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Evening Star, Issue 3136, 8 March 1873, Page 2

For the first time since 1566 the Champion Belt, which is the chief priz; at our annual firing, has not been brought to Otago. While with pardonable selfishness we wished to see one of our men again take it, we are almost as well pleased that the trophy has been secured by Private Hoskins of the Thames, because be has well deserved it. He was close up last year ; and this time his shooting is really superb. 181 out of a possible 228, or nearly 80 per cent of the required mimbtr, is a performance wliich would rank high with those of the crack shots of 1 ngland. That Otago should be so much behind as she is, is to be regretted) though not to be wondered at. The continued successes of our nun caused them to get careless, and the past season did not witness the customary amount of bard practice which has hitherto stood them in such good stead. The Thames men, on the contrary, practised assiduously: with what result we now see. They also assisted each other on the range to a great extent, by imparting the windage, &c., to each of their men as he took his place to fire, whde the jealousy of our men prevented the adoption of a similar plan, hy which corresponding advantages could have been gained. Unable to get a boating crew, defeated on the cicket -field and rifle range, the year 187J has been a very unfortunate one for the Province. Men of Otago, you must look to your laurels.

There was a clean charge-sheet at th e Mayor’s Court this morning. The first sod of the Oamaru-Moeraki railway is to be turned or* Monday. The Oainaru people intend to hold high holiday that day.

A private telegram, received from one of the Dunedin representatives at Nelson, explains that the cause of failure on the part of the Otago men was, that they had not only to endure a burning sun, but the bewildering effect of mirage ; whilst the north rn men, being accustomed to it, did not feel the inconvenience.

Thp Proyincial Government of Canterbury have appointed Mr and Mrs Colee to be Master and Matron of the Reformatory at Rurnham. Mr Colee has been for some jfime schoolmaster at our Industrial School, and the experience gained by him in that capacity will no doubt have qualified him for the post to which he has now been appointed.

When the rumored news of Mr Vogel’s illness reached Nelson, the Lxayilnev the editor of which is currently believed to be Mr J. C. Richmond—was generous enough to’ say. Even his political opponents are bound to say he is a man of the strictest personal honor add' integrity, and one who was never known to sljirlf <jn engagement in any form. ’’

At Auckland, the other day, some halfdozen persons met to form a political association, which was to make itself “felt and respected.” But before it was able to adopt a programme, it became disorganised by internal dissensions. The president resigned, through press of business ; the nominated vice president would not accept office ; one member called the other a traitor ; and the end of it an amendment, “ That this society do now resolve itself into a convivial meeting,” which was carried and apted upon.

The dredging machine now lying alongside the Stuart street jetty is being overhauled and repaired by the Government, We hear it is the intention to employ it in removing the mud banks now silting up roundabout the various jetties in the harbor. The machine is well adapted for the purpose, being capable of working close up to the piles. The execution of the work is a matter of immediate necessity ; it is therefore to be hoped that fcjjepe will be as ,little delay as possible • In commencing *t. His Honor Mr Justice Chapman will hold a sitting in Bankruptcy on Monday, When the list of cases has been gone through, the celebrated mining case recently heard at Lawrence, of Henry Carey Clayton am others v, Morrison ami Company, will again bo brought before the Supreme Court m Banco. Mr Barton, with Mr Chapman, will move for an injunction to prohibit plaintiffs from working the auriferous ground in dispute. Mr Macassey. with Mr Haggitt, will appear for the plaintiffs. The Dn»e.di# Athenamm and Mechanics’ Institute has received Rie usual monthly case of magazines, and the following by the Suez mail, viz. “ Foster s Life of Dickons,” vol. 2nd.; “The English m Irelaud in the .18th Century , by Jas. _ A. Froude ; “The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals,” by Charles Darwin ; “ Love Enough, or the Freeing of Iharamond," a morality /tv Win. Moms ; ffho Foreigner in Ear ('arthay/ by VL Medhurst; “Middleman*," vol. ,8 th (two copies); “Flourango,” by Mrs Augustus Craven—translated from the I*rench by Emily Bowles—two vols. ; “ How I Found Livingstone,” by H. M. Stanley; Greys Fpigmas of Life.” Among the Parliamentary papers received is one of some historic interest Most people have read the account of the fight at iieke s Pah. The loss of the British at this place was very severe. The Natives complained to the Native Office that the soloiers smm tpeie were buried in exposed situations. The

