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Evening Star, Issue 3496, 7 May 1874, Page 2

. Thearea of forests under the. administration of the Southland Waste Land Board is stated to be about 1,070 square miles, or 688,800 acres. The additional attraction of the Siamese Troupe at the Queen’s Theatre, last evening, had not the effect of increasing the attendance, for the audience was a very small one. The programme comprised ‘ Asraodeus” and “That rascal Pat,” both of which were well received. The ‘Canterbury Press’ congratulates the people of Otago on the goodness and firmness with which their chief Licensing Court has discharged its duties, and commends to the consideration of the other Licensing Benches in the Colony the course of action pursued in Dunedin as indicated in Mr Bathgate’s speech fit the opening of the Licensing Court. The only business transacted at the Resident Magistrate’s Court, Port Chalmers, to-day, was the disposing of a charge of drunkenness preferred against one Ellen Anderson. Defendant had been before the Court on the previous day ou a similar charge, when she was dismissed. The Bench (Dr O’Douoghue) now fined her L 5, or fourteen days* imprisonment. The ‘Yass Courier' evidently doesn’t go in for indiscriminate adulation of the powers that be. In a “publication received* paragraph in a late issue is the'followingThe March number of the ‘ Australian Illustrated News' i? a very creditable number indeed. The Ministry of New South Wales are faithfully pourtrayed, and an uglier lot of fellows we never set eyes on.”

On Monday evening, sth instant, the Cadet Recruits presented their sergeant (Mr Douglas) with a handsome testimonial, consisting of Sir Walter Scott’s works, as a token of their respect and esteem. A suitable address was read by Master Charles Laiag (Recruit) on behalf of the Company. In reply, Sergeant Douglas thanked them for their kind. present, and was glad to find they had appreciated his instructions ; and as they were about to be put into the other Company, they would please him very much by continuing.the same attention to their drill as formerly. Mr Simpson, as Inspecting Engineer of the Port Chalmers railway, recommends that the fraaacs of the new rolling stock should be placed , on bogies instead of perpetuating the ordinary rigid wheel base system, as the former involves considerably less tear and wear of both stock and permanent way. On the Green Island branch line ; it was originally intended to lay dight rails, but it is now proposed to lay down the ordinary weigh* of rail for the main line, viz., 401b per yard, so that the branch can be worked by the Olutha railway stock.

We have to call attention to the disgraceful state of the crossing between Stuart street and Albert street, consequent on the works in connection with the York place contract. This is the means of outlet for a very large number of the inhabitants; yet this approach to their homes is so impassable during wet weather that many of them, rather than wade through the mire, prefer taking a roundabout road, such as down London street or Rattray jstreet. It is a pity not even one of our City Councillors is under the necessity of going np or down that way on a dark and rainy night.

The latest instance of journalistic enterprise comes from Coromandel. The * Mail’ keeps an astronomer on its staff, and he,- in the issue of that journal for Thursday, the 16th instant, informed the readers of that erudite journal “A total ec ipse of the sun will take place tomorrow (Friday) at about twelve noon. The lovers of these phenomena will have a splendid opportunity of taking a good observation.” It will be interesting to read more of this total eclipse, which would seem to have been got up expressly for the delectation of the people of Coromandel, as we are not aware it was visible in any other part of the Colony. The Ballarat miners do queer things at times. The other day the North-West Company at Kingston fired a keg of gunpowder under Clark’s Freehold drive, after having placed a number of stinkpots in it. Clark’s Freehold men were below at the time, and drove back their assailants, giving them fire minutes to clear out. When .they got below again the North-West men found their shaft seriously damaged. Very bad feeling exists between the miners. There was no police present during the disturbance. The Company had previously turned into Clark’s Freehold two streams of water 4 to flood them out, but did not succeed.

The decisions of the Licensing Court at Hokitika appear to have been very unsatisfactory there. The ‘ Register’ says : “ Some very singular decisions were arrived at by the Licensing Commissioners. In one instance an applicant acknowledged that he had no interest whatever in the house for which ho sought a license, that he never slept in it, and got none of the profits, and that he was a mere agent for the owner of another public-house ; yet the Court granted him a license. In three instances where the police reports were strongly adverse to the granting of the licenses, they were granted, although the .Court see ued to have been guided in their refusals in other cases by the police reports. Two licenses were re fused—one to a single woman, whps6 house has irreproachably conducted j another to a

