MISCELLANEA.

Cromwell Argus, Volume III, Issue 128, 23 April 1872, Page 7

MISCELLANEA.

—o — The Coromandel reefs are creating consibla excitement. Great enquiries are ide for their stock in Auckland. The latest news from Fiji is full of startling mours of threatened collision between the lite settlers and the Government. Heavy , .. a tion is the cause assigned. The Government buildings at Reefton conit of a calico tent. A wooden building for , e Government offices, however, is being , Beted but timber is very scarce and deal 1 , , iile carpenters get 255. a day. The larrikin nuisance is rife in Wanganui. <rhts between these promising youths are , nightly occurrence, and, in the course of e of them, a larrikin was stabbed by anher of the fraternity. The massacres in the South Seas are to ye one good result. It is now a matter of rious consideration with the authorities England to place an admiral in charge of naval station in New South Wales waters. Shepherds, it is expected, will soon be as tinct in Australia as the " bunyip." Most the sheep runs are now fenced in, and the uatters find that the sheep thrive better, d give more wool, when permitted to go ishepherded. At the half-yearly meeting of the Otago [strict Committee of the M.U.1.0.0.F., jld in Dunedin lately, the Provincial Grand aster said the Cromwell Lodge enjoyed the stinction of being the only Lodge in the ; i s t r ict which had no claims for sickness durs 1871. Haley, who was charged in Auckland with ioiing with intent to kill a Mr Russell, and lrflilsohad ten different charges of arson ererred against him, was found guilty of e attempted murder. Upon hearing the irdict, he pleaded guilty to setting a kero!ne store and some hay ricks on fire. The L id"e sentenced him to penal servitude for fe.° An exchange says :—" At a native meeting ,tely held at Kirikiri, Auckland, a quantity ' beer, amounting to a gallon and a half for ,-ery man, woman, and child present was ruiik ; 15,000 flounders and 1600 stingarees ere also provided, and ' ample justice was one to them.' We are not surprised to am that but little speechifying took place 'terwards. The wonder is that any took lane at all." A Chatham Island correspondent writes to contemporary :—lt may interest the curious > know that our lagoon is margined on one de with smooth, hard crystalline limestone icks, all of which are as copiously in:ribed as the walls of Sennacherib's palace. he characters are of the rudest description, i basso relievo, not unlike the carvings on'old unic monuments, and some are as sharply nt as if done but yesterday. The aboriginal atives are utterly ignorant of these characjrs, or for what purpose, or by whom they ere thus graven on the rocks, no traditions ilative thereto having been handed down. We lately took notice of a Fijian exhibiion which, at the time, was on view at the 'names. In Auckland, the illustration of 'the frightful misery entailed by kidnaping, &c," was laughed to scorn by the auience. The Herald says of it:—" We are old that the natives will give a representaion of a mournful ceremony, as gone through iy the Fijian natives according to the manters and customs of the country. The band n front then strikes up ' The Dead March in Saul,' and the natives walk twice in single ile across the stage, looking as solemn as wssible. The effect was so truly ludicrous in Saturday that the audience were compelled o burst into a roar of laughter." The Cherokee Advocate of December 29, ast year, gives the following advice for the Christinas holidays : —" A word of advice to roung men. The day of all days in the year -he best and most famous will open the coning week. Remember the transcendent oc:asion of the world's rejoicing, and reflect hat of all instruments which can be thought )f to assist in "making a joyful noise unto ;he Lord," a pistol with a bullet in it is the east appropriate. How horrible the thought s that the birthday of Christ, who is called >he Saviour of the world, should be made the )ccasion of human slaughter! Lay aside weapons, if you are used to carrying by, for once. Persuade your acquaintances to do the same. Let us, for Christ's sake, — Sve mean it, —have no shootings or murders po chronicle in our next issue." In the next paper, the editor says : " Happily we have po murders to chronicle resulting from ' too puch' during Christmas week."—Cherokee bust be a " lively location." i The Nelson Evening Mail says :—" We are father given to boasting of our Nelson clipate, but the subject has never proved sufficiently inspiring to any of our newspaper writers to induce them to attempt anything pat can compare with the following paragraph, which appeared in a recent issue of pe Wanganui Chronicle: —' No season of the jvear is so enjoyable in New Zealand as these later days of autumn. Beautiful and pleasant they have been for weeks past— the air sunny and serene, but never too warm ; the roadsides and "banks and braes" rich with homely flowers ; and the whole landscape Ijmg in the calm evening, bathed in a tender glow, like a soft and lovely idyl. The setting B jßi, undimmed by the shadow of a single c 'oud, has for some evenings past been maginhcent beyond description. Pity the twinghtis so short-lived ; and greater pity still »hat we are so sordid as not to enjoy its beauty half as much as we might.'—Pity the Jjmer cut it so short ; and greater pity still "hat we are so prosaic as not to enjoy the isauties of such a rhapsody half so much as we might."