MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Volume II, Issue 61, 28 November 1863, Page 1 (Supplement)

MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS.

Dunstan v. Mount Bengeb.—The rivalry of the Dunstan and Mount Benger Goldfields, appear to be productive of scheming and intrigue, if we are to believe a correspondent at the latter mentioned field, who writes as follows:—" The good folk at the Dunstan are so anxious to keep our popular and much respected Warden amongst them, and fearing the movement recently started here may be successful and result in his return, they have resorted to a most unworthy means of increasing the importance of their own field in the eyes of the Government, and at the same time, of depreciating Mount Benger. Your readers must have noticed the small amount of gold sent from this field by the Escort of the 28th ult, particularly when compared with the high figures which have appeared of late. The papers accounted for this sudden decline in various ways, but the right account of the matter has only just been made known, and I would not venture to publish it if I had not the very best authority for so doing. We have a Sub-Dunstan bank agency here, and it appears that by the Ev>cort of the above date, a large amount of gold went from this to the Dunstan, which did not appear in the returns as coming from Mount Benger, but which was placed to the credit of the Dunstan field, thereby swelling their returns and sadly reducing ours. Upon my informant asking the reason tor this dodge, he was told to " mind his own business." Can there be a shadow of a doubt regarding the motive ? Was it not to magnify the Dunstan, and leave Mount Benger with small credit, without its Warden i and with the stigma on its name of being too \ poor to warrant the constant presence of a full staff of Government officials ? It is a well known i and indisputed fact, that within the last few weeks some hundreds of ounces of gold have been sent from this place to the Dunstan by private hands—the said gold being at the same time the property cf the Bank. What is the reason of this ?— 'Daily Timet."

In reference to the annexation of the Wakatip district to Southland, the News says:—To carry out such a measure successfully, we ought to be prepared for a hard fight, as it is not for one moment to be imagined that Otago will give up this, the richest of her possessions, without a keen struggle. Of the benefit of such a project to £ll concerned, with perhaps the exception of Otago, there cannot be a doubt. The miners themselves are sensible of the awkward position in which they would have found themselves placed during the continuance of the late stormy winter, had not Southland stepped in to their relief. In fact, had they been dependent on the communication with Dunedin, they must either have been forced to desert their claims, or remain on the ground at the risk of being starved. On the other hand, Southland has kept open communication with their district at a very heavy expense, without deriving any direct benefit from their labours ; and at a very great sacrifice she his entered upon arrangements to place that communication on a footing which will provide facilities that few colonial goldfields can command. If virtue remains in the doctrine of the sacred teacher —the laborer is worthy of his hire —Southland has set up a good and valid claim to have the Wakatip district separated from Otago, and made to form an integral part of her Province.

Horse hunting at the Taieri in dirty weather is a disagreeable duty, and in the foggy, misty weather lately prevailing there, it isoften difficult to distinguish one's own from somebody else's. So many equestrians have visited the diggings cf late, and such a number of saddle, waggon, and dray horses are congregated in the neighborhood that, with the unititated seekers, mistakes are of frequent occurrence. A gentleman informs us that, out of pure philanthropy for a friend who, bridle in hand, was looking for his Bucephalus, he, seeing a white horse hobbled, corresponding to the description of that sought, walked the animal down the street until, to his astonishment, he was waylaid by two troopers in mufti, who politely enquired of the leader where he was taking the horse. " Oh, this white horse with short tail and sore back belongs to Mr So-and-So," replied the innocent horse-finder. "No, he doesn't," quietly responded the trooper, pointing to the Crown brand on the near shoulder. What a mistake! Offering many apologies, our informant relinquished possession, and blessed his stars that the seizure had not been made in the animal magnetism session in Victoria where it would have required a more elaborate explanation to save him from being committed for trial on a charge of horse stealing.—Daily Time.i. ♦— ENGLISH EXTRACTS.

A singuhr incident occurred at the Circus at Osteud, when the Duchess de Brabant was present. The perf rmiiuce terminated by a stag hunt, in which the animal, finding itself surrounded, made a desperate leap and alighted in the royal box, at the feet or the duchess. It then jumped over the low partition, rushed down the grand staircase at the back of the box, gained the street, and has not sine- been heard of. This unexi>ected feat excited g<nc;ul laughter, in which the duchess hearlily joined.