publican, apparently because he had called'a meeting of his creditors and arranged with them satisfactorily. The Court had, however, previously granted a license to a single woman. One peculiarly hard case was that of a landlord, whose tenant having applied for a license, had absconded, an i thus precluded the proprietor from getting a license to his house. In one instance a publican owning houses of ill-repute was licensed; in another similar case the license was refused.” And these are instances of what the law terms “ discretion.’’ The Prince Imperial, who a few weeks hence will be Napoleon IV,, if he does hot at that moment ascend his father’s throne, will at all events come into a pretty fortune, thanks to the pi’ecaution taken at the moment of his birth, in 1856, to insure his life with all the insurance companies. Now, by a special clause a Q ; ! sovereign prerogative in all the policies which were then drawn up, the Prince’s majority was filed at the age of eighteen, with a view to insure him at that period a considerable sum in proportion to the primitive capital laid down at the moment of his inscription. It aptherefore, that these companies, one and all. will, on the 16th of next Maxxh, have to pay down the sum insured, which amounts in all to several millions of francs.

A supposed incendiary is in the hands of the police at Waikouaiti. From the ‘ Herald’we learn that a shed containing straw, belonging to Mr Hammond, Merton, was observed on fire about half-past six o’clock on Monday morning last, by a person from Tumai, who happened to be passing at the time, and who conveyed the information to the police, but before any steps could be taken to arrest its progress, the flames had obtained the mastery, and soon reduced the straw to ashes. Sergeant O’Keeffe on being made aware of the fire immediately despatched Constable Jones to the spot, who on his way met a man named Skoski, a Pole, who from his manner and replies aroused the suspicion of the constable, and he was apprehended and lodged in the lock-up at Hawksbury. Tbe announcement that there would be a complete change of programme at the Circus had tbe effect of drawing an unusually large attendance at the Princess’s last evening. That it was not the intention of the proprietors to carry out their word, however, soon became evident, for, with the exception of the opening item—the Arabian entry—and a ludicrous farce which wound up the entertainment, the programme was precisely similar to that of the previous evening., The riding of Young American, who appeared as the British Huntsman, again formed the, chief attraction, and the loud applause which it elicited must have been assuring to that gentleman that he gave general satisfaction. The tricks by the horse Jessie showed that it had received a deal of careful training. The eccentricities of the elown and jester were not up to the mark, and both might well introduce a few stray “h’s” into their jokes without lessening their intrinsic value. There will be another performance this evening,

. Even the greatest lover of sherry will feel inclined to give up his favorite tipple if he reads the disclosures regarding its compositions which been recently made in the ‘ Times,’ It seems from the statement of the last wine-importing firm in England that no pure sherry ever finds its way into that country, the reason alleged for this being, that it would not ‘-keep” in the British climate unless fortified, though this assertion is in opposition to that of a high scientific authority. Even to enumerate the various ways in which sherry is doctored would fir exceed the limits of a paragraph ’ like this, buffice it to say that the doctoring is of all kinds and of every degree, until even the climax attained by the dairymen lately convicted of selling “ milk” containing 100 per cent, of adulteration is reached. Sherry of this description is entirely devoid of the juice of the grape, and is composed of vitriol, beetroot, or potato brandy, sugar and water, this delectable compound being sold at a price that is as cheap as the stuff is nasty. While all the wines iraporfced_ into England seem to be subjected to poisoning processes to a greater or less extent, sherry seems to hold a bad pre-eminence—in-deed the ne plus ultra of adulteration has been reached in such a case as that just mentioned. It seems not unlikely, unless some reform is effected, that it will soon be necessary to label bottles of sherry as ‘f Poison,” equally with laudanum. - ■

The prolongation, eastwards of the Rattray street tidal canal, as it is termed, by depositing on each.side.rook earth, so as to provide for public works and mercantile sites, is recommended by the Government Inspector of Works, who says it could be speedily done by a constant and large supply of Ocean Beach sand being tipped simultaneously, and mixed with the rock earth. The rock earth, costing 2s 8d > £ r ,X while the Ocean Beach sand would be §d, makes it a matter of the first importance that arrangements be made to have this work commenced and gone on with. The Government have the comthaqd of rails to join the Clutha line at Kensington, and the vast accumulations of sand at the Ocean Beach would, if prosecuted somewhat in the manner pointed out, lessen the cost of reclamation by threefourths, if one yard of rock were tipped to four of sand. Mr Cairns estimates that the quantity pf rock to remove from all points on Bell hill is nearly §O,OOO cubic yards. This quantity, mixed with 200,000 of Ocean Beach sand, would give a surface of twenty acres, at Oft deep, which, at the point named, would cost L 13.332 Land would at least fetch L2.5Q0 an acre, showing a surplus on the operation of thp gale of twenty acres, amounting to L 36,680, after paying all costs, barring the rails, sleepers, and engine to move the Ocean Beach sand. It is therefore, he concluded, simply a matter of acquiring the last three items, and the work could be commenced f irthwith.

