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Auckland Star, Volume VI, Issue 1675, 1 July 1875, Page 2

The City CoudcU have not treated Mr W. E. Turner fairly. Fully appreciating the force of all the arguments used in the meeting yesterd ay, we continue of this opinion, and we believe that it will be generally endorsed We are very far from saying that Mr Turner should be able to say, I came, I saw, I conquered, or that he should have his way to the exclusion of every other one's way. But the res olution at which the Council has arrived virtually shuts him out, and we have no doubt this was the intention—not of the Council but of those who have been working the oracle without. It is known to the Council that Mr Turner must return immediately to San Francisco. Thanks to his kindness, citizens have got as much information as to the feasibility and success of the principle of street railways as they are likely to have on the 20th of July; but at that date Mr Turner will be far away on the Pacific, and the lobbiers will be at hand and at work. The Council have sucked his brains, and now he may Q>. We venture to say that Mr. Turner has done more within the past few weeks to remove prejudice, and to awken a general desire in favour of this project, that many months' ordinary discussion of it would have effected. He has taught the members of Council who sat docile at his feet till they got all they wanted ; he instructed the public till multitudes have caught the railway itch, and now we cast him off like an old pair of boots. This is Auckland to the life. We find a strarger and we take him in. We admit, and we believe, that it is wise as urged, that conditions should be attached to the consent of the City Council, and that too before such consent is transmitted to the Superintendent. The utmost caution and safeguards should be provided in the public interest, but till tbe twentieth of .Tuty is either too short or too long a period for the reception of proposals. Had it been fixed at three or four months, the desires of the Council might have been made known in the neighbouring colonies and in California; but three weeks afford opportunity for no more applicants than would one week; while it very effectually prejudices the position and chances of one applicant who to say the least did not deserve exceptionally bad treatment. There is not one intending proposer at the present hour who could not have all his data, and his proposals based on those data, ready in a week as easily as in three weeks # It may be said Mr Turner can have his proposal lodged before leaving, and then go and have it considered in his absence. Bah ! People are very soft, are they not ? There is not a doubt that there is a power working behind, and we believe some members of the Council have been innocently made the instruments. This is the style of thing that threw a dark shadow so long over the proposed waterworks. The people got into their heads the belief that private interests were at work, and that outside hands were moving the Council. Must the same suspicion attach to such a harmless thing as these street railways? Why can we have no public project in Auckland without the vermin coming out and crawling over it ? Mr. Turner may go now. We have got all we want out of him. He has shown that there ia money sticking out of this, and we -can do the rest ourselves.

Sic vos non vobis.

We have not latterly had ranch cause to complain of our morning contemporaries using our special telegrams without acknowledgment. This morning, however, both of them have appropriated from our columns a valuable special telegram from Wellington being the letter of Mr. Batkin, PaymasterGeneral of the Colonial Treasury in Wellington, to the Superintendent of that province, giving the reasons for the late withholding of the capitation money due to the two provincesand each has embodied this telegram la words, in. a leading article based on its information; and in each case without the least acknowledgment of the source No intimation on the subject had reached our own Provincial Government until we forwarded the information yesterday • and the Herald states : "We understand on application that no telegram was sent to the Proviucial Government to inform them of the payment. All they know is that £3200 the amount disputed, is placed at the credit bf the province with the bank." Our contemporaries had of course the bare announcement in their own telegram that the General Government had paid the capitation, but as the chief interest lav in the possible excuse for the strange action of the Government, we think our "special" is deserving of some recognition for hunting up and transmitting the letter in question. The Herald baldly says- "Mr Batfdn's letter is as follows." The Cross is more explicit but equally misleading - " A telegram forwards the following letter from » J"* asury t0 the Superintendents of Auckland and Wellington," implying that this telegram was received in Auckland either by the Superintendent or the Cross As our two ciQtemporaries have recently been engaged in xa spirited contest of repudiation of all s«,ts of plagiarism, each shewing itself snow l*. comparison with the other, we may reasonably expect them to exhibit to-morrow a simii^ ze al i n shewing that this little embezzlemtut was merely through? oversight. V"--——

