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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XII, Issue 46, 22 February 1877, Page 2

A correspondent of the Otago Times telegraphs from Wellington that the SolicitorGeneral is worried to death for opinions on points daily arising under the Counties Act and ita fellows, and, it is said, finds ifc utterly impossible to reconcile many of the provisions of the various Acts. New Zealand has, accorping to the latest returns, 11,674,853 sheep and 494,113 horned cattle; Victoria has 11,749,532 sheep and 799,460 horned cattle; South Australia, 6,000,000 sheep; New South Wales, 24,000,000 sheep and 3,000,000 horned cattle. Under the heading " Disgrace," fche Regis-trar-General notifies in the Gdztte that he has erased from the Medical Register of New Zealand the name of Francis Goold, late of Gisborne, Poverty Bay, registered as a member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, the said Francis Goold having been convicted of felony at the Resident Magistrate's Conrfc, Auckland, on the 22ud December last. As an instance of the large yields obtained from crops in some parts of the Ashburton district (says the Lyttelton Tivies) it may be mentioned that five men who have 1100 acres of land in crop on fche Mount St. Peters' run, south of the Ashburton, confideatly expect to obtain 60,000 bushels of grain. The. land is held on a cropping lease, and this is the first year ifc has been cultivated. Friends of Mr Gordon Gooch, or, as he was known here when with the Carandinh, Mr Harry Gordon, bass vocalist, will be pleased to hear that he has made great strides in his profession at home, and has become quite a favorite. He was recently eugaged with a concert company under the leadership of Signor Randegger,' which made a tour of the provinces, and everywhere he was well received. On his last visit to Karamea (says the Buller News) Mr O'Conor called a meeting of the settlers to inform them that the very small amount of employment which the Government were going to give would nofc be more than sufficient to procure a portion of the necessaries of life, and recommended those who had nofc made a good use of their time at Karamea to take their departure with their families, or else go themselves elsewhere to seek employment for the maintenance of the families they might leave behind them. The following letter was recently received in an Otago country town from the Kumara: — " When I say the rush is over, ifc is only for a time. There is plenty oi gold here, and over a thousand miners are at work ou the field; but they cannot do much until the water is brought in The Waimea Race is expected to be in about the end of April. I have been all over the diggings, and there aye about two hundred claims along the lead. The tunnels are in from 150 to 300 feet, but miners are working all over the field. Business is very slack at present. There are about fifty public houses, mostly large buildings, and the population in town is about 200. I would not advise anyone to come here until fche water is in afc all events." We are all liable to mistakes (says the Poverty Bay Herald) and we have all heard of the man who put his wet umbrella to bed and stood hiirself up in the corner to dry, but the following trifling error is, we believe, not yet on record. A native chieftain, after talking himself hoarse the other day at the Makaraka Lands Court, whilst asserting his right to countless acres' of hill, wood, and dell, found it necessary to assuage his thirst after the labors of the day. The fleeting hours flew swiftly by while the noble savage quaffed goblet after goblet of the far-famed local XXX. Meanwhile his faithful steed, which was waiting at the door in readiness to convey him to his fiainga, inspired some gay pakeha revellers -with a brilliant idea, loosening fche girths, they reversed the saddle with pommel facing the tail, and then left. At length the rangatira bethought him of his home and the wife of his bosom, and striding to his horse, and placing his hand on the pommel, his foot in the stirrup, instinctively felfc.for the rein. None was to be fouud, however, at that end of the quadruped, and with a wild cry of rage and anguish, he rushed back into the house exclaiming " who cut off my horse's head?" A very curious case of arsenic poisoning * (the Graphic states) is reported from Paris. A rich lady residing, in the Faubourg St. Honore found herself growing very, ill, and the doctor pronounced her to be suffering from some slow poison. Madame X rejected this idea as absurd, bufc on rising one morning found a glass of water which was usually paced by her bedside to be discolored by a white filmy powder. On showing this to the doctor he afc once declared ifc to be arsenic. All inquiries failed to detect the culprit, and the next night Madame fiiled the glass herself, and kept careful watch that no one meddled with it. Nevertheless, in the morning the white powder again made its appearance, and the doctor was fairly at his wit's end to find fche cause. Finally he discovered that his patient was in the habit of reading in bed, and for that reason candles were kept burning all night in her room. These candles, of a dazzling whiteness, had been strongly impregnated with arsenic during their bleaching process, and the arsenic becoming volatilised by combustion, thus po ; soned the air of the bedroom. The Sydney Mail says :—" Talking of music, a rather curious incident occurred here last week, as we . are informed. On Thursday, the day before the San Francisco mail left, an advertisement appeared in the Herald, stating that ' the management ' had arranged with Madame Ilma De Murska to appear at Sydney for a short operatic season. The advertisement was nofc signed, which was in itself suspicious, and as there is no operatic company here, nor any means of getting one together, the announcement