TELEGRAPHIC NEWS.

Cromwell Argus, Volume V, Issue 221, 3 February 1874, Page 5

TELEGRAPHIC NEWS.

[from our own correspondent.] DUN EDI N. . .. Tuesday, 9 a.m. At a meeting of the Dunedin Athenaeum subscribers, held on Friday night, a motion to open the reading room for four hours on Sundays was carried by 91 votes to 83, The debate on the motion was most acrimonious, and the whole of the proceedings were of a very protracted and stormy nature. Captain Johnson, .of the Surat, Inis been , sentenced by Mr Maitland, R.M., to two months’ imprisonment, atm the charge of criminally neglecting,to obtain available as- , sistance when his ship was in great jeapordy. The magistrate decliried ito give the option of a fine. A melancholy death by drowning occuiTed at the Ocean Beach on Friday evening. A young man named Charles Peter Begg, of Anderson’s Bay, aged 21, in company with two brothers and other companions, had gone to the Beach for a bathe. He and one of his brothers went out a good distance, and waited for a big wave to, carry them inshore. The wave came, and landed one of them, hut deceased was carried out and drowned. The body was found on Saturday. The total revenue of the Customs department for last year was £905,800, as against £813,270 in 1872. The increase during last quarter was as follows : —Dunedin, £26,914 ; Lyttelton, £15,458 ; Wellington, £7579 ; Auckland, £5347 ; Nelson, £3536. Vogel has appointed a commission to enquire into the late fatal boiler accident at the Thames, and into the state of machinery on the gold-fields generally. What is supposed to be the old lead of gold has been struck in the Caledonian claim. The lode is dipping into Tookey’s. A trial of the submarine dredge took place on Saturday. Eight men were submerged in her for about an hour and a half. Owing to something going wrong with the inside gear, she had to be towed ashore before the men could be liberated. The Home ships Lutterworth, Margaret Galbraith, and Warwick have arrived. Messrs George M'Lean and E. P. Kenyon are among the passengers. A shock of earthquake was felt in Dunedin on Sunday evening, about twenty minutes to seven. Mr Kynnersley, late Gold-fields Commissioner, died at Nelson on Saturnry, from con* sumption. AUSTRALIAN. The Claud Hamilton arrived at Hokitika from Melbourne on the 31st. Melbourne, Jan. 24. The English cricketers received an enthusiastic welcome in Sydney. It is believed that W. J. T. Clarke’s estate will pay to Government about £8 4-009 as probate duty. His two sons, William and Joseph, are left inlmensely rich, while to the second sou very little is bequeathed His widow is left with only. £3OO a year. CABLE TELEGRAMS. London, Jan. 20. Cape Coast advices state that the troops landed on the 3rd, and. started to cross the river £rah.-.. ••. Tug SiaiiivSG ti nts' are dead.