Interprovincial Items.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 16, Issue 805, 18 July 1870, Page 3

Interprovincial Items.

We learn from the Evening Post that a rather smart shock of earthquake was felt in Wellington at about 20 minutes to 3 on the mornir:g of the 7th July. It was suf ficiently vi.lent to awaken all whose slumbers were not unusually profound, and was preceded and followed by a loud rumbling noise. It appeared to be entirely local. A return recently laid on the table of the House of Representatives shows that the Maori population of the North Island amounts to 34,500. A man named Andrew M'Masters committed suicide ou tho 4th inst. by hanging himself on a cabbage tree oh Mr Vallance's station at Masterton. An inquest was held on the body on the sth inst., when a verdict of "temporary insanity" was returned. By our Nelson files we observe that though the resolution favoring the Government .financial proposals was passed by a show of hands, the feeling of the meeting was in the opposite direction, a large number having abstained from voting. The Examiner truly remarks that " resolutions go by votes," and that " those who did not vote at the meeting have no right to complain afterwards."

The following telegram, dated Nelson, July 13, appears in the Evening Post:— " Splendid news from Oollingwood. The steamer brought this morning 174 ounces retorted gold, the result of 50 tons from the Perseverance Company's mine."

The number of tekgraph posts carried away in the Oainaru district during the recent floods is stated by the Herald to have been seventy-six.

At a meeting of the Philosophical S( jciefy, at Wellington, on the 9th July, i discussing the preparation of flax in cor nection with the Commissioners, Dr. He{ tor said the samples of machine-dressei flax were far inferior to the Maori dressed or that dressed by chemical means. At; recent trial, nearly every sample of ma chine-dressed equalled the Manila it strength, while the Maori dressed wai nearly double. Mr Macfarlane said th< Commissioners thought machine-dressec flax, without a chemical process, would not prove marketable. The Maoris have a particular time of the year for cutting for dressing.