TREATMENT OF OFFICERS BY THE PRESENT GOVERNMENT.

Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 391, 31 October 1868, Page 6

TREATMENT OF OFFICERS BY THE PRESENT GOVERNMENT.

Oue of the bravest non-commis-sioned officers in the Patea Field Force —Sergt. Major Anderson of the mounted constabulary, was, a month ago, recommended for promotion for rnoeated acts of bravery during several actions iu which he lias taken part during the last four or five years, and for uniform steady and good conduct. In compliance with that recommendation he has been gazetted as Ensign, date of commission 7th September, 186 S. Immediately nn his promotion he was told by Major Frazer, now temporarily in command of the Patea district, that his services were dispensed with, and thus one of the ablest officers at the front had to find his way to Wanganui as a private gentleman simply because he had the misfortune to be promoted! The " Gazette" of the 10th instant, which annouuces Mr Anderson's promotion, also contains the following curt notice : —" His Excellency the Governor has been pleased to disband the undermentioned: — " The No. 5 Division Armed Constabulary, for mutinous conduct in the field " (Signed) T. M. Hattltain.

That No. 5 Division was composed of Von Tempsky's men, the bravest fellows at the Front. During the last five years most of them have fought upon the East and West Coasts, and even after being disbanded a few of them fought a fortnight ago when on escort duty between Patea and Kakaramea, where one of them was shot dead, and the remaining few refused to retire until they paid the rebels off, and carried away their dead comrade. It is men like these that Colonel Haultain recommends to be disbanded, whilst he seeks to enlist raw levies in the city of Auckland and elsewhere, to be drafted off to Patea, there to be either disciplined by Col. Whitmore during the next twelve months, or sent at once to encounter Tito Kowaru and his old warriors in their mountain fastnesses. The latter alternative would be a sacrifice of life, the first a link in the chain of that policy which perpetuates the "Native Difficulty." When officers and men are well disciplined, for years inured to hardship and bush-fighting, then disband and discharge them ; enlist raw recruits, exercise patronage in the bestowal of commissions upon men totally unfit to command, steadily pursue this policy, and you indefinitely prolong the " Difficulty," and not only defy any vote of the House to abolish the Defence Department, but actually compel the same hon. members to vote another hundred thousand a-year for " Native purposes." Great is the Tito Kowaru ! —" Wanganui Times."

An occurrence, which terminated fatally forone'of the parties concerned, we learn from the Ararat Advertiser, took place on Saturday evening last, at the tent of a miner named White, which is situated between three and four miles from Arai-at. "White had been to the town for the purpose of purchasing a week's supply of provisions, and he did not reach his abode till pretty late. A.fter having made preparations for retiring to rest, his attention was directed to a slight movement and heavy breathing beneath his stretcher when, catching sight of a beard and eyes, he seized his gun, which was standing near the fireplace, and covered the intruder in an instant. White states that it was not his intention to do an} r thing beyond taking up his position, "which was merely assumed with the view of protecting himself. The intruder was challenged, and on being ordered to come forth, the nervousness of the speaker overcame his first intentions ; unfortunately the trigger was pressed, and the charge lodged in the head of the unfortunate. Scared at the un-looked-for occurrence, White was about running to the police to inform them of the circumstance, when he thought of first ascertaining whether the wound was mortal. On stooping below the bed, lie drew iorth, to his great surprise and delight a dying goat; which circumstauce so relieved his anxiety, and rejoiced him generalyl, at the harmless nature of the occurrence, that he visited the nearest store to relate the circumstance, and did not return therefrom until charged and ])rimed quite as well as the gun which caused him so much anxiety. As some information with regard, to tho practical working of the Fiji Co. will be useful to those who contemplate purchasing shares in it, we give the following paragraph from the Border Post, of the 19th ult.: —An intending settler in the Fijis wishes to get a sugar or cotton estate, and to become some day a wealthy planter, He pays, let us suppose, £IOO upon shares in the Polynesia Company. The

