LATEST AUSTRALIAN NEWS. BY ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VI, Issue 70, 23 March 1871, Page 2

LATEST AUSTRALIAN NEWS. BY ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH.

[Per Geeville's Company, Keuter's Agents.] The following telegrams by the Rangitoto reached us too late for publication last night: — Melbourne, March 16. The polling for the last batch of elections is proceeding to-day. Everything is very quiet at preseut, but it is expected to become very rowdy in some places before night. Tim Whiffier beat Nimblefoot for the Toavo plate. The ceremony of installing Dr. Brown lees, and Messrs. Archer and O'Grady as Knights of St. Gregory Avas performed on Sunday last, at St. Patrick's Cathedral by Bishop Goold. The building was crammed. Three cargoes of sugar were offered for sale at auction on Tuesday last, when 3700 bags sold at full current rates. The rest Avas Avithdrawn pending the arrival of the mail advices. Four thousand cases of Devoe'skerosine sold yesterday. Market firm. The cargo of pearl shells ex Prima Donna wa3 offered at, auction, but withdrawn for Avaot of a bid. Breads tuffs are not affected by the mail news. Fifty tons of flour sold yesterday at £13 17s. 6d. Adelaide Avheat is being held and but little offering. 6s. 2d. is the nominal quotation. Oats are very quiet, and prices unchanged. Sjydney^ The Government have received a telegram by the mail from the Secretary of State, informing them that the English Government had received information of the fitting out of a n'libusteriug expedition which had left America to pick up Australian gold ships. The information is not credited here, but the Government commenced to day to place the guns iv position. Victoria Avon the intercolonial cricket match by 47 runs. A., public meeting of merchants has resolved to petition the Governor to dissolve tHie Parliament, A great riot has taken place in the Newcastle^ reformatory, Avheti the women again behaved very badly. The police Avere called in to quell it. A barbarous murder has taken place near Orange. A man's body was found partly charred, and with the feet cut off. It cannot be identified. Sugars are firmer, and flour improving. Some heavy sales have been effected. Thompson and./ Giles' estate shows a surplus of £14,000, and time has been granted. Adelaide. Large quantities of land are being taken up iv consequence of the fine yield of wheat this year. Wheat is quiet, but five shillings arefreely offered for good samples. The German residents made a great demonstration to commemorate the end of the war.

as to meet the increasing demand. The writer has authority to state that the vessels lately on the Panama line, namely, the Ruahine, Rakaio, and Kaikoura, are in the colonial market for sale at something like half their original cost. Surely we ought not to let slip so good an opportunity. A Jury rebuked for Smoking. — Previous to the adjournment of the Court, his Honor called the attention of the jurors on the last case to the fact that they had been smoking in their room during the time of their retirement to consider their verdict. He would impress upon them the fact that by so doing they made the official, into whose charge they were given, violate his oath. He trusted that the Court having taken notice of this would have the effect of deterring other juries from a similar practice. — Canterbury Press. The Corn - Trade in Canterbury. — The Press says : — The transit of grain from the Selwyn and intermediate stations on the South line, as well as from the Christchurch station, to Port, is just now assuming considerable proportions. Special trains laden with grain are arriving from the South daily, with sometimes as many as thirty trucks ; and as Aye are informed that the average conteuts of each truck is six tons, such a train is actually drawing some 180 tons of grain. We further learn that as>nVany as seventy-two trucks, representing (>say) 4.32 tons of grain, recently passed through the tunnel in oue day. Our Northern Visitors are said to view hese spectacles with astonishment. Flax Wearing Apparel. — A shirt, breeches, find legaings, made from New Zealand flax, may now be inspected at the office of Mr. Deßourbel, Cathedral square. They are from the London outfitter referred to at the last meeting of the Flax Association, aud have been forwarded to Mr. Deßourbel by Mr. Owen Jones, of Auckland,'. who recently brought them out from England. In every sense of the Avord they are worthy the attention of all well-wishers.of local industry. The shirt is as soft and pliable as silk, though perhaps a little coarse in texture. The price in England is, we believe, Bs. 6d. each, but judging from appearances, they are well worth the money. The breeches and leggings are much coarser than the shirt, and are dyed a reddish brown, but appear exceedingly strong and durable. — Lytteiton Times. The Volunteers in Auckland. — A writer in the Auckland Herald says : — There has been a great fashion in vogue here of blaming the Government for not giving encouragement to the volunteer movement in Auckland, and with some show of reason too. After the exhibition at One Tree Hill on Wednesday however no one can accuse the unfortunate government of lack of interest. It seems to me very plaiu that it is the people who are to blame. The Southern men must have been awfully disgusted at the small attendance of spectators. Of course it did not make any difference to them, further than that it is always more pleasaut to feel that you are engaged iv a work in which the country generally takes an interest. As it was, a stranger might have thought that some private match was being fired. No one could ever have imagined that it Avas the great colonial contest for the year. There seems to be a general inclination to be civil to the strangers, and that is something for Auckland, considering that they are not princes, nor even titled men. The one or two whom I have seen at the Corner appear to be nice fellows. Apropos of volunteering, it strikes me that if our men were to adopt a bright colored uniform they would popularize their corps much more extensively. A large proportion of the visitors are ia scarlet, and I have not the slightest doubt this circumstance is of material assistance in recruiting. "Women, boys, aud turkeys are equally excited by a glimpse of scarlet, and it does not do to despise the day of small things. Let our boys think over the color question. A scarlet tunic would double their numbers I'm certain. Neav Zealand's Millstone. — Mr. W. Colenso, of Hawke's Bay, when recently addressing a meeting of electors as a candidate for a seat in the Provincial Council, is reported to have said : — What is the millstone that is hanging round the heck of this province ? There is a puzzle for you ; can anybody answer it ? Here is half-a-crown for the man who will answer it. I tell you what it is. It is the tens of thousands of pounds that go out of the place as interest. I see no prospect of improvement while this goes ou. The very life-blood of the province is being drained by it. Waiting for a rise in wool is, it seems to rue, something like waitiug for a river to flow out to sea before attempting to cross it. When I consider all the nations that have gone in for sheep farming lately, it seems to me that, a still further fall is much more likely than a rise. In China it is now being extensively introduced. The'

