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Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1291, 17 July 1886, Page 2

Loeheil and Tempe have been scratched for the Melbourne Cup. Our Methven correspondent has sent us an amusing episode connected with a recent serenading in his own locality. We gather that the nr Hbers of the Methven Brass Band were considerably discomposed fay the po-ioe ruling that their interpretation ol the Wedding .March constituted a nuisance under the Police Offences Act.

In the report of the United States Labor Commission the question of the displacement of labor by machinery is entered on, and a large amount of interesting information is given. It is shown that 100 persons, by the aid ot machinery, make as many women’s boots and shoes as 500 persons oould make without the aid of machinery. It formerly took one man thirty-tive days to produce a certain style of carriage. Now one man, by the aid of machinery, will produce the same carriage in twelve days. The most striking displacement of labor is that brought about by the Standard Oil Company by the aid of its pipe lines, displacing 5700 teams of horses and not less than 10,000 men, who would be employed in transporting the oil to the several or markets. The product of oil for the whole country is set down at 57,000 barrels a day. The steam and waterpower employed in the United States for manufacturing purposes represents in horse power 3,500,000. If only men were employed to furnish this power it would require 21,000,000. There ' are in the United States 28,000 locomotives ; to do the work of these locomotives, upon the common roads of the country, would require 54,000,000 horses and 13,500,000 men. But this work is now done by 250,000 men. The present cost of operating the railroads of the country with stoampower is 002,600,000d0l per annum. But to accomplish the same amount of work with horses would cost the country II.aOS.GOO.OOOdoI.

The handsome cup won by Mr M. Digby’s | dog Ringwood at the recent Waterloo coursing ' meeting is on view at the shop of Mr W. Zander, tobacconist.

We remind our readers of the diorama of the Tarawera eruptions to be shown in the Oddfellows’ Hall this evening.

Mails for Honolulu, America, and the United Kingdom, via San Francisco, close at Auckland at 1 p.m. on Tuesday. This mail is due in London on August 20.

Yesterday’s sitting of the House of Representatives was almost entirely occupied with an unexpected debate upon the report of the District Railways Purchasing Bill. Major Steward’s share in the transaction with the Government wasjjjvery j;severely 'criticised, especially by members ’of the Opposition, but nothing definite arose out of the discussion. Mails for the Australian Colonies only, via Sydney, close at the Bluff, per Tamsui, at 3 p.m. on Monday.

In the Petrel case at Auckland yesterday, Mendoza was acquitted. Evidence was given in favor of the captain and first mate, who today were also acquitted. The Tuhourangi tribe has decided to leave the bodies found at; Wairoa where they are and to close the Wairoa road, as in their opinion it is now nothing morejthan the entrance to a tomb.

In 1881 Ireland possessed 9,100,000 bead of cattle of all kinds, valued at £37,000,000. Since that year the value of this kind of property has probably depreciated at least onethird, involving a loss to the farmers equal to £12,000,000 sterling.

From the year 1800 till 1881 the United States Government ceded 192 million acres of public lands to railways, 77 million to schools, G2 million to military, and 30 million for other purposes, besides 248 million acres in sales to settlers, this last item including 67 millions granted in homestead lots at twopence an acre.

A telegram received from Wellington last night says:—The Post to-night says that it has authority lor stating that Sir Julius Vogel has instructed Mr W. T, L. Travers, solicitor, to issue writs against both the New Zealand Times and Evening Press for libel, contained in recent articles published in their columns in regard to the District Railway Debentures Committee’s report. In each case the damages are laid at £SOOO.

The disappearance of Mr A. L. Levy, J.P, and Secretary ,of the Temperance- Alliance is still shrouded in mystery. At first, the general opinion was that Levy had taken a passage to Sydney by the Hauroto, which left here the same day as he disappeared. A telegram was yesterday received by the proprietors of the Evening Po*t from Cap sin Kennedy, of the Hauroto, in reply to one of enquiry by them, which said that no person named Levy was a passenger by the Hauroto. Sir G. Whitmore also received a cablegram from the Inspector-General of Police at Sydney, as follows:—“Notraee of Levy by steamer Hauroto.” The supposition now is that Levy has met with a fatal accident, and a large search party will, to-morrow afternoon, make an examination of the foreshore of the harbor, it being feared that ho may have been drowned. The whole circumstances of his disappearance are of such a peculiar nature that they have caused quite a sensation in Wellington.

The eruption of Mount Etna, which occurred during May, is declared (snya the Home Netvs) to have been the most sudden and terrible ever beheld by the inhabitants of the surrounding country. Eleven craters were active. The central one disgorged only smoke and ashes, but from three others huge stones were thrown up a prodigious height. The lava streams in some parts were 600 ft wide, and were flowing down the mountain side and through the fertile valleys, destroying the crops and sotting the woods on fire. The small towns of Nicolosi and wore threatened with destruction, and many of the inhabitants had fled. No lives seem to have been lost, but numbers of people were homeless, the earthquake shocks having destroyed their houses, or the showers of ashes and lapilli having obliged them to seek a refuge elsewhere. One chestnut wood had been surrounded by| streams of lava and burned. The eruption was accompanied by constant earthquakes and terrible subterranean noises like thunder. The sight from Catania was indescribably grand and tremendous, and vast crowds were constantly gazing at the awful spectacle.

The residents of Noumea are circulating a petition asking the French Minister of Marine to advise the Government of France to put an end to the delays and half measures, and plant once for all the national flag on the New Hebrides. They say that to retreat would deal a deathblow at French influence in the Pacific, and inflict on the army and navy unmerited humiliation. On the sailing of the British warship Kaven from Noumea tor the New Hebrides, the Neo Caledonisn wanted to know what she is going to do there. The same journal boils over with indignation because one of the Auckland papers has stated that France is about to establish a vast slave depot in the New Hebrides, and „eiolaims :—“ See how they dare to treat us 1 See how they dare to speak of France !—thejgreat nation, the first among all; the chivalrous and generous nation which has proclaimed the rights of man,” &o. It is the wicked English, it says, who kidnap the blacks and force them to toil on our plantations, under the lash of the whip, while they “ weep over them in official documents, newspar'!- 1 r.u-1 the hypocritical letters of missions., iea.”