The following clausa in the annual report on the Dunedin gaol must have been penned by Mr Caldwell in the strong belief that the subject ,it dealt with demanded the earnest and immediate consideration of those who made our laws and those who are entrusted with the carrying of them out Upon examination of the class of female prisoners received into the SWI it will be found that the most of them are from tho lowest quarter of the town, from densely populated localities, where numbers are crowded in lanep, and where numbers are huddled together ip .game house. In such an atmosphere, self-respect, morality, and the sacredness of family life are goon destroyed, and where intemperance reigns supreme, and carries with it no sense of shame or social degradation, we cannot be surprised if drunWfi brawls, assaults, and riotous conduct become the order of the day. My experience has convinced me that drunkenness overcrowds this goal more than prime. So important a fact may warrant my again urging the necessity of a more uniform system of administering the law as regards old confirmed drunkards, who are determined to set law and public decency at defiance. To give a woman who. has been twenty or thirty times in gaol fpr drunkenness one month, can have no punitive deterrent or inoral effect. Society has a right to be protected from the demoralising influence of this class of habitual drunkards. Such people, if they can be reclaime will only be so by long or permanent confinement, where, removed from all possibility, of obtaining drink, the force of habit is weakened and subdued, and where they gradually acquire new ideas and selfrespect. If crime is to be checked, we must crush it in its earliest stages, before it has matured into habit. Prison, solitary confinemeut, hard labor, even the dark cell have not the least deterrent effect upon a young woman who has been in gaol four qr five times for being drunk, and disorderly, and whose longest sentence was seven or fourteen days. There is a large class of these women coming coustan ly to gaol, who, if oh their third commitment, received .a sentence of two or three years, would, I am .certain, be deterred by such powerful means from drink and prostitution. I repeat, ne length of confinement or severity of punishment will deter the confirmed criminal ■class, but those entering upon the path of evil, especially girls, can be turned aside from it by the terror of prison life and the fear of thp loss ■ of liberty. 1

In an article on the improvement of the Dunedin Harbor, the ‘Southland Times’ remarks : It the scheme of deepening the harbor is so promising as it is represented to be—and from the results of similar operations ou the Clyde and elsewhere, there is every reason to hope that it will prove a success—it contains within itself the means of providing for its own finance, and would be most efficiently and economically administered by a Harbor Trust,

The members of such a’Trust would, as a matter of course, be selected from the commercial interest of Dunedin, and would have every inducement to see that; the' work was well done, and the money laid out to the besfadvantagc! Any additional guarantee which might be required beyond the tonnage dues, by way of security to the lender, would be most fitly furnished by the City of Dunedin, which will mainly benefit by the proposed improvements.” The ‘lndependent,’ in an article on the same subject, says:—“ What the Clyde trust have been able to do in the course of years, the Dunedin Harbor Trust will be able to do on a smaller scale and at an infinitely less expense, while they have now fully as much encouragement to begin the work as the men of Glasgow had when they first entered on .the bold project of constructing a water-way to their city for much larger ships than had ever been dreamed of. But there is a still more recent example to look to in the case of Cardiff, now probably the greatest resort of shipping in Great Britain after London. There wet docks were first built in the alluvial and mud of the shores of the Taff—an insignificant river—and when they were finished, a channel was dredged from the deep water to the entrances, through the mud of Penarth Roads, No embanking was resorted to, and the various entrances—for the docks have now been multiplied jin number, to accommodate the immense coal and’iron traffic of the Taff Valley—are easily kept clear by the help of the steam dredge. We trust the men of Dunedin will carry through the very important works they have now in hand. They need not allow any apprehensions as to injury to the value of property in Port Chalmers, or the reduction or traffic bn the Port line, to interfere with this project. Similar fears were entertained on the Clyde, but Port Glasgow and Genock have shared in the prosperity of Glasgow, and lines of railway now run down both banks of the Clyde from the Brooraielaw. Port Chalmers will flourish, and the Port line will still find enough to do, though the larger merchantmen may go up the river to the City wharves.

Members of the City Guards attending the Artillery Band concert to-morrow evening are requested to appear in uniform.

We must correct'an error which crept into a bcal last evening;' No. 1 Pioneer Lodge of the P.A.P. Society is not an Orange Lodge, as was stated, but is strictly a benefit society.