TELEGRAPHIC INTELLIGENCE.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VII, Issue 174, 23 July 1872, Page 2

TELEGRAPHIC INTELLIGENCE.

-_0-_ [Pbb Gkevillb's Telegram Company.] — — 0

PARLIAMENTARY.

. . July 23. . At a caucus of the Goldfields Members if bas been resolved to advocate the reduction of the Gold Duty sixpence per ounce this session, and an additional sixpence each succeeding session. For remainder of news see fourth page.

Tenders are being called in Christchurch for the formation of eleven miles of the Rolleston and Malvern line of railway, and eight miles of the Rangiora and Oxford line. In a recent bankruptcy case at Christchurch, the liabilities are stated at £309, and the assets a.t sixpence. The bankrupt's name is Compton, with the aristocratic prefix De Blaquiere . A Strange Coincidence. — Our recent files contain a notification of the death of Mr. Morton, formerly Inspector of Police at Dunedin and Picton. The Southern Cross of the 13th inst., has the following obituary notice : — On Wednesday last William Nixon Morton, an inmate of our Lunatic Asylum, died, and yeßterday an inquest was held on his remains, when the jury returned a verdict that death was the result of " natural causes." Although " unbonored and unsung " in this part of New Zealand, poor Morton had been a man of some mark years ago in the South Island as well as in Victoria. Ie was about 18 years since when Mr. Morton, then a remarkably handsome young man, was a cadet in the Victorian Mounted Police. Then he became one of the smartest and cleverest of colonial detectives, and subsequently he was promoted to be Sub-inspector to the Geelong Constabulary Force. Then in 1861, when the rush took place to Otago, and the provincial authorities desired to have organised an efficient Constabulary force, Mr. Branigan was sent for from Victoria to come to Dunedin, where he was made Commissioner of Police. With him came Mr. Morton as his right-hand man, and these two organised what was at the time, and has been ever since, admitted to be the finest of all the colonial police forces in existence. Passing strange that these two — who were the founders of » police system of which every province in New Zealand is reaping the benefit to this hour — should, a few years afterwards, come face to face with each other, both confined as lunatics in the Auckland Asylum. One died on Wednesday from exhaustion resulting from his frenzied struggles ; the other is still a helpless, broken-down, paralysed, and demented man. It was soon after the Wakamarina Goldfield was discovered that Mr. Morton was sent over and appointed Inspector of a new force drawn from the picked men of the Armed Constabulary of Otago. Here he remained some time, and was married to the daughter of one of Marlborough's oldest and most respected settlers. Subsequently Mr. Morton went to Otago ; from there to the Fijis ; from the Fijis to Auckland ; and from there to meet his old brother officer, friend, and comrade, in that asylum where two dayß ago poor Morton was released from a world which to him of late years had been one full of sorrow and great tribulation."