The Kumara Times. Published Every Evening. MONDAY, JANUARY 14, 1884.

Kumara Times, Issue 2302, 14 January 1884, Page 2

The Kumara Times. Published Every Evening. MONDAY, JANUARY 14, 1884.

Latest cablegrams from Hong-Kong are to the effect that war is virtually declared between China and France. The Chinese Viceroy has issued a proclamation at Canton, the nearest place of great commercial importance to Tonquin, that vigorous resistance will be used against the French pretensions in Tonquin. All hopes of a peaceful settlement of the Tonquin question as between France and China have been abandoned. It is understood that the French have already formed designs for an attack in force upon Canton, and it is expected that a movement thither will shortly be made by large naval and military forces. It is also reported that an advance upon Bacninh will be made by the French army in Tonquin. The Returning Officer for the Borough elsewhere notifies that Messrs R. J. Seddon, George Stewart, and H. Burger have retired as candidates for the office of Councillor, to fill an extraordinary vacancy, to which they wete nominated on December 29, 1883. The Rev. Father O'Donnell, lately stationed at Christchurch, and who has been drafted to the Ahaura station, arrived by the Christchurch coach on Saturday afternoon. He celebrated Mass at St. Patrick's Church at nine o'clock yesterday morning, and preached a sermon at the eleven o'clock Mass. In the afternoon he proceeded to Greymouth, where in the evening he celebrated vespers at St. Mary's Church. Mr Gordon, Government Mining Engineer, arrived in Greymouth last Friday, and next day went out with Mr Butler to the Meehans Flat track, extending from Limestone through Meehans to the New River. To-day he purposes coming over the track from Camerons to Cape Terrace. At the Resident Magistrate's Court, Christchurch, this morning, George Augustus Munyard was charged with obtaining money under false pretences by giving a cheque for 30s on a bank where he had no account. He was sentenced to six months' hard labour. A deadlock occurred between the miners at Taylorville and Government on Saturday. Commissioner Greenfield, for the second time, offered by auction the leases of a number of sections on the railway reserve, on which the coal miners have been squatted for years, but the miners were combined and not a single bid was made. The rent of the sections would average about one shilling per week each, which the miners say is too much. They want to purchase the freehold, but Government declined to sell. Mr Alfred Saunders, the well-known New Zealand colonist and politician, and who announces himself as "An Englishman many years resident in New Zealand," has just issued through Messrs Sampson, Low, Marston and Co., "A Practical Poultry Book for England and New Zealand," entitled "Our Domestic Birds." The Home papers unhesitatingly declare this work " worth any dozen of the best on the subject," and add that "Mr Saunders not only knows what he writes about, but is able to make his readers understand as well." He says in his preface: "In practical and explicit directions that will enable any person to keep fowls with profit, to command an ample number of eggs at all seasons of the year, a cheap, constant, and excellent supply of poultry for the table, and to rear with certainty the young of every description of domestic poultry, we have earnestly aimed to make this work at least as complete as any other in the English language, and have certainly given the full details of a practice which our experience has proved more effectual than any we have ever seen or read of." Independent of j>i>i:ih-y. tin; bonk is worth reading f.>r the i i!ifHL-i; ; ;i!.iuii it, co:it;iins on food-digesting, j hereditary inllueuces, ami evolution, I