Local & General.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5573, 22 March 1886, Page 3

Local & General.

« A smart fresh made its appearance in the Waimakariri on Saturday. Mr George Quartermain has been appointed to the mastership of the Tinwald school. Sir George Grey is to address a public meeting on Wednesday evening at the Town Hall, Lee6ton, at 8 p.m. At a meeting of the ABhburton High School Board held on Friday 1 laet, a Committee was appointed to deal with reserves requiring to bo re-let, and it was decided to increase the school fees for children over 12 years of age to £8 8s per annum, the increase to come into operation next term. At Tiuiaru the Navals, Artillery and Rifles, headed by the Garrison Band, yesterday marched from the camp, Brown street, to St Mary's Church, where divine service was conducted by Archdeacon Harper, who preached an appropriate sermon. About 120 men attended parade. Mr W. N. Digby was the recipient of a very handsome pair of opera glasses, presented by the members of the Lancaster Park team captained by him in the late trip to Dunedin, in recognition of the manner in which he handled the team during the tour. Mr A. Morton Ollivier made the presentation. Liddy, the well known theatrical advance agent, came through by the express on Saturday night on his way to Wellington, where he is to make arrangements for the Rickards-Raynor Combination. He will return to Christchurch on Friday next, to settle preliminaries for Messrs Eignold and Allison's season. On Saturday afternoon Mr Hay Smith took hia traction engine and combine across the new bridge at Kaiapoi, which has been the Bubject of so much , comment, aud some interest appeared to be excited by the experiment. The bystanders could observe considerable vibration, at one or two spota, though there was no apparent deflection. The vexed question, as to the bridge's capacity for bearing a heavy load, seems, therefore, to have been satisfactorily settled, but it remains to be seen whether the difficulty of opening the " lift portion" of the structure has been materially lessened. The first annual te*. meeting in. connection with the Tinwald Presbyterian Church was held on Friday in the Tinwald schoolroom. There was a good attendance, and after full justice had been done to the many good things dispensed by the ladies, the meeting was addressed by the Key A. Blake (Chairman), who gave a history of the church acd the work done by it. The other speakers were Revs F. Hill (Methodist), D. M'Neill, A. M. Beattie, and R. Stewart and others. The choir saag several j musical selections, and at the close the usual votes of thanks were awarsled. The police- had a rough time of j it in repressing a disturbance in ; Cathedral square on Saturday night. A I man named, Theodore Boaumelbcrg was j drunk in the square about midnight, and ; Constable Woding went to arrest him ; he I resisted, aad a struggle ensued, during j which a, crowd collected, of about 100 per- ] sons, whose sympathies were strongly in i favour of the drunken man. Constable j Wodicg was rushedj knocked down, and ; badly bruised, and Constable Lawlor, who came to his assistance, fared little better. The jpolioe stuck to their man, however, and with difficulty got him to the lock-uy. Suteequently three other men, who bad been the ringleaders in the assault upon the police, were appvehended. A London Times correspondent at Malaga asserts that the large sum of money contributed in England for the relief of the ! sufferera by earthquakes in Spain has been diverted to the restoration and reconstruction of churches, convents, and other religious establishments. It was placed in the hands of the Archbishops, and none of it has reached the destitute and suffering people for whom it was intended. In all the Japanese Empire, with a population of 37,000,000, it is estimated that there are fewer than 10,000 paupers. Seven hundred Scandinavians aailed from New York for their native home to spend Christmas time. Most of. Uicta were farmers from the North-west .

