WAIROA.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 19, Issue 1328, 20 May 1872, Page 2

WAIROA.

["FBOM OTTB OWN COBBESPON DENT."] Clyde, May li»>, The commencement of a letter, like the* starting of a locomotive, requires the engine, or quill-driver, to give a few minutes undivided attention at first,, turn on the steam, and then sit quietlydown while his steam, or intellectual' power, carrie* him away through various scenes and many phases of doings.. My journey on this occasion is likely to be a brief one. Little or nothing of moment has taken place here since my last, if T except perhaps a semi-dramatic-entertaiument given ou Saturday last for the purpose ot aiding the Sunday school. The Court-house was well tilled on the occasion, and the audience indulgent. I do not wish to depreciate elforts made in a good cause and to answer a benevolent purpose; hence I will describe the entertainment as successful, which it certainly vas, affording some £Q or <£7 to the school fund. The Rev. Mr. Morice, of Napier,, preached his farewell sermon here on Sunday morning last. He is, I understand, about proceeding to England, Clyde appears to be erased from theplaces to be visited in the list of theclergymen of the Established Church. It is now some nine months, I think,, since Archdeacon Williams was here, and although ministers of other denominations occasionally visit us, the advent of a pastor of Uie Church of England; has been looked for in vain. Truly,, we have an able substitute in the person of Dr. Boyd,, who- labors, hard audi devotedly in his vocation, and enunciates naught but sound Christian doctrine, but Church of England peoplehave a leaning to their own forms and' modes of worship, to which they have been brought up and. accustomed. Nothing further has transpired regarding. Te Koot i's whereabouts-.. Captains Ferris, A.C., and Preece, s N.Z.M. v are still in. pursuit, somewhere awav in. the recesses of the. inland. Alohaka, country.

A zoological curiosity was picked up» try the Isle of Prance, whaler,,on herlast cruise off the Australian coast. It was the tail part of the body of what resembled a snake, but neither Captain or his officers were able to make- out what it was. The captain, handed the specimen,, which, is upwards- of fifteen feet in length, to the Hon. Dr Crowther,-, who informs us (Hobart Town that he sent it by the Southern. Cross, yesterdav en route to England to hesubmitted to Mr W. H. Flower, F.K.S ~ Conservator of the Royal College of Surgeons, for his opinion and. delineation. We learn from a late Auckland?paperthat the works at Point Britomait areprogressing steadily, bat a con-side reduction in the number of men employed has been made, in consecprenceof instructions having been received from the Government, directing that, the extreme end of the point should be first levelled down to the sea-wall before other operations were proceeded with ; and as thirty men were all that could be fully employed upon the limited area, a large number of laborers' had?. to be discharged. It is expected that no increase in the numlier of workmen is likely to he required during thewinter. The burning of Chicago and the sufferings of its inhabitants liave evoked;, a response of munificent charity on thepart of the British people, no less a. sum than ,£160,000 having been* forwarded as the expression* of England's sympathy witli the desolation that has fallen upon the Queen of tlte West. With reference to the Alabama claims, an important declaration has been made in the Imperial Parliament by Mr Gladstone, indicating, that England's honor will not be humiliated by concession to the absurd claims thathave been based on the Washington Ti eaty. The usual annual boat-race between Cambridge and Oxford has again been won bv the former crew—this time by a length and a-half. Some people seem to have no idea of the proper limitations of their own authority. They tyrannise to the uttermost point of endurance on the part of their unhappy victims.