WEEKLY EPITOME.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume I, Issue 7, 14 June 1873, Page 6

WEEKLY EPITOME.

The deposits in the Savings Bank, Dunedin, during the Quarter ending the 31st March, 1873, amount to £33,179 18s lOd ; withdrawals, £22,023 15s : in Auckland, deposits, £16,527 12s Id; with, drawals, £13,989 : Wellington, deposits, £22,001 6s lOd ; withdrawals, £15,478 7s 7d: Christchurch, deposits, £27,439 8s 2d; withdrawals £19,507 8s fid; InvercargiU, deposits, £5,521 17s Id ; withdrawals, £3,803 16s 9d : Thames, deposits, £5503 15s «d ; withdrawals, £5,461 6s 8d: Westport, deposits, £2.3! 3 2s 6d ; withdrawals, £4,147 19a 4d? Hpkitika, deposits, £3,909 2s 4d ; withdrawals, £3,790 5s 6d : Grey. rao.u*h, deposits, £5,671 19s' 3d ; withdrawlas, £6,442 Is Od : Total deposits for the Colony, £136,415 9s Id ; withdrawlas, £101,069 8a 6d. The above show that prosperity can be hardly said to have prevailed on the Gold Fields during the Quarter ending 31st March. Mr. J. T. Peacock, the late member for Lyttelton, has been called to the Legislative Council. Sir David Monro has resigned his neat tot Waikquaiti in the House of Representatives, on account of ill-health in his family. The contractor with the New South Wales Government for a service to San Francisco is Mr H. H. Hall, of Sydney. Hi» sureties .are large American tobacco merchants in business in Sydney and America. The contract, as drawn, gives no security at all for a New Zealand service, an 1 is most lax as to penalties. ,_No vessels are named^or indicated. The contract is so di*wn as to euable the Sydney Government easily to avoid it, and tho whole arrangement ia such »s to lead to the opinion that it is merely a concession for speculative purpose?, to be sold at a profit if possible, -sr else thrown up. At an enthusiastic meeting at Auckland it was resolved that " In the .opinion of this meeting it is the imperative duty of the General Government to proceed as rapidly ns possible with the construction of railways into the centre of the North Island, to secure the peace of the Colony, and thereby avoid wasteful expenditure of taxation of 'the Colony in war, and that there is no matter of more permanent importance to the welfare of the whole Colony." A large meeting at Parnell, Auckland, adopted resolutions in favour of the extension of the Wuikato railway to the confiscated boundary. The surveyors started from Cambridge on the morning of the 9th, to cut a line right along the boundary of the confiscated land. After this is done, tenders will be called for clearing a road three chains wide, and cavalry will then patrol the country from redoubt to redoubt along the vriiole frontier. Thirty Constabulary are expected from New Plymouth. The Taupo Natives condemn the murder of Sullivan, and will assist the Government in the event of hostilities. Mr R. W. Woon has obtained the returnof 250 stand of Government arms from the upper Wanganui Natives. The judicial inquiry before Mr Searancke into the cn-cumstancei attending Sullivan's murder has commenced. The Native meeting at the Thames lasted three days, and very divided opinion! were expressed. A most important discussion ensued. Te Hira said, as their sentiments were divided, he would not come here again. He strongly urged that loasing and selling of land should ci'ase. Moananui supported him, and said the making of roads would lead to trouble. Mohi said when the Crown grant had been issued nobody but those named in it had any right to interfere. Suvely they could do as they liked with their own. The Government ought to use Piako and the Thames rivers to send soldiers to the Waiks.to if they liked. Keihana urged that the rules of the King should not be brought into this district. He would have his land surveyed if he liked. Moananui said tho lands ought not to be surveyed unless the whole tribe agreed to it, no matter who the owners were. Rew'i and Haora Tipa said Te Hira was wrong. The speech of Taipara caused Te' Hira great pain ; he said that the selling of land rested with" the owners, and there ought only to be one law for all. Several Natives objected to surveys for railways, while .others supported them. No decision was come to, and several Natives have already left. Ihey are much divided amongst themselves. What appears to be an incompleteness in Immigration arrangements ia shown by the following letter in the Queenstown paper :—": — " Can you inform the public if there is an agent for receiving immigration applications in Queens? town? as the regulations state that application for immigrants' passages are only to be made to money-order post-offices, or to the Immigration Officer in the capital town in each Province. I Have made an application to the Postmaster here and could only be furnished with a form and referred to the Immigration Officer in l>uuedin, and also could not take the passage money ; sa that it is quite probable I may lose the outgoing mail by which I intended forwarding the order. I may also stale that the Postmaster was very courteous, and furnished me with all the information he could impart. — r

