Local Intelligence.

Lyttelton Times, Volume IX, Issue 552, 17 February 1858, Page 5

Local Intelligence.

A paragraph inadvertently admitted under the commercial heading in our impression of Saturday last calls for immediate contradiction. We have the best authority for saying that not only is the accommodation offered by the bank to shippers of wool not restricted, but that the rate of advance this season greatly exceeds what it has ever been before. We are glad to be able to state' this fact in distinct terms as otherwise flockmasters, adopting their impressions from the previous report, might be needlessly alarmed. We can add that, as appears on the following up of our enquiries, wool growers are perfectly satisfied with the terms offered by the bank.

We are much indebted to our correspondent of to-day who corrects Our remarks about the coals of the Planet steairier. We were not aware that our observations struck a blow at the Australian coal-trade; but if we said anything that can properly be construed into an unfair comparison of Newcastle in New South Wales •with Newcastle in Northumberland we really regret it. Our correspondent's information as to the quality of the coal used by the Planet is quite correct, and we beg to assure him that we do not look upon it as a sample of the produce of the colony. At Bangiora about three weeks ago a severe hailstorm destroyed a large quantity of wheat, barley, and potatoes. The potato tops were quite cut off, but are growing again. : The grain, escaping only where still green, was broken in the straw, and a succeeding North-Wester scat-. tered and flattened it, as if a mob of cattle had passed bvef the" fields'.-' '■• The- hailstones were of enormous size and of a conical shape. The storm appears to have been quite local, as no harm whatever was done at • a few miles distance. The accounts received state that the injury sustained by many of the settlers at Bangiora amounts to a total loss of the year's harvest.

The theatre on Monday evening was tolerably well filled to witness the performance of three farces, the Bough Diamond, Bachelor's Buttons, and Mary White. The last was the piece of the evening. All the performers therein were excellent; but Mr. Mordaunt has so completely made the character of Jacob Brown his own and enacts it with such decided success that he obtained by far the greater share of attention and applause from the audience. We cannot pass over Mr. Poulter's feminine behaviour as representing a lady; the audience would we are sure be well pleased if Mrs. Foley always cast her subordinate female parts so well. Mr. Poulter also played a good ' Sam' in Bachelor's Buttons. There was nothing novel in the performances of the others, nor in the proceedings of the evening except that the house paid Mrs. Foley the deserved and with them the unusual compliment of a call before the curtain at the end of Mary White. The harvest goes on under far from favourable auspices. A most lamentable deficiency in agricultural labour has raised the price of harvest work to a figure utterly incompatible with the market value of grain. Wheat may be said to be worth 4s. as soon as thrashed out; but acre, upon acre is ripening which for all that the growers will gain by it may never come to market at all. Fifty shillings per acre, with beer, for reaping, has been offered and refused, and fifty-five shillings scarcely forms a temptation. It seems that machinery will be the only resource of the farmer. It is odd, at the same time, that no sufficient cause can be advanced for the scarcity of labour. Those men who are in the employ of Government on the Public Works receive only seven shillings a day, while they might double and treble that sum, if they were worth anything, at the harvest. We look eagerly for an infusion of agricultural labour for succeeding years. Melancholy as the present prospects are to farmers, there can be no doubt that labour will be every year more largely required for the cultivation of the soil. The Resident Magistrate's extended Court opened for the fourth quarterly sitting yesterday. The business transacted was of a character not sufficiently important to displace other matter at the hour at which the proceedings terminated.