PROPOSED NEW DIRECT LINE OF STEAMERS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5108, 16 September 1884, Page 2

PROPOSED NEW DIRECT LINE OF STEAMERS.

DEATH PROM EXPOSURE. NAPIER, Sept. 16. The Nelson Brothers' Company announce that they have used overy effort to induce the New Zealand Shipping Company and the Shaw Savill and Albion Company to see tho necessity for immediate action in the direction of reducing the freights on frozen meat, and thus prevent the total collapse of what would otherwise be a gigantic enterprise. So far Messrs Nelson Jlrothcrs have failed ; and now, unless they can get a substantial reduction in freight, they intend running a direct line of steamers between Napier and London. A question ha 3 been raised as to the legality of the last municipal elections, owing to the Borough Re-turning-Oflicer having appointed a deputy for one of the wards, one place in the central ward having been defined to receive nominations for candidates for all three wards, aud the declaration of the polls being made from the Town Clerk's office instead of at some duly appointed place in each ward. A person employed to'eauvass for signatures to the petition against the Napier Harbour Bill, travelled all through Waipawa County, four hundred miles, calling at each settler's house, and only got five signatures. Dragging operations are still proceeding for the recovery of the body of a man

named Perry, supposed to have been ; drowned in the harbour on Saturday I night. ! John Kenn, alias John Gallagher, a ' pensioner of the 70th Regiment, was found ; on the Ruataruwha plains in an exhausted condition on Saturday. Ho was carried to the OngaOnga Hotel, but died in the I afternoon. He had been out all through Friday night, in tho bitterly cold rain and snow. The deceased was of intemperate habits, and is supposed to have been intoxicated when he laid down to sleep. Two stowaways on board tlie Te Anau were brought before the R.M. Court yesterday. The friends of one paid the passage money. The other was fined .£l, for which the hat was sent round outside the Court and the money raised. Subscriptions have been raised to provide funds' for a demonstration against the promoters of tlie petition against the Napier Harbour Bill. It is said that amongst others, the member for Thorndon will be burnt in effigy. WELLINGTON, Sept. 16. Peter M'Grath, tlie defaulting hotelkeeper, was brought before the Court this morning, and judgment was reserved until to-morrow.