Tho Canterbury Provincial Council, by twelve voter to eleven haspaesed a resolution authorising the Government to take steps with a view to establishing a Government printing office at Christchurch. Miss Aitken has opened at Invevcarpill to a bumpor house. Steps are being taken to establish a gymnasium at Cromwell. Town property in Greymouth is increasing in value. The Board of Enquiry, Wanganui, has acquitted the pilot at Wanganui Heads of all the oharges against him. At the first monthly meeting of the Auckland Institute held lately,, Mr Gillies presided, and delivered the inaugural address, in which he urged that papers of a literary as- well as of a scientific character should be read at the meetings. He also remarked on the singular absence of geographical papers in the transactions of the New Zealand Institute. A meeting of the New Zealand Shipping Company is called at Christchurch, for June 20, when it will be proposed! to- increase the capital from £100,000 to £250;000, make the minimum number of directors ten and the maximumfifteen, and authorise the formation of Boards of Advice in London and in all or any of the New Zealand Provinces. The funds of the Greymouth Fire Brigade getting somewhat low, Messrs Masters and Greenwood started lately a subscription list, and with no very great trouble gathered about £200. At Invercargill 700 young salmon have been hatched out, and are thriving. More eggs are yet living. The Provincial Surveyor, Napier, reports the land sales since July, 1872, at 112,095 acres. The Provincial estate still in the hands- of. the Province is 800,000 acres, but the surveys are greatly in arrears. Mr Wiltchire, the pedestrian who has set himself the task of walking a thousand miles in 10C0 hours, completed his 600 th on Saturday last, at three minutes to eight p.m. The attendance is increasing as the time is approaching for the completion of his task, and Mr Wiltchire is perfectly sanguine and confident as to, his ability te carry it out.— —Young Austin, the long distance runner, purposes to attempt in Dunedin what Wiltchire is attempting at Uhri*tchurch. It will take Austin six weeks-less eight hours to accomplish his task ; and it is proposed to fill out the tfme at niglits by improvising concerts. It is said that the result of the conceit given by the Colored Opera Troupe, in aid of Mrs Boberts (Miss Polly Leake), widow of the late Mr Boberts, actor, and family, was that the handsome sum of £90 will be presented to that lady. A public meeting at Wellington has resolved to give a public reception and ball to Governor Ferguson. A* large and influential committee was appointed. — The Town Council of Queenstown intend to construct water works for supplying the town with water, and £4000 for that purpose is to be raised by loan.— A domestic servant has been brought up at Invercargill on a charge of infanticide, alleged to have been been committed in November last.— The hon. sec. of the Canterbury Temperance Alliance has received sheets containing the signatures of 361 Maoris in favor of the Permissive Bill. The Rev J. W. Stack, in forwarding thesheets, writes : ." I may state that a translation accompanied the petitions jou Bent me,.and that all who signed knew perfectly what they were doing."— Very satisfactory intelligence of the progress of the movement cdntinues to be received from different part of. the Colony. —The floods on the West Coast appear not to have done much dam' age at Greymouth. Immense quantities of drift-wood came dowu the mver, including a considerable amount of sawn timber, showing that some of the up-country sawmill proprietors must have suffered. In the Grey Valley district, the river rose rapidly to a great height. The highest flood murk did not come within three feet of .the great flood level of last year. — A meeting of shareholders in the petroleum company at Poverty Bay was lately held at Gisborne. According to the estimate read to the meeting, the cost of working the company would be £1,900 ; the monthly wages, &c, £142 ; and after they had " struck He," the cost of constructing the necessary works was estimated at £27<,370. The cost of refining and casing the oil, and delivering at the ship's side ready for shipment, will be 9£d per gallon. The price that could be got for the oil in the New Zealand market would be 2s 2d per gallon ; this would leave a profit to the company Is 6ifcd per gallon. — An official return shows that the number of messages forwarded through the New Zealand telegraph during the March quarter ot 1873 was 