Local & General.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5168, 25 November 1884, Page 3

Local & General.

! • ! l£r Libby, the advance agent of Miss } Genevieve Ward, the Englich actress, at present playing in Dnnedin, will arrive to-morrow to make arrangements for the opening of the Company here. The Unemployed Commission sat at Waimate yesterday. There are between fifty and sixty men" who have 'no work, waiting to interview the Commissioners, and in some cases considerable distress exists. The Commission will not be able to sit in Trmaru vratil Wednesday, in consequence of the pressure of business at Waimate. A deputation from the Industrial Association waited on the Board of Go- } vernors of Canterbury College, in reference to technical education. The j general opinion of the Board was favourable to the views expressed by the | deputation, and the question was finally ' referred to the School of Art Committee 1 .

A meeting of the Committee of the ' Industrial Association was held last evening, Mr J. L. Scott, President, in the chair, to consider various matters to be represented to the Hon the Minister of Public Works by the deputation which is to wait on him at 4 p.m. to-day. The proceedings were not of a public nature. i The Australasian Wesleyan Methodist General Conference yesterday discussed, ; at considerable length, a proposal to . put into the new " model deed " #a . provision allowing six years' circuits instead of three years, in cases of ; necessity. The proposal, as also one to ' extend the term from three to four yeai'3, • was lost by a considerable majority. I At the Ashburton Resident Magis- : trate's Court yesterday, the usual batch of drunks accompanying the races were dealt with. Mary M'Laughlin, a woman of ill-fame, was charged with vagrancy, and ordered to be imprisoned for three months, with hard labour. A number > of similar characters had been summoned to appear before the Magistrate, but having left the town, the charges were held over. A meeting of persons interested in these annual races was held at the Winslow Hotel, on Saturday evening. It was resolved to hold the usual races on New Year's Day, and the details of the programme, which is framed on a much more liberal scale than those of • previous years, were arranged, and officers I were appointed. A hearty vote of thanka was accorded to Mr D. M'Lean for having placed a suitable paddock at the disposal of the Committee for the purpose of holding the races. A fully attended meeting of the office bearers of St Andrew's Church was held last evening in the schoolroom, at which it was agreed that a meeting of the congregation should be convened for the evening of Wednesday, Dec. 3, at 7.30, to take into consideration the recent action of the Presbytery in practically agreeing with statements affecting the validity of the Kirk Session of St Andrew's and the legality of the in duction of the Rev Mr Dinwiddie to that charge. A meeting of the Committee of the Christchurch Early Closing Association was held at the Young Men's Christian Association rooms last evening, Mr Paul in the chair. A set of draft rules were prepared to be submitted to a general meeting to be convened by advertisement. It was also decided to invite the co-operation of all the various trades in Christchurch. The Committee also agreed to suggest to the general meeting that Thursdays should be proposed as the days for the general half-holiday. In reference to a recent trial of manure distributors, Messrs Eeid and Gray write to state that they have made j a machine which does all, in the way of sowing artificial manure in the same drill as the seed, that is claimed for the implement tried here. For the last three years it has been exhibited in Auckland, Canterbury, and Otago, and it was on j view at the late Timaru Show. Messrs j Reid and Gray add that they have for some time past made small drills with only two coulters, for sowing manure and turnips in the same manner, these being suitable for small holdings. , A -public meeting was held at the Royal ; Hotel, Leithfield, on Saturday, to consider I the advisability of holding the sports as j usual, this year. There was a large and influential attendance, Mr Rhodes, junior, in the chair. Af i er some discussion, it was unanimously agreed that the sports be held, and that officers, and working and general committees be appointed to ensure the success of the gathering. Mr J. S. I Woodhouse was elected President. It was ! decided that Anniversary Day be chosen as j the day on which to hold the sports, and j that a ball in connection therewith should i take place on Anniversary night, in the ] Leithlield Hall. A subscription list was I opened, and a sum of nearly .£lO was pro- i j mised in the room. After a vote of thanks i to the Chairman had been passed, the meeting adjourned. ; Subjoined are more complete details of a fatal accident reported in our issue of 1 yesterday : — On Sunday afternoon, two of the young sons of Mr John Small, farmer, j Graham's road, near Wheatstone, in the j Waterton and Longbeach district, went I bathing. The lads were named respeeI tively William and Edward, and were 12 and 14 years of age. The place they selected to have their bath was one of the gravel pits so frequently met with on the | roadsides in Ashburton, which are ! the receptacles of a large proportion of the 1 storm water. In some of these pits water ■ is found to a considerable depth, which was the case in the one adjoining their father's farm which the boys selected. After , having splashed about for some time in the shallows, neither of them being able to swim, they launched a feed box, and on this ventured into the deeper water. The sinking of the box left the boys out of depth, and before aid could reach them from the farm, they were drowned. Much sympathy is felt for Mr Small, who is well known and respected in the district. The San Francisco correspondent of the Otago Daily Times says that farmers in America are beginning to find that even in that favoured country wheat-growing does notpay, except at places within easy reach of transit facilities* He proceeds : — The agriculturists of this State (California) are this season " between the de'il and the deep sea." They have the most prolific harvest ever gathered on the coast ; but the city banks will not make advances upon grain unless it is in warehouses owned by their directors and shareholders, and the country banks are too weak to assist. The natural result is that wheat is lying out in the fields, and has been overtaken by the October rains, the ruling price in the interior being from 40 cents to 50 cents per 1001 b less than the cost of production, making allowance for rent, interest on investment, &c. Loans cannot be obtained on securities outside the city or suburbs. Business is naturally stagnant. There is little or no money in circulation, and in all my experience on the coast I have never seen such dull times. Yet all this while the United States sub-Treasury has lying idle in its vaults in this city the enormous sum of 84 million dollars (£16,800,000), chiefly gold coin— a fund sufficient to start the wheels of industry and create a boom of prosperity which would leave the Pacific Slope far advanced on its destined road to industrial supremacy in the United States. If anyone can justify a Republican policy which bears such fruit as this I should only be too glad to hear the reason why. European law and native custom do not always work well together, as a bigamy case recently tried in Bombay shows. The culprit, Abai, was married several years back to the prosecutor, Bapoo Sadoo. Some three years ago, however, he took another wife, which was a perfectly legal proceeding. Abai says that after this she was neglected ; that her husband did not .provide for her as he used to do, and that she was sometimes left without food for four days together. Accordingly she ran away from him to Bombay. There, with the consent of her caste, the washerman caste — of which, from the evidence, a washerwoman seems to be muccadum, or chicf — she married again, while her husband was living. She evidently did not think she was doing wrong. But the High Court some time ago decided that the consent of the caste is not enough. So in law the unlucky woman was guilty. The decision which bound the Judge : was intended to raise even these low ! castes, who know nothing of Brahminical j law, to the level of the higher castes, who • follow the laws of Manu, and hold the marj riage tie sacred and indissoluble for the ' woman. The Judge gave the lightest sentence the law allowed — one month's simple k imprisonment. Here, however, followed the most remarkable feature in the whole I case. Abai asked what she was to do with ' the young child when she was in prison. ' The prosecutor — that is, the first husband — was called and told that lie would henceforth have to support the child as well as the woman. This, he urged, he could not do. " She has remarried, and the caste will not allow me to have anything to do with her now. She is lost to me." The Judge took care to disabuse his mind on this point. " The jury have found i?er guilty, and the result of that decision id that she is still your wife, and you will . have to maintain her."

