GENERAL NOTES.

Evening Star, Issue 3569, 31 July 1874, Page 3

GENERAL NOTES.

The Hawke’s Bay ‘ Daily Telegraph ’ says two well-known young settlers of the Wairarapa lately visited the Hurunui orange pa. Arrived there they commenced paying polite attentions to the dusky ladies of the Maori village. Their conduct was narrowly and jealously watched by thp male portion of the Native inhabitants, who, finally coming to the conclusion that the pakehas “ were com* log it a little too strong,” seized our young settlers, stripped them naked, and tied them to trees. To obtain their release LIOO had to be paid to the offended Maoris. A late issue of the ‘Tasmanian Tribune’ relates the following curious incident; “ Tbe horses attached to Thursday night’s mail coach started from Brighton and ran into their usual stopping place, a distance of ten miles, without either driver, guard or passenger. The singularity of the occurrence rests in the fact that tbe horses and coach reached their destination without having met -with the slightest accident. If Mr Page’s other horses are as perfectly trained as the four which spun the coach into Brighton on Thursday, it is very probable that the expenses of coach drivers in,his establishment will be reduced to a minimum.” We j.‘ Bruce. Herald ’) learn from a correspondent that tie schoonerk Cambria and The Brothers went ashore at Gatlin’s River bar on Sunday last. They were starting for Dunedin with cargoes of timber for Messrs Guthrie and Lantach, and whilst taking the bar the wind died off to a calm, and the vessel laying without steerage way drifted ashore, the accident being inevitable. By tbe assistance of tbe men and surfboats from the wreck of the Surat, the Brothers was got eg, but the Cambria remained fast. Hopes, however, are not given up that she also will be rescued from her position. The “Intelligent Vagrant” writes in tbe ‘ Bruce to the following effect

“ Easiness is business. A gentleman wanted to sell an hotel in this district lately, so he advertised, and he presently sold it for LBOO, and the purchaser is glad of his bargain. But another man comes to the front, who ■ays that the owner of the hotel put it for sale into the hands of a Dunedin agent, and ho bought it for LI,OOO, And he, too, is glad of his bargain. And all parties are determined to stick to their bargains, or to law of each other. There is oao coneolation for tho lawyers : their costs are pretty safe. The hotel, you see, is worth L9OO, anyhow.”

The * Australasian’ draws the following melancholy picture of Fiji“ We have been shown a letter from a resident of Fiji, well known in Melbourne, that gives a very gloomy account of the present state of the place. The writer says that cotton-growing it.P * complete failure, and this although they can grow more of it and of a better quality than heretofore. But in some way it seems to have become superseded by some other kinds of cotton, or encounters some conditions that make it of much less value in the market. The consequence is, that everybody is looking to sugar as the future great staple production of' the place. But in the meantime, owing to the political uncertainties under which the islands are laboring, money is exceedingly scarce, and property is almost unsaleable. The British Consul has issued promissory notes, payable at four months, to pay off tho late civil servants, but the storekeepers will not accept them in payment for goods, so that great inconvenience and even distress are produced from this source! The writer, with the view of turning his time to account, had for a while taken to the beche-de-mer fishing, but this industry seemed to share in the general depreision. He says, ‘the only thing to save us is sugar. Everyone is waitm -n f ? r annexation » believing that capital will then at ence come into the country, and enable all of them to start at sugar-growing But if this does not take place this year, nobody can hold out much longer. As it is, every one that can leave is going.’ From all of which it is apparent that things at Fiji are in a very low condition, and that the prospects of the settlement depend in a great degree on the decision that will spring from the deliberations of the Home Government on the subject of annexation.” The ‘Cromwell Argus’ relates how “a certain town clerk of a neighboring township—(we have it on good authority)—who was in receipt of something like LSO a-year, and who wished to get it somewhat increased, adopted the plan of askjng his brethren in ether municipalities what they were re. ceivmg. Amongst the replies forwarded to him was cne from a civic dignitary holding a similar appointment in a town not a hundred miles from Cromwell, whieh was to the following effect:— ‘ Twenty five pounds ayear ; pickings increase it to L 125 ; and too little for the work.—Yours, &c,. B. B,”’ ’

Perhaps “JEgles” could inform us if the lady spoken of in the following paragraph as she who received an umbrella from Newark, at the telegraph station at Lincoln, by electric telegraph. We can assure him it was found hanging on the telegraph wire. “ 1 think I bare before heard something like the following, which occurred in Melbourne within the last fortnight. A ladv, whose occupation is the instruction of youth, was in the office of a business man, whom she asked to write out for her brother in Sydney. Having framed the message, the writer said, ‘Shall I sign for you?’ ‘Oh, no,’ was the reply, ‘ I’ll sign it myself. My brother wouldn’t know your handwriting!’ It would be interesting to ascertain this person’s ideas about telegraphy generally.