DUNEDIN.

Dunstan Times, Issue 734, 12 May 1876, Page 2

DUNEDIN.

(from our own correspondent.) Dunedin, May 7.

By the late nows from Melbourne wo hear that hellish fiend Sullivan has been brought up before the Supremo Court on a writ of habeas corpus, and discharged from custody, the judge deciding that the Influx of Criminals Act does not frefer to him, he having proved that he was domiciled in Victoria before that celebrated act was passed, to prevent which it was intended to put a stop to the wholesale eruption of what at the time it were termed Sir William Denison’s Pets, that is, the cut throats and villainous scum of Tasmania and other countries, weo, attracted by the gold discoveries of Australia, made their way there to plunder and murder. This Sullivan is not unknown in your district, it was he, in connection with those other blood-thirsty scoundrels Levy, Kelly, and Burgess, who, there is reason to believe, have sent many an unsuspecting miner to his long home by strangling him and throwing him into the Molyneux. Though they were not detected, many were missed, and is it not likely that Eoor Yorkey, of Miller’s Flat, may have een one of their victims. This unhung villain, whoj I remember seeing sitting complacently in the Supreme Court at Hokitika as though he were innocent of the bloody deeds he had been proved to have been one of the principal perpetrators, and this at the time when the whole country was calling for vengeance for the foul murder of your old townsmen Felix Matthew Dudley and Pontious, who, it will be remembered, were murdered with poor Kempthorne on the Maungatapu Range. Now that this redhanded villain is at large it is probable that he will venture again in the neighborhood of his former misdeeds, if so, there cannot bo a doubt but that a warm reception will await him, and I should not be surprised if a tree will be found high enough to reform him from the face of the earth.

The Big Block affair still continues to exercise the public mind. The Waste Land Board is inexorable, and decline to do the bidding of his Honor and his Executive, notwithstanding the awful alternative put before their eyes by Mr Donald Reid ; his bogey has fallen quite flat. The working man’s cry is that it is all bunkum, and they are not so silly as to be gulled by such claptrap, and have a great aversion to the attempt to make tools of them, that the nice little private arrangement may be carried out, whereby wealthy individuals are to be made more wealthy at the expense of the country. Horace Bastings, Esq., M.H.R., expressed the opinion of nine-tenths of the people when he said such a sale would be ruinous to the country. We see the evil of the Moa Flat sale. His Honer complains to the Waste Land Board, and tells them the Provincial Council, as an alienation, sanctioned the sale of large blocks at 10s per acre, and that that the Council represent the people, therefore the Board are not treating him with scant courtesy. Mr Strode said he did not sit at the Board to do the bidding of anyone, but to give an independent opinion to the best of his judgment. Mr Bastings stated that the land held by the squatters, now at the annual rental of LI 70,000, were worth, and would realise L 250.000 readily, therefore he did not think the pastoral tenants had much to complain of.

In trade a general dullness still prevails, and general complaint is made by the bagmen of the paucity of orders from the goldfields. This, no doubt, is due in a great measure to the manner in which the goldfieldsinterests havebeen persistently ignored by the powers that be. The want of roads and facilities for the transport of provisions and mining plant is now telling its tale ; when it is too late they will discover that by the course pursued has had the effect of killing the goose that has been laying the golden eggs, and that the large towns cannot be prosperous unless there is an industrious and prosperous community in the country to back them up ; therefore, it is high time that this class (the mining) should have some of the undue taxes and charges reduced—first, the Gold Duty, and secondly, a total remnddelling of the charges drawn from their pockets in the shape of registration and other fees, which are at present excessively high. The miners’ right is another of those exorbitant imposts, the outcome of Provincialism, as it would, no doubt, have been reduced long ago, (but for the impecuniosity of the provinces, ■who declared they could not do without it) as in Victoria, New South Wales, and Queensland, there the goldfields are not governed out of existence by the caprice—what can be called nothing else—of parish vestries, who take all the funds and expend them at their own doors, as has been done in Otago, as witness the thousands of pounds that have been spent on the road to the Taieri. Now they want to sell the goldfields, for the big blocks are nothing else, to make railways in Soutland. Madame de Murska is to give three more concerts. This time she opens the Princess’, which is just completed. The Colima, after undergoing repairs, sailed with the San Francisco mails. There are rumors of hitches in the service, but it is nothing new for them to occur in connection with this line of mails.

Mr Vincent Pyke, in a letter to the Star, suggests the advisability of establishing a Land League on the same principle as suggested by me some time since in your columns. It is time something of the sort was inaugurated. Every centre of population should have a branch, with a cental one in Dunedin, or it should be a general ono for the whole Colony. The land will have to he watched by the public or it will slip out of their hands into those of the capitalists for a mere song. It was by the action of the league in Victoria that the wreck of the land was saved from wholesale spoliation and hundreds settled in happy homes. Tho pastoral association was checkmated, though they expended large suras in bribery to endeavor to carry out their plans.

The Government has now taken up tho prosecution of Mr Oakley, ot the Co-opera-tive Credit Bank.

A fatal fight occurred lately in Dublin between two itinerant fiddlers, who had quarrelled about the qualities of their respective instruments and their own musical skill. The survivor has been committed for trial for manslaughter. The gentleman who was found decapitated a few days ago on the Metropolitan District Railway, has turned out to be a son of tho lato Mr George Hudson, tho “ Railway King.” He was a barrister, and his mind is supposed to have been affected by over study. The art collection of the notorious Alexander Collie and another unfortunate speculator, Mr W. Armstrong, were sold lately at Christie and Manson’s. The pictures and drawings of the two estates fetched LI G, 305. The forgery of a monarch's name is rather an unusual occurrence, and considerable excitement has been caused by the discovery that various bills of exchange have been floated professing to be for tho accommodation of King Victor Emmanuel and bearing his counterfeited signature. Tho culprit—tho Marcheso Mantngazza of Milan—has been arrested, and has made a full confession. He is a financier in whom all confidence has hitherto been placed, and who has conducted various operations on a large scale.