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Evening Star, Issue 3151, 26 March 1873, Page 2

We omitted to mention in our report of yesterday’s races that the owners of Tambourini and Misfortune agreed not to send the horses on to the course again to contest the Dunedin Jockey Club Handicap race. The prize and sweepstakes therefore were divided.

The entertainment at the Princess Theatre last evening was well patronised. The drama of “ Ben Bolt” was the first piece ; it was followed by a hornpipe dance in character, by Miss Jessie Raymond, which was well received; the whole concluding with “The Bonnie Fishwife,” in which Miss Raymond, as Maggie M‘Farlane, was much applauded.

The annual pic-nic of the Sunday School children attached to the Hanover street Baptist Chapel was held on Monday, in a paddock in the North-east Valley, kindly lent by Mr James Brown, About 500 assembled, most of whom walked in procession from the Chapel to the ground. The parents and friends of tho scholars, to a considerable number, joined in the games, and the day passed away most pleasantly. At the Mayor’s Court, this morning, the following persons, charged with drunkenness, were fined in the amounts opposite their names :—John Horscrwft, ss, with the option of twenty-four hour*’ imprisonment; Martha Loxton, 10s, with a like alternative, and on a further charge of making use of, obscene language she was discharged with a . caution ; John Brady, 20s, or forty-eight hours’ imprisonment; and Ellen Maitland, an. old offender, 40s, or seven days’. This was the only businesSjtransacted. His Worship the Mayor occupied the bench.

The Spuijiern Qrpss of March 11, says: - The Hon. Mr Vogel, the Colonial Treasurer, has arrived, and, in spite of the many stories which bpen propagated lately as to the state of his hcaffff, he is, we are glad to observe, in as good condition as he has been in for years past. The statement that he is suffering : from an;/lna pectoris is .quit? unfounded, and one is almost disposer! to fancy that, political opponents and their organs would rather wish that it had been true that his medical advisers had directed him to abstain from political .life for a couple of years, the statement has been made with such persistent repetition. Happily for Mr Vogel that story, too, is quite untrue. A native of.the Navigator’s Island was by mistake brought on to Auckland by the mail steamship Dakota on her last trip. It appears that, when the steamer stopped at the island on hey trip to that port from Honolulu, a number of natives came qff in canoes for the purpose of trading with the passengers and crew, several of them ior this purpose going on board the steadier. Warning was given to them just before the Dakota was ready to start oh her voyage, but by some accident the ,one alluded to missed his passage in the canoes. The facts of the case were made known to Captain Ingersoll, but, the canoes by this time being too far away to be brought back, he was compelled to bring the native on with him. It is his intention, however, to land the map. again on the island on the first opportunity offering. The Wanganui papers contain long reports of a civil case between E. A. Drury, and H. B. Roberts —a claim by Drury for salary from Roberts, a local solicitor. The evidence is somewhat amusing, the defendant making a number of charges of insobriety against the plaintiff, and denying the existence of any engagement. The claim was at the rate of L 5 per week. The judgment of the Court was for 35a a week. Clothes, said the Magistrate, could not he considered, neither

could ginger wine or beer, as these wore luxuries, it was presumed, supplied out of good will. The Court had the testimony of two professional gentlemen that L 3 a week was a most absurd charge for the services of a law clerk, unless of extraordinary attainments ; and that from 80s to 42s a week was the usual rate of pay, and there was nothing before the Court to prove that Mr Drury possessed extraordinary attainments. A hot discussion in the papers arose as to the testimony regarding the pay of law clerks. The navvies at the Oamaru end of the Waitaki-Moeraki Kailway have struck for higher wages. One of them writes to the North OtiVfo Times :-“The agreement with us was that we were to receive, from and after and landing, current Colonial wages, not less than 5s per day-that means, I take it that we were to get m -re than os if current wages were more. From our week s wages was to be deducted one-hfth, until our passage-money was repaid. How, when we arrived we had no money, and rations were supplied to us, to be charged against our earnings. We have been actually at work ten days, and on .Saturday night last we were offered from 2s 6d to 4s a piece I, for one, don’t think that fair. Look ; take last week alone ; at the minimum wages (os a-dav) we had earned 80s. Deduct from this one-fifth proportion of passage-money - that leaves 245. Then deduct cost of rations (and the bills, I think, come to Us all round), and we ought to have had 14s foi the one week only paid us, instead ot fialt-a-crown or 4s. That’s why we struck. 1 have a wife to keep, and owe 16s of rent up to next Thursday. How am ito pay it at this rate ? ”