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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume V, Issue 75, 30 March 1870, Page 2

Seven Flax Machines were imported into the province of Hawke's Bay from Auckland iv a week. The sale of flux exported from the coiony during the quarter ending December 31s- 1, was £16,470, at an average price of £24 Bs. 6d. per tou. Ix Wanganui it has been discovered that New Zealand flax dressed without the use of water is better in color, and in every respect superior to that to which water has been applied. They are also saving the gum obtained by splitting the leaf. Apparently Mr. Fox is in favor of (he Volunteer movement. Iv receutly replying to a deputation of Hamilton settlers, he advised them to form themselves into a volunteer cavalry corps, and informed them that it was the iutention of the Government in the next session ofthe Assembly to bring in a bill to iucrease the assistance given by tho Government to local volunteer companies. The Ararat Advertiser gives an account of rather a singular death from lock-jaw: — " It seems that on Sunday night a Mr. Bony thou went outside and stood in the road for some time, exposed to a sharp wind. When he came into the house he complained of being chilled, and said he was afraid he had caught a cold. -Next day he felt a pain in the lower part of his spine, and ou Tuesday he kept his bed till the afternoon, when he said he thought he might as well get up. He did get up and no sooner had he pulled on liis stockings than he fell back in a fit. He cried out, his head was bent strongly backwards, and his whole body was convulsed, his breathing stopped, and he became black in tho face. The first fit' lasted about a minute, and left the patient exhausted and wet with perspiration. Such fits returner! every 15 or 20 minutes till 8 p.m., when a fit of much longer duration occurred, and left tho patient all but dead; in fact, breathing was only restored by theuse of artificial respiration. After this terrific fit consciousness was | lost, and remained absent till death closed the scene at 11 o'clock."

A Temperance Hall is about to be erected by a small but enthusiastic body of teetotallers iv Invercargill. Hop-picking- in Tasmania is employing upwards of 1500 persous at an average wage of 12s. per week, with lodgings and partial board. Some paper took fire in a shop window in Invercargill lately. The fh'e was found to have been caused by a decantershaped hoitle of salad oil acting as a lens under the rays of the sua. Sergeant Mallard, in charge of the police at Port Chalmers, has been fined £5 or 14 days' imprisonment, and Cor stable Sullivan SOs or seven days' in.pt isonmenfc for ill-using a druuken prisoner. The Treasurer of New South Wales proposes to borrow £1,571,600 for railway extension and public works this year. This would bring the debt of that Colony up to £11,775,690. The barque Nightingale bas brought to Port Chalmers a cargo of Swan River mahogany for the graving dock gates. Fivo passengers ou board were arrested, as they had no freedom tickets from Western Australia. Some admitted that they had been convicts, but all were discharged. In giving judgment in a trespass ca^o at Clyde lhe other day, Mr. Vincent Pyke said that " the man who planted a tree in that treeless country was a public bene- . factor, aud the man who kept goats to destroy that tree was a pablic mule- . factor." On t e of the latest " Yankee notions " is a pea-shelling machine for domestic use. It resembles a small coffee mill iv app.arauce, can ba screwed to a kitchen taide, and ; receives three pods at a time, dropping the shelled peas afc oue end, and extruding , the empty husks at the other. A CURIOUS DISCOVERY was made by Captain Beatson, of the brigantine Oreti, during a recent visit to the Auckland Isles. On ascending the highest mountain thp.e — some 900 feet above the level of the saa — he discovered the skull of a horse ! Some other relies were discovered on the islands, the most remarkable being the skeleton of a young woman, whose body must have been washed ashore. Grass growing in the streets ; deserted houses and shops on all sides ; the main road only gravelled or metalled ; cows and goats browsing undisturbed on unoccupied quarter-acre sections ; open drains in all (lirections, which, however, thanks to tho. thinness of the population, the constant breezes from the sea, aud the frequent; scourings from the abundant rainfall, have not hitherto told injuriously on the he ilth of the town ; such is Invercargill of the present day, according to a description ia the Bruce Herald According to the Auckland Eosnh.a Star, tho police force of that province is to be incorporated with the Armed Cms tabu lar v, iv terms of a resolution passed during the recent ses.-uou of the Provincial Couucil, which gave the Superintendent discretionary power to effect such an arraugement. The Star says : — " The police will be taken over by the General Government, aud enrolled as Armed Constabulary, but the nnmber and distribution i,f tlie lorce will still be subject to ihe will s of the Provincial authorities, who will pay for the maintenance of ihe force at a rate to be agreed unon. The general Government will, in fact, supply police for the use of the Provincial Government, und tlie force will be organised by the officers of the Armed Constabulary." The United States Consul at Sydneyhas informed the Chamber of Commerce in that city, that after tlie despatch ofthe March and April mails for England via Ameiica, he will be in a position to make such an arrangement of the time table as will give thirteen mails per annum, each alternating with the four weekly mail hy way of Suez. We shall thus enjoy the advantages of fortnightly communication with Europe and America ; and the intriligence we shall receive from all paiis ol the United States by tlie oew mail sei vice will be less than a month old. Between the Californian aud the P. and O. Company, a wholesome rivalry will lie established as regards the speed with which each will eflect the transit ; tlie more especially as it is rumoured that the hitter company are now building some boat* whi'-li are to make the through passage from Southampton to Melbourne by way of the vSuez Canal. — Australasian.

Eakl Granville, says the Australasian mnst ha delighted to fiod that, his efforts to promote llie dismemberment ofthe empire are mef-ting with a sympathetic response in Brinish Columbia. According to the latest advices received in San Francisco from Washington, dated the 30i.h of December, a memorial had been presented to the President, on the day previous, signed hy a num her of property-owners and mon of business in Victoria, Vancouver's Island in favor of the transfer oi British Columbia, to the United States. The document was handed ov.r to the Secretary of State lOrFeiviyn Af Fairs, and a ropy o! it presented tn Mr. Sumner, who remniked that, the movement was an important oue, and could have hut one termiuatior, America is not at all indisposed to accent the responsibilities which English statesmen of the Manchester school are so ea<;er to <fpf. rid of.