Local Intelligence.

Lyttelton Times, Volume X, Issue 637, 15 December 1858, Page 4

Local Intelligence.

It -lias boon our custom hitherto on euch

anniversary of the settlement to review the progress of the settlement during tho year of its life then closed. This year bur cramped space obliges.us to defer the summary till after the new year, when also statistical information will be in our hands to an exact period. The"last pile of the jetty extension was driven on Saturday, and the whole of'the. contract will be completed in about a week, having occupied little more than half the time-stipulated. This rapidity is due to the exertions of the contractor, Mr. Hughes, who has spared no pains to reduce the inconvenience which the public suffer from the jetty being closed. The old portion of the ietty was only closed for about a month; though the repairs which have to be made on it will necessitate its being shut up for a period after the extension is complete. The length added by the work now nearly finished is about 136 feet, includingthe breadth of the T end, which outlaps the line of the jetty by 16 ft. on each side. The piles stand in rows 16 feet asunder, and are braced together so as to ensure mutual support to the greatest amount. They have been driven into the, bottom by a ram half a ton weight, "arid the upper timbers are of a very massive description, so that strength and permanence is ensured so far as can be provided for by material ; the whole is of V.D.L. stuff. The depth of water at the end is not so great as may have been looked for, as a flat extends in that spot with not more than about 9 feet at low water springs ; and the increase of depth is not proportionate to the extension. With this jetty and Peacock's, the shipping of a certain class will be well served.

I Mr. Robert Lytton, the son of Sir Edward t Lytton has written a letter to the newspapers in I vindication of his father. Lady Lytton was not, I it appears, taken to a lunatic asylum, but to a I "private honse." Mr. Lytton was in constant I communication with her, who carried out the \ injunctions of his father and made every arrangei raent affection could suggest. "My mother is now with me, free from all I restraint, and about, at her own wish, to travel I for a short time, in company with myself and a I female friend and relation of her own selection. I Prom the moment my father felt compelled to I authorise those steps which have been made the f subject of so much misrepresentation, his anxiety I was to obtain the opinion of the most experienced and able physicians, in order that ray I mother should not be subject to restraint for one I moment longer than was strictly justifiable. | Such was his charge to me." \ The challenge of the Americans to back their : great chess-player, \ir. Paul Morphy, a young lawyer of New Orleans, against the well-known English-amateur, Mr.Staunton,for lOQOguiheas, in a match of 21 games, has been accepted by the latter, and the contest is arranged to com; mence at the beginning of September. The' stakes in this encounter are by far the largest ever dependent on the result of a mere trial of j chess skill, and their magnitude, and the sort of 1 national character with which the American press is sure to invest the struggle, will pro- | bably occasion an enormous amount of money | to change hands. t Vice-Admiral Sir Maurice Berkeley, who succeeded to the estates of Earl Fitzhardmge, has petitioned the House of Peers praying that he may take his seat in Parliament as Baron Jierkeley by tenure. This is not the first time a 1 lord of Berkeley Castle has put in his claim. I It has never been admitted nor definitively reI jected, but evaded every time it has been raised. I Thus William, the eldest son of Frederick Earl I of Berkeley, prevented from assuming his c I fathec's title by the decision of the House in I the oreat Berkeley Peerage case, claimed to I sit by tenure. The difficulty was met by crea- | ting him Baron Segrave. .