■ J T™ financial; haH-year"encled yesterday^ tfte rfOth of slunej and. tfas Customs returns show that 'during the past month the people of Auckland have'paid the exciseman £20,774; during the quarter, £59,074; for the half-year, £126,006 ; and for the -whole of last year, £234,549. It will be a profitable Bubject of inquiry for them to ascertain what they are receiving in return for this enormous sum. On spirits, tobacco, and tea, there has been a considerable increase^ but on ateand cigars the returns show a slight falling off. It may be interesting .to the drinkers and smokers of Auckland to know that, apart from their contributions to the other heads of taxation equally with the rest cf the community, they paid £98>572 duty on the special articles of. grog and tobacco. '-'■ The industrial statistics of New Zealand shew that Auckland has only 111 manufactories and works and Otago 250, but the Auckland manufactories must be on a larger scale, for we find that they give employment to 2353 male, and 46 female hands, while those in Otago only employ 2,603 males, and 79 females, although, as already stated, their number is double those of Auckland. Land and Building Societies seem to flourish better in the South than in Auckland. The census returns shew that while there are six of these Societies in Canterbury, four in Wellington, and fourteen in Otago, there is only one in Auckland. The religious wants of the province of Auckland are supplied by 137 churches, 34 school houses used for Worship, and 4 dwellings used for a similar purpose. These provide sitting accommodation for 29.880 persons) and only 18,004 attend the services. In Otago, with a larger population, there is only Church accommodation for 28,057, and 17,209 attend service. The returns from the whole colony shew that the Ch-ureh of England provides a sitting occommodation of 30,983 and has an attendance of 19 91G ; the Presbyterians, sitting accommodation 20,188, attendance 18,541 ; and the Wesleyans, accommodation 18,885, attendance 12.723; Baptist, accomodation 2,990 ; attendance 1610; United Free Methodists, accommodation 2400, attendance 1447 ; Congre^ationalist, 2450, attendance 1140; Primitive Methodists, accomodation 1660, attendance 840. The case of'Mr James B. Francis, who was summoned by the City Council yesterday for a rate on property in Queen-street which was burnt down, indicates great carelessness in keeping the rate accounts at the office of the City Council. After the fire, in which Mr Francis lost all his receipts, he went to the office and paid all demands for rates, when, to his surprise, he was summoned fdr the amount of eighteen shillings and sixpence, which special rate was paid by his landlord, Mr Westwood. The City Treasurer proved upon oat;h that the rate had never been paid, and judgment wept against defendant. 'I his morning however, Mr Westwood sent the receipt duly signed by the collectsr for the said rate, and about which there could be no Pi? Swu L Mr J*eckham was satisfied that the rate had been paid, amount and date corresponding, and advised Mr Francis to see the Mayor upon the subject, and shift the costs 14s from his own shoulders. °f Sir««G^u Cge Bowen> the London Times says:— 1 here occurs Bometimes in the course of a man's life a moment of supreme good fortune and honour which it can scarcely be thought will be exceeded by anythmg yet to happen, Bnd which it may be too venturesome to hope will continue always unabated. Are we, then to consider the piesent possessor of it a happy man or the reverse? 'I he old standard advice in such cases has always been to die at once, and so to put the final snal upon a felicity which is uncertain from its very greatness. Sir George Fereusson Bowen is still so youDg a man, and he has, we may well hope, so many years of honourable usefulness before him, that we will not, in our own interests, counsel him thus effectually to insure himself against the UDseen dangers of the future ; but he is clearly just now one of the class."

