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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XII, Issue 68, 20 March 1877, Page 2

Steps are being taken at Wanganui to hold the next InterproYiucial Regatta there. The Wauganui Hetald states that the surveyors are about to commence work on a block of about 70,000 acres of. land inland of Normanby, within the confiscated boundary. The natives have discussed the matter, and are not likely to offer any opposition. The block is that known as the Waimate. The land is of average Patea quality, but the greater portion of it is bush. The following notification appears outside the Police Court at Wellington:— "Lost or stolen from the teller of the National Bank of New Zealand, Wellington, 100 new issue £1 notes. Wellington numbers a-n 40501 to 40600. ' The notes were bound up in paper covers, and were being prepared for issue." Managers of banks and other persons are cautioued against taking the note 3, and are requested to communicate any information in regard to them to the Manager of the National Bank, Wellington. The following telegram dated Lyell. March 14, appeared in the Westport Times of Friday last :— -Considerable excitement caused here this morning owing to some miners having brought in 40ozs of coarse gold, which they got out of the bed of deep creek, near Hodden's Accommodation House, midway between Lyell and the Alpine Hill. Deep Creek is a tributary of the Lyell Creek. It is new ground, and as this is the first payable gold found in the creek it is confidently expected the discovery may lead to retrieve waving confidence in this only half prospected district. The above quantity of gold was got for three weeks' work. The creek is about three miles long, and heads for the Alpine Range. Most of the creek has been already pegged out. The prospectors are known in the district aa Tommy the Rat and his mate. A singular case, wherein legal erudition, and that especially affecting banking matters, would be of considerable use, occurred in Christchurch the other day. A well-known medical practitioner who had lately attended a patient up to his last moments, presented a few days after, at the Bank where deceased had kept h is funds, a cheque for payment for the sum of £500. The official who received the document having examined it declined to honor the cheque on the ground that the signature waa somewhat unlike the sign-manual of the drawer. It was therefore endorsed at the back •' refer to drawer," and returned. Now, the drawer being no longer in the land of the living, it might be supposed that the cheque would be honored, if proofs necessary to relieve the Bank's conscience be forthcoming. But the hitch is what kind of proofs? And, so far, the cheque has not been presented a second time. — Rangiora Standard. Promiscuous acclimatisers (says the Timaru Hemld) should take warning by the fate of Mr F. D. Rich, a large proprietor near Waikouaiti in Otago. This gentleman, who we believe has done as much as anybody in the way of acclimatisation, was fined in a nominal amount for shooting hares on his own land. He freely admitted the " offence/ being apparently desirous of having the matter brought prominently forward. He further stated that the hares on his estate quite equalled in voracity a flock of longwoolled sheep, and that there were sometimes at least a thousand of them at once in a single paddock. His evidence was corroborated by other witnesses, and the Bench, though obliged to inflict a penalty for the sake of the law, appeared to sympathise with the delinquent. It seems that when the Noxious Animals. Prevention Bill was before the House last session Major Atkinson promised that the open season for hares should be extended, the Governor having power to do so. Nothing, however, has been done in the matter, and the consequence is that not only Mr Mr Rich's grass and plantations have been devoured, but also the law has been broken, and to some extent brought into contempt.

In the village of Harbottle, Northumberland, no child has died during.the last twenty years ; a farmer arid hW\three -shepherds,-, have between them forty-seven children, and* during the past thirty years riot a death has occurred in their families.— the Sanitary Record. - ' ; : , i The Brighton Aquarium .Kjtsiybeeia^out-" 1 stripped by a similar establishment in New York, which contains a white whale. Thirty thousand pounds was the price of this interesting stranger, whose fresh sea water costs a hundred dollars per diem, and whose food costs another hundred. At :the same - enormous establishment they have several ! enormous sharks, but these are tfoublesinne'.' When worried by the attention of visitors they charge against the glass, and on more than one occasion have succeeded in 'Breaking"' it. Harvest thanksgiving services were recently held in the Wairarapa, when the church was appropriately decorated. The curate, says the News, preached at both services. In the morning he explained the Jewish customs at harvest time, and showed the various uses of the word " harvest" in the Bible, and some of the many deep Jessons connected with it. As the :offertory ■ was in aid of the Sunday School, the sermon in the evening dealt with the question of religious education; the present system of secular instruction being strongly denounced as a contradiction to our religious belief, a contradiction to the nature of man, subversive' of all morality, and inconsistent .' with the administration of civil; justice. He urged upou parents the necessity Lof making up for the deficient school teaching by home teaching as far as possible during the days. Nineteen hundred years ago (says the Wanganui Chronicle) there was a great disj turbance in Jerusalem about the water supl ply, which was not sufficient, and the Roman governor, who was anxious to' get a proper supply for the city, proposed to bring it from a distance of fifty miles. The Jews refused the money: for. the purpose, whereupon the governor— Pontius Pilate— seized upon the sacred treasury, and made an aqueduct through the solid- rock, thus carrying water to Jerusalem, and [this exists to the present day.. We wish we had Pontius Pilate to take control of- the: Wanganui Borough finance administration, and act in a similarly prompt, energetic, and practical manner with regard to our water supply. Mr V. Pyke, having been duly "roasted " by his constituents, who haveunanimously asked him to resign his seat in the Assembly and also in the local County Council, has simply snapped his fiugers at those verdaut gentlemen. In his reply to their modest request Mr Pyke informs theTri" that they do not know what is good for them. " Regardless of vituperation and unmoved by clamour" —says the godfather of his County— "l shall continue to pursue the path of public (?) duty, keeping steadfastly in view your welfare. Believe me, I have the true interests of the people far too much at heart to abandon my post in the hour of danger in compliance with a request which is evidently based on a misunderstanding, and begotten of misrepresentation; and, until some more valid reason to the contrary: can be shown, I most certainly shall retain my seat in Pailiament." A cooler hand than " Old Pyke," as he wa3 wont to be called in the early digging days, perhaps does not exist; And now that his seat and £400 a year as County Chairman are assured to him for three years, for that period will he be found to lend a deaf ear to those to whom in his address he calls th<s " Resolutionists," which by ; a typographical error was printed " Revolutionists."— Rangiora Standard. (For continuation of News see fourth page)