The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, MARCH 27, 1872.

Evening Star, Issue 2841, 27 March 1872, Page 2

The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, MARCH 27, 1872.

The addresses at the nomination for the Peninsula yesterday s were singularly devoid of interest. The three candidates seemed influenced by a com-

mon feeling; they wex*e determined not to show their cards to each other. Apparently the electors themselves cared very little about the matter, foi very few were present, and those who were there either coincided with what was said or were quite indifferent what the candidates thought, on the question of National education. Leaving Mr Robertson out of the question, as a gentleman whose imperfectly formed opinions are not worth consideration, both Mr Tolmie and Mr Hutchison agreed that a National system should be purely secular. It is gratifying to observe that really intelligent men of all creeds have arrived at this conclusion. It points to the gradual but certain casting off of old theories based upon imperfect knowledge, and foreshadows the time when superstition will no longer stand in the way of separate arrangements being made for secular and religious training. • In Mr Tolmie’s estimation, this is to be one of the chief questions requiring the attention of the Provincial Council at its coming session. The other is finding funds for the formation of roads. On this point Mr Tolmie does not appear to be so far advanced as we should like a representative to be. He has not learned to look upon a railway as a road of the very best and cheapest kind, affording the greatest possible facilities to trade, commerce, and intercommunication at the least possible cost. When this idea is once realised, our legislators will not be so very anxious to spend vast sums of money on lines of metalled road that in the evolution of industry must in a very few years be almost useless. It is a long time before men accustomed to certain mechanical arrangements can bring themselves to believe they can ever be superseded. There were plenty of practical men who predicted Macadam’s system of road-making could never answer. Horses, it was said, would never travel over such sharp points as were presented by the broken metal : the cost was too great, and could never be afforded in thinlypeopled districts, especially where gravel was procurable, and the thousand and one objections now urged against railroads were iterated and reiterated at turnpike trusts and county meetings. Nevertheless, macadamised roads were made, and found to be cheaper than tracks of sand, gravel, or pebbles from the sea shore. The system was made public in 1819, and before twenty years had passed it was adopted almost all over Great Britain. The cost of land carriage was much reduced, vehicles could be used of less cumbrous structure, greater loads could be drawn with less animal power, and districts were cultivated that previously were useless, because the produce would not pay the cost of carriage to a market. Those who foretold this were looked upon as visionaries ; just as people now think men arc dreaming who predict that metalled roads will be superseded by the ultimately cheaper railroad. We have very little expectation of convincing the agricultural mind of this. Many of them would continue to flounder through ruts of a foot deep, with four horses drawing a heavy waggon carrying a ton weight, rather than lay down a wooden tramway to their farms on which a single horse could with ease draw two tous. They would count the first cost, and never look beyond it. And it is just the same with those who are so nervously apprehensive about making railways. Before we adopt the notion that they will be made where they are not needed, it will be necessary to shew that they will be made where human industry canuot avail to produce minerals or vegetables, or to rear animals applicable to human use. If it be affirmed that they are only useful where there is now population, wc arc prepared to show that not only is this a fallacy, but that those who bought land and settled upon it on condition of having a macadamised road to it, should themselves pay a considerable portion of the cost of an improved mode of transit, adding, perhaps, five or tenfold to the value of their property. Wherever a road is useful into the interior a railroad is more useful. Wherever a district can afford to make a road, excepting under very extraordinary circumstances, it will be cheaper ultimately to have a railroad. The system is but in its infaucy, and when developed will be found capable of application to circumstances barely dreamt of. Intelligent members of Road Boards would do well to bear this in mind, so that in any lines they adopt they may devise one that sooner or later, at the least possible cost, can be converted into a railway. But as this is, perhaps, too much to expect of the Road Boards, the Provincial Council, with this end in view, should require that all new lines of road should be subject to the approval of the Provincial Engineer. Mr Tolmie said a few words about his land theories, but neither he nor Mr Hutchison a word about mal-adiniuistraLiou by the Waste Laud Board.

Electoral.— Writs for the election of two members of the Provincial Council for the Lake district, in the room of Messrs J. W. Robertson and 0. E. Haughton, resigned, have been hsued. Princess Theatre. — The play of “Old Honesty,” with Miss Anstead, Messrs Hydes and Musgrave, and the laughable farce of “ Bamboozling,” constituted last evening’s entertainment. We must defer a lengthened notice till to-morrow. Criminal Sessions. — There are six prisoners for trial at the ensuing sessions of the Supreme Court, commencing on Wednesday the 3rd prox., four of whom are confined in gaol, and two ou bail—also one remanded till the 29th inst., on a charge of horse stealing. Defences. — The General Government are about to remove the Lyttelton quarantine ground to the island near Diamond Harbor, and place a battery of large guns upon it, which, it is thought, will place Lyttelton in a very good position to repel any hostile cruiser that might make her way to these shores. It is also stated that instructions have been received that the pilots and pilots’ crew, together with tbe Gustoms b iats’ crew at the large shipping ports, are to be instructed in gunnery, so as to be prepared in case of danger ; and that the Government have ordered from England some guns of the latest make.

