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Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1283, 8 July 1886, Page 2

It will be seen from our oablea this evening, that Russia has notified to the Powers that Batoum, on the the Black Sea, has ceased to be a free port. It is reported that the European Press consider this to be (but a prelude to renouncing the Berlin Treaty, and that it is a blow at England. William Barr, a farmer at Amberley, died last nignt from drinking carbolic acid in mistake for brandy.

William Leitch committed suicide at Oamaru yesterday by swallowing ohlorodyne. Deceased was a baker, and it is said bad lost money in business. He went into *he parlor of a hotel, looked tho door, took the poison, and in a lew minutes was dead.

The Ashburton County Council advertises several clauses of the Babbit Nuisance Act in this issue for general information. A cablegram published in our last issue read <• Qosohen defeated for East Edinburgh Morley, Chief Secretary for Ireland. Craig, Liberal, elected for Newoastle-on-Tyne”-instead of, “'Qosohen defeated for East Edinburgh. Morley, Chief Secretary for Ireland, and Craig, Liberal, elected for Newcastle-on-Tyne.”

The Botoraa Belief Committee at Auckland have remitted £IOO to the Rotorua local Committee for the relief of distress. The offices of the Colonial . Mutual Life Assurance Association at Auckland were burglariously entered last night, but the safe balded the burglars. The latest victory in the long-drawn match between the'gun and the armour plate has been scored in favor of armour. At Spezzia a German chilled steel armour plafe, sft 9in in thickness, weighing 100 tons, was fixed against the face of the cliff and battered with chilled shot from the 100-ton gun. >A. thunderbolt weighing almost exactly a ion was hurled against the face of the plate by the explosion of 7Jowt of powder without producing more than a slight indentation and pome trifling cracks. Three shots failed to make any serious impression on the plate, which has thus come off victor in the struggle. It would lem that no shot yet invented will go through :t of ofailled steel. » William Holmes, coach driver at Hokitika who went pigeon shooting, being missing, a laof AwDiAAvd groans proceeding*! from large number of men formed a search .party an old shaft into which he had fallen. They are making preparations to get him out. ’ A hot spring has been discovered in Cook’s River, a short distance below the glacier.i

Mr 0. D. Price, son of the late Mr Matthew Price, whojwas one of the best-known resident magistrates and goldfield wardens in New Zealand, has been appointed Kesident Warden for the Kimberley goldfields.

The Sydney Morning Herald thus sums up the result of its special commissioner’s enquiries into the depression in South Australia. Last years birthsjexoeeded the deaths in number by 8000, and 12,229 people arrived in the colony. But there are no fewer than 18,800 emigrants. The colony did not retain an increase equal to the proportion of the natural increase of even an old country like Great Britain, and exodus continues on an increasing scale. Trade has fallen off 25 per cent.

The Victorian Department of Agriculture has received from America 100 bushels of Mexican wheat, which were ordered with the view el distribution for seed amongst the farmers desirous of experimenting. The wheat is now being sent out in small quantities to those who have made application fo? it. It

has been proved by the experience of the Northern farmers that this wheat matures sis weeks earlier than the earliest varieties grown in the colony.

- An alarming runaway, fortunately unI attended by any serious results, occurred in Ashburton yesterday afternoon. Mrs S. Saunders, accompanied by three children, one an infant barely three months old, and a servant, was driving in East street, when the horse attached to the buggy took fright at a railway engine, and galloped at a furious pace until reaching the Burnett street crossing, where the vehicle came into contact with an iron lamp post, and the occupants were thrown violently to the ground. One of the children, Master John Quane, received several severe outs about the face, and the servant :u -h braised and shaken, but Mrs io.»uivl a-. 1 the other two children escape! «uuou. injury. The lamp post was broken iulojaevoral pieces, and the buggy and horse w<~re considerably damaged. , The Auckland Herald states that the volcanic dust has rather quickened than retarded the growth of feed in the Whakatane district. Mr J. A. Pond has subjected samples of dust from Opotiki, Tauranga, and Wairoa to the actual test of growing. In a parcel from each district be sowed a quantity of clover and grass seeds, and kept the soil moistened with distilled water, so that no manurial elements might be imparted by the water used. In each case the seedling plants have come up well and are growing vigorously, those growing in the dust gathered at Opotiki apparently being the most forward. Mr Pond’s examination of the dust has shown that it is very largely mixed with true scoria ash, wherever it has come from. The Auckland Herald considers that the Government should at once have the whole district sown with grass and clover. If done now the whole country would be covered by pastures of deepest green by spring, but if ; delayed too long the district might bo con verted into a desert.

According to a Home correspondent the Coleridge libel case is to bo revived. Mr Adams, who it will be remembered was married to Lord Coleridge’s daughter, since the last suit, has lately come into accidental possession of two letters written by Lord Chief Justice of England to the arbitrators appointed as a result of the first case, and has entered another suit for libel -The worst of it all is that the letters in question make scornful allusion to the conduct of Mr Justice Maniaty, who heard the original case, and something like a judicial soandel is expected.