people there work for a few copelc3 a day. A copek is something less than an American cent. How is it possible that sbeepfarmers here can compete with them there ? I should rejoice to see a rise in the price of wool or flax, but, in spite of the improbability of this there is hope for the country from the development of its great resources. Allow me to read a passage that I wrote ojprfflSs subject four-and-thirty years^, ago : — "Her (New Zealand's) natdral productions — her fisheries, her metals, her timber, her flax, her pork, aud her barks for dyeing aud tanning — will, doubtless, prove an inexhaustible mine of wealth ; but ere these can be available, the spirit of labor aud industry, of energy and alacrity, must be infused into her present occupiers ; contentment and unity must dwell among us, and self-denial be extensively practised." These words are as applicable now as they were then; and these virtues are after all, easily practised in a country where food is so cheap as it is here. Thk Famous Calkdoniax Claim. — The following history of the above claim during the last two months is from an Auckland contemporary : — Io January Inst Uie shareholders first began to reap the reward of their persevcrauce, and after paying working expenses, a dividend of £2 per share .was declared, amounting altogether to a jjtim of £5720. During the past month d|f February the returns from this mine have gone on steadily progressing, and still coniiuue to do so. The gold taken out during the five weeks ending 4th of March, amounts _ to 27,2500z5., or rather oyer a ton Aveight, and of the value of £7-t,038. Dividends iv February Avere paid to the shareholders to the amount of £39,180, or at the rate of £13 per scrip, and to-morrow a fourth of £10 per scrip'w.Hl be payable, making altogether, Avith the dividend of £1430 paiJ in December last — which Aye had almost forgotten — £67,210 dividend among the fortunate shareholders. During the two-and-half years that this mine has beeu steadily Avorked, the expenses amounted to £19,000, an outlay which has been abundantly and deservedly re-couped in a single month. The Thames paper of March 10, says : — Some idea of the enormous richness of the Caledonian mine may be formed from the fact that between the Bth of February and the 6th of March, or within one month, considerably over £84,000 worth of the precious metal has been lodged to the credit of the company in the Bauk of New Zealand, as the produce of the mine during that time.. And as to its future prospects, there* is every reason to believe that it will continue for a loug time equally good. A. Strange Cure for Lockjaw. — The Brisbane Courier states that a correspondent at Gayudah sent in the following : — " ' I feel it my duty to make public a most miraculous cure effected by the use of Holloway's Pills aud Ointment. I had a very dear friend who Avas suffering from a very severe attack of lockjaw. All the medical men from the surrounding districts were called in to no purpose. It was their uuanimous opinion that my poor friend must die. He had taken their boluses and pills, but they had no effect upon him. I did not kuow Avhat to do. At last I thought I would try Holloway's Pills, but I was utterly at a loss how to administer the dose. At last a happy thought struck me. I got a small pistol, and putting about twice the ordinary charge of powder in it, I filled it to the top with pills, and padded them down with the ointment, aud taking advantage of my friend's being asleep, I prized his jaws apart with a screw driver, and hastily inserting the j muzzle of the pistol I fired it quickly fl down his throat. The effect was instantaneous.' Our correspondent might as well have finished the story, and saved us the trouble of doing so. It seems that after the administration of the pilis and ointment ia the novel manner recorded the patient got well at once, went across to the nearest * public,' and shouting for ' all hands' got into a quarrel with soma bullock drivers ; and, after thrashing some eight or ten — ' one down another come on' — stole the best horse he could find in the township, and is now on the road as a bushranger. The dose iufused too much animal vigour into the man." jj