INTERPROVINCIAL.

Globe, Volume III, Issue 267, 20 April 1875, Page 2

INTERPROVINCIAL.

Geahamstown, April 19.

The gold from the prospectors’ trial crushing, Tairua, has been assayed at the Bank of New Zealand to-day, and found to be of the value of £2 13s 6d per ounce. A meeting of shareholders in the claim was held on Saturday night, when n company was formed with a nominal capital of £SOO in 1000 shares of 10s each. Since that £2 10s per share has been offered, and Harts, of the Shotover, has offered £IOOO for half the full interest. A coal seam has been found a mile from the Tairua claim. An application was lodged for 650 acres under lease to-day. The outcrop is three feet thick, and showing good quality. Gold has been found outside the prospectors’ claim, but no work is doing, the ground being locked up in big leases. Hokitika, April 20. Arrived and sailed—The Alhambra and Tararua.

The Alhambra left Melbourne on the 14th, and had moderate weather throughout the passage. Passengers for Lyttelton—Messrs Cleveland and Graham, and three tons of cargo. Wellington, April 19. The authorities are rather in a fix as to what to do with the immigrants per the Edwin Fox. The Quarantine Island has not been fumigated since last used by the previous immigrants, and low fever is raging at the town immigration barracks. 7.35 p m.

The authorities have decided to land the immigrants per the Edwin Fox on Quarantine Island.

Wellington, April 20,

Arrived—Phoebe, from the North. The Governor and Lady Normanby and suite proceed this afternoon to Canterbury. They will remain there during the race meeting. Captain Johnson, the Inspector of Steamers, has inspected the side-lights and fog signal horns of several coasting craft. In very few instances were the necessary apparatus complete, and in each case instructions were issued that these equipments must be made complete before clearance would be granted. The late drought has so denuded the Hutt and Wairarapa districts of grass that a rise in the price of meat will take place. Nelson, April 20. In an action Redwood against Hugh Stafford and Andrew Richmond, to recover stakes won by the plaintiff at a race meeting in 1874, the Resident Magistrate decided that the Acts 3 and 4 Victoria relating to horse-racing is not law in New Zealand. All such matters are therefore regulated by the Act 13, George 11. By that law no stake for less than £SO can be recovered, and further, that the stewards of races are not liable for stakes. The plaintiff ought to have sued the stakeholder, in this instance one William Stuart, and he had been so appointed by the Jockey Chib, of which the plaintiff was a member. That one of the stewards sued was not a member of the club at all, but that neither as stewards nor members of the club were defendants liable. The sole remedy in this case was against the depository of money. Dunedin, April 20. A subscription list has been opened on behalf of the sufferers by the loss of the schooner Euphrosyne. The Mayor is treasurer.

[FROM OUR AUCKLAND CORRESPONDENT.] Auckland, April 19.

A very singular case affecting the administration of the public funds is occupying attention. A sergeant in the Armed Navy Force was employed as clerk at the Waikato, and has brought serious charges of misappropriating against his superior officer. While in office the informant made various memoranda in order to be able to prove the charges of systematic falsification of the accounts. He gave information, when the officer was promptly arrested and searched. He is to-day being tried at Cambridge on a charge of stealing a paper belonging to the Government, namely, the paper on which his memoranda were made. Great interest is felt in the upshot of these extraordinary proceedings, and a searching investigation is demanded from the Government.

The City Council have postponed the consideration of an application for the right to lay down street tramways for six months ; enquiries regarding the success of the scheme elsewhere are to be made meanwhile. A farm laborer named Graham was thrown from his horse on Sunday, and sustained concussion of the brain. He is not expected to recover.

[FROM OUR DUNEDIN CORRESPONDENT.] Dunedin, April 19

The Winton Kingston railway is being pushed forward rapidly. Last week the contractors conveyed by the rail a party of gentlemen from Invercargill, a distance of nearly nine miles along the line as far as the middle of Centre Bush. If the prevailing fine weather lasts Proctor and Whitaker expect to be running a locomotive as far as Daniel’s Crossing on the Oreti in about a month. It is the intention of the Government to open the Awamoko branch railway for freight and traffic by the end of this month, and for passenger traffic as soon as the line is in a fit condition to be passed thereon. Fifteen pence per hour and found was offered to a gang of new chums by the farmers of the Tuapeka district. A dozen of the men struck because a supply of grog was not allowed. The Minister of Justice refuses to interfere with the decision of the Oamaru Bench re the boy Patterson, sent to a reformatory for a year for stealing apples. A public meeting at Lawrence carried resolutions urging the Government to carry out contracts in their entirety. Morrison, one of the principal contractors, has denied the assertions made at the meeting that £2OOO was due to his workmen. He admitted that the sub contractors had allowed the wages to fall into arrears through the delay of the Government in passing certificates. One contractor on the line lost between £4OOO and £SOOO on his contract.

In sentencing Walters, convicted of manslaughter, to fifteen years imprisonment, Judge Prendergast said, “If I gave you a light sentence it would do this harm—men such as butchers and slaughtermen in the daily habit of using such .veapons would be likely to take the lives of their fellow-men under circumstances, when persons not following such occupations would not be held excusable. I feel bound therefore to pass a heavy sentence.” In sentencing Johnston, who returned his age as 43, the Judge said : “ You charge your wife with treachery. She has, I believe, been treacherous, but not to you.

No sentence the Court can pass can adequately express the feelings I have, and all men must have, of your conduct. I am assured your bodily state is such that you are not fit to receive the lash, nor am I sure that sort of punishment is applicable to the case. It is clear you are not fit to be at large. As the law does not allow me to sentence you to penal servitude for life, I shall give you as severe a sentence as I can ; not much short.”