Hon. Mr M ‘Lean promised a gratuity of L3O to the Maoris to re-intur those remains. They built a neat little church at their own cost, and removed the remains within its precincts. Mr Commissioner Clark writes : “The Natives were actuated to this from a respect for our dead, and fear lest the remains of their former brave enemies should, by any accident, be disturbed, or subjected to indignity.” This is as it should be. Mr Justice Fellows is in hot water already. The Victorian Press is down upon him for what the A(/r terms “ a display of eccentric discernment.” Cold was being abstracted from the Great Britain Company’s battery, at Sandhurst, by night, and a watch was sot to j catch the thieves. After some trouble they j were caught, and proved to be three men, i named respectively Branson, Knopp, and Cropper. Cropper was a servant of the company, and Branson had been in their employ up to a week before. Knopp is de scribed as a man of means, and all of them were more or less regarded as respectable members of the mining community. They were caught in the act : the instruments of their trade were found upon them, and what is more, it was discovered that they were armed for resistance. A revolver and a lifepreserver were taken from them before they could be handcuffed. After they were disarmed and in custody they essayed to bribe their captors with an offer of large sums of money varying from LSO to L.300. Their captors were too honest for them, however, and they were brought to trial and pronounced guilty by a jury who did not take the trouble to leave the box, after listening to the most artful defence that could be made for them, and sentenced by Judge Fellows — Cropper to four months, Branson to three, and Knopp, the owncrof the life preserver, to six week’s imprisonment. It is this extraordinary leniency, which is condemned ; and the Judge’s conduct is rendered more inexplicable by the fact that he had just before condemned a half-starved old vagrant to six month’s imprisonment, with hard labor, for stealing a lamb valued at one shilling. “Snyder.” in Auckland Herald makes the following trite observations: —I ho legitimate drama is being stamped out in the Colony. Just as one species of animal has exterminab d another, so has the flying trapeze and infant phenomenons on bare-backed Arab steeds stamped out Shakespeare and the whole list of modern dramatists. Such is our refined and exquisite taste that, we now infinitely prefer to see I.ottie taking a flying leap from the dress-circle on to the stage, to be caught head downwards at the risk of her neck, by a he-trapezist, than we care to witness Hamlet done to rags or Macbeth torn to tatters. Farces and burlesques won’t stand against “nigger business;” comedy won’t draw whilst Haymarket comic songs are done in character. Opera plays to an empty dress-circle, while the dashing lady in pink silk who asks you to join in chorus to “ Good bye, Charlie,” coaxes a full house. The tightrope girls and the slackrope girls, and the girls who ride horses in short muslin shirts and pink fleshings, who jump through hoops and over skipping-ropes while at full gallop, draw more money than our Colonial Treasurer does with his travelling expenses and allowances thrown in. And this we know is no small thing. Who will now care to see a dramatic representation, where the actress, who we know to be a manned woman and the mother of seven, represents a lovely blossom of seventeen summers, who has been cruelly “sejuccd” by the villain lover instead of taking her to the “halter,’ as he vowed with so many vows he would do. No one now will ever show sufficient endurance to s l t out a five-act tragedy, to see the hero at the close of the last scene stab himself with a wooden dagger, or the heroine drink water out of a two-ounce bottle, which she declares is the deadly drug which will do the deed. The glory of the past is fading out of memory. Jugglers, sp : rit mediums, conjurers, lifters of heavy weights, men who can stand on their heads and throw somersaults in the air six times before they touch the earth, and men who balance on their chins women on the top of poles, will draw larger salaries, in the Colonies at least, than ■ the best star dramatists that shine in the terrestrial firmanent.

The usual monthly meeting of the Union Permanent Building Society will be beld at the office, P i ices street, on Monday evening at 7 o’clock.

A meeting of members of the Hibernian Catholic Benefit Society will be held in St. Joseph’s Schoolroom on Monday evening, at eight o’clock. The Mr Trevor referred to in our Lawrence telegram yesterday called upon us to-day to say that the statement in the telegram that he has been living in the Province under the name of Lloyd is incorrect. Ho always used his full name.