The Dunstan Times. CLYDE, FRIDAY. JUNE 16, 1882.

Dunstan Times, Issue 1052, 16 June 1882, Page 2

The Dunstan Times.

CLYDE, FRIDAY. JUNE 16, 1882.

Beneath the rule of men entirely just The pen is mightier thar the sword.

Fourth Pagk.-Pot balance of reading matter see fourth page.

Sir Julius \ogel —Sir Julius V.»gel is Accompanied by bis wife on bis present visit to the colony.

Coin o Event*.—lt is stated by the We iingtnn cones pnn 'eut of a contemporary that if would cost at: least £300,000 to r.. move the seat of Parliament to Christchurch.

Resignation of the County Chairman)!)—We are reliably informed that af er yesterday’s meeting of the County Council Ct. Colclongh handed to the Clerk his resignation of the position of Chairman, Sale at Alexandra.—Messrs, Drummey, Here.*ford and Co.. notify in another column that on Thursday next, the 22nd b.st., the whole of their bridge plant, cm - sitting of crane, winches, etc., etc., will 1 e sold. Sale to commence at 1 o’clock sharp. Contractors and miners shculd find it convenient to attend.

The Molyneux Steamer—The Clutha Domain Board’s new steamer for traffic on the Molyneux, which is being constructed y Messrs Kincaid, M‘Queen and Co. is nearly completed, and will he launched next week. It is built of steel throughout, and altogether is much superior to any i f Hie boats that have plied on the Mo yneux.

Naval Station in New Zealand.— The Wellington correspondent of ihe North O ago Times is given to understand that the Admiralty has decided to choose Auckland as the chief naval station in the Pacific ■ nsfcead of Sydney. A rendezvous of inenof war takes place there shortly.

Miller’s Flat Murder.—Kloogh, oue of the victims of the Miller’s Plat tragedy, was brought down to Dunedin last week to he under the medical care of Dr. Mannsell. He was progressing satisfactorily up to Saturday morning, when he unfortunately hurst a blood vessel in the wounded arm, and lost a great deal of blood before any assistance could be rendered him. But slight hopes were entertained of his recovery for some hours on Saturday. However, as Kloogh is possessed of a strong constitution, his friends are sanguine of his recovery. He is now an inmate of the Hospital. John K'tto, charged with the (murder of his sonin law, Ruggiero, at Miller’s Flat, was removed in charge of two gaol officers to the Donatio Asylum, Dunedin, on Tuesday last.

Otago Central Railway.—At the adjourned meeting of the Dunedin Chamber of Commerce, hold on Tuesday last, the following report from Mr John Roberts, the chairman of the Committee for the promotion of the Otago Central railway, was presented :--I have the honour to submit for the consideration of the Chamber a copy of resolutions passed at a meeting of this Committee on the Bth inst,, and shall he glad to have an expression of opinion on the same : “ (1) That in the opinion of this Committee the t'me has arrived when, in the interest* of New Zealand, the construction of the

Otago Central railway should be vigorously prosecuted, and that in the event of a loan being rased, a sufficient sum should be placed on the schedules to the Loan Bill to complete the line to tho terminus at the Haweo, and that if no loan be raised a suffi. cient sum should he placed on the Public Works Estimates fur the ensuing financial year, (2) That a copy of the foregoing resolution be forwarded to the Government and to the Committee of the Chamber ot * Commerce with a request that; the Chamber will supp-rt the action of this Committee. (3) That the Otago members be requested to support the above resolutiou in their places in the Assembly.” A Sensible Idea.— lt is the intention of the Tuapeka County Council (says a rotemporary) to amalgamate several of the offices in connection with the county, sach as those of collector, inspector, &c. The idea is that by giving one competent person a respectable salary the work hitherto undertaken by several pe-soni will be quite as satisfactorily carried ou*, while at the same time it will entail less expense on the county.

A Dutch Auction. —An interesting case of prohibition was recently decided by the Supreme Court at Sydney. Mr Hamilton, aclerkofMr Alexandra, auctioneer, had. states the Echo “ been fined at tie Central Police Court for a sale after sunsit, by th; process known as * a Dutch auction’ that is, by reducing the price until a buyer was found. This had been treated as a genuine auction, and a breach of the Auctioneers’ Act, and Hamilton was fined accordingly. But the Supreme Court, consisting of Sir James Martin, Justice Windeyer, and Sir George Innes, unanimously held that the essence of an ‘ auction’ was the increasing of the bids, and that Hamilton had not committed anv breach of the Act; and the rule absolute for a prohibition was made accordingly.”

