Cromwell Argus, AND NORTHERN GOLD-FIELDS GAZETTE. Cromwell: Tuesday, July 14, 1874.

Cromwell Argus, Volume V, Issue 244, 14 July 1874, Page 4

Cromwell Argus, AND NORTHERN GOLD-FIELDS GAZETTE. Cromwell: Tuesday, July 14, 1874.

Thursday first is the nomination day for the Mayoralty. Never, in the memory of the oldest inhabitant, have the signs of the times been so scarce and intentions kept so dark. No candidate has yet publicly announced himself, and we have only rumour as an authority for the statement that Messrs Dawkins and Wright intend to contest the election. However, on Thursday some light will be thrown on the matter. In the event of a contest, Tuesday next, the 21st, is the appointed polling day. A meeting of the Local Hospital Committee is to take place to-morrow evening. Mr Colclough, secretary of the Cromwell Minors’ Association, has received a telegram from Mr Do Lautonr, member for Mount Ida, stating that the manager of the Bank of New Zealand has consented to raise the price of gold sixpence per ounce if the Ordinance, rebating the gold duty one-lifth, passed during the last session of Council, becomes law. As our readers will have noticed, a,Ball and Supper is shortly to come off in the new Schpolhousc, the proceeds of which are in aid of the funds of the Cromwell School. By some mischance, it was advertised to take place on Wednesday instead of Friday, hut the error will now bo found corrected. We suppose there is little or no need to urge a good attendance. Balls are generally succeses in Cromwell, and as the Committee intend to use every effort in connection with this affair, there is no reason to doubt that it will be any exception to the rule. Schools are useful institutions, deserving support, and the remembrance of the fact that the Cromwell School Committee have very seldom asked it, will cause it t<» be given all the more willingly on this occasion. In connection with the balloting out of one of the Councillors for Macaudrew Ward, which took place at the last meeting of the Town Council, and which resulted in Cr Pierce being elected to retire, we neglected to state one circumstance of moment. Mr Pierce had. previously sent in, by letter to the Mayor, his resignation as a Councillor ; and although this could not be accepted in order to do away with the necessity of a ballot, still it had the effect of causing the ballot to result n,s it did. Keeping the letter in view, the whole of the Council simply as a matter of form balloted out Cr Pierce. We have received a letter on the subject from Mr Pierce, but the need for its insertion is done away with by the publication of this explanation.

The abolition of Imprisonment for Debt Bill comes into force on the Ist of October. Five publicans in Wellington were re* cently fined £5 each for selling liquor on Sundays. The new Electoral Bill provides for manhood suffrage, with six months’ residence. The miners’ right qualification will cease in September, 1875. A report is current in Wellington, but which cannot be traced to proper foundation, that Featherstbne is to'be recalled, and that Vogel is going Home as Agent-General—Stafford taking the Premiership. The subject of the now Hospital Ordinance was not gone into at the meeting of the Dunstan Hospital Committee on Monday evening last. Some account of the meeting is given by our Clyde correspondent. The Privy Council has sustained the judgment of the Appeal Court in the case of M‘Lean v. the Provincial Government. By this decision the Bellamy Run will be able to he dealt with in such manner as the Government see fit. The Appeal Court reversed Judge Chapman’s decision in favour of M‘Lean. Professor Bruce, mesmerist and phrenologist, gave an entertainment in Cromwell on Tuesday evening last. The phrenological portion of the performance gave great satisfaction, Mr Bruce hitting off in the most exact and happy manner the peculiarities of several well-known gentlemen. The mesmeric portion was not so successful, however. Professor Bruce also gave an entertainment at Bannockburn during the week. Three stacks, the property of Mr Thomas Oliver, Como Villa, near the junction of the Earnscleugh and the Molyneux, was burned on Wednesday morning last, and an enquiry was to he held yesterday. The stacks were insured for £2OO in'the Victoria office, which is said to be more than their value. The fire is supposed to be the work of an incendiary. Mr Oliver left the same morning by coach for Dunedin some hours before the lire was observed.

The Guardian extracts the following telegraphic intelligence from the Adelaide Observer. It will be seen from the quartz lodes of the Northern Territory immensely rich stone ia being obtained. In one case, that of the Union Reef, the yield exceeds 70 ozs. of gold to the ton of stone ;—Yam Creek, May 26, afternoon : From the Union Reef Prospectors’ Claim 10 tons of quartz have been crushed at the Telegraph Company’s battery and the stone has yielded 771 ozs. 0 dwts. of gold.—Port Darwin, May 20: Mr W, Liston, j. P., reports that eight or ten tons of quartz from Christmas Claim have yielded 56 ozs. of gold when crushed at the Telegraph Mining Company’s batterv.—Port Darwin, May 28,. afternoon: Mr M‘Minn reports that the Alexandra Prospecting Company has crushed M 3 tons of stone at Newman's battery (Westcott’s), and the result has been 245 ozs of gold. The Morning Star Company has also crushed three tons of stone, and the yield was 12 ozs. 15 dwts. of gold.

