Local and General.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 1726, 8 September 1873, Page 2

Local and General.

PBDESTXiA-riSH. — The second deposit for the match between Harris and Fox, amounting to £20 aside, was made good at tho Victorian Hotel, on Saturday night, when there was a good muster of the supporters of each man. Mr S. P. Andrews has consented to act as starter, and Mr Digby has promised to do duty as referee. Rifle Shooting. — It is proposed to send a shooting team to repreaemt New Zealand at the coming, meeting of the Victorian Rifle Association in November. The Council of the Canterbury Rifle Association meet this evening to discuss the matter. Members of the team will be selected from the various provinces in proportion to the money subscribed in each. Accidents. — A man named Kerr whilst driving a trap on Friday afternoon belonging to Mr Newton, at the Head of the Bay, was thrown out and the wheel passing over his thigh fractured it. Dr Macdonald rode out to the place, and, after having set the leg, advised the sufferer's removal to tho hospital. — As Mr Eadie, of Whiterock, was crossing the Ashley on Friday, the bullocks, of which his team consisted, by very slightly Bwerving down stream, suddenly got beyond their depth completely submerging the dray and almost the entire persons of its occupants — Mr and Mrs Eadie ; nothing but their heads and shoulders being for some time visible, and otherwise emptying the dray of its contents, a sack of flour being found hanging over the side of the dray. Several large parcels were completely swept down stream, one of which Messrs Hodgeon and Croft succeeded in recovering after a protracted search far down stream. The shirting unreliable character of the stream has thus again been illustrated, as Mr Eadie had crossed only two days before when the river was almost equally high. Had the team been composed of spirited horses, or the current, at the spot, been more rapid, I fatal consequences might hare been tbe result. *

b General Assembly. — It is expected that . the session will close in about three weeks. 3 Bricklayers' Society. — At a general meeting of the members on Saturday night, Mr G. Innes, president, in the chair, it was 3 resolved to celebrate the anniversary of the i society by a dinner, on Friday next. _ Poultry Association. — The committee , met at Warner's Hotel on Saturday afternoon for the purpose of paying over and presenting the prizes won at the recent show. This was . the only business transacted, j City Election. — In compliance with a . requisition, the Mayor has convened a public meeting, in the Oddfellows' Hall; to-morrow r evening, at 7.30, to enable candidates for the i vacancies in the City Council to express their . views. t Imported Stock. — The draught entires imported from Melbourne by Messrs M'Kellar and Dewer, made their debut before 3 the Canterbury public at Tattersall's on Saturday. Although landed so recently, the . whole four showed remarkably free action, while their general characteristics were the theme of universal encomium. Red Prince _ appeared just a trifle stiff as compared with the other three, but it was evident that he had suffered most en route, and this was sufficient excuse for the difference. He is a magnificent powerful horse of the fashionable style, but rather too large for agricultural work. He is a veiy fine topped horse, and has immense bone, but not such clean hard ' legs as his companion, Glenroy ; he is well haired, and there can be no doubt but he will be a great favourite in the province. Glenroy is one of the most perfect horses ever seen here. He has good bone, remarkably clean legs, good hair, unexceptional feet, and a top with which fault could scarcely be found. He ia decidedly the best mover of the four, and is a farmer's horse all over. Young Scotchman is a very good type of the Clydesdale, and wonderfully de- . veloped for his age. He is furnished down the thighs like an old horse, has splendid . gaskins, and is very evenly made. Young Lord . Hadda is a very hardy coloured horse and ', and muscular, but scarcely so well furnished as the other horses, and out of condition. The whole four, it is unnecessary to say, are pure Clydesdales. A Postman's Knock. — The Dunedin Guardian Btates that a letter with the singular signature — "One who thinks he has a grievance," complaining that the Dunedin postmen do not adopt a uniform knock, and that much trouble is the result. The writer of the letter says — " In most civilised places on© knows at once by his knoeE it is the postman who is at the door, and he- is therefore quickly attended without any domestic confusion. But in Dunedin the postmen give all kinds of knocks, from that indicative of city rates collector to that of a well-known personal friend. The result is, therefore, most horrible In the middle of tea, a knock is heard, and my wife, with anger flashing from her beautiful eyes, says, ' I told you so, you would have tea half-an-hour too early, and see if that stuck up Mrs De Thompkins hasn't called, and now she'll tell our friends that we were having tripe and onions, for Bhe'll smell 'em all over the house.' The result is that before the knock can be answered, my wife has to go through a hurried toilette, and a miraculous consumption of scent, before she assumes an easy attitude in the drawing-room, whilst the door of the dining-room is hermetically sealed. And, after all, it turns out to be only the postman. So we come back to luke-warm tripe, which is not nice. Or it may be that breakfast in the morning is broken by a rap, rapping, which I mistake for that Jones, in regard to whom ' in the due- reverence of a sacred vow I have engaged my word,' and I will not back a little bill. The consequence is i a rush from table on my part a hasty exit by i the back door, and over the palings into the right-of-way, with a little bit of fiction retailed [to Jones as to how I went to- the Port by the | first train that morning, and I will not be | back all day. Then, when I come home in the afternoon, my wife says —^Such a pity you ran away this morning, love-! it was only the postman !' — I want this kiad of thing altered, and the postmen compelled to give postmen's knocks under a statute in that case made and provided." Accidents in London. — " The Miscellaneous Statistics of the United Eingdom (Part Till.) just issued,^' says the Pall Mall Gazette, " contain among other things a return of the number of street accidents in the metropolitan police district in each year from 1866 to 1870, which ought to bring home to the hearts of pedestrians the uncertainty of human life. From this return it appears that, during the period referred to there wore no> fewer than 533 persons killed and 7494 persons maimod or injured in the streets by vehicles and horses. This ghastly list is made up as follows :— Cabs killed 59 and wounded 1720 human creatures, omnibuses killed 39 and wounded 363, broughams and carriages killed 20 and wounded 988, light carts killed 142 and wounded 2667, waggons and drays lulled 83 and wounded 312, vans killed 113 and wounded 890, fire-engines killed 1 and wounded 19, horsed ridden killed 10 and wounded 153, heavy carts killed 65 and wounded 378, and velocipedes (of which it is only fair to say in excuse for the comparatively poor figuro they I cut in the butcher's bill that they hardly came into general use beforo 1869-70) killed 1 and wounded 4. Putting the killed and I wounded together, we have the respectable number of 8,027 persons placed hors de combat by our formidable street cavalry in five years. It is perhaps an invidious task to select the drivers of any one class of vehicle as being foremost in the ranks of slaughter, but it is impossiblo not to observe that the light-cart 1 drivers show an indifforenee to danger aad a recklessness of the lives of others which are almost sublime. That these men should have j injured or destroyed 2809 quiet Londoners ir five short years is, to say the least, a remarkable sign of the times we live in. That they should have been permitted to do so speaks volumes as to the admirable nature of our •rrangeawnts." ... .. r _ _