MAGISTRATES' COURT.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XV, Issue 237, 6 October 1880, Page 2

MAGISTRATES' COURT.

[Before T. Mackay and C. de V. Toschomaker, Esqs., J.J.I?.] Archibald Kitching was charged with breaking in a horso in Bridge-street on the 22nd September. Defendant denied that he was breaking in the horse, which was already broken, but said that the horse had run away. Constable Hawksworth stated that on the evening of the day in question he saw that an accident bad occurred to a horse and cart, and ou going to enquire he was told that the horse was being broken in. Robert Bright said he was with Kitching at the time. The horse had had harness on often before, and would have gone quietly enough but that he waa frightened by aoma children. He supposed that they were breaking in the horse. Eined 23, and costs 9s. Eunnell v. W. Rutherford.-— Action to recover £6, amount due for rent. Judgment for amount claimed and costs. Meuary v. Limond. — Action to recover £12 Is, amount due for board and lodging, refreshments, money lent, &c. Judgment for plaintiff with costs. Mr Bunny appeared for the plaintiff. Disher v. M'Nab. (solicitor of Blenheim.) — Actiou to recover £5, amount of dishonored cinque paid to plaintiff by defendant for board and lodging, money lent, &c. Judgment for amount claimed and cosia. Mr Pitt appeared for the plaintiff. Brown w. Muir.— Action to recover £17 Is, amount due for cash lent, board and lodging, &c. A set off was put in of £49 93 6d for maintenance and education of plaintiff's son, wages duo, &c. Mr Bunny appeared for the plaintiff, and Mr Pitt for the defendant. Mr Bunny objected that the Magistrates had not the power to adjudicate upon the set off, which waa in excess of £20, but had the power to deal with the plaiutiff's claim of £17 Is. He further argued that having no jurisdiction where a sum exceeding £20 had to be dealt with they had no right even to adjourn the case, but would have to proceed with it aa though no set off had been filed. Mr Pitt argued that the summons was taken out in the Resident Magistrate's Court, which had jurisdiction up to £100. The Justices were on the Bench to-day accidentally. They were there in the Resident Magistrate's Court, and acting aa Resident Magistrate, but had not themselves jurisdiction beyond £20, although the Court they represented had that jurisdiction. The Bench decided to adjourn the Court. Adam v. Harwood. — Judgment summons for £17 Ilsßd. Mr Pitt appeared for the plaintiff, and said that he was not prepared to say that, as should be done in the case of a judgment summons, a sum of money had been forwarded to Takaka to pay the defendant's passage to Nelson, and he would therefore ask that the case might be adjourned, and that the Bench jroyjd fix the amount to be forwarded to him. The Bench said that £1 would be enough, and the case was adjourned,

The following extract from a 16'tter received by the iast Sue£ mail id published in a Dunediu paper. The writer-** resident in Huntingdonshire— says: — "I remember telling you last year what a wet season we had been having; This year it, has been worse. F or the last two month* we h»v« had : nothing but tempests day after day, such as have not been known in the memory of man. An immense quantity of hay has been swept away from the meadows, and the farmers wish that what is left had been carried away also', as it is good for nothing. Ido bot suppose that there is a ttin oi really good nay this season anywhere in this part of the country. Towards the south and west tho weather has been better. I thought I was going to have one of the, finest crops of potatoes 1 had ever grown \ but. twice, in a. fortnight my ground has beon under water, threfe or lour feetde'ep." An Isle of Ely correspondent says :— " Mora rain fell in July than in the first five months of the year put together, the quantities being 667 and 5.74 inches respectively. In June the fall was 2.47 inches, so that the whole fall of the first fiix months of , the year was only 1.54 inches in excess of that of July alone. There yeete only six days in July on which rain did not fall J and oti the l4tli half an inch fell in an hour. Wo shall not he surprised if the yield of wheat is from 20 to 25 per cent less than it might reasonably have been estimated at oh July Ist ; potatoes are seriously diseased ; oats and barley are generally good crops." The trials of local coal in our railway locomotives at the beginning of this month did not (remarks the Dunedin Herald) prove satisfactory. One engine on which a colliery fireman was placed so that the lignite might have fair play, came to a standstill at th« north end of the Cavershaai tunnel for thirty minutes, further on it stack for twenty minutes, and at a level crossing north of Cliutou ten minutes, making one hour's delay in all on the journey from Dunedin to Clinton. On the ri turn things were worse, the stoppages being— Crichton Bank, twenty minutes ; between Greytown and Owir, twenty minutes ; at Wingatui fifteen minutes, and on Abbotsford Bank fifteen minutes, of an hour and ten minutes in all. Another train, tended by a regular fireman, and using lignite, stuck at Chain Hills for fifteen minutes, and at Titri Bridge for twenty minutes during the run to Balclutha. The Dunedia Herald, in a vigorous article on railway management, says : — " We would once aqua protest against the miserable jealousy of its neighbors that is shown more or less by every town in the colony. Invercargill hates Dunedin ; Dunedin vexes Christcliurch *, the North Island denounces the South ; aud the South Island mistrusts the North. At home, Now Zealand is very generally supposed to be an unimportant district in Australia. In New Zealand, every