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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume IX, Issue 145, 19 June 1874, Page 2

His Excellency's yacht Blanche was compelled to run for shelter yesterday to Astrolabe, where she was seen this morning. Good Templars. — Members of the Order and candidates for admission are reminded that there will be initiation his evening, at the Temperance Hall. Smith's Englieh and Continental Combination Company are expected to arrive shortly, and will give a series of entertainments in Nelson. The Company includes several gymnasts who perform both on the ground and on a rope, comic singers, and a gentleman who is reported to possess wonderful powers as a ventriloquist. The Macgregor with the San Francisco mail is due at Auckland to-day. Her London dates will be to tbe sth of May. The Otago was to leave Melbourne on Saturday last, and consequently is now due at the Bluff. In the Auckland Provincial Council recently a motion was brought forward in favor of a vote of £250, to be applied in reducing the price of rifle ammunition to volunteers, at the rate of 2s 91 per 100 rounds, such contributions to be paid to the officer in charge of Government military stores at such periods as may be arranged, and in proportion to purchases made. After some discussion the motion was withdrawn in favor of an amendment recommending the General Government to reduce tbe price of ammunition. The Wanganui Herald reports the death of Mr Peacock, at Manawatu — a young man who had settled on a small farm, and who had received a £1000 instalment of a legacy of £12,000. He was found dead in a field after having been missed for Borne time. Subscriptions amounting to £210 bave been raised in Wellington to meet the expenses of the local Fire Brigade for the year ending 31st May, 1874. The London Spectator publishes an «- ode of Welcome to the Duchess of Edinburgh, from the pen of Mr Alfred Domett. We have not seen the poem, but the Otago Guardian describes it as decidedly superior to the " Welcome" by the Poet Laureate.

The Land Transfer Act. — Accustomed as we are in New Zealand to Land Transfer offices in every little town of five or six hundred inhabitants, it will surprise maoy to find that in England it is questioned whether it will be advisable to have more than one oflice for the whole kingdom In moving the first reading of the new Bill the Lord Chancellor is reported in the Times to have said: — I must say a word on a point respecting which a question will be asked. Are you going to have local registries? or is the London Registry to do tho work of the whole kingdom? That appears to mo to be a question of some difficulty. It is one on which there is a great deal to be said on both sides. It sounds very plausible to say that, on the same principle which makes us hold that justice should be brought home to every man's door, dealings with property should be brought as close as possible to the property dealt with, and that especially in the case of small properties, it is very desirable that there should be a local office for doing the business on the spot. But on the other band you must bear in mind what is to be said oo the other side. Could any one go further than to suggest that there should be a registry in every county in England. But take the case of a large county, 60 or 80 or 100 miles long, and have but one office in each county. The consequence will bo that persons will often have to go to as great a distance to the registry in their own county as they would to come to tbo one in London, and perhaps the communications, as to locomotion, will be more difficult. In addition to that you must bear in mind that while the local registries are in operation a very large amount of dealings with property will be going oo in London. Dealings of tbis kind will always go on to a very large extent, because of the greater facilities for them that are to be found in the Metropolis. The consequence will be that persons from London will have to go down and make examinations at the local registries. What I propose to do is to proceed tentatively. I propose that the London Registry should bave within its own office district divisions. Should it bo found tbat for any district of the country the transaction of business is so large as to afford a good prospect that a registry established in that district would be selfsupporting, there will bea power vested in tbe proper authority to order the establishment of a local registry in that part of the country. I believe that arrangement will meet the wants of the case. There have been heavy rains in Marlborough lately, which have done considerable damage to the railway works. The Express reports that near " the elevation " at Picton, there is a large slip in the embankment, and the rails and sleepers were hanging over the gap. About ten chains of the line have been destroyed at that spot. In Wellington the other day a settler claimed to recover £<}$ from another for the destruction