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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume IX, Issue 277, 23 November 1874, Page 2

The costliness of the law was shown at Picton the other day. A man was sued for town and education rates levied on sixteen sections, and amounting to £2 3a 9d. Thirty-iwo complaints were laid against the man, and he had to pay £16 sterling as cost?. The Times of Friday says :-— There was a large attendance at the sale of the Governor's effects yesterday, and a great number of lots were knocked down. The wines were sold at two o'clock, and fetched from 80a per dozen downwards. A Bmail lot of brandy, seventy years old, brought 10a per bottle. The carriages were all disposed of at fair prices, as well as all the saddlery; one horae only being unsold. In reference to the attack made by the New Zealand Times upon the Government for bestowing a seat in the Ministry upon Mr Bowen, the Resident Magistrate at Christchurcb, the Lyttelton Times says : — "One objection urged by our contemporary to the appointment ia clearly fallacious. The writer compares Mr Bowen's position with that of Mr Gisborne, and denounces the appointment on the supposition that an arrangement has been made by which, as in Mr Gisborne's case, Mr Boweo may return again to the Civil Service when occasion requires. We are in a position to state that no such arrangement has been or is likely to be made by Mr Bowen. In relinquishing the Civil Service for a political career, be retires altogether from the former, and we think he will carry with him the. hearty congratulations and best wishes of the community that in his new career be may be as successful as in his last. He has thoroughly well fulfilled his duties as a Resident Magistrate, and we congratulate the colony and the Government on the accession to office of an honorable, efficient, and experienced public servant as a Minister of the Crown." The English Opera Troope have been playing nightly at Christchurcb to overflowing bouses. When the " Bohemian Girl " was played, hundreds were unable to obtain admittance, though every effect was made to accommodate those who crowded in. In reference to Mr Holloway, the Southern Croat says:— "With the land in Southland he was very favorably ( impressed, and he speaks ia equally

eulogistic terms of Otago and Canterbury. - The land in the last-mentioned province is patchy, a large quantity being shingly and tusaocky, but that beara a very small proportion to the vast area of clear soil ready for immediate settlement, and capable of providing homesteads for thousands of settlers. Otago land cornea in also for «* large share of Mr Holloway's approval, as well as Nelson and Marlborough. Nelson he regards as the future Cornwall of New Zealand, Irom the variety and richufss of its mineral resources. The drawback to the settlement of the land in Marl borough bo considers to be the monopoly of capitalists, who absorb vast tracts of country for grazing purposes, to the exclusion of the agricultural settler." The produce of the Torre3 Stniits fisheries last year — pearl-fish, tortoiseshell, and beche-de-mer — is valued at £20,000. There are about 20 fishing parties engaged, numbering in ail between 600 and 700 men and women ! I The latter are. in many icstauces, on the ships' or boats' articles. About two-thirds of the whole number are natives of Queensland, and the islands within the jurisdiction of that colony. A fatal case of snakebite occurred at Ararat, Victoria, recently. A girl named Ellen Healey, daughter of Mounted-constable Healey, of Klmhurat, flve years old, wan bitten about two o'clock in the afternoon, whilo pluying in the busb. When apprised of the circumstance, the mother foun.l the child sleepy and vomiting, but afre recovered sufficiently to make herself understood. She said she had been bitten by a snake. Two punctures were found on her leg. The wound was roughly cauterised and bound up, and the poor child brought a distance of 14 miles to the hospital. Messrs. Law and Sharp (the latter the resident surgeon) administered and injected ammonia, but the child was moribund, and died at about six o'clock iv the evening. The iojectiou restored the pulse for a moment, but the case was hopeless. It h not known what species of snake inflicted the injury.