current voluo of good land in Fiji is from six to eight shillings per acre, unsurveyed. The company, however, survey land to shareholder's at 25 per cent, reduction on the ordinary price, and thoy only ask one-third cash, with the remainder in two years. Thoy also guarantee the title, which they are in a position to do, from the fact that they not only have the guarantee of the native chiefs, but if necessary they can also look to the American Government to place them in peaceable posession of the lauds for which the said American Government, through their consul receives the money. The deed of transfer being witnessed by responsible parties, and registered with the British Consul, will also involve the recognition of the company's rights by England. Eighteen-pence per acre is therefore the sum the settler would be called upon to pay down for his land Well, the settler wishing to make the most of his capital, gets an advance on deposit of his shares, and the major of the £IOO he has paid for his shares, he borrows back again in the note issue of the company. Thus he will have obtained possession of a selection of land for a merely nominal sum, with all the protection that a powerful company and the mutual assistance of his co-shareholders can afford. The more notes he is in a position to circulate, the greater the produce he is able to sell; the larger the profit made upon his operations and those of his fellow-shareholders, the greater will be the dividends on his shares. In short, upon the cooperative principle, the shareholding settler takes the profit that is now monopolised by the merchants and middle men. What that profit is, may be judged of by the fact that Fiji cotton sells in Liverpool at Is lOd per lb, but all that the settlers can get for it on the ground is 4d to 5d per lb. Per contra, the manufactured calico which is imported from Sydney at a cost of 4|d per yard, is sold at Is per yard in Fiji. On July 6th. a large concourse of people assembled at New Bedford, Massachusetts, to witness the ascent of a balloon. Every thing was at last ready, the rope to which was attached the srrnpnel, being properly coiled, and the latter safely placed in the car ; but in some way the guy, by which the balloon was held, caught and displaced the grapnell, which fell from the car, and in its descent struck a little boy upon the head, thereby fracturing his scull. The rope which held the balloon to the earth having been cut, the grapnel was dragged along, and it caught a French boy under one arm and the chin, and another little fellow on the hip, and thus the poor children were lifted into the air. For a moment the of the spectators was intense, but the gentleman in the balloon, hearing the cry of the boys, with great presence of mind, cut the rope with his knife, thus giving the children their only chance of escipe. They bad reached an altitude of about forty feet, and fortunately fell into a tree upon the Common, which br >ke the force of their descent, and saved, not only their lives but their limbs. Both suffered from the concussion, and were insensible for some time; but both are likely to recover. The accidents were attributed to the crowd invading the space appropriated to the balloon. A large number of both men, women and children kept about the balloon, though the aeronaut warned them repeatedly of the danger they were in. Some years ago, a man named Paris Shirley, married a Miss Tate, near Bloomington, Indiana. Some time after his marriage, Shirley removed to Illinois, where in the course of time; he bought a drove of cattle, and after sending his wife and children back to Bloomington to remain with their friends until his return, he started for California with his cattle. A little distance beyond Salt Lake City he was captured by the Flathead Indians, and his cattle confiscated. He was kept in captivity some eight or ten years, and during the whole of that period his friends heard not a word from him, and he was supposed to be dead. In the meantime, his wife sought and obtained a divorce, and was married about a year ago, and removed with her husband to Illinois. Now comes the sorrowful part of the story. On Thursday, the 16th of July last, Shirley returned to his father's house in Bloomington, in bright anticipation of a happy meeting with his beloved wife and children and when told the story of his wife's second marriage, the strong man broke down, and he wept like a child. Immediately he wrote a letter to his late wife, claiming her heart and hand, and alleging that he had the oldest claim to them. So closely was Mr Shirley kept in confinement by the Indians, that he never heard a word of the American civil war, until the time he made his escape. His person bears

unmistakeable evidence of the harsh and severe treatment he had been subjected to, but these he considers a small matter when compared to the loss of the mother of his children, and the law courts can afford him no relief.

A New York paper states :—" On July 20th, seven young girls went to bathe at the foot of Fifty-sixth street, East River; one of them got beyond her depth, and in her struggles to escape drowning, dragged three others into like danger. A boy, II years of age. named Frank Beck, hearing the screams of the girls, came to their rescue, and succeeded by persistent diving in rescuing three of the four ; the other, named Powers, was drowned." The condition of the milk supplied to the inhabitants of London has been investigated by the British Medical Journal, and a second report upon it appears this week. According to the data furnished by a series of chemical analyses by Dr. Divers. F.C.S.,it seems that out of sixteen samples of milk, purchased in Bayswater, Kensington, and Holborn districts, only one proved to be in its original state, all the others being more or less watered and deprived of cream. One specimen, for example, proved to be nearly half water ; another to have lost more than half its cream, besides being diluted witli water. A charge of fivepence per quart for two of the samples was found to be no guarantee to customers willing to pay the extrapenny that they can assure to themselves, by so doing, a supply of pure milk.

A Census of Queensland was taken on March 2. The returns are not yet fully made up, but the population is over one hundred thousand ; it was only thirty thousand on April 7, 1861. The papulation of Brisbane, the municipality, is stated to be fifteen thousand. Ipswich, five thousand and twenty-six ; Piockbampton about two hundred more ; Maryborough not quite three thousand: The population of the province of Otago, New Zealand, is returned as forty-eight thousand four hundred and eighty, according to the census of 1867 • twenty-nine thousand eight hundred and nineteen males, eighteen thousand six hundred and sixty-one females ; twelve thousand four hundred and five at the goldfields, thirty-six thousand and seventy-five in the rest of the province. The population of Dunedin city and harbour is returned as twelve thousand seven hundred and seventy-six.

A curious circumstance is mentioned in a private letter in connection with the recent hot weather in the United Kingdom. A vessel, on her return from the West Indies to Woolwich, brought such a number of mosquitoes in her rigging, that not only Woolivich and London, but various parts of the country as far north as Edinburgh, have since been visited by these unpleasant insects.