Mr. It. J. Creighton ia reported to have in view as hia future constituency the Wairarapa district, and it is said that he ha 3 been promissed the Scandinavian vote which musters strongly in that electorate. The Howie k divorce case, Foulkes v. Poulkes and Cross, recently decided in Wellington, has (say the Times) its touching incident. "During the trial in the Divorce Court, and the final struggle for the writ of habeas corpus to secure the bodies of the children—as the law vulgarly puts it —the parties on both sides went into the business very coolly. The father was flinty in his resolution to conquer—the mother resisted, with a steady purpose and maternal fondness which redeemed her in the cold and cruel public eye. But the fiat of the law went forth, and the children were parted from her who had brought them to years of understanding, aud handed ovar to him who, after all, had the best right to them, for Foulkes all through this severe and protracted trial has proved himself a worthy man. On Monday he took the children away with him to Dunedin, and as he sat on the deck ©f the Phoebe waiting for the vessel's departure, with a child on each knee, his stern manhood relaxed into tears of joy over a possession he had long striven for. Persons of tender susceptibility who witnessed the scene could scarcely restrain the sympathetic thrill, for it ia an incident such as this that " breathes high language to the listening soul." The extremes of climate involved in the present Fiji service has proved so trying to the officers and crew of the Star of the South that most of them last trip resigned. This is readily understood when we consider that in a little more than a fortnight the men are transferred from the intense heat of Levuka to the bitter cold of Port Chalmers and are then hurried back again to the relaxing climate of the islands.

The excitement about Tairua and the extroardinary rise in shares of the Prospectors' Company, remind people of the old days of mining speculation. At four pounds a share the Tairua Company's mine stands at a market value of £40,000, and this on a new and untried field. Everyone must feel glad at this manifestation of confidence in a goldfield which has been opened at a moment of great need, for mining matters were at a decidedly low ebb when the Tairua discovery was made.

The New York State is sueing W. M. Tweed for six million dollars, part of the spoils of his notorious official plundering.

The Duvalli troupe close their week's season at the Prince of Wales Theatre on Saturday, and will give the people of Otahuhu on Monday an opportunity for witnessing an entertainment of a kind that does not often go their wav. —Mr. De* Lias's excellent company, with Miss May Howard, after a most successful season at the Thames, re-open at the Prince of Wales theatre on Monday withy Jezebel." This is the way Mexican bandits treat comrades who leave their ranks. The story is told by the Visalia Delta: "About two months ago, a Mexican by the name of Francisco Viella camei to the ranche of John Heinlan, on Mussel Slough, and hired out to herd horses. He subsequently stated that he had been one of the Chavis band, had resolved to leave them, and was fearful that he would be murdered for so doing. On the morning of the 10th inst. after Viella had gone to his work, a large well-dressed man—whom the Chinese cook took to be either a Mexican or a Frenchman

—rode up and wanted breakfast. . He was mounted on a large bay horse, and well armed with pistols and gun. He rode away over the plain. Toward night the horse of Viella was found tied to the fence, with the saddle removed, and forty or fifty rods away the dead body of the rider was found, where he had been lassooed and dragged over the plain until his neck was broken and life extinct.

I There can be no doubt bat the murderer was i.a member of I the Chavis gang.

to size M quantity of oysters, d p ™^ its markelble size in boh three to four years; 3 on the artificiallycultm^L beds in the Basin of Areacho*, in France it is marketable when twenty-seven months old.

