TELEGRAPHIC INTELLIGENCE.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VIII, Issue 96, 22 April 1873, Page 2

TELEGRAPHIC INTELLIGENCE.

[Per AnoliO-Axtstbalian Pbess Telegbafh Agency]. PROVINCIAL. Wellington, April 21.' Dr Pollen has joined the Ministry as leader of the Government in the Upper House. Fiji news states that the Government despatched a Pijian regiment to threaten the refractory settlers, and that the latter assumed the defensive. H.M.S. Dido has gone to interfere. The Government corps stormed a native village in consequence of the inhabitants refusing to surrender a murderer. The troops killed 157 natives Two Apia natives at M'Leod's plantation at Tanna have been murdered. Captain Jones, of Tanna, was shot dead in a scuffle. April 22. Advices received hy the Albion report bar iron at Birmioghamat£l4 2s6d; second class £13 10s; good brands, sheets and shingles, £19; hot-airr. pigs; £7 12s 6d. The continued advance has' caused a rise in the price of coal. The New Zealand University Council decided yesterday to devote tbe sayings' on the annual scholarships, to an accumulation fund for. special' scholarships. Each scholarship will he £20 per annum, for Mathematics, Physical Science,

Modern Languages, History, and English Literature. No candidate to be eligible to whom less than half, the possible number of marks is assigned. 771 Tauranga., April 21. 7, Mr Lloyd,, the electrician, is engaged in stretching the wire from Grahamstown to Napier. / Auckland, April 21. The Heio has arrived from Sydney. Grahams-town April 22. r . Tyler, charged with arson, has been committed for trial; bail was refused. April 22. Applications have been received for 12,500 shares in the South British. It is believed that Mr Bussell is instructed to make inquiries of English shipowners relative to a new San Francisco service. Caledonians, £17; Tiiames, £3 17s 6d. - Moore and Green have been committed for trial for scuttling the ship Alasger. The Southern Cross suggests that Dr Pollen should be Colonial Secretary. LyiteJjToit, April 22._ Sailed : Warwick for London, wiih a cargo valued at £«0,400; it includes 8649 sacks of wheat and 194 cases of meats. i * Dunedin, April 22. The cose against Ryan is still proceeding. There is no fresh evidence. Thirteen thousand six hundred and twenty-, nine acres, at Oamaru, was sold for £10,083. , In the breach of promise case, Julius Wenkheim v. Mrs. Arndt, a verdict was found for the plaintiff ; damages, farthing, each side to pay its own costs. For remainder of news, see four th page.

There were eleven drunken persons • in the Auckland lock-up one night last week. The difficulty experienced by the small traders of Auckland on account of the scarcity of small change, such as sixpences, pennies, and half-pence, is said by a correspondent to one of the papers to be " painful in the extreme." The Greymouth Borough Council intend to borrow £7000, to be expended in town improvements. Tlie money is to be repaid by debentures of £50 each, bearing interest at 6 per cent, and redeemable annually to the extent of £1000. Subscriptions amounting- to several pounds have been received, mostly in half--crowns, towards the defence fund now being established in Auckland to try the question of the legality of the Education act. It is calculated that about £50 will be required for the purpose. Houses are very scarce in Wellington, and considerable inconvenience is experienced by those of the inhabitants who seek a change of residence either from inclination or on account of the receipt of that unwelcome missive, the notice to quit. £50 to £60 a year is the average rental for a six-roomed house. A Significant Fact is noted by the Grey Eiver Argus : — " Nearly three hundred acres of bush land, chiefly in fifty-acre blocks, hage been applied for by bona fide settlers along the course of tbe main Grey Valles road, between the Arnold and Ahaura rivers, since the road contracts were commenced. This land was inaccessible and comparatively valueess before the road clearing began." While the contractors for sinking an artesian well for the Harbor Board at Auckland were engaged in boring operations, they drew out a number of pieces of 'coal from the bore. After examination, it was concluded that the coal might be fragments of a lump of Newcastle coal which had been surreptitiously introduced during the absence of the workmen. Some persons, however, are under the impression that a. bed of coal was pierced. Mb Dacre Bruce Barclay was recently charged at the Resident Magistrate's Court, Hokitika, with a breach of th 9 Medical Practitioners Registration Act, in having taken and used the designation of Doctor of Medicine, without being registered under the act, aud with having falsely pretended to be a Docor of Medicine, and was remanded to Akaroa, Canterbury, where the offence [was said to have been committed. The simultaneous erection of a number of large buildings in Wellington just now has completely absorbed all the labor at command of any description whatever. Carpenters, painters, and plumbers are at a premium, and in none of these branches of industry can assistance be procured even with wages ruling at the rate of lis a day. Plasterers and paperhangers can find enough work for sixteen hours*every day. — Independent. Wellington has not long been exempt from the operations of the swindlers who have succeeded in passing counterfeit coins in other portions of the colony. Yesterday a florin was taken as change by a gentleman who was led to suspect its genuiness, and the coin was submitted to a test wbicn proved it to be spurious. The imitation was good enough to deceive forty-nine persons out of fifty, but it had what is called a slippery feel, which simply means that the metal employed is much softer thau the genuine article. When broken in half the metal employed in the manufacture of the coin seemed to be lead, which could easily be pared with a knife, though antimony had evidently been employee to harden it. Tradespeople and the public generally had better be a little circumspect just now in receiving silver coinage. — Independent. In a township not a hundred miles from Oamaru, a Doctor (?) commenced practice, and, was consulted by not a few. Although one of his prescriptions savored strongly of lard and kerosine, for which mixture he charged half-a-guinea for a pill-boxful, he throve for a time, but one day, unluckily for himself,, being in tbe v bar of a hotel," he was hailed by some recent arrivals with tbe greeting, " Hallo cook, you here ! " A hasty adjournment took place, and a whispered consultation followed, The thing could not be kept quiet; the pseudo-doctor was the cook of the Great Britain. He has levanted, to the great regret, says the Times, of credulous creditors. ; ' A Curious Circumstance occurred during the last passage of the 8. s. Alhambra from Melbourne, "arid is recorded in the Otago Daily Times. When the steamer was about 120 miles from the .West Cape, K considerable surprise was occasioned to therpassengers on deck by a birdTcoming on board, almost , at their feet, where it was secured. It proved to be a pukeko, or swamp hen , and it seemed, completely \ exausted; it 7 was conjectured thiat the) bird- ;hiad been - blown toTseaT from