All the attempts of the Eus>ian government to discover the leaders of the Polish revolt having hitherto been in vi.in, the Russian agents abroad were directed to leave no means untried to discover the namesoi those persons to whom diplomatic reports from abroad arc addressed in Poland. Some time since a Kussian spy succeeded in getting p<.;s*es>io!i of a document which Prince Czartoryski had forwarded from London to Warsaw ; and on learning the name of the addressee, who was a CUho:icpriest, in a village near Warsaw, this priest, Dodicki by name, was arrested and brought for examination

| into the castle of Warsaw. He subsequently promised to make confessions. A confessor was brought, and to the no small astonishment of the Russians both were found lying poisoned in the confessional. A political murder has just been committed at Warsaw, on a man named Richter, the head of the passport office, who had recently been engaged in organising a new police. He was stabbed to the heart in the street close to his own door. In the course of the Federal expedition under General Sibley against the Indians, the State of Minnesota actually made an offer of 25 dollars for Sioux scalps. The Indian chief, Little Crow, was shot by a farmer while picking berries, and word being sent into Hutchinson, his scalp was taken by a party of soldiers, and was brought to the city of St. Paul, and 25 dollars were received for it. It has since been tanned. The u scalp clause" has, however been recalled, and in subsequent operations against the Indians, Colonel M'Phail had to tell his men that it was very barbarous to take scalps; but the colonel took care to add that he should not believe a man had killed an Indian unless he " showed the hair, and enough of it, so that another lock could not be taken from the same head."

The island of Monte-Christo, which owes its celebrity to Alexandre Dumas' popular novel, has just been chosen by the Italian Government as a penal settlement. At Birmingham a lad of 18 went to church to be married to a girl of 16, but, being too late, had to wait. The fact coming to the knowledge of the girl's family, they persuaded her to postpone the marriage on accouut of the extreme youth of both parties, when the youth became much excited and died within a few hours. A curious observation respecting the rapidity of eagles in their flight has just been made by a traveller crossing the Grison Alps. An eagle, in flying from one mountain peak to another, at a height of 8000 or 9000 feet, performed the distance of five miles in five minutes. On September 12th four men, each convicted of a separate murder, and three of them for the murder of women, suffered the extreme penalty of the law at the usual Liverpool place of execution at Kirkdale Gaol. A circumstance of such a nature as this never occurred in Liverpool before and, as may be supposed, it attracted an extraordinary crowd, a large proportion of which consisted of persons from a distance; but, independent of these, there was an immense assemblage of men, women, and children belonging to the town. The culprits were Jose Maria Alvarez, a Spanish seaman, convicted of the murder of James Harrison, in Oldhall-street; John Hughes convicted of the murder of his wife, in Great Homer-street; James O'Brien, an Irish sailor, condemned for the murder of Elizabeth Callaghan in Spitaltields; and Benjamin Thomas, a Welsh sailor, sentenced to death for the murder of Mary Rowlands, m Brook-street, Oldhall-street. All of these murders were attended with circumstances of great aggravation and ferocity, and although considerable efforts were made by different poisons to obtain a commutation of the sentences passed on the different men, there never appeared any reasonable ground for believing that the royal clemency would be extended to any of them. The undermentioned drafts are ordered to be held in readiness to embark for New Zealand to complete the strength of the sei vice companies of their respective corps—viz, 2 officers and 119 men ef all ranks, 70th Foot; 27 men of the Royal Horse Artillery, aud 15 men of the Royal Engineers, with one Medical Staff Surgeon. They are to embark at Gravesend. The following drafts embark at Cork :—1 officer and 144 men of all ranks, 2nd battalion, 11th Foot, from Buttivant; 2 officers and 30 rank and file, 40th Regiment; 5 officers and 36 men of all ranks, 65th, from Birr; and 2 officers and 41 men, 57th, from the 20th depot battalion at Cork ; making a total of 13 officers and 412 men of all ranks. Instructions have been received at the headquarters of the Royal Engineer establishment, Chatham, directing the non-commissioned officers and sappers selected from the depot companies at Brompton for service in New Zealand, to hold themselves in readiness to embark for their destination. The detachment goes out to augment the 6th company, which has latterly become very much reduced in strength. A woman, supposed to be dead, was a few days back removed to the hospital of Blidah, in Algeria, for the purpose of being subjected to a post mortem examination, her disease having appeared inexplicable to the medical men who had attended her. As the surgeon was about to make use of the scalpel and commence her dissection, the supposed corpse uttered a loud shriek and sat up. She had been in a state of lethargy and awoke only just in time. It will be rcmbered that Abbe Prevost, the author of " Manon Lescaut," was less fortunate ; it is known that he died from wounds inflicted by the dissecting knife under similar circumstances.

