GENERAL NEWS.

Cromwell Argus, Volume IV, Issue 184, 20 May 1873, Page 6

GENERAL NEWS.

NEW ZEALAND. A Maori chief has bought the Wanganui racehorse Shamrock for £l5O.

A commission has been appointed to inquire into the working of the Dunedin High School. In Christchurch, shorty, an individual is to attempt the feat of walking 1000 miles in 1000 hours.

John Bickle has got three years for stealing the coins from the foundation stone of the Timaru masonic hall. The Postmaster-General of New South Wales is shortly to visit this Colony to arrange a San Francisco mail service. The Wellington tailors have gone to work again, having split the difference with their masters in the matter of wages. Carpenters are so scarce in the Timaru district that one or two carpentering firms have been obliged to refuse large jobs. The district school at Warepa, Clutha, has had to be temporarily discontinued owing to the prevalence of whooping-cough. The last crushing of the Gabriel’s Gully reef gave 408oz from 000 tons. After paying all expenses, this left £IOOO clear profit. A pair of silver woodhens have been presented to the Dunedin Acclimatisation Society by (me of the Lake district runholders. A German settler recently went home from Napier, intending tc return with several families of beetroot sugar manufacturers.

A Clydesdale stallion—-the Prince of Wales, imported from Scotland bv Mr D. Nesbit—brought £SOO in Dunedin the other day. The journeyman carpenters of Dunedin' at a late meeting resolved that in future their wages should be 12s a day, or Is 6d an hour. , In Queenstown, the other day, a man .was fined £ls for being drunk and resisting the police, besides having a former bond or £SO to keep the peace forfeited. A schooner which recently arrived in Auckland from Tahiti, picked up a boat on the voyage in which was a native who had been twenty-two days without food. A publican who had been experimenting in the lambing-down line was fined £5 by the Mataura bench of justices the other day, and had his license suspended also. A Newton man who was trying to shelter himself in a doorway from the rain of last Sunday had the mournful satisfaction of seeing two of his lost umbrellas go by.—Anikin ad Star.

With regard to some rooks recently liberated in the Wairarapa district, the local paper reports that they “seem inclined to build, but the Now Zealand seasons seem a puzzle to them.”

A Chinese storekeeper at Queenstown advertises that ho keeps a Colt’s revolver in his place of business, and warns those who are in the habit of “ disturbing his premises” that he will make use of it. A man in Auckland who lost £77 in bank notes not only gave no reward to the tradesman in whose shop they were found, but actually refused to pay the advertisement by means of which he recovered his money. So keen is the competition between the rival coaches running from Kingston to Win* ton that passengers are not only carried free, but one shilling a piece has been offered for the privilege of carrying the corpus vile to its proposed destination. A storekeeper at Tokomairiro, holding a bottle license, has been lined £3 for selling two gallons of brandy in a jar, simply corked, the law requiring that it shoull be sold in bottles, corked, sealed, or capsuled, of size not less than those of which six or twelve make a gallon.

The Genova,! Government have received an application for a lease of the Snares (south of Stewart’s Island) for seal-fishing purposes, The applicants promise to refrain from hunting seals during the breeding season, to establish a provision depot for siupwrecked crews, and to afford facility for the erection of a lighthouse. Captain Baumann, of the coasting schooner Margaret Campbell, reports having seen a veritable sea-snake whilst the vessel was on a voyage to Oamaru. It was about eight feet long, and three inches in diameter. The colour was brownish, with white markings on the sides. It passed right along the broadside of the schooner, and finally swam rapidly away with a zigzag movement.

The Daily Times says that one evening recently, several tons of the delicious fish called by Dr Hector (Jlu.pca sajims, were cast ashore on the coast near Saddle Hill. The shoal was the most extensive tiiat has been seen for years. The sea as far as the eye could reach was covered with fish, which were pursued by whales, porpoises, and birds. A specimen of the fish, which is considered by Highland fishermen to be the true herring (Clu-pca harm r jns) has been sent to Dr Hector, at Wellington, for inspection. >L

A single young man writes to the Dunedin Star complaining of the scarcity .of comfortable lodgings, and suggests the establishment of a kind of bachelors’ club-house, in the hands of a company with a capital of £SOO.