was rather unfcelligible. Still there were those possessing claims on ' the management ' of a pecuniary nature, who were induced to hold them over on the strength of this advertisement. By the mail steamer, however, departed both the great vocalist and 'the management,' and debts which before were doubif ul, became, of course, decidedly bad. It Avas a smart trick, and affords matter for pensive reflection— on the part of the creditors." An old powder-house in Portsmouth, N.H., which is now undergoing repairs, has stqred within its walls a quantity of powder belqnging to no one knows whom. Cartridges prepared ln the war of 1812, on which are written. " This is for the heart of General Hull," "This is for the heart of General Gates," &c, are lying in the house. These missiles seemed nofc to have performed their work of death, but to have slept in the quiet of the powder-house for over sixty years. In the European Mail of December 22nd, the death is recorded of Eliza Ana Hobson, widow of the late Captain Hobson, R.N.Governor of New Zealand, aged 65. It may be remembered that ifc was to Captain Hobson's prompt action that we owe the preserpreservation of Akaroa as a British possession. The gallant captaiu, having learned privately the intention bf the French to hoist their flag afc that point, pushed on with all speed to Akaroa, and had only just finished saluting the British flag, when the French corvett dashed in for. the purpose of erecting the French standard, Thus Akaroa only escaped by about an hour falling into the h*w4s of the French,

During a recent musical festival at a fashionable church (says fche Wellington Argus) the vestry fondly hoped and believed that the collections would go a long way inassisfcing them to meet their financial engagements. 1 The congregations were large, and the music was of a character' that should have produced a bountiful response. Every man was exhorted to give, "not grudgingly, nor of necessity, bufc just as he felt disposed iv his heart." The collection exposed the natures of at least three mean individuals, for when the bag wa3 emptied two gelatine lozenges and one corn plaster were found among the contributions. A rnmor is prevalent to the effect that a well-known and long-established medical practitioner in Christchurch has been served with a notice of action for damages conseqenfc upon alleged negligence on his part, whereby a lady patient of his lost her life. Tbe damages amount to no less a sum than £2000. Considerable sensation has been produced by the announcement of this suit, which, if brought before a jury, cannot fail to disclose matters of a peculiar interest. " The Laws of New Zealand" is the title of a compendium of the Colonial Statutes prepared by Mr John Cumin, 8.A., of the Middle Temple. The necessity of compiling a handy reliable code of the Acts of New Zealand has been frequently brought, before the notice of successive Governments, but the work has always been staved off to "a convenient season," which has never arrived, as far as the action of the Government is concerned. Unasked and unaided the work has been undertaken by Mr Cumin, who has acquitted himself in a manner that must win the thanks of the legal profession and the legislators of New Zealand. Had the work been produced at the instance of the Government, it would have cost not less than £1000 The voluntary effort of Mr Cumin may, therefore, be regarded as worth that amount to the colony. Tbe circulation of the work can never repay Mr Cumin for his trouble. He must therefore console himself with the knowledge that he is a legal benefactor. Possibly this will be sufficient for him.— Argus. The Otago Guardian strongly urges upon fche people of Otago to mark their recognition of the. services of Mr Macandrew in a substantial manner. It says :— « Throughout New Zealand that name has been looked on as a sort of synonym for Otago; and as her vigilant watchman, and unswerving defender of all her interests, his position and his action are familiar to every politician and to every observer of polities throughout New Zealand. And we venture to say that if the whole public opinion of New Zealand were polled, there would be but one voice, that there is not one other of all the defunct provinces thafc owes so much to any one living man as does Otago to James Macandrew. The abandonment of the mission to England will have withdrawn a bone of contention, and we think that those on the other side of the fence will be ready to show that recent dissension, however warm, cannot blot out the memory of services the results of which can never die while the hills and valleys of the old Province of Otago remain." Two men, named Lyons and Karlishaw, who were arrested some months ago in Melbourne for receiving stolen property in South Africa, have been sources of considerable trouble to the authorities. Karlishaw was discharged, as being apparently the dupe of his partner, and Lyons was liberated after two mails had been received -without bringing any evidence againsfc him. By the subsequent mail, however, the documents were received, and Lyons was again arrested. Ifc then appeared that the offence he had committed was the purchasing of a diamond from a black girl who had stolen it, and that on being committed for Iral he had absconded from a bail of £300, After repeated remands no one came to swear to the depositions, and Lyons was again discharged, and he disappeared. On the 3rd , January her Majesty's ship Wolverine arrived at Sydney, bringing Mr W. M'Kenua, of the South African police, with a warrant for the arrest of Lyons, and he went to Melbourne, but he found the bird had flown. Lyons and Karlishaw had both left in the St. Osyth, and curiously enough the St. Osyth and the Wolverine spoke each other off Western Australia. M'Kenna has since left for England, bufc ifc is expected that Lyons will be arrested before he arrives.