MISCELLANEA.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume IV, Issue 195, 7 October 1864, Page 2 (Supplement)

MISCELLANEA.

In the list of promotions published in the London Gazette, we omitted to give the following:— Majors Dwyer and Douglas, 14th Regiment, to b e Brevet Lieutenant-Colonels. The former officer has proceeded hence to Wellington, to re-assunie the command of that post; BrevetMajor Leper, lately in command, having retired from the service. Captain and Brevet Lieutenant Colonel Havelock, Baronet, 18th Regiment, now serving as Deputy-Adjutant-Quartermaster-Gene-ral in the colony, has been promoted, by purchase to an unattached majority. Lieutenant Bates, 65th Regiment, lately interpreter to the forces has been promoted, by purchase, to an unattached captaincy.

Troops tor the Colonies.—Wo take the following announcement regarding the disposal of troops in Australia from the Army and Nam/ Gazette'. —“The new military arrangements suggested by the Colonial Office for the nies, exclusive of Row Zealand, have been made public. _ It is proposed to allot in future fifteen companies of infantry', consisting of one entire regiment, and the head-quarters wing of another regiment, in the following proportions:—New South Wales four companies, about 19 officers, 343 men ; Queensland one company, about 3 officers, S 8 men; Victoria five companies, about 22 officers, 4-23 men ; Tasmania, three companies, about II officers, 249 men ; South Australia, two’ companies, about 6 officers, IfiG men ; being a total strength of 132/ of all ranks. The four companies in New South Wales and the single company in Queensland will probably be a wing of a regiment. of which the other wing will be in New Zealand. Another regiment will, in that case, furnish the ten companies in Victoria, Tasmania* and South Australia. The colonists have been asked to contribute payment of £lO per man actually maintained up to this strength; but the scheme still remains uncompleted, owiim to a hitch on the part of the colonial Parliament!” A Peep into the Mails.— An interesting work, the publication of which we recently noticed, styled “Her Majesty’s Mails,” gives some curious instances of addressed letters misspelled, and misdirected, and which are sent to the “Blind Letter Office,” to be directed afresh. The following is an extract from the book : —“ Conveyech lunentick a siliam,” is part of the address of a letter which the sorter no doubt threw away from him with some impatience. The blind officer, however, reads it instantly’, strikes his pen, pt maps, through the address, and writes on the envelope, “ Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum,” and passes it out for delivery. “ Oberne yenen” is seen in an instant to be meant for “Holborn Union.” “isle of Wight” is, in like manner, written on a letter improperly addressed as follows .-—“Ann M—Oilevwhite, Amshire.” The probability is that the lastmentioned letter will come back to the Dead Letter Office, on account of no town being given in the address ; still, the usual course is to send it out to the local district, designated, there bciim always the possibility that certain individuals maybe locally known. “Ashby dc-la-Zouch” is a town to spell which gives infinite trouble to letter writers ; but the post office is especially lenient and patient in cases of this kind. There arc fifly different ways of spelling the name, and few letters, except those of the better classes, give it rightly spelt. “ Hasbo-dellar-such” is the ordinary spelling nmoii" the poor living at a distance. “Ash Bodies in such for Jonn Horsel, grinder, in the country of Lestyshoer,” is a copy of a veritable address meant for the above town. The blind letter officers of an earlier date succumbed before thefollowingletter : For Mister Willy wot brinds the Baber in Lan<rGasterware to gal is,” but the dead letter officers were enabled from the contents to make out that it was meant for the editor of a Lancaster paper, “where the gaol is.” The communication inclosed was an essay written by a foreigner against public schools! The following strange letters, meant for the eye of royalty, would not, wo are told, be impeded in their progress in any way :—“ Keen Vic Tory at Winer Case!,” and another ;—“ Miss Queene Victoria of England,” would go to Windsor Castle without fail; while the following posted in London at the breaking out of the Polish insurrection, would find its way to St. Petersburg as fast as packet could carry it :—“ To the Rum of Rusheya Feorcn, with speed.” The addresses of the letters of the poorer Irish are generally so involved—always being sent to the care of one or two individuals—that they usually present the appearance of a little wilderness of words. As a specimen of the kind of letter referred to, we give our readers a copy of one which actually passed through the post office some time ago, assuring them that though the following is rather an ultra specimen, this kind of minute but indefinite is by no means uncommon among the class referred to; —“ To my sister Bridget, or else to my brother Tim Burke, in care of the Praste, who lives in the parish of Balcumburry in Cork, or if not, to some dacent neighbor in Ireland .” The English poor oftener, as we have already seen, show their unbounded confidence in the sagacity of the officers of the post office by leaving out some essential part of the address of a letter, but very seldom writing too much. We once saw a letter addressed as follows : —“ Mary H , a tall woman with two children,” and giving the name of a large town in the West of England. The Scotch people, as a rule, attain the golden mean, and exhibit the greatest care in such matters. Nor can we wonder at this.. The poorer classes are certainly better educated, and whilst seldom profuse in their letters, they are cautious enough not to leave anything of consequence unwritten. The statistics of the dead letter offices of the three countries confirm, to so me considerable extent, our rough generalizations.