The Church of England missionera are now in the midst of their labours. Missions have already been preached at Addington, and at St Michael's. The St Matthew's and Cathedral Missions are still in progress, and they will be begun very shortly in the parishes of St Luke and St Mary, Opawa. The Mission Service in the Cathedral is held at half-past 12 every day by the Rev G. E. Mason. It is very short aad simple, consisting prini cipally of one of the Mission hymna and : an address, which lasts barely twenty minutes, the whole service being concluded punctually by 1 o'clook, as it is intended chiefly for business men. i Notwithstanding the inclemency of the weather, Mr J. Crewes' third lecture on "Gladstone as a Reformer" was listened to yesterday afternoon by a large audience. The lecturer > contended that three very essential j qualifications were requisite to entitle a : man to the position of a reformer. These , were said to be sympathy, conscience, and ■ religion. Mr Gladstone hud illustrated ; his possession of these noircssary attributes; \ first, by his keen commiseration for the pri3onera in the Neapolitan gaols ; second, by his temerity in advocating retrench- j nient and reform at the very gates of the i Woolwich arsenal; and third, by the practical Christianity exhibited by him in J attending to the wants of the poor, and | ministering by the bedside of the sick in ! his parish at Hawarden. Mr Crewes wa§ j frequently and loudly applauded during ■ the delivery of the lecture, and on its con- i elusion he announced that next Sunday he ! would finish the present series, and take ' occasion to intimate a fresh list of subjects for succeeding Sunday afternoons. In country districts, it is usual to make use of the Government school- I room for a variety of purposes. Its | floor supplies the ground over which the ' rustic beaux and belles trip the light (?) ! fantastic toe till the very joists groan be- i neath the sounding tread. Its benches on Sundays bear up the forms of devout worshippers. Within its walls the festive meet- j ing is held, and hills of goodthings disappear j before the onslaught of appetite-inspired Toms and Dicks and Harrys. From ! extemporised platforms erected at the j further end of the building the local vocaliets scream and howl out their ideas I of how songs should be sung, and on the ! same boards the local terpsichorean stamps through a hornpipe, jig, fling or breakdown. But during the five ordinary working days of the week, the Dominie reigns supreme, and His the rale of tawse and terror. And blows the cure for every error. He is all powerful during his little day of five hours, and it has usually been supposed that while those hours were current, the schoolroom was sacred to education. In a school not very far afield from the County ! of Ashburton, the patient plodding teacher j was harassing his soul with the work for which Government finds him and his i felloe teachers bread and butter, not much, more, if we except the annual dressing down by the Inspector, end the nightmare induced by having to work under th» direction of a sapient Committee. The teacher was asked to dismiss his children and make room for the operations of a crowd, who were to prepare the room for a tea-fight in the evening To that unfortunate master the duty of a teacher and the dignity of his work were a greater consideration that the buccesß of a tea-fight or the pious exhortations of the clergyman to follow. He declined to close his teaching and open his school for such a purpose. The Chairman of the Committee entered upon the scene, and, as your correspondent has been informed, ran poor Dominie out " neck and crop," while the "littlo ones laughed to see such sport, And discipline leapt to the moon." It is understood that this little exercise preparatory to a tea-meeting jollification will form the Bubject of consideration by the R.M. at a very early date. The circumstances under which Mary Tobin, a girl of 14, lost her life recently at Arrowtown (Otago) are thus detailed by the local correspondent of the Otago Daily Times: — Attempting to cross a temporary plank over the Arrow river, a little below Arrowtown, while the river was in high flood, she fell off the plank, but clung to the fencing wire which served as a hand-rail, her body falling across the plank. In this position she was Been by her brother from his mother'i house, which overlooks the ecene of the accident. He ran at once to her assistance with another man. They tied a rope to her body in order to haul her off the plank, but the weight being too much for their combined efforts, the unfortunate girl — who was rather tall and well grown for her age — slipped into the current, which swept her away in its muddy Btream. The loss is a very distressing one to her widowed mother, who a few years ago lost her husband very suddenly, ana a few months after his death her eldest son, a fine young fellow of 18 yearß, met his death by drowning while bathing. The greatest sympathy ia felt for Mrs Tobin, who is the mother of a large family — a number of them still very young — and is not in the best of circumstance*.