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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VII, Issue 62, 12 March 1872, Page 2

Five Sisters of Mercy have arrived in Christchuch from London. Mr. Horace Bent has joined Collins and Carroll's Excelsior Company of Minstrels. Some of the Waitahuna miners are leaving for the diamond fields, at the Cape of Good Hope. His Excellency the Governor was expected at Christchurch last Friday, where he was to become the guest of the hon. W. Robinson. It is said that on the passage from Wellington to Lyttelton the Nebraska ran the Wellington out of sight in three hours. The Wellington arrived at Lyttelton about four hours after the Nebraska. The Resident Minister for the Middle Island has accepted a tender for the construction of the Selwyn and Rakaia Railway, the amount being £1870 4s. 6d. The construction of the line is to be commenced at once. The grain export season may be now said (says the Press) to have fairly set in, large quantities daily arriving from the south by train, or from elsewhere by drays in Christchurch, or being carried direct through to port for shipment. The Wellington Independent understands that the Government will shortly establish a daily overland mail between' New Plymputh and Opunake, which is at present the terminus of the telegraph system oa the west coast of the North Island, Mr. Richardson, of Queenstown, correspondent for the Cromwell Argus, laid an information recently againßt Mr. T. Shepherd, M.H.R., for using abusive

language towards him by calling him a lying blackguard and a scoundrel. The case was dismissed with costs. Farming Operations in the Ashley and Waipara districts are finished, and the Lyttelton Times draws a doleful picture of the harvest. About twenty bushels per acre of wheat; about twenty -five of oats, and about twelve of barley. The potato crop is an entire failure. The accounts from the Downs are oimost bad. Pedestrianism. — Says a Hokitika contemporary : — "The well-known pedestrian Pat Twohill, has been challenged by an amateur of the neighbouring province of Nelson. We understand that Ihe challenge is from £100 to £500 a-side, and aoy distance between 100 and 500 yards. The result of the challenge is not yet publicly known." A New Industry. — A settler living at Lake Albert, Wagga, New South Wales, has commenced the manufacture of lavender water. He has five acres of land on which he cultivates lavender, and from the flower distils the perfume. Next seasoD he expects to have eight acres under cultivation for the same purpose. The bottles are what are termed eightounce bottles, and they are sold at 245. per dozen. Among the recent local contributions of specimens to the Christchurch Museum, we observe there is a skeleton of a male member of the almost extinct Moriovi, which has been brought from the Chatham Islands, and presented by Dr. Barker. The height of the subject when alive could not have been more than 4ft 9in, but there is evidence of great strength in the skeleton remains. Further numbers of bones of the Harpagornis Moorei, or New Zealand eagle, have been obtained from Glenmaik. Immigration to Wellington. — The Wellington Provincial Government are making arrangements to place from 1000 to 1500 Canadian and Nova Scotian immigrants upon a block of land about 45,000 acres in extent — through which the tramway now passes — between Masterton and the Gorge. A gentleman, possessing a special knowledge of these colonies, has been appointed to select a block of land for the purpose, and to proceed to Canada to carry out the project. The scheme has been thoroughly approved of by the General Government, who have engaged to pay the passages of the immigrants. — Post. The Cereal Duties do not appear to have had the effect of shutting out foreign importations, as may be gathered from the following paragraph from the Southern Cross: — " Eight thousand bushels of wheat brought by the brig Rita, from Adelaide, are quoted at 6s. 6d. per bushel which is the same value of this cereal grown in our own province. Sea-borne intercolonial wheat is subject to a duty of 9d. per cental, or as near as may be 5d per bushel The imposed duty has no doubt tended to harden the price of wheat, but that it will keep back shipments from South Australian ports is very improbable. Indeed we learn that other shipments may be expected to arrive here within the next few weeks." The Ticapeka Times says : — "A moa's skull, in an excellent state of preservation, was recenily discovered embedded in the banks of the Molyneux, twelve feet deep in the sand, in front of Mr. Brighton's store, Roxburgh. Mr. Manuel, of Coal Creek, has presented it to the Tuapeka Athenaeum. It will form a very fitting nucleus for the Museum which has been projected by the committee. The same journal has the following : — " A scene of adventure took place in Sheepshead Gully a fortnight ago, occasioned by a report which gained currency, that a large number of Moa bones and Maori spears had been discovered in a cave in a precipitous rock in the above-named gully. Many of the miners started in quest of these memorials of antiquity, and after hazarding their lives in their descent to the cove by means of ropes, found, to their sorrow, they had been hoaxed." Every Publican in the rural districts of Canterbury is sworn in as a special constable upon receiving a renewal of his license, and in every public house bar is suspended a pair of hand-cuffs and a baton. The hotels are visited at short intervals by the police, who examine a book kept for the remarks of travellers upon the general conduct of the establishment, such book being necessarily kept exposed for this purpose, and should complaints be entered, they are brought before the bench when a renewal of the license is asked for. The license for up-country hotels is only £5. Greymouth Races.— From the Wednesday's Atgus we learn that there are already five acceptances for the Greymouth Handicap, and it is probable that there will be son o addition to that number on receipt of the mail from Auckland. Of the five horses which accepted, Peeress is at preaetu in Greymouth, Misfortune

reached the Teremakau March 5, on the way hither, Why Not is on the way down from Charleston, Economy is on his own ground in the Grey Valley, and Lacenfeed is expected to arrive here from Nelson in the Charles Edward. It is also probable that the Black Eagle will come by the Wallabi, which was to have left Auckland on Monday. We have since learned that Why Not met with an accident last Thursday, which will prevent his putting in an appearance at the races. The right to the booths and stalls which were recently sold by auction realised good prices, six sites being offered, the highest price reached for one of them being £70, and the lowest £20. The total sum received for these, the right to sell cards, tend horses on the course, &c, was £252. For remainder of news see fourth page.

In Adelaide a memorial to the Legislature is being signed, praying that the immigration of domestic servants may be promoted. The Tasmanian Parliament has voted £260 to meet the cost of withdrawing defaced and worn coin from circulation in the colony. The Victorian Police numbers 101 officers and 920 men, and costs in round numbers £200,000 annually, or nearly £200 per man. Mining Affairs in New South Wales continue to improve. Last year's gold yield exhibits an immense increase on that of any year since 1865. A Mrs. Blackhouse, of Braidwood, presented her husband the other day with three sons, who have been christened Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. One of the most pleasurable sensations of the month (says an English paper), has been the issue of the first volume of Mr. John Forster's "Life of Charles Dickens." The eagerness of " the trade " to get hold of the book was extraordinary; the whole of the first edition was instantly sold off, and a second is in course of publication. The volume contains matter that is news not only to the public, but to members of Mr. Dickens' own family also. In autobiographical passages he himself states that when a child of ten years old, he was obliged, owing to his father's troubles, to hire himself out as a tiny assistant in the establishment of a black-ing-maker, and that for a long time he was occupied in the work of sticking labels on blacking-bottles, for which service he receivsd so small a guerdon that between its smallness, and the inability of a child to control his passion for pastry and the like, he was often at the end of the week very hungry and without the means of satisfying his hunger. He says that the impressions made upon him by humiliation and hardship were so strong that it "made him cry " long after the birth of his eldest son. But these things he never told to his family. The volume describes his early successes, but does not come down to the time when his domestic arrangements became the talk of the country. Over this portion of the story Mr.Forster will, no doubt, go with a delicate hand. The work is dedicated to the great novelists's two daughters, Miss Dickens and Mrs. Charles Collins.