by.fire)of nine acres of fallen bush, owing to the alleged negligence of the defendant. It was stated in evidence that a rata tree fired in the month of April continued burning, without intermission, up to Nov. 21, and that the fire was communicated to the fallen bush from the rata tree in the latter month. The magistrate entered a nonsuit. Correspondents of Westland journals are disposed to carricature the new Executive. Thus writes a contributor to tbe Greymouth Star: — "Of course Westland wants an Executive. What absurdity to suppose otherwise. A Provincial Secretary, a Provincial Treasurer, and a Provincial Solicitor. Then the Government offices will never be left in charge of a messenger. Office hours, from 10 to 3. Duties : when his Honor is disengaged, whist; when his Honor's duties compel his attendance at Wellington, cut-throat euchre. Extra salary to messenger on account of increased work in keeping said Executive supplied with beer. That's tbe programme." The total population of the colony, exclusive of the Chatham Islands, is 299,160 as against 256,260 in 1871, being an increase of 42,900 souls, or 16*74 per cent. The total is made up of 170,896 males and 128,264 females. During the three years the increase of male inhabitants has been 20,-659 or 13*72 per cent, and of female- 22,271 or 21-21 vper cent. The number of half-castes is set down at 1845, or 390 more than three years ago, while the Chinese population is 4796, being an increase of 2156 The total number of inhabited houses is 61,270 as against 57,146 at the last census, being an increase of 4124, or 7*£l per csnt. Messrs Murray, Robert?, ,a%d Co., of Dunedin, have placed at the disposal of the<3Cimes for publication tbe following copy of a memorandum just received by them from Messrs Sanderson and Murray, of London. As it relates to the question of wool dumping, it will doubtless prove of interest to many of our readers : — fJCopy of -aemorandum from Sanderson and Murray, London, to Murray, Roberts, and Co., Dunedin.] "Green Island, 96 BW, ex J. N. Fleming. We must draw your fifa&q tion particularly to the state in which /_*ese wools arrived, having been dumped ao .hard that their market value waa seriously depreciated. The S* & Co. ctaer Toko were worse, Bnd the remark on our catalogue after inspection of the wool is 'dumped to death.' This dumping is now being carried to a great excesp, and is becoming Jistericus evil, as we

havo noticed a good many wools thi 8 season in n similarly objectionable con" dition to the above." We take the following from the Wellington Post :— Tha draft prospectus of the New Zealand Scrap Ironworks, Railway Carriage nod Wagon Building Company, Limited, is now leing circulated, and from it wo learn that the company is projected for the manufacture of scrap iron into rolled bate, permanent way, and contractors rails, for tho forging of anchors, axles, shafts, auvils, vices, __0., and for the building of railway carriages, wagons, drays, timber carriuges, and railway plant in general. For this purpose the promoters propose to utilise the many hundreds of tons of old iron now lying useless in all parts of the colouy, which will produce an article far superior to nny at preeent imported; and for puddling purposes an ampl^. Bupply of pig iron may ..'-.looked for from tho Para Para and Titanic Companies works upon the completion of their blast furnaces. A large demand for railway rails is anticipated, and careful estimates of tho machinery required, and cost of manufacture are given, showing that if the works only turn out the very moderate amount of three tone per day of bar iron, a dividend of 25 _ per cent may be expected on the X.OOQ of capital which it is proposed shouliMjwwio vested in this branch of tho works. The carriage and wagon building is also likely to provo highly - •profitable, as shown by the prospectus. A* .curious anecdote is related in a Geelong paper iu connection with the assessment of damages by a jury empanelled at a trial that came before one ofthe law courts at Melbourne a few days since. Tbe minority while admitting that the evi4,e/fce was stroDgly against the defendant, wanted to give the plninliff merely nominal damages, solely on the ground that he was a rich man, while ths defendant was a comparatively poor one. The party holding tbis view numbered five, the rest of the jury being unanimously of opinion that daraageß ougbt to be not less than £5000. A long discussion arose, and for some time there appeared to be little or no proßpect of an understanding being arrived at. A happy thought, however, at length struck one of the jurymen, who proposed that each juror should write the amount a*, which he would propose to fix the "damages on a slip of paper and place it in a hat, and that after ascertaining what the respective sums were, au average should be struck, aod tho amount thus arrived ut awarded to the plaintiff. This suggestion being at once adopted a brief consultation was held on the pari; of each of the factions into