TELEGRAPHIC.

Manawatu Herald, Volume I, Issue 83, 17 June 1879, Page 2

TELEGRAPHIC.

-♦- — ; — i • Nelson, Friday. At Dovedale, twenty niiles from Nelson, yesterday, two brothers named Lewis and Albert Honcton, aged thirteen and eleven respectively, went out rabbit shooting. Lewis saw a rabbit, raised his gun, and pulled the trigger, when just at that moment Albert ran across the line of fire, and the whole charge lodged in his head, causing instan* taneous death. Dunedin, Friday. ; l It is suggested in this week's Tablet that where outlying districts cannot send deputations to the aggregate meeting of Catholics, they should appoint gentlemen in Dunedin or its neighbourhood to be delegates; The Tablet adds there are at present in JLNew Zealand about 65,000 Catholics. According to the censui taken last March twelve months the number wan 58,961, and if then we add to this ten per cent, for the increase, which is the percentage increase for the last eight years,, it will be seen that the number we have given is not too high. As* it will be very difficult for the Government and Legislature to resist the just olaims of 65,000 earnest people — that is, about one-seventh of the population of New Zealand, it is of the utmost "_ Importance to our cause that the proposed aggregate meeting should represent the entire Catholic body of the colony. Auckland, Friday. Later Fiji news states that the natives in Nacava and certain other towns in the south end had been subjected to singular mortality, and

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carried them off like a plague. The sickness has the appearance of commencing in fever, then assuming the form of an acute attack of dysentery, which invariably terminates fatally in three or four days. It is supposed that upwards of seventy succumbed during the past month. The white residents attribute this mortality to the late excessive rainfall, and the swampy situation of the towns. People almost to a man have been engaged for some time past in felling and dragging out immense dakana logs, with which to build canoes for Venu Valu. After ferrying- and heating themselves with their labor, returned to wet houses and damp mats; fever then attacks them, dysentery follows, and death ensues. The Fiji Times urges that a man-of-war should be placed at the disposal of the Governor to visit the Polynesian Islands in his capacity as High Commissioner, and punish such offenders as that of the murderer of Captain Moller.