A mother and child were drowned in a well .! at Hie Thames a few days ago. It is believed " that the child having fallen out of- her arms -r 1 into the well, in which there was no great quantity of watbr, the mother jumped in, a and there fainted. “Had AUSTRALIAN. During five days recently, the Customs in g 0 hj Sydney gave receipts for £35,000. Mr Higinbotham has been returned to the To t Victorian Parliament for East Bourke.

The first white woman born in Tasmania And died in Hobart Town on the sth, aged 70. At Mudgee, a burglar who attempted to And enter an hotel, was shot dead by the landlord, A youth named Murray, aged 18, has been g 0 1 sentenced to death for murder, at Aston, New South Wales. ' 'rill

The Northern gold-fields of Tasmania are looking up again. A reef, said to yield 40oz Anil to the ton, has been discovered at the Ninemile Springs. He i

A party of young men tin-kettled a young married couple at Wallarawang, N.S.W., on the sth hist. The bride’s father fired and shot three of them. One of the three is sup- jje posed to be mortally injured. Mr Murphy, M.L.0., has been fined £lO, He and £7 7s costs, at the Melbourne District Court, for ill-treating a greyhound belonging Am to Mr Pear, of the Post Office Hotel. During breakfast at the hotel, he threw a knife Am at the dog, and severely injured it. In 1872, the Victorian alluvial mines paid "’1 dividends to the amount of £182,003, while the. dividends from quartz reached the enur- But mous sum of one million and sixty-nine thousand pounds, having increased to that amount Am from £470,802 in 1870. A case has arisen in Melbourne in which the Court is called upon to decide whether i>?j k man’s set of gold-mounted false teeth may be ‘ Th seized by a bailiff. When the bailiff entered the house, the teeth were on the mantelpiece, Hu and were entered by him in his invent ay. The debtor, however, put t:u m into his mouth, claiming that his teeth were p.rt o: his person ; but the officer requested him to dislodge them, which he did under protest. The missing barque Springbok has arrived at Ca-dwe.l, after being four months out from Hu Port Darwin, and encountering great perils. !ll ' ( Cue of the passengers navigated the vessel. Hh At CapeYorke, Captain Moresby, of H.M.S. da Basilisk, suspended the captain of the barque : Hu as an imbecile. The passengers were afflicted Wi with scurvy and dysuicery. The vessel had | nw a narrow escape from being wrecked several dh times. .Four times she was aground at Maria an Island. ■

EUROPEAN. The health of M. Thiers is causing great anxiety. William Charles Macready, the celebrated actor, is dead.

The Bank of England is a loser of £70,000 by late bill forgeries. Sir James and Lady Fergusson have been presented to the Queen. The fourth milliard of the French war debt has been paid to Germany. The House of Commons has rejected wo* man suffrage by 222 to 155. A discussion has taken place in the Zoological Society about the moa. The vintage in the South of Franco is almost wholly destroyed by severe frosts. A damask tablecloth has been manufactured of phonninm Unax , by Rennie and Sons, of Kirkcaldy. There Inis been a groat slaughter of Cana-

dian soldiers at Manitubo, by Indians in ambuscade.

A Telegraph Company has been pVojectecLd in London to buy up all the telegraph cables] in the world.

Gang Forward wan the Newmarket Two Thousand Guinea St decs, and is the favourite for the Derby. The Tichborne Claimant asks the Crown to supply means to defend him, as his funds are exhausted.

The Germans are preparing to evacuate Belfort. Verdun only will then remain in German occupation. Tlie Vienna Exhibition was opened on the Ist May. The Prince of Wales and Prince Arthur were present. A letter-carrier in Loudon has been arrested for purloining Upwards of 300 letters addressed to persons on shipboard and in the

dock a. The Prince of Wales and the Duke of Cambridge paired in the House of Lords in favour of the Marriage with a Deceased Wife's Sister Marriage Bill,