Picton Bakers. —The Press of the 17th inst., says:—“The bakers in Picton have had a ‘variance.’ Ten days ago the four pound, or say the three pouud tou ounce loaf, was selling at one and sixpence, then it dropped to one and threepence, and now it is sold for the silver shilling, much to the delight of all mater and pater familiasos with largo families of small cnildreu to provide with the staff’ of life. When rogues fall out honest men come by their own. This is not intended to have the most remote reference to bakers in particular or general. The proverb crossed our minds at the moment and we committed it to paper.”

Sale or Ngartjawahia.— The sale of the first portion of confiscated territory in the Waikato took place, says the Cross, on the Bth instant, at the Land Mart of Mr. Samuel Cochrane, and we need hardly say that Ngaruawahia, or Newcastle, as it has now been called, at the junction of the Waipa and Waikato rivers, was the site offered for public competition. So much has been said about its central position and the great commercial advantages which are attached to this place, that it is unnecessary to dwell upon them here. The public wore fully alive to the importance of the sale, for the attcndence was the largest wo have seen at any public sale in Auckland yet. Noon was the hour fixed for the sale, and at that time, with a largo audience Mr. Cochrane prepared to commence, but the proceedings wore rather singularly interrupted. A Maori woman came forward and protested against the sale. She was well dressed after the English fashion, with a scarlet cloak and bonnet, and in a good and clear voice, and very fluently, she read a pi’otest in Maori, against the sale of the land. When she had concluded, her husband (a European) got up and read a translation of the protest, to the effect that it was a protest against the sale of the township of Ngaruawahia, bounded by the Waipa and Horotiu rivers, and further particularizing the boundaries, and setting forth that it belonged to this woman and to her sons, and to her daughters, who had always been peaceful subjects of the Queen ; that the land was secured to them by the treaty of Waitangi: that if the sale went on contrary to this protest she would appeal to the Queen, her great chief. The man who read this proclamation certified that it was a true one, and then handed it over to Mr. Cochrane, who gave the most effective reply he could give to it, by at once reading over the conditions of the sale, and, after answering a few queries put to him by intending purchasers, commenced the business by the usual prelude of, “Gentlemen, what shall t say for the first lot ?” But a very sligh t invitation was required. From the first, the bidding was more spirited than we have seen it at any land sale before, and No. 1 lot, Ir. Up., was knocked down for £127 10s. This was a choice one, no doubt, the lowest corner one opposite the junction, but still there were not a few who were not prepared to see it even fetch so much. But this was but moderate compared with the price which lot 30 fetched, viz., £325 for Ir. 3p., or in round numbers about £1,200 an acre. Discovery of a Moa’s Ego at the Kai Koras. —There is at the present time being exhibited at Messrs. Bethuno & Hunter’s stores, for the benefit of the curious, an object of no less interest than the egg of a Moa—another relic of the rara avis of New Zealand. The egg is of itself an object of no common interest to ordinary people, but it must be still more so to those who watch narrowly the development of natural history in its relations to this colony, and the circumstances connected with the finding are calculated to lend a still greater, not to say a romantic, interest to it. It appears from what we '.earn from Captain Davidson of the schooner ‘ Ruby’ which trades between this port and the Koi Koras, that a man in Mr. Fvffe’s employment at the latter place was digging the foundation of a house, and when on the side of a small mound he suddenly came upon the eg" in question, and the skeleton of a man—supposed, of course, to be a Maori. The body had evidently been buried in a sitting posture, and the egg must have been placed in the hands, as when found the arms were extended in such a manner as to bring it immediately opposite the mouth of the deceased. This, it is assumed, was in accordance with the Maori custom, and was done for the purpose of giving the individual who was buried an opportunity of sustaining himself if lie thought proper, or if, in the course of things, lie required sustenance. Between the legs of the skeleton were found numerous tools cut from green-stone, including a spear, axe, and several implements which would lead to the belief (bat the man to whom the bone# belonged to must have been in some way or other connected with the wood trade—that is to say, if carpenters, cabinet-makers, &c., flourished in his time. All the bones were in excellent preservation, one arm and hand being entirely without blemish. The skull boro evidence of its proprietor having some time or the other received some hard knocks, probably in the battle field while taking his partin some of those terrific encounters which are supposed to have taken place in ancient times. Unfortunately', before the man who was digging discovered the natural treasure the implement be was using came in contact with the shell and broke a small piece out of the side of it, but the fragments have been carefully preserved and might readily be fitted into the aperture. Tho egg itself is about lOin. in length, and 7in. in breadth, tho shell being of a dirty brownish color and rather better than tho thickness of a shilling coin. Tho inside is perfectly clear and free from all traces of decayed matter. From what Capt Davidson tells us we should suppose that tho ground where this relic was discovered must have been used as a cemetery at some distant period of the past, as Mr. Fyffe had previously found some interesting Maori emblems about the same place, but none of the natives about there—and some of them, we are informed, have arrived at very mature ages—have the slightest recollection of even having heard as a matter of history that any of their ancestors had found a final resting place in that particular locality. £SOO has already been offered, “in several places,” as the auctioneers would say, and refused, but we believe we are correct in staling that it is not the proprietor’s intention to part with this very interesting relic of what is generally supposed to be an extinct New Zealand wonder. —New Zealand Advertiser, September 27.