Voting and Population.— From a return laid before the House of Eepresentatives of votes recorded for each candidate at the last elections we g ean the following particulars : —Population of of Dunstan district, 4671 ; number of names on the roll, 1324; votes recorded for Mr. Pyke, 529; for Mr. Fraser, 480 ; total voted, 1009; Wakatipu district, population, 5140 ; on roll, 1747 ; votes for Mr. Fergus, 582 ; Mr. Thomson, 497; Mr. Bridge, 70; total voted, 1149; Mount Ida district, population, 3919; on roll, 833; votes for Mr. De Lautour, 329 ; for Mr. McK nzie, 301 ; to'al voted, 630 ; Tuapeka district, population, 4431 ; on roll, 1206 ; votes for Mr. J <1 Brown. 482 ; for Mr. G. F. C. Brown, 444 ; total voted, 923. A New Rabbit F.xtekminatok. A Rihhit poisoning experiment was made yesterday afternoon at the hack of the Farmers Arms Hotel, Princes Street South, Dunedin. An artificial warren of considerable extent was made, and rabbits havin ' been put in boxes at the end of the flaming, poisonous gas (caused by the burning of a cartridge prepared for the purpose) w>s forced into the warren by means of an air pump The trial prove 1 effective, and iho inventor of this process (Mr Forsyth) is •sanguine tha' he has discovered a method f.f effectually removing the raohit nuisance The great advantage claimed fir this system is that the whole apparatus only weighs a few pounds, and that anyone can use it M • Forsyth has applied for a patent, and when that is taken out probably more specific information regarding the invention will be given.— Da'ly Tinvs.

The N.Z Census.—We have received a fnr'her batch i f Parliamentary papers and Nos. 2 and 3 Hansard of tl e. nresen' session Ammigri the patiers is “The Results of a ■Census of the Colony for the year IS3I. On looking through its pages we find it deals exclusively with the population, giving the total an 1 the number in each district and ■subdivision. Wo take from it the following ■extrac's as being the more immediately interesting to our general rea ’ers. The population of the colony (exclusive of Maoris) is 480 933 ; the provincial district of O’ago contributing 134,077 of the number, and being some 22.000 more than Canterbury which is the next on the list. Of the towns within the limit of the County of Vincent, Cromwell has 420 ; Clyde, 340, Alexan ha, 975 ; Blacks 242. The County of Vincent, 3 565 exclusive of the boroughs of Cromwell and Alexandra. The various ridings in the County contribute respectively : Dunstan, 752 ; Oarrick, 657 ; Kawarau, 482 ; Manuherikia. 422 ; Matakamri, 408; Earnsoleugh,

336 ; Hawea. 258 ; Lindis, 250. By these t, figures it will be seen that tbe Southern ridings of tbe county has 1918 of a population against 1647 in the Northern ridings ; by adding the population of Alexandra to the Southern total, and Cromwell to tbe Northern the balance, is still in favour of the Southern division of the county.

Scare at Wellington.— Shortly after 8 o’clock on last Friday night the citizens of Wellington, says the PoH, were alarmed by hearing one of the most unearthly, piercing, and exasperating noises that pro-

b bly ever grated on mortal ears. It varied & f om the moat head-spliting shriek to the ■ most doleful and Wood curdling moan, and ranged from one to the other in a way that was alike horrifying and maddening. To

some the noise sounded like the cry of a lost s nl. while other more prosaic citizens i seized pokers and fire-shovels and sallied forth in search of imaginary fiend-po-scssed cats, or abandoned larrikins of forty thousand stentorophonio power. The streets speedily became lined with an excited crowd of people, and after a time the cause of all the constema'ion was explained. It appeared that, by the cmirtesy of the Commodore, an exhibition of the Nelson’s electric light was being given, and that the terrific whoop which had been heard was caused by the “ siren” fog-signal of the man-of war, which was probably sounded to call attention to the electric light. Of the two, however, there is no doubt the

fog-hom was the more ahsorlvng topic of interest, and Wellingtonians shudder visibly

