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Evening Star, Issue 3475, 13 April 1874, Page 2

Saturday was the last night of the Opera season, when the Grand Duchegs was repeated to a good attendance. The company perform at Oamaru this evening. ** ” was reproduced at the Queen’s Theatre, with an alteration in the cast, on Saturday. There was a large attendance, and the piece passed off successfully. Four stacks of wheat were destroyed by fire, a Hayes Lake, near Arrowtown. As all the stacks were burning at the bottom at one and the same time, there are suspicions of foul play.

While giving evidence in a civil suit at the Resident Magistrate’s Court this morning, the defendant in the case of Davis v, Rowland said he could not see the force of keeping a ledger and in place of having so important an article’ chalked up his transactions on the side of a pigstye in his yard. Plaintiff jocularly asked that this “ledger” should be produced, to see if it would verify defendant’s statement, but his Worship held that it was not advisable to produce it.

Three more deaths have occurred at Cromwell during the past week-Mary Partridge, a young woman aged twenty-two, of typhoid fever; and two children of Mr D. Scally, of the Nevis, aged four and two respectively; these now make four of Mr Scally’s family that have been carried off by diphtheria within the past fortnight; the eldest son, on the 28th ult.. aged seven years three months; the next, a girl, on the 2nd instant, aged five years; the two others followed on the 7th.

The Resident Magistrate of Mongonui must be a strange individual. We find in Parliamentary papers, furnished us but recently, copies of a correspondence between that eentleman (Mr W. B, White) and the Government, m which his conduct is called into question on matters connected with his office. In one of the letters addressed to him by the Undersecretary of the Minister of Justice (Mr Fountain), the following rich sentence occurs:—“ Se far as any specific charges have been made, your implies thereto have been satisfactory to the Government. I am, however, to point out to you that it is advisable, on the score of prudence, to avoid playing at whist, and drinking with intending litigants.”

One of Lambton’s drays, under the charge of rti • w^on ’ from Messrs Boss and Glendining’s warehouse this morning, and in turning round the comer of Stafford street, one, the cart wheels struck the side of the lamp there situated, and lifting it from its socket, completely smashed it. The horse continued its course, going down Jetty street at a mad gallop, and on the wharf knocked over a large iron tank into the bay, and broke the shaft of a cart loading from one of the lighters. The driver stuck to his horse right through and collared him near the end of the wharf. Strange to say neither the horse nor cart was damaged. the mail-cart bolted from the Post Omce, but its progress was almost immediately arrested.

At the nomination for the Ifeathcoto, Mr btaflford, who it will be recollected was defeated, is reported to have thus addressed the electors ‘ I look upon it, gentlemen, that your interests are very nearly, if not altogether, the same as my own. I have got a considerable interest m tbe district, I have purchased a property in it; lam bringing down my wife and family from the North to live amongst you, and suiely, under those circumstances, your interests are identical with my own. What you has’s got,to see to, I, in common with you all must endeavpr to parry out.” Mr Stafford seems to have quite given up the idea of having to leave the country in consequence of the direful results to the Colony which he anticipated from the administration of the present Government.

The representatives at 'the recent Colonial competition held a meeting before they left Napier, and unanimously decided to submit to the consideration of the Inspector of "Volunteers the following suggestions with a view to the regulations for future competitions being altered: 1. That, for the following reasons, the Running, Rapidity, and Skirmishing Matches be struck out of the programme, and steady shooting substituted—First, the liability and opportunity afforded to competitors for firing on wrong targets, thereby occasioning prizes to fall to men who may not actually have won the same. Second, that the rapid firing damages the rifles. Third. That it endangers the of the competitors. 2. That in place of the Running, Rapidity, and Skirmishing Matches, three range matches be added to the programme for future meetings at ranges of 400, 500, and 600 yards, ten shots at each, and that they be included in tbe aggregate for the Championship. 3. That at future meetings the following 1 discs should be substituted for those used at the present one : Bull’s-eye, white ; centre, red ; outer, black. 4. That, jji future competitions, the large-bore rifle should not be brought into competition with the small-bore ; but should the Government deem it advisable to encourage small bore shooting, a special match should be set apart for them.

The friends and supporters of Mr G. E. Barton will meet in the Provincial Hotel this evening, at 8 o’clock.

A second degree meeting of the Guiding Star Lodge, 1.0.G-.T., will be held in the lodgeroom to-morrow evening, at 7.30. The Rev. Dr Roseby will deliver a lecture at 7.30 to-morrow evening, in the Congregational Church. Subject: “The life, character, and work of the Rev. John Wesley, M.A., founder of the Methodist Society.”