Untitled

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 16, Issue 877, 26 November 1870, Page 2

An Adelaide telegram, in a Melbourne paper, sajs that the Assembly has granted an amount not exceeding £2,000 as a bonus for the culture and manufacture of flax. It is to be at the disposal of the Government, who are empowered to offer a premium of £lO per ton for the first 100 tons of flax hereafter grown and manufactured in the colony, and which shall, when dressed, be of not less value than £3O per ton. The Cornwall Advertiser notes that a singular phenomenon was observed recently at G-eorge Town and Low Head. During a very fine clear day when there was not a cloud in the 6ky, a loud peal of thunder was heard at both the places named, and without any premonitory signs of the event. Three youths, half-castes, were sentenced by the Resident Magistrate at Invercargill to two years' penal servitude in the Dunedin Industrial .Reformatory, for having committed a series of shocking criminal assaults upon a little girl at the Biulf, some few davs ago. The boys were from eleven to fifteen years of age, and behaved with horric| cruelty towards their victim, a child of only six or seven years. The little girl, who is an orphan, was out in search of a calf, at some little distance from the bou?e of her guardians, when she was set upon by the young ruffians. The Invercargill press is indignant at the leniency of the punishment. [Jt will be seen by a telegram in another column thut the introduction of these boys into the Reformatory has caused great dissatisfaction, and that already they have , evil influence.] -