GENERAL NEWS.

Dunstan Times, Issue 463, 3 March 1871, Page 3

GENERAL NEWS.

A proposition is about to be submitted to the Provincial Council of Marlborough to pass an Ordinance by which the revenue derived from publican’s licenses shall be solely devoted to educational purposes.

Tho Caledonia claim on the Thames has yielded 7779 ounces for a week’s work. The value of the gold obtained by this Company from the Ist to the 15th February, amounts to .£37,180.

The establishment of a Government Agricultural Department is urged by the Taranaki Herald.

A correspondent of an Auckland paper says that he has learned in the. course of conversation with the natives ot the Upper Waikato that there are many Europeans who make a profitable trade out of selling arms and ammunition to the natives—powder, 10s. per lb.; caps, ss. per box; £2O for a double barrel gun, and £6 for a rifle. Tbe correspondent affirms that the traffic is extensive, and well known to all the Maoris If such is the case, how is it that Mr. Branigan has not succeeded in putting an end to it I

In the General Synod , at Dunedin, on February 6, the Bishop of Auckland moved, “ That this Synod sanctions the extension of the hours of solemnising marriages to 4 o’clock p.m ” The motion was agreed to. According to a Melbourne paper, a strange disease is reported to have made its appearance amongst horses on some of the stations of the Murrum bidgee be! ow Wagga. It commences with a stiffness in the joints, the horse is unable to bend his knees, and in a short time wastes away and dies -■ The Hon. Captain Fraser availed himself of the provisions of the 'Land Registration Act last week. *The titles were deposited with the Registrar at one o’clock, and without the intervention of solicitor or land agent, the registration was completed by half-past two o’clock. {/

The San Francisco\Xews Letter says: —“ The other day the dead body of a Chinaman was found in an alley of this city, and taken to the morgue for identification. Deceased was addicted to doing odd jobs about .town for wbat be could get, but otherwise bore a good character. The body was found partially concealed under a pavirig-stone which was embedded in the head dike a precious jewel in the pate of a toad. A crowbar was driven through the abdomen and one arm was riven from its socket by some great convulsion of nature. As deceased was seen by two eight- hour men enjoying his opiumpipe and his usual health just previously to the discovery of his melancholy remains, it is supposed he came to his death by heart dieease. • )

Bismarck, desiring to discontinue French as the language ot the Court at Berlin, addressed a despatch to St. Petersburg written in German. Gortschakoff i-eproves the Prussian Chancellor by returning a reply written in Tartar. A Missouri minister announces that he will marry a man “ cheaper than any opposition firm in the State.’, A ewspaper proprietors generally are not in the habit of disclosing the secrets of their business to the public, but on the other side of the Atlantic less reserve is exhibited. The Aew York Tribune lays before its readers a state ment of the amount it expended from July 28 to October 3, in the collection

and telegraphing of war news from Europe. Within the period named, the Tribune paid to its correspondents at the seat of war ‘and to the cable companies the large sum 0t‘56,000 dols, or say, in round numbers £II,OOO. By tin arrangement with one of its contemporaries it received back about £4OOO, leaving its own outlay*at£7ooo for a little over two months’ work in one field. One day’s charge for telegraphing alone reached the large sum ot £BIB 10s. paid in gold. The following is from a Wellington contemporary. Our attention was yesterday called to a new idea in the art ot advertising, that eclipses anything we have seen in this latter-day city ; in fact the move would do credit to the most gifted American puffer, and make Professor Holloway blush with indignation that he had hitherto overlooked such a means of cheap and wide advertising. Some of our readers require no explanation, as they have already become involuntary mediums for the distribution of Mr. Jameson’s advertisements ; and of course have been correspondingly indignant, or amused, accoiding to their \diosyncracy ; but for general information w« may say at once that this last dodge is no other than converting the reverse side of the Union Bank notes, which are plain, into a handbill, which informs the public that J. Jameson keeps a grocer’s shop at the opposite side of the street to the Union Bank, and at the same time gives them ocular demonstration that he makes the Bank find him in posters while he advertises on the op posite side of the notes. Purely the force of advertising can no further go —to make everyone in community carry your placards, and the Bank find you in paper —is reaching the very acme ot audacity. An incident occurred at the late races at Mangoplah, which (as the Waggn Wagga Advertiser states) is probably without parallel in the annals of the turf, viz, the disqualifying, for various reasons of every horse in the race. A field of five started for the Maiden Plate, the winner being Annie Laurie, with Union second. The winning jockey, dismounting beforebeing told to do so, was disqualified the second was handed his cap, which he had lost in the race, aud was also disqualified ; the third, dismounting to take part in the discussion, shared the same fate ; and the other two were disqualified for being over-weight. The race was then run over again, and resulted in a victory for the same horse, Mr Higgin’s Annie Laurie. An English paper says;— From one end of Germany to the other a cry of discontent is arising. Landewhr troops have advantages, but they also have disadvantages, and one of the latter is that a long war is impossible. In spite of the French prisoners, who are sent out into the fields to work, the country is calling out for its able bodied population, and the able bodied population who are now in France are beginning to call out for the country. Whether Paris falls or not, the Germans will soon be glad of an honorable escape from the dilemma in which they will find themselves as the winter closes upon them, with the prospects of peace as far removed as ever.

The Directors of tbo Union Bank are it would seem, “impressed with the distress and difficulties resulting from the early and improvident marriages of some of the junior clerks, who, without any other resources than their commencing salawes', ; soou find their incomes inadequate Ho meet the increased expenses entailed by marriage, and often by sickness in addition consequently “acting in the interest of their clerks,” they, on 7th December, issued a’ decree that any clerk who should marry on a salary of less than £l5O a year should “be considered to have resigned his appointment.” It is really true, though this is 1870. The decree appears in exfenso in the Times of Monday, must have passed a committee of grave English gentlemen of responsible position, and is actually defended, except so far as it is retrospective, by the city Editor of the Times. What a lot of people there are in the world who would be pronounced “impossible fools” if described in novels.

The Times has an acconnt ot a very clever swindle indeed. A New York tobacconist sends out. circulars marked “confidential” to many persons in England, offering them counterfeit sovereigns made of aluminium found in the Rocky Mountains, at 21 for twentv or 501. for five hundred. They are so good, the circular says, in appearance, color, and ■weight —a physical impossibility—that experts are taken in, but nobody must have mo-e than five hundred. Persons desiring , inch sovereigns must send the money ar d their orders in the form of orders for smoking tobacco at prices enclosed. They would then get the tobacco, find .'t worthless, and be ashamed to complain, while, in the faces of their own orders, they would have no remedy. A coiner can be punished, but not a.man who offers to sell coins if an order is sent for tobacco, and does not sell them. That is a civil breach of contract.

By the last mail the intelligence was brought that the British consulate at Shanghai had been burned.

The steamer General Outram foundered in a cyclone oft* Bombay. Sixty persons Sfere drowned and thirty saved

/The released Fenian Generals Roasa, ’O'Connell, Bevev, M'Cluro, and Mollav have left for Kcw York.

Speaking of the South African diamond fields the Natal Mercury states, that on the Yaal River there are from twelve to fifteen thousand persons at work, and that though there are instances of extraordinary success, yet the average earnings are scarcely worth considering. Captain Lucas’s party after six weeks’unsuccessful toil, in one week picked up diamonds to the value of 150,0007.