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Hawke's Bay Times, Issue 1634, 4 December 1874, Page 450

An Old Colonists* Association is being started in Southland. Twelve years residence constitutes an old colonist.

At Lawrence, Otago, the concrete roof of the colonnade of the new court house fell in on Friday morning, Ist December, with a great crash. The damage is extensive, and the loss will fall on the contractor.

Ragged children (observes the Christian Record), sometimes coatless, often with bare feet, are seen now in Diuiedin in some of our thoroughfares, notably in Staffordstreet. This sight is a novelty, betokening that some of our recent importations are from the very dregs of great cities. The engineer of the steamer Wallabi (J. Morton) was drowned at the Molyneaux on the 13th instant. He fell whilst stepping from the steamer to the wharf, and leaves a wife and two children. Ha insured his life a few weeks ago for £2OO.

Major Palmer has now completed his his arrangements at the Burnliatn Observatory, Canterbury, and at the substations, for observing the transit of Venus. The sub-stations are five in number, viz., Grahamstown, Auckland, Wellington, Hocky Side (near Dunodin), and Nast-by (Otago). A girl named Cecilia Allan, in the servico of Mr Howard, of the North Shore, whose house was burnt down some ten days ago, was arrested on the charge of incendiarism. She has since made a full confession, from which it appears she has a mania for arson. She has narrated various unsuccessful attempts at fireraising made at different times and places.

A correspondent in an Australian contemporary states:-" The movement for cheap funerals has extended to Sydney, and not before it was required. To such an extent did the mania for expensive burials prevail at one time in New South Wales metropolis that I have heard of a milkman leaving in his will directions that every cab in tlm city ehonhi be hired in order to swell the procession which followed him to the grave. The directions of the madman, for ho could have been nothing else, were carried out to the letter, and the widow aud family were left without a penny." The Invercargill correspondent of the Bruce Herald says :—" Constable Boyd, stationed at Vinton, was brought into the Hospital on Wednesday last, having been severely bruised on the previous evening by being thrown from his horse near to the township of Winton. The occasion of his mishap was a very singular one, and exceedingly difficult of explanation. Shdrtly after seven o'clock in the evening, the night being dark and squally, Constable Boyd, tiavelling towards Winton, and being close to the Meat Preserving Works, observed the outline of a man among the tussocks on the roadside, and shortly after passing him the discharge of of a gun from the spot caused the constable's horse to jump from the road into the drain at the side, when immediately a second shot was fired, at which again the horse plunged and got out, but not without throwing his rider, who was much shaken and bruised, and ultimately, with great difficulty, made his way to the township. No clue is held to the discovery of the man who fired the shots, and no motive can be assigned for the act. The constable is going on very well."