The following is a regular base coin price list, compiled from reliable sources:—Bad sovereigns costs from 3s. to lis. (id. each ; half sovereigns, Is. 6d. to 25.; crown pieces, 9d. to Is.; half-crowns to (id.; a florin, 4d.: one shilling, 3d.; sixpence, 2d.; fourpennv piece, 14-. Base coin is divided into soft and hard. The soft will not ring, and is only passed at races and fairs. The hard rings well, and is difficult to detect. The following extraordinary story is now going the round of the journals :—A mason, living in the Rue Forbfl, in Naples, was awakened one night by a knocking at his door. On opening it he saw two stangns, who asked him to go with them to execute a piece of work of great urgency. The man at first hesitated, but being persuaded by the offer of a handsome reward, at length consented. He was then hliadi'>lded, and having been led to a carriage, the vehicle drove off. After having been driven for some time, the car-

riage at length stopped. The man was led up several flights of stairs, and the bandage then taken from his eyes. He was then ordered to make, in the wall of the chamber in which he found himself, a hole sufficiently long and wide to contain a coffin. The mason at first refused, but, being menaced with death, he performed the work required. When he had finished, an empty coffin was brought from another room, and at the same time a young woman, handsomely dressed, was dragged in, struggling violently. She was then forced into the coffin, the lid screwed down, and the coffin placed in the recess, which the mason, still under the menaces of death, was compelled to close up, so that nothing could be seen. That done, he was sgain blindfolded, and taken in the same carriage to the sea beach, where the two strangers, haying removed the bandage from his eyes, gave him ten piasters, told him to go his way, adding that they did not impose even secrecy on him. The mason immediately gave notice to the police of the incident, but could afford no information as to the locality. The Metropolitan Board of Works met yesterday for the first time after the autumnal recess. The great business of the day was the opening of the tenders for the Thames Embankment. There were 13 tenders, the highest being that of Mr. George Wythe, for £680,000, and the lowest that of Mr. Samuel Ridley, for £495,000. Mr. Ridley's tender was accepted. The Lord Chancellor has appointed Mr. Serjeant Pigott to fill the seat vacant on the judicial bench by the promotion of Mr. Baron Wilde to the Divorce Court.

At the monthly meeting of the Carlisle Relief Committee, on September 23, the returns showed that there are now 220 persons on the books relieved at a weekly cost of £l7 17s. The balance in hand is about £240. One of the mills which stopped two months ago (Messrs Nixon's) has resumed work three days a week, and thus given employment to nearly 200 hands, and the number of recipients have in consequence been reduced to the number stated above.

The good people of Stafford have made an appeal to Waltonians to subscribe liberally to a memorial to be erected in his native town to honest Old Izaak, the angler.

"Lobd Dundreary. " Mr. Sothern has opened an engagement at Manchester, after having run a most successful career at Liverpool, where, in additien to his famous Lord Dundreary, he has made a great hit in the little piece called "A Terrible Fix," and "Twenty Minutes with a Tiger," in which he played Charles Beeswing, a character wich Charles Mathews had made essentially his own. Mr. Sothern's great success in these parts has shown that he is a versatile comedian, and can do other, and perhaps, better things than "Lord Dundreary." Two splendid additions have been made to the fleet of the Peninsulai and Oriental Steam Navigation Company by the launch of two powerful iron screw steamers named the Golconda and the Baroda. That of the Golconda took place from the yard of the Thames Iron Shipbuilding Works, at Blackwall; the Baroda from the Milwall (late Mare's) yard. Both vessels are frigate-built, and of the same dimensions—length, 295 feet, 2090 tons register, and4oo-horse power.

Diablerie in England and France.— " Ghosts " abound in the provincial theatres. A new drama has been produced at Brighton called, significantly, " The Dead Ghost; or, the Old Bridge on the Isle of St. Luis," for the purpose of introducing the " illusion." The same piece is being simultaneously played at Birmingham. At Bolton there is another original ghost drama called, f" Faith, Hope, and Chanty." A new drama in Glasgow, entitled " The Stricken Oak; or, Dreams without Faith," has its ghost in the highest perfection, drawing crowded houses. " On three different occasions," says a local critic " the ghost illusion is introduced most effectively, the spectral figures being visible with the utmost distinctness, rotundity, and seeming tangibility." At Manchester ghost appears in the Free Trade Hall, the theatres being otherwise profitably engaged. In Paris, at the Opera Comique they are playing " Les Amoures du Diabje," in which the whole of the infernal regions dance in fury round a poor diablesse who has allowed a soul to escape. At the Porte St. Martin, " Les Pilules du Diable," a fairy extravaganza; at the Gymnase, "Le Demon du Jeu," an infernal drama ; at the Ambigu, "Le Sorciere; and at the Gaite, "La Peau d'Ane," a fairy tale, of which a diabolical sorcery occupies the principal part. At the Theatre of the Chatelet the " Secret de Miss Aurore" terminates with apparitions and phantoms ; and at the Theatre Dejazet, in the u Spectres de I'Aurore," a sorceress summons before the audience the dead and even the living.