whenever the painful subject is mentioned. It is said the noise can he heard thirteen, thirty, or three hundredlmiles away at sea, we forget which, but we can easily credit either of the three figures named. A Modest Girl. A young lady from the rural distriotsfjsays the Southland New*) lately visited town with her beau. Getting into a car for the first time she took her seat, while her lover planted himselfjon’the box with the driver. Very soon the conductor beganlto collect the fares and approaching the rustic maiden, he said, “Yonrfare, miss.” The rustic maiden allowed a delicate pink to manifest itself upon her checks, and looked down in soft confusion. The condaetoi was rather} astonished at this but ventured to remark once more, “Your fate, miss. 1 ' This time the pink deepened to as the rustic beauty replied, “’Deed an’ if lam goodlookin’ you hadn’t ought to sayji# out loud afore folks.” Winter in Britain.— ThetScotch correspondent of the Morning"] Hera Id {writes as follows:—Here we have just passed through a winter of almost unexampled mildness, snow being nearly unknown, land in none of the lower parts of the country was the ground covered for more than twenty-four hours. That übiquitous individual “ the oldest inhabitant,” is loud in the praise of the open season. Midges were to be seen disporting themselves in the very middle of January, while a nice bouquet of flowers waseaailyobtainablein the open air throughout she winter. When we contrast these facts with those of the winter immediately preceding, the difference is simply tremendous ; since then, for about four months on end, there was one continued storm of f ost and snow. For a considerable period our 3‘reets were nearly impassable, the snow lying in manv places several feet deep, and they had frequently to be chared from the accumulated snow by the authorities having it carted away and thrown into waste places. The river Tay at Perth was frozen across, as were many of the other rivers. In the no. th the accumulations of snow in the hilly regions was son.ething fearful, snowdrifts of nearly 100 ft in depth being known. Railway blocks were of daily, and sometimes hourly, occurrence, many trains having to be dug out of great snow-wreaths afte • being buried in them for several hours, the travellers, ot course, snff ring great inconvenience. The nothern railway companies : ost heavily in purse owing to their being compelled, in addition to their ordinary expenses, to employ large gangs of labourers in the attempt to keep C ear the I nes. When at length the thaw came the effects were rather serious, navigation being difficult and dangerous in consequence of the dense masses of fluting ice, while the nearly universal bursting of the water-pipes in dwelling-houses caused an immense amount of trouble, besides destruction to p-op-rty and goods. The winternowendedhas been the reverse of all this ; openness and sunshine where before storm and tempest rei, ned supreme ; and if we may judge by what we have already experienced, we may ex, ect an equally favourable spring The farmers have a spleudcd-seed time a full month earlier than last year, ami we fervently trust the season Si> auspiciously begun will prove more satisfactory than those recently gone by

Tmr La.tr Aurora.— The appearance of the A iMra Australis hi New Zealand, which created so much interest, wag visible in America with even greater splendour. The New York correspondent of the London Standard, under date April 17, telegraphed thus s—“ Aurora of remarkable extent, brilliancy an 1 grandeur was witnessed last nigh*. Dispatches show that it was observed over an immen-e territory. Fr m Cheyenne. New Orleans, and the British provinces atmospheric disturbance is reported. The telegraph sometimes worked without batteries ; sometimes it was unsafe to use it at all. The colours are reported yellow, pink, blue, blood-red, am Tail very. In Cleveland, Ohio, there was a general complaint of an oppressive sensation, similar to that attending an earthquake Ministers were piostiated in their pulpits, and ladies fainted. At New York early in the evening a greenish arc spanned a wide arc of the Northern horizon. Later on rosy shafts in the east, west, and north formed a crown about Arcturns, which was constantly' wavering and Bickering. .Sometimes immense areas of light suddenly appeared in a perfectly black sky. paling the stars, and tiemulously advancing through the heavens, melted into the crown near the zenith. After midnight a light equal to sheet ligh’ning appeared. The crown was perfect, encircling a patch of sky within Arotnrus was nndimmed, but the other stars were extinguished. It was an exceptionally beautiful sight.”

A Self-acting Changeable Chair In Saturday’s Lyttelton Times the following amusing incident is narrated : of the American humourist who described the vagaries of the combined table, dresser, and steps, with its wicked clockwork and its terrifying results, was not so very far fetched after all. Something nearly as wonderfully made, as multitudinous in its uses, and as automatic in its action, was imimported into Christchurch a short time ago, and, in one family at least, has become famous. In one apparently innocent condition it is a tall baby’s chair, such as all of us have at one time or other been fastened in and left to amuse ourselves with some toys on the nursery table. But the turn of a handle sets some wheels in motion, and the chair taking a back somersault, twists itself into a kind of perambulator. Another touching of springs, and presto the machine becomes a short-legged child’s chair with a table in front To the uninitiated it is a mysterious arrangement; and, in its transition states, is a confu-ed conglomerate of whirring wheels, whirling arms and legs, and waving seats. Andjso a lady found it to be I When in its long-legged baby chair stat J she thought she might utilise it to stain i on and fasten up some window curtain - ? Half the curtain was nicely hooked np when a whirring noise was heard. One frantic

o'utch at the curtain polo was all she had time for, before the chair took its hack somersault with vigour, and cleared out of tho way just soon enough to let the hvly—nearly ICst. in weight—comfortably tall on the floor covered with curtains and confusion, And the perambulator wheeled round the room as if rejoicing over the joke."