city — almost every town — strives to monopolise the trade and public expenditure of tho colony, and seeks to bnild itself up by the ruin of its rivals. We sometimes question whether a true national feeling can ever be evolved from such unpromising materials." The London correspondent of the Argus writes: — In America there seem to be lady dramatic critics, which enables dramatic criticism to be more exact and particular upon certain matters. One of them has discovered lately that a prstty and popular actress has not such good legs as she would have the public believe. "I have," says the critic, " soen her legs within three weeks in ' Cymbeline,' ' As You Like it,' and ' Twelfth Night. ' Legs, like other cylindrical forms, look smaller when covered with black. Supposing, for argument's sake, the white tights of the first play are genuinely filled out, I judge the brown ones of the second to contain about two quarts of sawdust, and the black ones of the third not less than a peck. Such is my conscientious estimate." It will be a very shocking thing if critics on this side of the Atlantic become so conscientious as this, Admiral Sir Paget Beauchamp Seymour, now commanding the combined fleet at Ragusa (telegraphs the Napier correspondent of the Press Association) first came into notice in New Zealand, where he commanded H.M S. Curacoa during the Taranaki war of 1860. Commander Loring, of the Iris, was then in command of the Btation, and the Curugoa was laid up at Auckland, Captain Seymour going to Taranaki in command of the Naval Brigade aud the light company of the 65th. He there did good service, and received a serious wound. He was subsequently appointed to the command of the squadron in these seas on the retirement of , Commander Loring. The following is a list of the articles of jewellery that were stolen recently from Government House at Melbourne:— One gold brooch, pattern two lawn tennis rackets; one silver brooch, pattern a fork with pearl at end; one gold ring, Bet with sapphire; one Bold ring, with mouse, th« property of Miss llobiuson ; one gold keyless watch, with enamelled back; oue gold watch chain; one gold Maltese cross brooch, Bbape of pigi; two gold horseshoe pins, one set with small rubies and diamonds, other plain; one pair round gold earrings, with ona pearl in the centre of each; one small piece of diamond ornament to form brooch into pendant; one gold ring, with seal engraved on stone; thiee small round studs, the property of Mrs IfiUay; one gold nugget brooch, one grouse claw brooch, one enamelled bird, ono gold bouquet holder, onyx-gold enamel, two pair of silver earrings, one ring with diamonds, emeralds, &c, one gold fork brooch, one silver brooch, and £9 in gold, the property of Mra St. John. A special reporter lately telegraphed, aftar investigation, that the whole of tho Teraora goldfield is payable and permanent, Some claim-holders told him that they were picking sufficient from tho wash-dirt to pay them well. One party obtained 102ozs in this way for a week's work, without water. The gold is very patchy, however. The average sinking is from sixty to eighty feet. Nothing has yet beeu discovered to warrant tho report of rich reefs. The editor of the loangab.ua Times does not take kindly to disbursement on account of cablegrapuic news, and this is the way he lets his readers know about it: — The interruption of cable communication with Europe suuffs out for the time being all those consuming European topics, from the price of wool right down to the moremeuts of our disesteeraed and expensive friend Ayoub Khan. Poor old Ayoub and the Sultan of Turkey— we mustn't forget the Sultan, for be is just as dear (expensive) to us as the other potentate — your'e wiped off our map for forty-eight honrs anyway, and we feel quite lonesome. For four years we hare bad jou — or rather the pair of you have had vb — every issue, in some form or other, and cost U9 more hard cash than would pension you both for life. For the all too brief period then we breaths, and in the meantime may your shadow grow less— aheap less. May General Roberts, and General Burrows, and General Phayre march on you and surround you, and overwhelm you. May the Great Powers »it on you, and distract jou with ultimata — each one more agonising than the last- In short, until we next hoar from you, which will surely be directly upon the restoration of communication — mny you both be rammed, j*mmed, and caterwampously chawed up. We have said it. Dunedin is becoming very highly civilised indeed (says the Sydnoy Bulletin). We have before us a bill rendered by a Scotch landlady to a young man lately resident in that fair city. It runs thus :— " Mr Dr to Mrs Mac . To four weeks' board and lodging nt 32s 6d,£G 10s; two pills, 2d; total, «£G 103 2d." There is something essentially northern about this. A nugget of gold, worth about £400, has been found by a carrier oh the Boyne road nt Jones's crock, which is situated betweeu Tarnagulla and Dunnolly. The carrier who was walking alongside his waggon, stumbled against some hard substance, and thinking it was a lump of earth, he kicked it out of the road. By kicking it some of the earth was displaced, and revealed the auriferous substance that was underneath. .* • - The Duke of Mauchester in responding to the toast of " The Health of the visitors"" at the Ballarat Agricultural and Pastoral Society's Show on the Bth September, said he had heard of the greatness of their city, but it required a. personal inspection to realise it. He had heard that Victorians and Australians were annoyed that Mr Trollope should speak of their " blowing." But they need not be annoyed; he thought they bad a right to "blow," and if he "was an Australian he would blow tpo.