Tl-ade i 8 very stagnant ™ GeTm*n?>™* the unemployed are said to number many thousands in Berlin alone, A most remarkable and significant fact as concerning one of the tendencies ot tne New Zealand climate is demonstrated in the last series of census papers, which shewtnat although the colony is, Fiji excef>ted, tne youngest of Her Majesty's possessions, 122,635 persons, or nearly one-third of the whole population, are of New Zealand DirtD —a number equal to all the English ana Scotch in the colony. As compared with England the returns bhew an average for the colony of one child born to every marnad woman in the colony every 3"31 years. In England the proportion is one birth every 3-48 years. Concerning lithe nationalities of the colonial population, we find that in Aucklandj Tarahaki, Hawke s Bay, Nelson, Westlaud, and Canterbury, the Irish element outnumbers the Scotch, whilst the English maintain predominance ; and in Otago the Scotch stand first with 21,400, the English second with 14,359, and the Irish number only 7001. The claims of homcepathy have been advocated in a singular way in a novel entitled, " Dr. Lowe's Sacrifice; or, the Triumphs of Homojpathy." A certain lot of characters are introduced, all of whom, men and women, discuss the relative merits of allopathy and homcepathy. The advocates of the former system utter the most stupid idea, and betray a most shameful lack of honour, both in their arguments and in their conduct. The homceopathists, on the contrary, are invariably calm, dignified, logical, and successful. In practice the system works wonders. By its aid the hero of the tale ia able to cure the most hopeless diseases, to win fame and wealth, and at last to secure the heart of his once faithless fiancee, who bad deserted him on account of his espousal of the cause of homoeopathy. At the meeting of the Otahuhu Mutual Improvement Society on Monday evening, Mr A. Sturges read a capital paper on " Disappointment and Success in Life." The •selection was a very happy one, and was well illustrated by Mr Sturges. An exhaustive essay on the subject would be a boon to the young men of the colonies. Mr Kerr gave a recitation on " Hagar in the Wilderness," which was much applauded. Rabbits have become a fearful nuisance in Otago. Owing to the presence of these pests one estate of GOjOOO acres, carries about 75,000 sheep less than ifc otherwise would do. One day last week 325 rabbiis were killed on this property, and between 7000 and 8000 were destroyed on it last year. A French gentleman, named Gorges, has •clicovered a fluid which will effectually preserve fish. For this fluid he has taken out a patent which has been practically tested. Fish of various kinds were simply placed in a bath of the solution for two hoars only; they were then taken out of the solution and placed in a cellar for six days. A party of gentlemen interested in fish culture were then invited by Mr Frank Buckland, inspector of salmon fisheries, to taste the fish preserved by the patent process, and the verdict of those present was most favorable. The fish, salmon especially, was found to have kept its flavour and colour. Delicate awh, such as soles, mackerel, red mullet, turbot, &c. were found quite up to the mark, and though three days from the sea, as palatable as though fresh from the fishmongers' stall.

An unfortunate Celestial who had successfully smuggled a quantity of contraband goods ashore at Cooktown, made a melancholy mistake. After successfully hawking his wares through the town he, in an unlucky moment, approached a large painted building with a verandah round it. He entered and offered his wares, which he readily admitted had paid no dnty on to a gentleman standing behind the counter. "After some inquiry, the unlucky Chinaman waa |to bring all he had got and it would all be purchased ; but, not liking the look of matters, John tried to get back his goods. But in yam; the goods were in the grip of an institution that but seldom relaxes its grasp, and John had to depart minus his goods, doubtless regretting, the unlucky fate that took him mto a Custom-house to sell smuggled goods to the sub-collector himself. The ratepayers., of Karangahape Highway district will hold a mseting to-morrow evening in the new ExcelßiorHall (corner of Pitt and East-streets), for the purpose of considering matters of great importance to the residents of the district. Mr. McPherson, living near Columbus, Nebraska, while visiting some friends on Sunday night, left four small children at home and during his absence the house was burned, and three of the children were burned to death. The fire is aupposed to have been the work of an incendiary. A late New York telegram says Mrs. John Farns, daughter of Joseph Thomas, of Woodhull, was betrayed into marriage by John Farris, a notorious scoundrel and thief Three days after he married Miss Thomas he told her she had married a bigamist, and then deserted her. In consequence of his deception she committed suicide by throwing herself in front of a locomotive on the Northern Central Railroad. Farria is imprisoned.