which the jury was divided, and tbe hat was duly brought iuto play. The result of the ballot showed that while the refractory minority had stuck to their original idea aud had each given "one farthing," the members of the majority had each specified a sufficiently large sum to bring the average to upwards of £5000, the exact Bum for which a verdict was actually given being £5,101. A most startling inquiry has recently been raised iu England regarding anew theory of the cause of deviation in ike mariner's compass. Not long since a writer in tbe Nautical Aagazine, a very high authority in marine matters, advanced some remarkable facts, tending to show that, in iron steamships, one hitherto unsuspected source of magnetic deviation arises from the effects of unequal and varying distribu- . tion of heat over the metallic hull. He illustrated his meaning by citing the case of an iron steamship going up tbe Red Sea, which had the rays of a blazing sun impinging on oue side of her hull in the morning, aud on the other side in the evening, the effect being a very marked difference jn the morning and evening deviation. Again he cited the case of an iron steamship making a passage from Liverpool to New York, and when in the alternate bands of tepid Gulf Stream and frigid Polar water, between George's and Nantucket, with about 30 fathoms of shoal water, tbe master found a compass alteration of 10 deg. A similar deviation has been observed on board vessels lying in port when the sun has been shining powerfully on one side of the ship, and the other has been shaded. An experiment iu thermal electricity shows that if different parts of h metallic bar are unequally heated, or if one part be cooled by application of ice and the other heated by a spirit lamp, the electricity is proportionate, not to the absolute heat communicated, but to the difference of temperature in different parts of the body. But, a£ yeft, no experiments have been v co.nducted to test the correctness of this novel view, and to determine how far, if at all under the conditions named, the magnetic guide of the seaman may lead him ruinously astray. Now, strange to say, the writer of the article, who modestly suggested merely putting his views and deductions to a crucial test, has been sharply overhauled for his presumption in proposing such magnetic inquiry. The venerabltf head of the Admiralty CompaßS Department severely criticises him, on the ground that his own observations have brought no such result to light, and dismisses the theory as not holding water. But, despite the weight of such high authority, the facts stated and their consonance with a known law of thermo-electricity as well as the difficulty of explaining many compass deviations in iron ships upon any principle heretofore propounded by scientists, warrant aod demand some satisfactory, if not exhaustive, experiments to decide the question at issue. — New York Herald.

A .Novel Misdemeanok.-— There ib, no Act of Parliament forbidding per-^ B f S wl . tbo «* voice, car, or knowledge of rnusic from singing, if it pleases, tuem to do so. The consequences ar/ eometunea dreadful, but u, ey are bor£ with .resignation, aa it _ 8 f elt lhat it would becont-nry to tho first principles of liberty to interfere with tbe exercise of the human voice when ra-sed with no evil intention, however inharmonious may be its utterunces. in the United States it 'seems that staging without a decent knowledge of the art is, under certain cir.ums'noces, an indictable offeuce; and a man named William Linkhavv bas just beon tried/ before Judga Russell, at KobesOh Superior Court, North Carolina, on 4n indictment for misdemeanor. It appeared that Linkhaw is a member of the Methodist Church, and sings in such a way as to disturb aud worry the nerves of the congregation. At the end of each verse his voice, when engaged in singing hymns, is heard after the otber singers have ceased. Ooe of the witnesses being requested to describe (be defendant'- singing, sane a/ verse of tho hymn iA the voice u"n4 manner of the un_.rtut.alo mun, ptroducing "profound sensation," and sending a thrill of a disagreeable nature through tho bar, the jury, and all who were present in court. It was, on the .other hand, proved (hat Linkhaw was a"S^rict member of the Methodist Church, aud in other respects a mon of tho most exeraplaiy deportment. Non was it contended by tho State upon th/ evidence that he had any iotention or purpose to disturb the congregation, but ou tbe corftrary, it was admitted tbat he was conscientiously taking part in the religious services. There was, however, a verdict of guilty, "judgment and appeal by the defendant;" and here the matter rests for the present. In the event of tbe ultimate decision being adverse to Linkhaw, tbe serious question remains, whether, even though forbidden by law to take part in congregational melody, he will be justified in desisting if his conscience bids h m lift his voice in song to the best of bis ability.— Pall Mall Gazette.