Latest Locals.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5080, 14 August 1884, Page 2

Latest Locals.

♦ Signor Otto Hug announces his return to Christchurch. He is staying at Collins Hotel. The Rev Ralph Brown lectures on phrenology and mesmerism at 7. -5 this evening, in the Sydenham Oddfellows' Hall. An auction sale of freehold property in Lyttelton is announced by Messrs S. P. Andrews and Co., for Wednesday, August 27. Mr John Goodman intends to send a couple of his Antwerp pigeons to compete at the forthcoming Wellington Poultry Show. La consequence of its being impossible to obtain a quorum of the members of the Land Board, there was no sitting to-day. The next meeting day of the Board is Thursday, August 28. The building intended as a small-pox hospital, should occasion arise for ita use, which is being erected on Reserve No. 211, at the Sandhills, is now on the point of completion, and will almost immediately be ready for patients. It is to be hoped it will remain, tenantless. Mr J. D. M'Pherson has been nominated by the Richmond School Committee for the vacancy on the North Canterbury Board of Education, caused by the resignation of Mr John Inglis through ill health. Mr M'Pherson is an old settler in Canterbury, and has taken an active part in all public business, and thus is well fitted for a seat on the Board. In reference to the Bracken testimonial, reported elsewhere in this issue, our Dun- • edin correspondent says : — Considering the weather the Bracken presentation meeting was in every way a representative one, the clergy and the professions being strongly represented. The Mayor and Mr G. Fenwick made excellent speeches. Mr Bracken, in reply, hinted at the possibility of his offering himself for election iv a North Island constituency. At a meeting of the North Canterbury Football Club held at the Junction Hotel, Rangiora, last night, to further consider the proposed Southern tour, it was found that only twelve players would be able to go, and therefore, with much regret, it was decided to give up the idea of sending the team. Mr C. d'Auvergne, the crack halfback, is laid up with a very severe attack of low fever, from which he is not likely to fully recover for a month or six weeks. Mr W. Wilson has received a letter from Mr W. G. Motley, Napier, stating that the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the South Pacific Petroleum Company, in Sydney, had informed him that the removal of the Directory of the Board from Sydney to Napier would be effected at the next half-yearly meeting, which is to take place in October next. It is necessary for New Zealand proxies to be sent to Sydney, and Mr Motley has therefore asked Mr Wilson to collect those of Christchurch shareholders, and forward them to him to be transmitted to New South Wales. The Lyttelton Times of this morning has the following comments upon the phenomenal scoring of the Australian cricketers : — The English cricketers seem once again to have committed the mistake they made in a famous match with Australia in 1882 — that of trusting too entirely to their slow bowlers, represented this time in the persons of Peate, Steel, Barlow and Grace. Of the English team as telegraphed only Ulyett and Barnes can bowl fast, but are not usually reckoned first-class trundlers. On a fast, true wicket, slow bowling, however good, is not difficult to hit. Still, the batting feat of the Australians on the first day of the match is unparalleled in the annals of cricket. To score 363 runs for two wickets against the bowlers we have named, backed up by a team of fieldsmen not to be beaten anywhere, fairly wipes out the reverse just before met 'with by the Colonials at the hands of Kent. Englishmen may regret that Mr Christopherson, Mr Rotherham, or one of the professional fast bowlers — Harrison, Jones, or Einmett — were not included in the Home team, but Colonials will have a right to congratulate themselves that their batsmen now, as did their bowlers in former years, have proved themselves at least the equals of the best professors of the noble game of cricket in its English cradle.