TELEGRAPHIC NEWS.

West Coast Times, Issue 2987, 4 May 1875, Page 2

TELEGRAPHIC NEWS.

[per press telegraph agency.]

Dunedin, May 3.

Mr Langsique, French Consul, and wool broker, committed suicide on Friday by taking strychnine. The body was found yesterday in a paddock near his residence. The deceased was involved in pecuniary matters, but only lo such a trifling extent that many of his numerous friends would have assisted him, He was high up in the Masonic Order, and a meeting of that body was called last night to make arrangements for his funeral.

It has been raining, snowing, and thundering during the day. The weather is intensely cold.

The water supply difficulty ha 9 been satisfactorily settled.

The thirty-fourth session of the Provincial Council opened to-day. The Superintendeut, in the course of a very lengthy speech, said that 12,311 immigrants had arrived during the year. Referring to the abolition of Provinces, he admitted that a change in the present constitution was necessary, but he was opposed to the modus operandi proposed. He instanced that Otago and Canterbury contributed more than half of the consolidated revenue of the Colony, and averred that by abolition their resources would be s* ill more drawn upon. He expressed himself favorable to the unity of the Colony, but submitted that the surest course to attain that end would be by every Province dependent upon itself contributing a fair share fo the support of the federal government at Wellington, and also a fair share of the debt already incurred by the Colony. By consistently pursuing this course the provinces would draw together, as in the case of Otago and Southland, and so t l ie unity aimed at would eventually be brought abQijt ? and yet the financial separation of north and south be practjeabjy accomplished.

Lyttelton, May 3.

Arrived— Ship Tintern Abbey, from London, with immigrants. & heavy southwest gale is blowing, sq that there was no communication last night.

The Tintern Abbey was towed up by the Ijiuna to-day, 114 days out from London, with 300 immigrants. There were 1? deaths, and 6 births.

Of the birds for the Acclimatization Society, about 800 out of 1000 arrived healthy. Sailed— Ship Hudson, for London. Chbistchuech, May 3. B. Parkenaon, Junior, aged .forty-fiv,e, house-surgeon at the Christchurch hospital, died yesterday morning from typhoid fever. The hospital has been crowded" yrith typhoid fever cases for months past, and Mr Parkenson was greatly overworked. On Saturday last, Dr Buck, the Slierrift, proceeded to Lyttelton, and gave Mercer official intimation that the sentence of * the law would be carried out upon him at eight o'clock on Friday morning next. On being visited by the Rev. F. Knowles, and J. Willis, and asked to attend prayers, Mercer declined to do so, and on those gentlemen leaving the gaol, he remarked that anyone seeing ministers leaving would think he was going to heaven quick. Bishop Redwood attended mass at the Catholic Church yesterday, and preached to a crowded congregation. A laboring man named Knight was fined £10 for having two grey ducks in his posession thi day before the opening of the shootine: season, and in default of pay- i raent, was sentenced to two months' imprisonment. He has been liberated by I Sir Cracroft Wilaon paying the fine. The Governor, in response to a petition, had just previously signed a warrant for the release of Knight.