buchanan, of Lyttelton, which took place suddenly yesterday afternoon. We learn that, on the servant going into the room yesterday, she found him dead in his chair. This gentleman was well known for his great kindness to the poor of the town. The flags in the town and shipping were hoisted half-mast high. An inquest was held this afternoon. Ltttjclton Children's Entertainment. — The fifth of the series took place in the Church of England Schools, Lyttelton, last night, and attracted a large attendance. The readings given on the occasion were too lengthy, some of them occupying over half an hour, and not being interesting to young minds, sorely tried their patience. We hope at the next entertainment this will be avoided, and that light pieces, capable of being understood by children, will be selected. Master Harry Knowles gave in capital style a short reading during the evening, and obtained a well-merited round of applause. The band of the Orphanage was present, aud played several pieces during the evening. The Rev. P. Knowles, at the close, spoke very feelingly of the death of Mr Buchanan, who had always been a great friend to the children •f the town.

Bankruptcy,— The Registrar sat in Cham- i bers at 11 o'clock yesterday. The final examination was fixed fox Thursday, August 25 in re John Henry Jackson, John Thomson, Edward Pilbrow, Alex. Mcßratney, Charles Wilson, William John Walter, William Collins, and Thomas Roberts. In re Henry Beechey and Thomas Harris Parsons, orders of adjudication were made, and the meetings fixed for Monday, the Bth of August, at 12 and 3 o'clock respectively. Rangioba. — A valuable addition, in the shape of a new Roman Catholic chapel, has recently been made to the public buildings of this place. Christchurch excepted, Rangiora, though only a wayside village, is now possessed of more churches of different denominations than any other place in the province. The new chapel, which will be opened for Divine service to-morrow, is a building of no small pretensions ; and from its appearance and general finish, reflects great credit on the contractors. Kaiapoi Institute. — The managing committee of this Institute met for the transaction of their monthly business on Thursday evening. There were present Messrs H. and J. Eeldwick, Hassal, Bean, C. E. Dudley, Ellis, Powrie, Clarke, Rose, Powell, Billens, Dr. Trevor, and the secretary. Dr Dudley the president of the institute was in the chair. A letter was read from Mr J. Studholme, M.H.R. for the town, informing the committee of the resolution recently passed by the House of Representatives, abolishing the postage tax on letters and papers for institutes and pnblic libraries. The secretary said he had written to Mr Studholme on the subject, and also to Mr Haughton the mover of the resolution, expressing the thanks of the committee for bis attention to the matter. The secretary stated that he expected to obtain for the library a copy of the New Zealand Justice of the Peace. The treasurer reported a balance to the credit of the Institute of £13 4s 3d. Accounts amounting to £9 15s 8d were passed for payment. On the motion of Mr C. E. Dudley, it was decided that the books of reference be accessible to members every evening from 7 to 10 o'clock. Mr Eckersley's name was added to the committee in place of Mr W. T. Newnham deceased. It was resolved that the Mechanics' Magazine be ordered for the reading room. Other business of a formal nature was transacted by the committee, and Mr C. E. Dudley handed in the following notice of motion for next meeting — " That it is advisable to purchase £30 worth of books so that they may arrive before next winter." A discussion took place as to the advisability of purchasing the books in the province, and it was ultimately decided that tenders should be invited for a supply. The meeting then adjourned. The Honourable John Hall on Colonial Newspapers. — Once upon a time it was a favourite amusement of Mr Stafford's to run down the colonial Press and enlarge upon its demerits. The Ex-Premier has given up this bad habit of late, but bis mantle seems to have fallen upon Mr Hall. In the following paragraph the Independent takes the honourable John to task for a recent offence of this kind. We think onr contemporary might have spared his righteous anger.- -The honourable John is not fitted either by education or experience to act as a critical' censor of the Press. "The hon. member for Hampden,' Mr Haughton, deserves the warmest thanks of the colony for his having succeeded in obtaining for Athenaeums; -Literary Institutes, &c, the privilege of having their newspapers conveyed free through the post. And we do not look upon this as* a special boon conferred upon these institutions only ; it has a* much wider range, and will tend to that interchange of ideas and fostering of intercourse between the different portions of the colony, which is a " consummation devoutly to be wished," and therefore we - think that the Hon. the Colonial Treasurer has done a wise thing in granting this boon. The debate on the question was not of a very noticeable nature, if we except the remarks made by the honourable John Hall, whose antipathy to the colonial newspapers is - well - known, and who took occasion to state that forwarding colonial newspapers through the post to Athenaeums, &c, was rather a negative sort of boon, as it would be placing before the public a kind of literature which would not bo of any use to them, but rather the contrary. The newspapers of the colony are, we have no doubt, extremely obliged to the hon. member for his opinion, and they are fully able to defend themselves from the insinuations of the hon. member about false impressions, incorrect reports, &c. but in the name of the press of New Zealand, we would desire to take the earliest opportunity of asserting, without fear of .contradiction, that the press of New Zealand as a whole, is conducted in as faithful and conscientious' a manner as the press in any part of. the world, and has done more for the proper development of those free representative.institutions under which we live than any other efforts, however well directed,, which .have been made. Of course, we know that there has been a sort of chronic feud between the hon. gentleman and some portions of the colonial press, which may account for his diatribe against the press as a whole ; but .we do protest against such sneers being indulged in by hon. members against an institution which is doing its work so well in the great cause of civilization which we all have at heart." Marriage Extraordinary.— -The following is taken from the Times : — Married in Salt I -ike City, Utah, on the 16th April, in the presence of the Saints, Elder Brigbam Young to Mrs J. R. Martin, Miss L. M. Pendergast, Mrs R. M. Jenickson, Mias-Suaie P. Cleveland, and Miss Emily P. Martin, all of the county of Berks, England. Highland Costume in Parliament. — The London Scotsman says :— We most heartily congratulate Lord Huntly, the premier Marquis of Scotland, on the able speech whi«h he made with go much modesty

