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Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 17, Issue 958, 4 March 1871, Page 2

The Auckland provincial Government recently made the cricketers of that city a substantial present in the shape of a handsome iron roller, "weighing over 22 cwt.

The following is from the "Western. Daily Mercury:—Yesterday we received. by balloon post a copy of Le Soir; consisting of four pages, of six columns each, photographed on a small piece of paper three inches and a half by iwo. and a half, including the surrounding margins. The photograph is beautifully executed, but it requires eyes as sharp as a needle to read the contents of the paper through a powerful microscope. It comprises not onl} r all the news of the day from the interior of Paris, but the ordinary feuilleton, which is an, indication that the Parisians are still able to enjoy a little light reading. The envelope bears upon it a good republican stamp, the Paris postmark of the 4th December, and the Plymouth postmark of the 12th, but there is no other mark to indicate where the balloon fell, or the town from which the letter came. As a curiosity this little intellectual effort of a besieged people will hereafter be regarded with much interest. This is the first number of Le Soir which we have received since the investment of Paris in September last. Ic is the paper in which articles of M. Edrnond About appeared v, hen the fortunes of war left him in a position to write them.

The writer from " Under the. Veran? dah" in the Melbourne Leader thus mourns the declension of squatocracy : —The old race of squatters is almost extinct. Nearly station is held in the name of a banker, a moneylender, or a squatting agent. The jovial fellows, who in days gone by used to haunt Scott's and the Melbourne Club, who drove foui-in hand and tandem, drank champagne and moselle and took fine houses for the summer at B» ighton and St,, Kilda are now rubbed out. They have either sought the remote solitudes of Queensland, Fiji, or a back block, or el?»e they are overseers on the stations which were once their own. I suppose the country is the; gainer by the change, but there were good qualities among the shepherd kings. They weie men of thews and sinews, practised a rough hospitality, and in their own way were not devoid of generosity. But the world has growq too civilised for them, and, like the; aborigines whom they have they have almost died out.

The Freeman says that how Irishmen and Irishwomen in New Zealand sympathise with their friends and relations in the old country, is exemplified by the fact that during the year 1870 the large stun of <£43,o<>o was remitted to various parts of Ireland by Irish colonists, the whole of such remittances being in small amounts. Three fourths of the gender* were women At Paroa, Westland, the Mim of £394 16s has been collected in aid of the French Patriotic Relief Fund. Mr Gouland, of Auckland, writing to the TSew Zealand Herald on the subject of the Protection League, says .-—That important class of the community, the laborer, does not enter much into the calculations of the protectionist league. He wi'l certainly have to pay some paltry halfpenny extra for his loaf, but then he will in return obtain, more constant employment. He lands in New Zealand without a shilling in his pocket, and immediately shoulders his share of the public burden to an equal extent with the owner of thousands of broad acres, or the flockmaster with his tens of thousands of sheep, or the grinding usurer with his thousands of gold. The first money he earns he buys a blanket with, and thus pays his first obligation, by giving so much more for it than it is really worth! What saith this man, who conjointly with mother earth is the pabulum which ihe heterogenous multitude of brain workers directly or indirectly subsist upon; he who, being the weakest, has the gieatest claim to be protected, but not by prohibiting a iree importation of the same article, not by any legal interference between him and his employer, but by maintaining to him his just right of purchasing the nece-saries of life in the cheapest market.

The Auckland Star savs that a statement has been made by John Cash, before the Provincial Council of Auckland, that he obtained, while prospecting on the "West Coast of the Island, as much a 3 one and two ounces of gold to the dipfa. It is stated in one of the Auckland papers that the Colonial Prize Firing ■will probably not commence until the 13th March, at One Tree Hill.

The following news items are from a late Ljttelton Times: —Grain is now coming rapidly to hand from all parts of the province. As an instance it may be stated that yesterday one train arriving from the South had twenty-two trucks, each containing sixty bags of grain.—Black Swans have made their appearance in the Waimakariri, of Kaiapoi. A captain of one of the vessels tying at the wharf captured one of them yesterday some distance down the river, and brought it up to the town. —A second rope and twine manufactory has been started in the city. Mr James Rowan is the owner of the works, which is situate in Madras s*ieet near the Railway Station. —Mr Andrew Duncan has imported a grass seed cleaner to be worked by steam power and also the necessary engine.

An anecdote, which speaks well for the generosity of the French soldiers, is reported from Orleans, in the Bulletin de Bieniaisance, which is being regularly published in the Courier de l'Europe. Nearly all the wounded at Orleans are, of course, French ; indeed, it may be seen that they are all Fiench except a few Bavarians. They are suffering, for the most part, with fever, rheumatism, and frost bites ; and their suffering.? have been extensively mitigated by the supplies sent out Irom London by the " Sonscription Franchise," by the help of which they have been enabled f o receive not only medicines but other comforts, such &< books, newspapers, and cigars, which have been distributed to them through Miss Pearson and other ladies working in the ambulances of Bishop Dupanfoup. It appears that at first these comforts, and especially the tabac, consolation supreme, were supplied to the French alone, the objects of the "Souscription Franchise" being limited to the relief of sufferers of that nation only. The other day, however, on seeing the poor Bavarians sitt'ng huddled in a corner, and looking wistfully at the cigars, the Frenchmen •' came forward as one man, and demanded that the distribution should be so managed as to include the poor Bavarians, leurs exennemis" Their demand was readily complied with.

I A Parliamentary leturn just issued shows that 31 slavp vessels'were captured on the East Coast of Africa between the 10th February and the 27th | May lust year, by which 1,102 slaves obtained their release.