NELSON BOARD OF WORKS.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VI, Issue 180, 1 August 1871, Page 2

NELSON BOARD OF WORKS.

The election of five members of the Board took place to-day with the following result : —

Chinese Immigration to Dunedin. — The Jean Sands arrived at Dunedin on Thursday las'; with 340 Chinese. In a few days another vessel was expected with 400 more, and 1700 additional are looked for during the present year. Gold-mining at Baker's 'Hill, says the Post, is progressing, it would appear. Another company, called the Union, with a capital of £9,00Cl is\ either formed or now in course orTor: Ration, its ground being situated between the Perseverance and tbe Morning Star claims. A man was recently suffocated in a beer vat in Melbourne. It appears that he was lighting the gas over a vnt, about 12 feet deep, containing about 4 feet depth of beer, when he lost his balance and fell in. Two other workmen, who heard his cries, went to the spot at once and got him out, but he was quite dead -by that time. When he fell he was standing on a place elevated about two feet above the vat, and the gas or foul air arising from the liquor in the vat was so intense that a light held above it would be extinguished, and no person could breathe the fumes more than a few seconds. • At a late assemblage of people at Tokomairiro, to welcome the Bishop of Duuedin, the Hon. Major Richardson spoke in terms of high commendation of the spirit manifested by all classes and creeds in coming together on this occasion. He reminded them that in every regiment there were two colors — the Queen's color and the regimental color — and that they always were together in the front in every fight. The former might be likened to the colors of the Lord of the Universal Church; the latter of each denomination of Christians, and he who was true and loyal to one was equally loyal to the other. A Dissertation on Half-Castes. — " J.H.". writing in an Australian exchange under the head of " Notes upon New Zealand Travel," goes into ecstasies over the appearance of a couple of half-castes whom he met on board a steamer between Nelson and Taranaki, and thus dilates upon the advantages of mixed blood : — " Fine fruit indeed is the produce of the grafting of the white upon the aboriginal. We wished that our father had been an Englishman and our mother a Maori. What troubles we should have escaped then ? We should have been good looking to begin with. Our complexion would have been clear brown ; our eyes large and dark— and dangerous. Our hair had been glossy, curly, dark, and as for quantity saleable every two months or so for chignons and back hair. Our mouths had been shaped like to Cupid's bow and. bur. lips—had 'served all purposes of lips. We cannot encumber our pages with" an enumeration of the uses of a mouth, and the mouth of a half-caste is all that a mouth should be. We should have had the strength of an athlete as a gift of nature — the stomach of a Scotchman and German combined, and been strangers to dyspepsia for the longest lifetime. We should have known nothing of neves or of headache or toothach — and may be nothing of heartache either. We should never have caught cold, never wanted our head wrapped up, or our throat swathed, in bandages, nor hot water to our feel and tallow to our nose at night. A chemist's shop would have been a curosity to us, and the doctor but a dim imagination,:, ; ■ ; We ne'er had wanted ear trumpets, spectacles, and wigs. We should, in that, mixture , of blood, the English with the, -Maori; have ; rjerieweil primeval man, and hare gone through life feeling nothing of the burdens that 1 afflict, the too much civilised 1 man, and' dying withnothinjg. in (Jie ? world but old a^e to trouble us.^" We' Bhoifld'have slept at will,' and that soundly, and have had no thought for to-morrow, or nervous" vaporish fears of aught here or hereafter, Of such were <fu| ideas on seeing tbe specimens we did oFthe half-cast race, and what they looked like will be pretty well discerned by our .detail of the thoughts that their looks gale rise to. It is only necessary to look at these half-castes in New Zealand to believe in the virtue and value of mixing b 100d — " miscegenation'." If we wanted

any further proof of that value wo Lave it, aad that but lately, well brought to our understanding in. the notices of the death of the recently deceased Alexaifdre Dumas, that king of novelists, from whose large heart and brain came Monte Ohristo, and scores of other fine creations, Dumas, the son of a Frenchman and a negress, should stand as an answer to all doubts ou the question of the half-castes and their physical and intellectual endowments." Roman Catholics and the Education Question in Otago.— We clip the following from the Grey River Argus : — ln the Otago Provincial Council a resolution was moved by Mr. Haughton, which clearly indicates the policy that will be pursued by the Roman. Catholic members in the Assembly, upon the Education question. A number of petitions had been presented from, the Catholic ; residents, praying for assistance to their own schools outside the public schools of the Province. A. select committee was appointed to consider these petitions, which, after taking evidence upon variouspoints, made a report which contains the . following passages: — "In respect to therpffflTciple in the system of public education objected to by the petitioners, it has been. made evident to your committee that no mere modification of it would meet the objections. The very frank and candid explanations, especially, of the Bishop, go to show that the Catholic inhabitants cannbt be satisfied with any system of education which is not under theh^Mui exclusive control, and which is^ptbuwt upon, and subordinate to religijp Jfastr\ctiou according to the tenets o^Hplir Qhurch. In Jine, the prayer oflßTie petitioners is for support to Catholia denominational schools outside of, and altogether apart from, the existing educational system, and this applies not only to district, elementary schools, but to grammar and high schools, and schools for the higher education." The Committee declined to recommend the jprayer of the petitioners, and Mr. Haughton endeavored to obtain a share of the Provincial funds for the Catholic schools, but was unsuccessful.