A curious action for libel, writes tho Daylesford correspondent of the Castlemaine Representative, was tried a few days ago, before Judge bunny. “Dr Baird sued Mr Izett, the town clerk, for £IOO damages, for having characterised him as a ‘ hounding medical kangaroo.’ His Honor, in nonsuiting the plaintiff, lidiouled the notion of the words being in any respect libellous—the doctor, in fact, might have appropriated them in a complimentary sense. Mad the parties been in England, and Izett called the doctor a ‘ British Lion,’ or in Calcutta, and the name chosen was ‘ Royal Bengal tiger,’ there could be no possible damage to his income or to his reputation, and the doctor could take the term as synonymous with ‘ redoubtable’ or ‘indomitable.’ Here the kangaroo was the national animal, and to be likened to it was rather a compliment than otherwise. Nonsuit with costs ; costs to bo taxed.”

Tiie foot-races between Harris and M‘Lean ,came off in the presence of a considerable number of spectators on Saturday afternoon. There were three events : 100 yards flat ; 150 yards over hurdles ; and 200 yards flat, M ‘Lean receiving five yards. The fact of Harris beating M ‘ Lean in their 300 yards race a fortnight previously, caused the flat races to be looked on by most people as a moral certainty for Harris, while for tiie hurdle race M‘Lean was greatly I favoured. For some reasons, however, people were very shy of risking money on the affair, and the result proved that shyness in this case was wisdom. Eyes were opened very wide, and shoulders strangely shrugged, when Harris only managed to lose the first event by a foot or two, and all interest was over when really the excitement should have begun, namely, when M‘Lea n lost the hurdle race. M'Leau then won the 200 yards affair, thus of course winning the stakes, nominally £lO a side ; hut rumour says he did not take much of Harris’s money home i with him. As we said above, betters were 1 scarce, and possibly a £5 note would cover all j lost or won on the race ; so that the little i swindle was not probably so successful as was ! anticipated. I Newspapers have heard a great deal too ! much about actions for libel lately, but the latest i novelty in this line is an action threatened by Mr Donne, M.R.C. for Charleston, against the i Lt/ell Argus, because in that paper Mr Donne j was described as a “ notoriously honest and a ■ worthy man.” On account of this Mr Niven, ( the proprietor of the paper, received a letter j from a firm of Nelson solicitors demanding an ( apology and three guineas to prevent proceed- : ings. Mr Niven forwarded the following reply : j—“To Messrs Adams and Kingdom, solicitors, ( Nelson.—.A reference to the ‘ leader’ of May 30 shows me that the person who is there alluded I to is described as a notoriously honest and j worthy man. It is to bo regretted that Air Donne should consider such epithets libellous, but as ho appears to do so, and also to think ; that they apply to him, I shall have no possible I objection to apologise for having in that manner i accidentally offended him. I very much regret ■ to have to inform yo\r that your client will have i to apply elsewhere for the three guineas to which {you allude.”

In an action for damages, on the ground of slander, tried recently in the Small Debts Court, Glasgow, the defendant refused to say whether or not in open lodge he had made certain slanderous statements against the pursuer. He pleaded that all Masons were hound by an oath not to disclose what was done in the “ bridge.” Sheriff Murray, however, overruled the objection, and ordered the defendant to answer the question. John Morrison, whose journey to Invercargill win. the Nevis' was detailed in these columns a few weeks ago, was sentenced at the Supreme Court the other day, to'eight rears’imprisonment. In passing sentence, His Honor said; that the prisoner had been convicted and sentenced to various terms of imprisonment on four several occasions. Three of the previous offences were similar to those to which he had recent ly pleaded guilty. In fact, forgery and uttering seemed to have become almost a trade with the prisoner. In March. 18G5, the prisoner was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment for assaulting and attempting to commit a rape on a young girl; in September, 1868, for forging and uttering, two indictments, he got three years’ penal servitude ; and then one year’s imprisonment, with hard labour, making four years in all. Three months afterwards the prisoner was brought out of gaol upon another charge of forging and uttering, and was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment with hard labour, six years in all. The punishment, however, seemed not to have acted as a warning to the prisoner ; and. looking at the character of the offences, it seemed almost wonderful that any man should have the folly to commit them, they being such as rendered detection absolutely certain within a day; because upon presentment of the cheques, and upon its being declared that they were forgeries, they would of course be put into the hands of the police, who would be set upon the track of the culprit perhaps within twenty-four hours afterwards. So, besides the criminality of the the prisoner’s proceedings, there was the great folly, seeing that there was the certainty of almost immediate detection ; and it made one almost think that, the prsioner had desired to get himself into trouble.”