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Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume I, Issue 66, 6 March 1877, Page 2

At the Besident Magistrate's Court, yesterday, Bobert Anderson Buchanan, late Clerk of the Court, Akaroa, was brought up on three separate charges of embezzling moneys which he had received as fees while acting as clerk, the total defalcations amountiugto £45 18s. The accused was committed for trial on each indictment, bail being allowed—himself in £200 and two sureties of £100 in each committal. The Crown Prosecutor took exception to any person becoming bail, unless he could show that he had unencumbered property to the amount of his bond. As the necessary bail was not forthcoming up to lite last night, the accused will be forwarded to Lyttelton per Taranaki this morning. The quarterly meeting of the Licensing Commissioners will be held to-day, at noon, at the Court House.

At the annual meeting of the Pigeon Bay Library Committee, a very favourable report was read, stating that there was a balance in hand of £36 9s. 6d., and that 90 new books and some cupboards had been added to the library. The report was adopted, and officers elected for ensuing year. A vote of thanks was passed to the retiring Committee. A public meeting was held in the schoolroom, Pigeon Bay, for the purpose of considering the advisability of chartering the s.s. Akaroa from Pigeon Bay to Lvttelton, as a pleasure trip for the inhabitants of the Bay. The matter was taken up very spiritedly by those present. Finally it was agreed that a deputation should wait on Captain McLean to make arrangements; also, that 200 tickets' be printed at the office of the Akaroa Mail. Thursday, the 15th March, was fixed as the day for the excursion. Mr Pitcaithly occupied the chair. "It is said that a hen held up by one leg will not squawk half so much as when both legs are grasped." Persons who are accustiomed to purchasing their poultry at night a few hours after the owner of thepoultry has retired, will do well to cut this out and paste it in their hats.— RawMs Bay Telegraph. The purser of the Albion, when prosecuting at Nelson a stowaway who had been found on board the " Albion" during her last voyage from Melbourne stated that the number of would-be " deadheads" was on the increase. The offending stowaway was in this instance imprisoned for a month with hard labour. The Auckland Star goes in heavily for pigeongrams. Last week a pigeongram was brought by one of their carriers a 100 miles in three hours, or twice the speed of our railways. An ingenious pamphlet hasbeen written by a German on improvements in war. War, he maintains, if properly conducted should in no way affect non combatants, except in so far as they may suffer by reason of bereavement; and, moreover, much may be done to make it less disagreeable to actual combatants. With this view, he suggests that some neuteral territory be set aside by the European Powers and devoted entirely to bloodshed. No fighting is, under any pretence whatever, to take place out of this territory, which is to be fitted up for war in the most elaborate fashion. There is to be a trainingschool for nurses, a college for surgeons, and large hospitals, Prisoners of war will be confined in suitable buildings specially prepared for their accommodation. There are also to be vast cemeteries, and depots for artificial limbs, &c. These conveniences will be open to all nations wishing to fight at fixed and reasonable charges. Weapons of every discription—and in fact all the appliances of war—may be bought or hired ; but no credit is'to be given, and the charges for battle field are to be paid before the first gun is fired. All profits after payment of expenses will be devoted to the maintenance of the widows and orphans of the fallen.

The following sensible remarks appear in the Wellington Evening Post: —The case of Mr. A. P. Morris, whose arrest at Masterton and remand on a charge of obtaining money on false pretences by passiug valueless cheques has been recorded, affords another illustration of the imprudence of sending foolish and inexperienced young men to the colony with plenty of money at their command. The young gentlemanin question came into ahandsome legacy a few months ago; not a large fortune, but a very convenient bequest of several thousands. Where all this money has gone probably no one knows less than its late owner, who appears to have deemed it an inexhaustible mine of wealth and to have drawn upon it in a sort of blind faith that it would prove equal to the demand. Mr Morris was always very liberal in offering silver cups for football, cricket, and other sporting competitions, and his sporting proclivities have had much to do with leading him into his present difficulty. On his return hither from England he brought out some particularly fine greyhounds, which, we believe, cost not far short of £200. Latterly, when his funds were running short, he appears to have looked on these dogs as representing an extensive security on which he could obtain unlimited advances, either from the gentleman who had been acting as his agent, or from the manager of the bank where he formerly had kept a substantial credit balance. It was, we understand, on the strength of a verbal offer of the dogs as security for any advances he might need, that he drew the cheques which, proving valueless, have brought him under the criminal law. Even the dogs proved not realiseable, there being a lien on them for their keep. It seems clear, however, that Mr Morris acted not from any intention to defraud, but from folly and incapability of understanding how his affairs really stood. It is a great pity that some means cannot be found of restraining young men of this class from their dangerous follies. The mode of fishing adopted by the Fijians, if peculiar, is a very effective one. In Wellington harbour a few days ago a Fijian took a boat and went alongside a steamer, and scattered bread around for the purpose of attracting as many herrings as possible to one particular spot. Then he stood up in the boat and fired darts fom a bow into the water, bringing up one or more fish nearly every time. He got about twenty herrings in as many minutes.

The KolniscJie Zeilung of December 16, (published at Cologne) referring to the Eastern question says.—For our part, we have never doubted that the Sultan's Government would rather yield to pressure really exercised by all the European Powers than venture upon a hopeless struggle which must end in its ruin ; but on the other hand, we have never believed that such a unanimous agreement of the Powers could be attained on the basis of the Russain proposals, and least of all have been able to put any credence in the rumours as to the new attitude of England. Whatever his personal weakness may be, Lord Beaconsfield is a politician who knows what he is about, and who is not to betaken in by smooth words.. The English Government has only one object —the protection of English. interests. These interests will and must prevail with it beyond the most sincere desire to maintain peace. But Lord Beaconsfield is not only a man who knows what he is about and a wisely calculating statesman* but in the present decisive situation he feels the pulse of his country better than "the speakers at the St. James' Hall Conference. He will not hesitate for a moment to stake England's last sailor and the last plank of her ships for Turkey, with all her misrnle, if Russia by her action should threaten England's communications with India, and he knows that public opinion that the whole people of England, will support and applaud him We believe that public opinion in England, however divided it may now be, will become unanimous as soon as Russia proceeds to the actual execution of her now scarcely-concealed designs. "The Golden Crescent," exclaims an English paper, " affords good anchorage for winter as well as for summer, and we can stay in Constantinople as well and as long as the Russians in Bulgaria." But it requires no great quickness of perception to see what such a double occupation would mean. An occupation of Constantinople would be more than a protection of the town; England would not be able and willing to wait till the Russian force had overthrown the Turkish armies and penetrated to Adrianople, which is in the country where, the Bulgarian language was spoken. If the Conference fails because Russia insists upon, and England rejects, an armed occupation, and if Russia crosses the Pruth and the Danube in order to invade Bulgaria, and if England occupies Constantinople, we do not hesitate to say that that would be nothing short of a mutual declaration of war between the Cabinets of St. Petersburgh and St. James.