The celebrated Tichborne case has acquired what may be termed a local interest to New Zealanders on account of the recent discovery of certain ammunition boxes at Wellington bearing the words "Transport Ooprey," and dates varying from 1844 to 185G, thus tending to prove that a vessel of that name was in Colonial waters in the years mentioned. A piece of evidence confirmatory of this has been furnished to us by Mr : Stephen Brooker, cab proprietor, of this ' city, whose acquaintance with this Colony | dates from nearly half a century ago. He ' came to Auckland in the year 1840 in the '- barque Louisa Campbell, Captain Darby. Among his fellow passengers was a certain Captain Hill, who, in conjunction with a ! Mr Dudley Sinclair, purposed starting a : sawmill at the Manukau. Shortly after- j wards a three-masted vessel, named the : Osprey, came to Manukau harbour, with ' Mr Sinclair, who was accompanied by : several sawyers and their families, and had ■ with him the plant necessary for working j the sawmill. Mr Brooker went to the i Manukau at the time, and paid several \ visits to the Osprey. He cannot, however, ' remember the name of her captain, and does not appear to have ever known that • of her owner. What became of the vessel ! after she left Manukau he does not know, but his recollections are sufficient to prove that not very long anterior to the earliest j date on the ammunition cases found at I Wellington, a ship called the Osprey cer- ■ tainly was trading to the Colonies. The . bearing of this fact on the Tichborne case j will be perceived when it is remembered that the Claimant stated that after the wreck of the Bella he was rescued by a vessel named the Osprey, bound for Melbourne, off the coast of South America.