The Author of Don " Quixote."—A record, of undoubted authenticity, has turned up at Madrid, where there is a standing commission at work to search the archives of mortmain property collected from the various monastic depositories in Spain, including title-deeds, rent-rolls, and details of expenditure. The Trinitarian monks "for the repurchase of captives" were large holders of such property, and in overhauling their documentary scrolls this memorandum caught the eye:—"July 22, 1597, No. 11.— Miguel Cervantes d'Alcala de Henares. This day made appearance before me, notary public, Fathers Anton de Cabella and Juan Gil to acknowledge receipt of 309 ducts each of 11 reals, making in all 112,500 maravedis, of wbich sum 250 ducats were paid by the widow of Koderigo Cervantes for her son, and 50 by his sister, pur-chase-money of Miguel aforesaid from slavery, to Alman, captain of the guard of the King of Algiers, the said Miguel being minus a left arm, and 33 years of age.—(Signed) Zunigal, Notary."

AGRICULTURAL LEASES ON GOLDFIELDS. We reproduce the following from the Government Gazette, for the benefit of those desirous of applying for leases in this district : PROCLAMATION. Clauses revised and Conditions to be contained in Agricultural Leases under "Goldfields Act, 1862." Ist. Agricultural Leases "will be granted for a term not exceeding seven years. 2nd. Agricultural Leases will not be transferable without the special sanction and authority of His Honor the Superintendent, and for every such transfer a fee or fine of one pound (£1) will be charged. 3rd. The Government reserves to itself the right to survey through any land held under an Agricultural Lease, such roads as may be deemed essential for public convenience, and to throw them open to public traffic, subject to the allowance of valuation for improvements, and for any standing and growing crops which may be in or upon such line of road, at the period when possession thereof is taken by the Government. 4th. The rent charged shall be at the rate of five shillings (55.) per acre, payable yearly in advance from the date of application; and any fractional part of an acre will be considered as an acre and charged accordingly. sth. The Government reserves to itself the right of entering upon any land so leased as aforesaid, for the purpose of searching for gold, or any other metal or mineral, and of determining any lease when such metals or minerals shall have been discovered thereon. 6th. In the event of the determination of any agricultural lease on account of the highly auriferous nature of the land thereby demised, the amount of compensation adjudged to be paid to the holder thereof shall (except in special cases) be contributed by the persons desirous of mining thereon. 7th. The fees charged for survey will be as follows:

For an ordinary survey, when the area does not exceed four (4) acres, one pound. For any larger area at the rate of five shillings per acre, or any portion of an acre. And thirty shillings per diem extra when the time occupied in such survey extends "beyond one day. Bth. Leases will be cancelled if the land is sublet or transferred without the sanction and authority of His Honor the Superintendent; or if cultivation is not commenced within three months after the issue of the lease; or if at any time during the currency of the lease the land shall be neglected ior a period of six months. NOTICE. His Honor the Superintendent, acting under the powers in that behalf Tested in him by delegation from His Excellency the Governor of New Zealand, will, on and after the date hereof, receive applications from persons desirous of leasing land for agricultural purposes, within those parts and portions of the "Wakatip Goldfield a& hereinafter described, that is to say—

WAKATIP GOLDFIELD. I All that Block or Section of Land, being Run ' No. 356, lately occupied by Messrs. Grant and | Gammie, and containing about one hundred ! thousand acres by estimation, and situated within the several mining districts of the Wakatip | Goldfield. i Persons applying for Agricultural Leases mus strictly observe the following Regulations:— I Ist. Leases will be granted for a term not exJ ceeding seven (7) years, in accordance with the ! provisions of the " Goldfields Act, 1862." i 2nd. Every application for en Agricultural i Lease must be made (in the form of the Schedule j hereunto annexed, or to the like effect) to the : Warden of the District wherein the land is situate, and must be accompanied by a deposit of I five pounds (£5), to cover the costs of survey. The balance, if any, of such deposit will be returned after the application has been finally dealt with. 3rd. The boundaries of the area applied for must be marked out on the ground by trenches | and substantial posts at each corner thereof. 4th. Every such area must be rectangular in form, unless a creek or river, or other natural j obstacle renders a deviation from the rectangular form necessary. j sth. As soon as possible after the receipt of i any application and deposit as aforesaid, the I Warden will instruct a Surveyor to proceed to i the ground, for the purpose of examining, surveying, and reporting upon the same. 6th. Agricultural Leases will not be granted ; for lands within the boundaries of proclaimed townships or public reserves, nor for any area : including a permanent water-course, or which may present auriferous indications upon survey ; and in all cases a public roadway, one chain in width, will be reserved along the margins of ; streams and rivers.

Schedule referred to. No. (Place and Date.) To the Wcrden at I hereby apply for a lease of land for agricultural purposes, situate at (here state the locality) and comprising acres, or thereabouts; and I deposit herewith the sum of five pounds to cover the costs of survey, and I agree to pay the further costs (if any) of such survey, acccording to the scale prescribed by the Agricultural Leases Regulations. Signature (nsme in full r and address.),