The Otago Times view of the political situation is that Mr Stafford will not attempt to take the reins of power this session; that the Government will be allowed to go on for this session, and that, as Mr Vogel is not expected to seek re-election, a new Ministry must be formed after the general election and that Mr Stafford will ally himself with Dr Pollen and Major Atkinson, who are old followers of his, and construct a powerful anti-Provincial Government.

The juvenile pioneers of the Pioneer Temple of Good Templars held a business meeting last evening in the Lodge-room, Wellesleystreet, when officers for the ensuing quarter were duly elected. The proceedings were very harmonious.

The funeral of the late Rev. J. Davies, of the Thames, on Tuesday last, was largely attended by members of his own congregation and members of the Good Templar body with whom deceased was-an active worker' The ftevs. Messrs Cornford, Hill, and Laishley officiated, and the Templar funeral service was read over the grave by brother Hind.

There is a piece of roadway lying between Franklin-road ■ and Sheridan-street, leading into Napier-street, in a most lamentable condition and which is really unsafe in the dark ; the ruts and holes are dangerous as the traveller is likely to sink to his knees in one part; several narrow escapes from accidents' have already occurred here. We hope the authorities will look at this matter

The " Lakes of Killarney" and the "Highwayman's Holiday" formed the programme of last evening at the Prince of Wales Theatre. The sisters Duvalli exerted themselves to the utmost to give satisfaction, and their numerous ditties, puns, and dances were highly relished by the audience. Messrs. Ooutts and Hall amused the visitors with several songs, which assisted in swelling the harmony of the evening. To-night there will be an entire change of programme and a piece of remarkable interest will be produced by the sisters, entitled the "Demon Lover," and to-morrow evening " Magic Toys" will be introduced for the benefit of the sisters Davalli.

. The variety ccbcert for tie rbWMf: ' oextieand family, by the Doran frtape, will tr n P^ Cc this evening in the Lorne-s-tfe©t t programme of the entertainment may be seen elsewhere, and is of a very attractive charaCUr, The circumstance under which this genuine case of distress has arisen is well-known, and we trust there will be such an attendance to-night as will realise a s ubstantial sum to relieve the necessities of t he widow and orphans. No poor in New Zealand !—So say some people. However, during the past year in prosperous Canterbury alone " about a thousand pounds sterling a month ha* been disbursed in charitable aid." All the people in a Paris house were startled one night by a tremendous noise made in an upper apartment. Rushing to the doors, they saw a man earning down four steps at a time. He was arrested, half dead with fear. He was a thief, had made bis way with a false key, and feeling his way about the apartments from room to room to find valuables, had come upon some strange, soft, movable, upright thing in the middle of a room. He felt it, passed his hand higher and higher and felt a face, cold as ice. Frightened, eager to escape, he could not find his way to the door, and in his flight upset every article of furniture in the apartment. They all went upstairs and found the tenant of the fourth floor hanged in his room. Mr W. E. Turner last evening delivered a capital address on Temperance "in the Choral Wall, Onehunga, in connection with the local (*ood Templar lodge. Mr Robert Veal occupied the chair. Owing to the inclemency of the night, the attendance was not very large, and a promise was extracted from the speaker that he would address auother meeting at the same place on Tuesday next. Mr Turner's style of lecture is quite novel to an English audience, and very telling. A cordial vote of thanks was passed by the meeting. The Maori population of the colony is estimated at 45,470 souls, of whom 43,538 are in the North Island. lb was arranged in the Supreme Court this morning that next Monday week should be fixed for trying the suit, Clark v. Casey, in which the plaintiff, a settler at Hokianga, sues the owner of the -steamer Lily for £1500 damages for injuries sustained by his wife through an explosion of steam on board the said vess el, together with £500 damages for loss of his wife's services. The census returns show that 27 Chinamen in New Zealand are married to European women. There is oniy one Chinese lady in the colony. The meeting of the Morning Star Gold Mining Company, announced at Messrs. Fraser and Tinne's to-day,.lapsed for want of a quorum.