The Akaroa Mail. TUESDAY, JANUARY 13.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume 4, Issue 363, 13 January 1880, Page 2

The Akaroa Mail. TUESDAY, JANUARY 13.

A meeting of the Okain's District Road Board was held on Saturday last, at which Mr Moore was unanimously elected chairman. We have received from the Government Printer a copy of the statistics of New Zealand for 1878, the statutes passed during the last session, and the concluding number of Hansard for the same period. We have to acknowledge the receipt from the Commissioner of Railways, Middle Island, of a free pass for reporting purposes for the year 1880. The Wellington correspondent of a contemporary writes as follows:—The sad accident on the night of Tuesday, the 23rd inst., to young Robertson, who met with his death on the tramway line, one would think, should act as a warning to those in the habit of travelling by that means ; but, on Friday an adventurous being thought he would show an admiring public how he could display his ability in jumping on the tram while it was going at full speed; the result was that this acrobatic young man managed to get down between the engine and the? tram, and the wheel of the car passed over his boot tearing off the sole. This sweet infant did not try his agility in the way of getting up, and when the tram stopped, he was pulled together a bit, and thanked the Lord his life had been spared. It is generally supposed that the gentle lunatic will in the future, whenever let out without liia mamma, wait until the car stops before he irks to gt/t on.

There was a clean sheet at the E. M* Court on Friday last.

All the Maori prisoners detained in Mount Cook Gaol will be tried in April next at the Supreme Court, Wellington. The Court will be opened for that purpose on the sth April.

During December, the sales of waste lands in Canterbury realised £3127. The refunds amounted to £2066 ; leaving a balance credit of £1061.

Fifteen families, principally miners, who landed at Nelson from London recently, with the intention of proceeding to the West Coast, have refused to go there, stating they preferred Canterbury.

A disgraceful scene took place at the meeting of the Parnell Borough Council, some af the Councillors nearly coming to blows. Councillor Melton got up to speak, and the Mayor and Councillors left the meeting.

It is not often that a Colonial journalist soars much above the region of matter-of-fact. When, however, he does attempt a flight into the giddy heights of rhetoric, he becomes immense. Witness the following peroration to an article on the close. of the late, and the commencement of the •present year:—" And now, since the cat may look at the king, let us bid thee farewell, 0 serene and reverend '79 ! May we live as earnestly and die as peacefully as thou ! May our puny race be as happy under the dynasty of the Eighties as it has been under thee and thy nine brothers, the Seventies! What pigmies we be in your your hands, oye Years! Behold we boast of killing ye, while ye be killing us! We rejoice giddily when one of you approacheth his end, and behold, thousands of us die before him ! Is there no pity in ye, 0 ye Years, that ye make us as bubbles, lit with rainbows, to behold the glory of the Universe for a moment, and then to break and be lost in the wave on which we ride ? But we rebel not, 0 Time, for we have heard of old how thou eatest up thine offspring. We are launched upon thy billows, and abide the certain wreck. 4 Unfathomable sea ! whose waves are years; Ocean of Time, whose, waters of deep woe Are brackish with the salt of human tears; Thou shoreless flood, which in thy ebb and flow Claspest the limits of mortality! And sick of prey, yet howling on for more, Vomitest wrecks on thine inhospitable shore. Treacherous in calm, and terrible in storm, Who shall put forth on thee, Unfathomable sea ?'" A writer in the Auckland Star, describing Lone Hand's galloping, says :—" He goes sort of broadside on, with a general 'skew-wift' motion, looking slow, but really swift." There is at any rate one sporting writer who has an original style about his paragraphs. The Grey River Argus is particularly severe in its remarks on the second day's racing at Greymouth, It says, "nearly all the events seemed to be pre-arranged ; " the sells were so palpable that everybody was disgusted ;" and "it is a good thing that the people on the course were in a good humour, or else it might have fared ill with some of the so-called jocks." The "Loafer in the street" has been " doing the Peninsula lately, and this is what he finds to say about Akaroa:— " Akaroa is a pretty place. What a little garden it is. But every one knows Akaroa. It never alters. It's five years since I was there. The same old picture stands behind Beecher's bar of the whale swallowing four boats at a gulp. Lots of well disposed people have taken it for an illus" tration of the book of Jonah—after ten in the morning, and the irresistible Beecher is still there, and will drink with you if you ask him. He did the same five years since, and will five years hence. Wagstafii's old place—and what a beautiful place it is—now owns the genial whip West Chamberlain as its host. He wanted to show me over the establishment, which is—well —l think the many scores that have " honeymooned " there can do all the puffing better than I can, though, for associations, commend me to the older house, a well-written history of which would read like a novel. They—so I'm told—drink very fairly in sweet Akaroa. As thus—At five o'clock in the morning one resident—they rise early there—says to another, " My word, it's sou'west this morning ; let's have a drink." At sis the other fellow says, " By Jove, the Hawea is duo to-day." [Pause.] " Let's go and see if Beecher is open." [N.B. —Beecher is open.] At seven the first fellow says, " Jones came down last night, let's go up and give him a brandy and soda , " They go and have one, and so on through the da}. There'e no mistake about the Akaroa boys. They do the business systematically. Very few town people know anything of the Peninsula. They go on Boxing Day trip to Akaroa, get very sick and

" Smoothly swear They never will again go there ; No ! not if it were twice as fair." Others go, and " take the family " for a week—stop in Akaroa the whole time, and come back knowing nothing of the beauties of the prettiest part of the province. Some day some fellow will do a walking trip, then go into every bay, interview the old inhabitants, and write an account of it; and a very readable account it will be, and a very prime trip. I shouldn't mind doing it myself."

Four hundred thousand of whitefish ova, expected by the January mail, have been allotted to Canterbury.

It is notified in the Gazette that the bonus payable for the exportation of rabbit-skins will cease after the 31st March next. ,• ~•■.' ' ■•. • •

A man named Rowland was brought down from Amberley, where he had been running wild in a nude state. He is supposed to be a lunatic from the effects of

drink,