The Nelson Evening Mail. SATURDAY, AUGUST 1, 1874.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume IX, Issue 171, 1 August 1874, Page 2

The Nelson Evening Mail. SATURDAY, AUGUST 1, 1874.

A eupplementary Suez mail will be taken by the Albion, which leaves here at 11 o'clock on Monday morning. Monday next being a public holiday, the Evening Mail will on that day be published ai 11 a.m. Inland Communication Committee. — Members of this Committee are reminded of the meeting to be held at the Govergment Buildings, at half-past seven this evening. Wesleyan Church, Haedy-st. — The Rev. Jos. Waterhouse will conduct a children's service in the above church to-morrow, at three o'clock, and preach in the evening at half-past six. Stoke Poblic Hall. — An entertainment, conuisting of vocal and

instrumental music and readings, will be given be given at Stoke on Mondayevening. These entertainments have proved a great success, and a crowded audience will no doubt appreciate the efforts of those who have been working with a view to providing them with a pleasant evening. A carriage wiil start from town at half-past six from Stanton's corner. As a good deal of interest has been taken in the case of John Sherwood, messenger to the Supreme and Resident Magistrate's Courts, who was ordered to prepare himself to be offered up a sacrifice on the altar of retrenchment recently erected by the Provincial Executive, we may state, and very glad we are to be able to do so, that the old soldier who served her Majesty for twenty-four years in the army, and was present at the principal battles in the Sikh campaign, and who has since then been in the service of the Provincial Government for sixteen years, is not to be deprived of his means of livelihood at a month's notice, but is to retain his old appointment. Matters had gone so far that another man had been sent over by the General Government to take his place, but be is now to take charge of the Immigration Depot, and Sherwood la still a man to be avoided as the bearer of jury summonses. Inspection Parade .— In consequence of the Harmonic Society's concert, the inspection of the town companies is postponed till Thursday, the 13th inst. City Rifle Dramatic Company. — The entertainment of the previous evening was last night repeated by this Company to a moderately filled house. The performance was most satisfactory, the previous night's rehearsal having made some of the actors better acquainted with their parts. A New Plymouth telegram dated Wednesday says: — A boat has returned from Mokau, with a cargo of pigs and fungi. The crew report that the Natives were most ftiendly, cooking food for them, and made them most welcome. The land is well timbered at Mokau, and there is coal sixteen miles up the river. The natives want a store. They have horses and cattle in abundance. They will permit the boat Go-Ahead to make two or three trips before deciding upoo opening the Mokau to all. Two of the crew remained behind, to go up the river, to visit the coal-field. Natives were sent back in the boat, to fill their places. The natives say that they do not mind a schooner of about forty tons going into the river, but they object to a Bteamer visiting. Before the boat was allowed to enter, the ceremony of removing the tapu fijom the river was gone through. The country is described as broken, but a fine table-land lies behind the ranges. The Wellington correspondent of the Marlborough Express writes :— The recent breakdown of the telegraph in your neighborhood has renewed the application for an alternative line by the Lyell, which I think will be constructed, as it is a very desirable addition to the service. We (Marlborough Express) regret to hear that out of fifty-six Californian quail shipped per Wallace for the Marlborough Acclimatisation Society, only 21 birds arrived alive? of these only six were hens; the weaker sex having given way under the privations of the Jong voyage. During the proceedings of the Supreme Court at Auckland the other day, the foreman of the Grand Jury asked his Honor's advice in a case of what he called "find and keep" larceny. It appeared that the prisoner had found a purse containing money, and had converted it to his own use. The Judge remarked that, unfortunately, the principles of people in the colony were rather lax in this matter, whereupon the foreman asked whether or not consideration should not be shown to persons brought up under so lax a state of morals ; but the Judge could not see it in the same light, and suggested that it would be as well if the Grand Jury found a true bill, and left it to a petty jury to decide the question of guilt or innocence of the prisoner. What a Railway will do. — The Chamber of Commerce Chronicle for May reports the resumption of the survey of a short cut by rail from Calcutla to Western China, by order of the Marquis of Salisbury, now President of the India Board. When formerly holding the same office, under the title Lord Cranbourne, the Marquis directed this survey to be made, and nearly onehalf of the work was done, but it was suspended by his successor, by influence of official opposition both at home and in India, So strong, however, has the feeling now become for annexing the trade of Western China, and the whole of that of the Shan States, for which Russia is bidding bo highly, that there is every prospect of a railway being constructed in that direction through Rangoon, and if no unsurmountable obstacle to it should be found beyond the north-east portion of the British Burmah, to which the survey has already been carried. No fewer than 428 cities, with a district comprising a population of 90,000000, will be eerved by this railway, if constructed, and Chiua will be brought by the overland route within forty days of England. Freßh openings will then be provided for that magnificent commerce upon which mußt ever depend the wealth and^ greatness of the British Empire.