and grace in moving the address in this House of Lords, but still heartier are'our congratulations on the nationality which he displayed in appearing in the Highland dress. A nobleman in whose veins is the blood of the "gallant Gordons"— the "Cocks of the North" — could never wear a more appropriate costume on a state occasion. We observe that some of our contemporaries in the north speak of the circumstance as if tbe Marquis of Huntly was the first who has ever worn the Highland dress in Parliament. This is not the case. It was indeed in Westminster Hall where, at the coronation of George IV., the gallant Glengarry was summarily delivered over to the custody of the keepers of the peace because a Billy woman, shrieked when she saw a pistol in the belt of the Highland chief. But during the present reign there have been at least two appearances of the Highland costume in Parliament. Mr Campbell, of Islay, M.P., for Argyleshire, wore it in his place in the Home on the morning of Coronation Day; and a few years later Lord Glenlyon appeared in it when • moving the Address in the House of Lords. Purtively, beneath greatcoats and paletots, the Highland costume is no rarity in either House on one night of the year— that of the C^ledonjan Ball in June. Discount. — A London journal states that Mr Bonamy Price, Professor of Political Economy at the Oxtord University, delivered a lecture at the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce on " What is Money, and has it any I Effect on the Bate of Discount?.' In the first part of his subject Mr Price pointed out the function of money as a tool to convey property. Upon the second division of the subject, — " Whether money has any effect on the rate of discount ?"— Mr Price argued that the special commodity money did not furnish any greater supplies for loans than the valuable commodities would have furnished whioh were sent out to buy the money : as what borrowers on discount sought was not money for its own sake, but the commodities which money could purchase. He did not deny that an inflow of gold into England was often accompanied by ease in the loan market, but he denied the relation of cause and effect between these two phenomena. The stringent and most . lasting outflows of gold usually sprang from the failure of the harvest ; the nation was impoverished by the unreplaced consumption expended on tillage, and a poor country necessarily generated a poor fand for lending. On the other hand, he was convinced that if the ten millions of gold now lying unemployed in England were exported as a foreign loan, and not in exchange for commodities, that mere fact would produce no effeot on the rate of discount, though the question of who the exporters were might act very powerfully. Mercantile men should not be diverted by unfounded notions as to the action of currency on discount from studying the real forces which regulated the ease or the difficulty of loans. Let them rather calculate the 'prospects of the harvest, not only in England, but over the world ; reflect whether an excess of the public wealth was not expended on costly creations such as railways or machinery, of which the restoration would require years ; and, further, take into account the influence of ignorance and prejudice on the enactment of protective tariffs and similar con tri vane 23 for the diminution of capital. It was in these regions that commercial storms were generated. Eccentricities ov a Bushranger.— The humourous effusions attributed to Power, during his incarceration, and the levity .said to be evinced in his preaont serious position, may have some foundation in his nature' and bearing, but willbe read with considerable suspicion. The Ovens and Murray Advertiser professes to give the following copy of a letter of Power's on the local press, whose description of his personal appearance seems to have wounded his vanity in no small degree. "It is" too bad, altogether too bad. The way I have been . treated is enough to make a man turn a real sneak. Not content with trying to make me put a pitiful pilferer, instead of the bold dashing highwayman I actually was, some of these Beechworth rags that call themselves newspapers aro actually endeavouring to decry my personal appearance. One petty scribbler—l wish I bad met the' fellow when out in the bush, not that he or any of his kidney would be worth the stick-ing-up — has the audacity to write of me as a low blackguardly-looking fellow, with large fishy eyes, ahd pea-soupy complexion. Now, if there is one matter I am touohy upon it is my personal appearance, and I am willing to bet the £15 now in the hands of the Governor, and leave the decision to the ladies of Beechworth, that I am a better-looking man tban the whole lot of the reporters tbat were present in Court on Monday, with one single exception. To one and only one will I give the palm — an elderly gentleman of rubicund countenance, whose bow to an acquaintance in Court I have been vainly endeavouring to copy. Can I but succeed — and I have not given it up in despair— it is my intention to try the effects of this courtly salute on the Judge at the general sessions and I feel quite assured that its grace will save me seven pennorth. Peasoup, indeed I — a more ordinary set of humbugs than the newspaper men of Beechworth I never clapt eyes on, with the exception of my elderly and amiable friend, whom my heart warms to as a brother." Another paper speaks thus of him :— lt is said that Power the bushranger kept a diary ! One extract from it is going about, but is rather too rich to be genuine. On one of his victims hesitating to give up his purse, ,r I. told him he had five minutes to consider." Baid Power, " and then I would have shot him. Had I let him go, it would have been in all the papers, aud my name would have been up. I should have shot him, but I went behind a log and prayed the Lord to soften his heart, and when I came back the Lord had softened it."