possible, when ita very limited flying powers, arid the distance of the steamer from laud when it came on board are coh--Bidered. That it really did come on board in the manner stated, however, we are able to affirm on the authority of an eyewitness. % There is little definite opinion yet formed as to who is to be the successor to Mr Kynnersley in the Nelson Provincial Council. The Grey Weekly Press says: — " Rumor has it that Cobden is to have an especial aspirant, of its own, and the same authority has pointed to ' a host ' in Greymoutb. The name of Mr Acton Adams, \ of Nelson, has also been mooted, since his speech in favor of the West Coast has been published in the Nelson papers. This gentleman is known to be largely interested in the reefing districts, and would, doubtless, prove to be a good selection in the event of no popular local man presenting himself. The seat, at present, does not seem likely to be contested by many candidates, there being few on the Coast who either aspire to the doubtful honors in connection with it, or who care to leave their business for the term of the sessioD, with the questionable expectation of being serviceable to the constituency. The following is from the Lyttelton Times : — Among the specimens on the way Out from England for the Canterbury Museum is a preserved tattooed Maori head, and so far as known, there is yet nothing of the kind in any of the New Zealand Museums. The Maoris used to preserve the heads of their friends and keep them with religious strictuess, and when a trade in them as curiosities grew up, they took to preserving the heads of their enemies, first as an article of barter, and afterwards as a trophy of victory. Tbe mode of preserving the head, briefly stated, is as follows : — The brain and eyes having been removed, the head is thrown into boiling water and kept there until the skin will slip off. Ifc is then plunged into cold water, and afterwards placed into a Dative oven so as to allow the steam to penetrate into all the internal cavities. This beiDg effectually done, it is dried in an oven, after which the flesh is slipped off the bones, and small sticks are used to thrust flax or the bark of trees within the skin, so as to restore it to its former shape and to preserve the features, The whole process is then finished by hanging the head a few days in the sun to dry. Although at one time a good many heads were bought as curiosities for Europe, they are now scarce, and though it may seem straDge to have to obtain a preserved Maori head from England, it was the only way of obtaining one. Three Bundred Russian Ladies have aaked to be examined for the faculty of medicine ; of these 70 will be admitted to the lectures — seventeen to be given weekly. The work of the National Lifeboat Institution, in saving life from shipwreck in the year 1872, may thus be brieflysummarised :— By lifeboats, 509; by shore boats and other means, for whose services the institution granted rewards, 170 ; total, 739 lives saved. They are making quite a fuss in London (says the New York Clipper) because a man recently went from that city to Liverpool, over two hundred miles, in two days on a bycicle. We fail to see any thing wonderful in this ; had the foolish man gone od the railroad train, he could have made the distance in six hours. No doubt he is one of those ignoramuses who never read the paper. Bartering Away a Baby. — However absorbed woman may be in her new and interesting occupation of asserting her rights, it is satisfactory to note that her natural affections have undergone as yet no material change. Woman still occasionally are not averse to marriage, and their motherly love is at times as touching as ever, A singular instance of this tenderness of woman for her offspring was afforded by a case which came before the magistrates at the County Police Court, Huddersfield, a few days ago. Elizabeth i Hacking, who also rejoiced in the' sobriquet of Bedford Bess, was charged with having unlawfully abandoned and exposed her child/sixteen months old, whereby its life was endangered. Mrs Hacking was acquitted of this charge, *nd a more unfounded accusation was never brought against a respectable woman. The circumstances were as follows : — Being in a public house, she heard a carter named Balm forth declare that he had three children, for whom he would not take £2,000. Evidently struck by Balm for the strong nursery affections, Mrs Hacking thought Bhe could not place her own little one in better hands, and after jome haggling sold the child to him for 2s 6drr-or rather for 3s the odd 6d being expended in mutual beer. Subsequently a boatman named Brown .induced Balrafbrth toi Jet him, ha vei the child for ,'6&and the baby, who seems to have varied considerably in price during the evening',

