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Hawke's Bay Times, Volume XIII, Issue 569, 16 April 1868, Page 3

Miss Auxin Mebtox,—Wu observe from our files that Miss Annie Merton was performing at the T heat ro Ixoyal, Christchurch, The Uecext Fexiax Demoxstratiox ix Hokitika.—The leading Sydney journal, in its issue of 23rd March, sns : 1 The account < f a ridiculous demonstration; recently made at Hokitika, on the VCcst Coast of Hew Zealand, on behalf of the Fenian murdesers at .Manchester, has been received in Sydney with general contempt and disgust. 'The chief ad or in the miserable farce was a Unman Catholic priest recently stationed in Queensland.

i s at FOR PoSTiIAS. TEIiS. —Letters sometimes go astray. No wonder, when they are addressed as one which lately fell into our hands discloses. Even an overworked post office dork must grin a ■ghastly smile at such an address as the following ; ’ had'd)' Mahoy, Post-office, New Zealand. At first we thought the sender was hailing some Irish friend in nautical style, and meant to have written “ Paddy ahoy,” hut on second consideration we concluded that the letter had been intended to bo hoe, being a part of that district. New Zealand Herald. A Inter issue of the same journal gives the following as another specimen : To the fairy man Mr Charles Ludwig port Wicato Eggs. Effects of Protection in America.— The present condition of the United States is anything but a flourishing one. Tho New York correspondent of the Times thus describes ir ;— l! There are at present j 50,000 men out of employment in New i York, there is a complete stagnation in all the trades, and there is general poverty and destitution among tho laboring classes. Armies of the unemployed crowd tha docks and wharves, fill the employment offices, and flock to the few situations that oiler. Of the 4000 jewellers in New York 1500 are unable to find work ; 1000 out of 2500 jowellery-boi*iuakers and 300 out SOO diamond-setters are idle; and of 3000 other persons employed in different branches of the jewellery trade nearly 2000 are adrift. There are 000 engravers in New York who are seeking employment, and but 200 can get it. There are 6000 carpenters, of whom 500 are idle, and 1000 working for half-wages ; tho masons and bricklayers arc nearly all employed but cannot work more than half their time ; tho 10,000 people in the hat trades are employed from one to three days in the week for small wages, the employers thinking this better than the discharge of one-half or two-thirds of them ; the iron trades employ but one-fifth of their force a year ago, and 5000 iron workers are idle; in ship building dullness reigns supreme, and the ship carpenters, in despair, have long since sought other employment; onejhalfoftho 8000 cigar makers are without j employment ;of t>ooo stevedores or navivies, 4200 are without regular work; I among the clerks and other assistants in I business houses and retail shops, the destitution is sorrowful, and at least 5000 of them arc wandering idly about the streets; j of house servants, a class that is constantly |reinforced by emigration, 3000 want places, j Tills gives an idea of tho condition of I affairs in tho metropolis,—and the rule i there prevails everywhere. Philadelphia, Ithe leading manufacturing city, has 25,003 j idle working people. Erom Baltimore, | Boston. Chicago, Cinema? i, St. Louis, a I similar report comes, and from the South Ithe unfortunate condition of tho blacks, jwho will not work when they got it, an€l | now without the chance to work if they would, is the constant theme of all our intelligence. In the agricultural regions of the North, there is not the same destitution that prevails in the cities, and there jis more chance of procuring labor, so that unemployed of tho cities are urged to go 'j to the country. They will starve if they I remain, and may belter their condition if i they go.”

Matches v. Fihe,—the following letter appears in a late issue of the Otago Daily limes : —“ Sir, —Pray do the public a kindness by permitting me to record the following incident through your columns;—This morning my father was doing a little carpentering in a room separated from the kitchen by a partition, against which, on the kitchen side, are ehelrcs for placing dishes &a. There was a heavy hammering and thou a crash. I looked round, and to my astoni-hment, in the middle of a debris ot broken crockery, which had fallen from 'the upper shelf upon the dresser under them, simultaneously there was a whizzing noise and a blaze of lire rushing up to nearly a yard in height. I ran forward jwith a lamp towel, which I had in my 'hand, and soou extinguished the sudden iconflagration. And what was this, Mr j Editor, but one of the reserve boxes of i matches which had for safety (?) been j placed on the uppermost shelf, and coming mown with the muss of dishes, ignited p'rom more conctuion. It fell ju-t by a ;lamp which bad been filled with korosmo (shortly before ; and, moreover, tiro two | wails (it nccurcd in a corner) and the (shelves were within a few inches of the .blaze. Hail the lamp been disturbed, as I miraculously it was not, and no one by, 'verily my damp towel would not have (been much account. The occurrence (carries its own warning. I would merely I remark, is there no importer in Dunedin 'enterprising—shall 1 say philanthropic—lenousih to introduce the safety matches (into Otago which we hear from every new (the common match so fraught with danger (both to life and properly? If they are |already in the Provm.ee, why is it not (announced by advertisement, that everybody might get them as I am sure everyjbody would?—l am, &c.—Vesta.”

The Late Drown inh of the Bishop of Gtiafto - . —The following telegram, dated 18ib March, appears in the Sydney Morning Herald : —“ The funeral of the late Bishop of Grafton and sou took place ;to day ; all public bodies walking iu tiout lof tno jiearse The sympathy lelt is uni--1 versa!. There were at least 1000 persona [present. It was the largest procession ever seen in Grafton. The inquest is adjourned until to-morrow.”