Thg following is an abstract of the classification of the New Zealand exhibits : — Art, 74; education, apparatus processes, and the liberal arto, 93; furniture, 62 ; textiles, 32; raw manufactures, 77 ; machinery processes, mechanical, 44 ; industries, G3; alimentary, 134j horticulture, 31, mining, 21. The nutiibera of. working-men who left for Australia by the Hero and Wakatipu last week (says the A. Z. Times) took with them, in the aggregate, ft large amount of capital. During the early part of the waek there was quite a •' run " upon the Post-office Savings Bank, and the number of £30, £40, and £50 deposits withdrawn In bo Short a period was wholly unprecedented. It is estimated that a sum between £10,000 and £15,000 has been taken from Wellington in this manner ani is on its way to Australia. Borae months ago;(says the Daily Times') Mit. Almoabf Dunedin, Sent a large shipment of rabbit skills ie? a well known New York firm of hat manufacturers lor the purpose of testing their value for felting purposes. A few days since he received a consignment of black American felt hats from the firm in question, the felt of which they made from New Zealand rabbit fur. The hats are of first class quality, and can be sold at a reasonable price, bo that the experiment must be regarded as a success. Mr Almoa will shortly send another shipment of 3000 rabbit skins to America. Dr. Tanner's fasting leat is eclipsed by a oaie brought forward by" the Philadelphia Titties, in which a farmer named Jacob Shalleross, aged eighty years, lived without solid food for a period of eighty-four days— viz., from December 14, 1870, to March S in the following year. His sole sustenance during thin time was a spoonful of brandy and gum arabic water", a diet prescribed by Dr. Burns, of Frankfort, for a general breaking up of the system; On the last day of his fast Shallcross got out of bed and eat a cup of currant jelly, remarking that it tasted good, after which he ate a hearty dinner, and followed this by going into the garden and pulling up some weeds. Mr. Gordon Forlong, who will visit Dunedin next month on an evangelistic tour throughout the colony, i3 a miniature of Mr. Moody, of Moody and Sankey celebrity. A barrister by profession, he imbibed sceptical sentiments, which led him to contemplate a literary attack on the authenticity of the Bible. To accomplish this, he devoted leveral years to the study of the Scriptures in their original tongues. The result of his investigation led him to accept Christianity ai true, and since then he has devoted his •nergies to evangelistic work. — lltrald. A curious case was tried at Patea the othar day. There were two cross actions, Mr Weiss, tho schoolmaster at Whenuakura, being charged with assaulting a little girl named M'Loughlin, while the father of the Utter was charged with assaulting the sehoolmaßter. According to the evidence of ♦hi little girl, the schoolmaster called her a troublesome little brat and a little whelp, because she did not know how to spell a word. He also struck her with a flat ruler. Upon this it appeared that the father met ♦h« schoolmaster, knocked him down with bis flit, and kicked him in the ribs when he w«b on the ground. He explained to the Bench that he never thought it worth while to complain to Mr Weiss about beating his •hildren in school hours, because tho latter " always bad so much petty dignity." The Benck fined M'Loughlin £5 and costs, the ■ummons against Weiss being dismissed. Tb.9 fine and costs, amounting to £7 15s in all, were subscribed by some of M'Loughlia's sympathisers in Court. Mr. W. L. Rees, says the Star, has been "gaged in a kind of civil war at Napier. The whole origin of the dispute is about land, that most fruitful source of quarrels. Mr. Rees claims to be engaged in a philanthropic endeavour to settle the land difficulty in Poverty Bay on an equitable and satisfactory basis, but he is opposed by a party who profess to be actuated by motives equally philanthropic and just. As frequently happans in such cases, the two parties are prepared to back their respective theories by main force, and there have been one or two differences of opinion which have nearly culminated in blows. On a recent occasion Mr. Reea summoned a native interpreter and agent, named M. J. Gannon, one of the oppoaition theorists, on a charge of using language calculated to provoke a breach of the peace. The language used was Maori, and its meaning 7ii that Mr. Keen was a corrupt lawyer and a slav«. Further than thia Mr. Gannon appears to hare shaken Mb fist in Mr Rees' face, and, according to the complainant's own testimony, to have "gesticulated frightfully." Probably Gannon performed an impromptu war dance. One witness thought that Gannon was merely " emphasising his wordi." A fine of *10, with the alternative of two months' imprisonment, was inflicted, and defendant was also bound over to keep the peace. It is very melancholy to reflect that two parties each of whom profeas to be animated by philanthropic feelings towards the Maoris, should set such a bad esamplo in their conduct towards each other.