was carried off by Brown. Probably the baby disturbed Brown's rest at night, for the next morning he sent ifc back to Balmforth even sacrificing the 61 be had [paid "for it. Further changes were, however, in store for baby, for Mrs Balm forth .most kindly gave it to Mrs Dyson, the wife of a weaver, Mrs Hacking, being shortly afterwards taken into custody by the police, was brought before the magistrates on the charge before mentioned. Nothing could be more graceful or dignified tban her conduct under the circumstances — she actually consented to take the child back again. It was accordingly placed in her loving arms. Mark Twain writes the following humorous sketch of the Cunard Steamship Company: — "It is a curious selfpossessed, old-fashioned Company, the Cunard. (Scotsmen they are.) It was born before the days of steamships; ifc inaugurated ocean steam lines; it never lost more than one vessel; it haß never lost a passenger's life at all; its ships are never insured; great mercantile firms do not insure their goods sent over in cunard ships; it is -rather safer to be in tbeir ships than on shore. It is composed simply ol two or three grandchildren who have stepped into the shoes of two or three children, who stepped into the shoes of a couple of old Scotch fathers; for Burns and Maclvor were the CuDard Company when it was born; it was Burns and Maclvor when the originators had passed away; it is Burns and Maclvor still in the third generation ■ — never has been out of the families. Burns was a Glasgow merchant, Maclvor. was an old sea-dog, who sailed a ship for him in early times. That vessel's earniogs were cast into a sinking fund; with the money they bought another ship, and then another, and thus the original packet line from Glasgow to Halifax was established. -At that time the mails were slowly and expensively carried in British Government

tessela." Burns nod Maclvor and Judge Haliburton (' Sam Slick ,) fell to considering a scheme of getting the job of carrying these mails in private bottoms. In order to manage tbe thing they needed to be quiet about it, and they also needed faster vessele. Haliburton had a nephew who was not a shining success in practical life, but had an inventive head; name, Sam Cunard; he took his old jack-knife and a shingle and sat down and whittled out his enormous Royal Mail Line of vessels that we call the Cunarders — a very great navy itis — doing business in every ocean; owning forty-five steamships of vast cost; conducting its affairs with the rigid method and system of a national navy: promoting by merits, priority in routine, and for conspicuous service; using a company uniform; retiring superannuated and disabled men and officers on permanent pensions, and numbering his servants by hundreds and thousands. In his own private establishment in Liverpool it keeps four thousand men under pay. This is what Sam Cunard whittled out. ' That is to say, he whittled put a little model for a fast vessel. It was satisfactory; be was instructed to go and get the mail contract simply under bis own name; he did it, and the company became commonly known as the Cunard Company; then the Company tried steam and made it work; then prospered, and and brought out Haliburton, aud also Cunard's little interest; they removed Cunard to England and made him their London agent; he grew very rich and unspeakably respectable, and when he died, he died not as a poor, dreaming, provincial wbittler of experimental models, but bb the great Sir Samuel Cunard, X.C.8., or G.W.X.. or something like that, for the sovereign had knighted him. Well, the Cunard Company is a great institution, and has got more money than you and I both put together; and yet none of the family ever write editorials or deliver lectures. "