Scientific. — The Wellington Eoenimj Post saysMr H. H. Travers, who has recently returned from a visit to the Chatham Islands, has brought back with him a valuable and, we believe, almost complete collec ion of botanical specime s of species indigenous to the islands. This collection has been placed in the Museum, and Mr Travers and Mr Buchanan have arranged a set to be submitted to Dr Hooker to be named and classified. Duplicate sets will then be sent to various scientific men and societies in other parts of the world, and the original and probably only complete collection of the flora of the Chathams will be kept in the Museum here.

Chinese Labor. The Resident .Minister informs the Christchurch papers that the Government neither has, nor ever had, any intention of introducing Chinese hibor into th.G Colony, or poruxittiug it to 06 introduce'! and employed by contractors for public works. llio cii'cuiiir ciduicsscd by the Minister of Public Works to the several Superintendents was intended solely to elicit their opinions on a subject which bad been brought before the attention of the Government. If any bias in favor of the employment of Chinese labor is thought to pervade the circular, it is altogether unintentional, and contrary to the wishes and opinions of the Government.

Gaol. —The usually quiet town of Tokomariro has produced a would-be rival to Haley, of Auckland renown, in the person of George Williams, the ox-boots of the White Horse Hotel there, who wrote a letter to Mr Langley, the landlord, threatenin''’ dire vengeance for some supposed grievance. Williams was tried for the offence of sending the letter on the 20th March inst, at Tokomairio, before Mr J. P. Maitland, R.M„ and sentenced to twelve months ini prisonment, in default of sureties for his good behaviour, for twelve months, and arrived in gaol yesterday afternoon in charge of Constable Aitchesou, who had also in his custody, for safe delivery at the same destination, Emily Hunter, sentenced to six months hard labor at Switzers, on the 9th March inst, by Mr J. N. Wood, R.M., for indecent exposure; and James Scott, sentenced at Balclutha on the 21st March inst, by Mr J. P. Maitland, to seven days and one month’s hard labor (cumulative) for using obscene language and assault, at Clinton, ou the 19th March. The Last of the Cannibal Maoris.

—The following is from the Southern Cross : — The chief, who has just died at Upper Thames, was one of the last of the old cannibals, and was the last who perpetrated cannibalism in New .Zealand, on the occasion when he led the Thames natives on to attack the Tauranga people at Ongaro, near Katikati. This took place in 1842, after the colonisation of the country, and after the founding of the City of Auckland. He completely routed the Tauranga people, and killed great numbers, bringing away a large quantity of human flesh, which he first took to Kauwacranga, a large pa situated on the present site of Shortlaud. Here the war party landed, and, alter relieving their feelings by indulging in a war dance, they replenished their stomachs (as soon as the hangis were ready) with a portion of their once live cargo. After sticking several heads on the highest poles of the pa fence, they once more embarked in their canoes and started for Te Puru, which was then a large settlement of the Ngatitauutera, Tarai’s tribe. A basket of the flesh was sent as a present to Te Horeta (commonly known to Europeans as Hook nose), but this chief declined to accept it, saying that he had given up such dark practices. Taraia was from his youngest days famed as a warrior, and was fortunate enough to maintain his standing as such to the last. die was not in Waikato during the succession of tights which took place there between the Thames tribes and the Waikat' S, and which terminated in the exodus of the former tribes from the Waikato to their own homes, after the battle of Taumatawiwi; and he used often to taunt his people with their inability to fight their enemies in his absence, and to point to the invariable suceess which always attended his strong arm. Personally he was not liked, but his name was dreaded, and continued to be so until the new state of things, brought about by the introduction of Christianity, robbed him of his followers. During the last few y< ars his influence lias entirely gone. Still no doubt he will be greatly honored now he is dead ; the remembrance of his former greatness, and the fact of his having been a principal actor in the great events in the history of the tribe, will cause not only the Thames tribes, but others, to pay tribute to his memory. The funeral obsequies of Taraia are referred to in our telegrams to-day. An Entertainment, under the auspices of the Dunedin Band of Hope, will be given in aid of the Fife and Drum Band, in the Wesleyan Hall, Stuart street, to-morrow (Thursday) evening, at S’clock.