LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Manawatu Standard, Volume 4, Issue 121, 28 April 1883, Page 2

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

I To-day was the voting under the Roads , & Bridges Construction Act for works i proposed to be constructed m the Firzher* bert district. Over eighty horses from all parts of the districts were entered at Mr Snelson's j horse sale to-day, nrhioh brought together j a rery large attendance.

The Wsngauni Supreme Court ia having a long sitting-. The child murder trial is to take place on Monday. "Richard Thomas for manslaughter, and Jowett, for an assault on a child, were found guilty yesterday and were to be sentenced today. The charge against Phillip Jenkins.f or an aggravated assult, was to take place to«bay. The unfortnnate woman Phoebe Vetch, the accused ia the cnild-murder base, has been allowed counsel at the expense of the Government. A man who gave the name of Jno. Baker, and resides at Cumpbelltown, called on us to day to complain that a copy of the Sun, with a full account of the mar* riHge of Queen Victoria, which he pre« sehted to the public reading-room something over a year ago, can not now be found. He valued the copy on account of its interesting associations, and regrets that it has. been mislaid or^appropriated, when given to a public institution. We have been requested to state that the concert m connection with the New Wesley an Church, will be held on Thurs* day, May 17 ; particulars will appear m a future issue. A veatiage of the unfortunate schooner, Hannah Barrat, seems to have turned up at Island Bay, being a spar broken off at the cap, aud evidently part of the foretopniast of a schooner. The great clearing sale by Messrs Har» riß Bros, m conjunction with Mr G. Mi Snelson,of Mr F; Beaven's Btock.wus continued to«day, und attracted a numerous assemblage of country buyers. Advertisements from Wanganui, Wellington,. Gisborne, and other places will appear during the ensuing week. The altered advertisements of Messrs J. B. Hamilton and Bentley Bros., will be found elsewhere, both establishments an« nouncing the arrival of shipments of new goods. Messrs Nelson, Moate & Co., have advi"sed; us that they - have appointed Mr A. Ferguson their local agent m Palmerston, and authorizing a notification iv their ads vertisement to that effect. The Wakatipu which sailed on Thursfor Sydney from Wellington took a full cargo of New Zealand produce, including upwards of 60 tons of butter. The Napier police discovered recently on the beach slightly covered with sand, the " visitors' box" of the Athenaeum. This box has stood, for years on the man* tel-piece of the reading-room, and visitors were m the habit of dropping into it small coin by way of a contribution to the institute. The thief did not gain more than a few shillings by th» robbery. From tin appearance of the box an attempt had baen made to force the' lock ; that failing the slit m the lid had been enlarged with a blunt pocket-knife ; and finally, losing patience, the thief smashed the bottom of the box m, and so got possession of the money. The Telegraph remarks ; — '• If this theft is the first result of opening the reading-room to the genera! public the experiuatnt ib not encouraging." The " Lyttelton Times" mentions as aa instance of the suitable nature of New Brighton soil for horticultural purposes, that a Mr Barker has recently been en* abled to supply from his garden there over , oue ton of cucumbers, and 500 dozen of red cabbage, to the We w Zealand Pickling Company. " ' The Argus of . 6th April says : — Last night a farmer named Joseph Gardiner, residing at Newbridge-road, Marong, fell whilst smoking from a chair on which he was sitting, and expired. An inquest was held to-day, at which evidence was given tha he was addicted to tobacco smoking, and that after smoking he would become faint and' exhausted . Th e medical testimony was to the eflect that the cause of death was syncope, induced by the ex« cessive use of tobacco. We lear"n from the Nelson Eyening Mail that an examination of the Charles Edward shows that a small hole was knocked, m her bottom by the dynamite explosion m the Bulier River, of which mention was made on Saturday, but there are no appearances of anything mere serious. The pumps had to be kept going the whole of the way from Westport, and fortunately were sufficient to ! keep down the water. ' Efforts are being made (says the Post) to hold a footdajl tournament m some contral part of the colony during the next two or three montha.|Mr. A. T. Bate, honsecr c tary of the Wellington Union, has placed, himself m correspondence with the unions throughout ; New Zealand, inviting an ex. pression of opinion on the subject, and has already received a reply from Canterbury body that it is perfectly willing to fall m with the scheme. The idea o £ the pvo* motors is that each union should send a team to (a district fixed upon, such as Wellington or Christchurch, where a series of matches should take place, the best players to be selected to represent New Zealand m a tour through New South Wales. The proposal is one that can hardly ' tail to meet with the approval of mos t footballers throughout the colony, and m a few weeks hence all the arrangements for crrrying it out wilt probably be completed.