NEWS OF THE DAY.

Globe, Volume IX, Issue 1095, 2 January 1878, Page 2

NEWS OF THE DAY.

City G-uards. A general meeting will be held on Thursday evening after the parade. Lyttelton Building Society.—A supplementary meeting to receive subscriptions will be held on Friday. Railway Servants Society.—A meeting of the Eailway Servants' Mutual Benefit Society will be held in the old Oddfellows' Hall on Thursday, at 8 o'clock p.m. City Council.—The usual meeting of the City Council, adjourned from Monday in conwauence of being New Year's Ere, will take place thie evening at 7 o'clock.

Nabbow Escape.—One of the guards of the railway, named William Williams, had a narrow escape yesterday during the run through the tunnel. When the train was in motion, and when he was passing from one carriage to another, he was pushed off the end platform. Wonderful to relate he escaped with some severe bruises. He was taken to Christchurch. Luck.—Another remarkable instance of good fortune is thus told by the " Cromwell Argus " : —By some means a well-known resident at Clyde in the hotel business came to hear of a legacy being due to, but hitherto unclaimed by, a person named Purcell, and the result was that it came to light that he was the legatee. As the story goes, the sum of £9OOO Jias, since 1852, been lying at the Bank of England awaiting Mr Purcell's pleasure, so that, with interest accruing during the past twenty-five years, the fortune must have increased to very handsome proportions. Mr Purcell with his friend of Clyde has started for Home to realise his windfall of wealth.

Game Laws.—The following letter appears in a recent issue of the " Taranaki Herald":— With regard to the game law, I would have four months for what is usually called game, for all persons other than the occupiers of land, or their families, or persons bona fide in their employ working such land, Let any person introduce and have a property in any wild animal or bird other than vermin he may put on his own land or on any other he may be allowed, as long as he keeps them there ; but directly he fails in this, other occupiers should do as they like with them on their own land, and it is monstrous that in a young and free country like this it should be otherwise. Can it be either equitable or just that any man or set of men should be allowed to force me to keep on my land what is injurious to me. I see by clause 7 of the Game Law that it vests all animals or birds (not indigenous), with their increase for three years, as the property of any Acclimatisation Society turning them loose. I scarcely jknow which is most disgraced—the representatives in the General Assembly for allowing such an arbitrary clause like that to be put on the ' Statute Book, or the occupiers of the land for ' quietly submitting to it. Such a clause is more fitting for serfs than for freeholders of land, as eight-tenths of the farmers in this district are. It iB a very favorite theme with non-occupiers of land—" see what good the pheasants do you." I admit they do some good, but so do flocks of turkeys, fowls, and ducks, and yet we do not turn them into our crops or gardens. Fatality at Kttmaea.—An inquest was lately held before Mr Price, coroner, at Kumara, on the body of Henry Gibbons, who met with his death by falling down a shaft at Kumara. The verdict of the jury was " accidental death," in accordance with the circumstances thus narrated in the local paper—- " The accident occurred at the claim on the Larrikin's known by the name of the Lucky Hit. The claim is worked by means of a tank which being alternately filled and emptied raises and lowers an iron cage. The deceased was a wages man, and had been working at the bottom of the shaft. For some reason or other he desired to go the surface, and for this purpose ascended the ladder, which is placed at the side of the shaft. It is usual, when any of the men are about to use the ladder, for them to pull a wire communicating with a hammer on the platform to which the cage is raised, where the man who regulates the ascent and descent of the cage stands. The unfortunate man Gibbons omitted to do this, and no one appears to have been aware that he was on the ladder. From his own statement it is ascertained that when he was within four or five feet of the top of the ladder, the cage came down, as it always does with gradually accelerating speed, and struck him on the head and precipitated him to the bottom of the shaft, a distance of between fifty and sixty feet. Several of his ribs were broken, the ends protruding ; one of his ankles were fractured; and he was otherwise dreadfully bruised and mangled, as if he had struck against timber as he fell. He died shortly after the doctor had examined him. Deceased was a middle aged man, and leaves a wife and nine children, in very poor circumstances. Collections are being made towards liquidating the expenses of his funeral, and providing for the immediate wants of his family." Small Faem Association. —The Hawera correspondent of the " Taranaki News" writes :—" The Small Farm Association considers itself to be badly treated by your Waste Lands Board. When it was known that the Mangawhero block was unsuitable, the chairman was directed to telegraph and secure a block as close as possible to the available land in the Whereroa block, already set apart for the association. But no definite information could be procured from New Plymouth. At last two blocks on either side of the Mountain road were positively mentioned. The chairman applied for both of these in the name of the association, and soon after received a telegram stating that the Board had decided to dispose of but 7000 acres of these two blocks, and that Messrs Weston and Co. had a priority of claim over that, they having sent in their application on the previous Saturday. To outsiders it looks as if the Board bestowed its favors chiefly on New Plymouth men, and left others out in the cold. In proof of this it is said that Mr A. C. Fookes, of New Plymouth, got land at 20s per acre, while Mr Christie, of Patea, has to pay 255; that Messrs Bayly and Skcot, of New Plymouth, got land at 20s per acre, while Messrs Gane Brothers, of Patea, get none at all. Again, Messrs Weston and Co., of New Plymouth, obtain the first refusal of the only land the Board will dispose of, whilst the Kctemarae Small Farm Association, whose members number 200, and which had publicly announced its intention of applying for a block long before Mr Christie did so, is completely burked. For this reason people here are agitating in favour of a separate Waste Lands Board, or of the power of administering the lands being vested in the County. It is felt here that definite information respecting lands is hard to be obtained, whilst persons residing in New Plymouth know just what the Board intends to do, and can order their steps accordingly." J