145,781 ; for which £9,744 was received in cash ; being an excess in messages of 41,671, and in cash receipts of £2,991 over the corresponding quarter of last year. There was a marked decrease in the value of the Government telegrams transmitted during the quarter, which was £2832, while in the March quarter of 1872 it reached the sum of £3325. — A motion has been tabled by the hon. member for the Ashburton district, Mr S;udholme, in the Canterbury Provincial Council, to the' effect that the- sum ot £20,000, be placed on the estimates for the construction of roads in the ABhburton district. — Meetings have been held at Greymouth,. condemning the "truck" system on public works, the working men, of whom there are at present great numbers awaiting the commencement of> road and railway work at Greymouth, considering that a system which compels them to purchase all they need from their employers lessens materially the value of their earnings. The result of the agitation is considered doubtful. -T-j-Mr John Alloo, the Chinese interpreter, has been very unfortunate since his arrival at Queenstown, with his family. One of his daughters had the pupil of her eye cut whereby the sight was lost. . His son William, after recovering from along illness was laid down a> second time, an accidental slip cau&iug the breaking of his leg.;, and about a fortnight ago, another son, Thomas, was thrown from a horse, dragged by it, and severely kicked.. He lay insensible during that period, when a. change for the better took place. A fatal accident has occurred at Bielly's gully, in the Arnold district. Two men, named Malichi <?onlon aud John Dougherty, who have been working in the locality for the last three years, have recently been ground-sluicing, the bed of the left-hand branch of Bielly's creek. The creek is very narrow, and confined between high and almost perpendicular walls of reef. Conlon was at work by himself, hi&mate being at.hia hut, unwell with the effects of an accident at the same place the previous day. At about three o'clock, in the afternoon a crash was heard, and on the parties working in the neighbourhood going to where Conlon was last seen alive,, they found the place buried under several tons of fallen earth. The. stuff, cama from, one of. the. .QTfishanging banks of. tho

creek. After along mui^ and the clearing away of rubbish, thebody of Conlon was found completely Smashed, and with the lifecrushed out of it. The deceased was 32 years of age, and a native of Quin, County Clare, Ireland.. At a meeting of the officers oFtheDunedin Journeymen Bakers' Association, Hie following resolution* was carried:— "That on and after Mondaj, June 16, the following wages will be observed : Pore-hand £3 sa, and second hand £2 15s •■ hours from fire a.m.. to five p.m., with Is per hour for overtime ; an* no man to be allowed to board or live on the premises." OonstableLauder, of Dunedin, has died from the effects of an accident which' he sustained on Wednesday week. The Superintendent of Otagn nas brought under the notice of the Premier the circumstance of the recent sudden rise in the Molyneux, .and the consequent enormous losses to the miners— losses which his Honor thinks might have been< avoided had arrangements been in existence at the various telegraphstations to- forward down the river notices of the commencement of flood or rainftifl.. Hi* Honor has urge,d the Government to giveinstructions that in future direction* in the way suggested should beissued by the telegraph department.— Mhr Alexander Saunders, Auckland, rsports buyers of shares, as follows :— Caledonian, £16 10s s Thames, £4; Moanataiari, £2 10s; Tookey's, £8 5s j Sons of Freedom, £10 10s ; Tokatea, £1 4s; Bright Smile, £2 12s ; Soutli British Insurance, £2 3s. rThelast monthly escort brought to Dunedin thefollowing quantities of gold :— Southern escort :• Lawrence, 9i2t»r7dwts; Waipon, 158bzs 3awts ? Switzers, 1860bzs 6dwts ,- Waitahuna,, 2840zs 4dwtsj Woolshed, 488ozs 2dwts ; total, 37030zs 2dwt&, Northern escort, 74970zs Biwts. Grand total, 11,2000za lOdwts.— — - tv w Danedm « h *" ff"«en to the Minister of Justice charging MrJ. S. Watt, R.M., with giving "a most improper and unjust decision'"* in w case in which it appeared the defendant, according to plaintiff's* (Me Fioh's) statement, called? M"r Fish a scoundrel. Defendant admitted having called , plaintiff " a mean paltry scoundrel." HisWorship, under the circumstances, dismissed the case, and now ,l(fir Fish asks to have him removed from his position or reprimanded. The Right Bey. Dr Croke, Bishop of Auckland, made a pastoral visit v vj Unga * lordship received into the Church foum adults v who had been for some months in preparation; and 27" candidate*,, after a rigid examination in the Christian doctrine, received the Holy Sacrament of Confirmation.