Intercolonial News.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 317, 9 March 1878, Page 18

Intercolonial News.

Alelbousnu, Saturday. The question as to whether the Government will sign the warrants of the Assembly still remains unsettled. The Treasury, however, is as yet able to pay the public creditors. It is believed that the whole question will be referred to Parliament before the Governor is consulted on the matter. The Victoria Racing Club’s meeting was held to-day, and the weather was fearfully hot. The attendance was only moderate. The Hurdle Race was won by Lord Harry after a good race, Monk second, Plevna third. Time, 5 min. 43 sec.—Ascot Vale Stakes —His Lordship first, Rhoodee second, Bosworth third. Eight started. His Lordship won it easily, lime, 1 min. sec.—Brunswick Stakes— Garto first, Laertes second, Breadalbane third. Twenty-four started. Time, 2 min. 12 sec.— Leger—First King first, Chester second, Pardon third. This was a desperate race, and was won only by a head. Time, 3 min. 24 sec .—Visitors’ Plate —Studley first, Wamba second, Sweet Briar third. This race was won easily.—The Keilor Stakes—Waterford one. Gratis two, Flying Fish 3. The race was won easily in 2 min. 45 sec. In the match between the Australian Eleven and the Combined Fifteen the latter made 78 in their first innings. The Australian Eleven then went in and made 125, of which A. Bannerman made 45, Spofforth 38, and Bailey 24. The Combined Fifteen in their second innings made 66, with the loss of three wickets. This has been perhaps the dullest week we have experienced f«r some time. There is a perfect stagnation in politics, and the crisis seems almost forgotten; but it is only the calm before the storm. The reply of the Imperial Government, is anxiously awaited, but probably that will be received in the form of a despatch, and not a telegram, as anticipated. Recent correspondence published, between Lord Carnarvon and Governor Robinson, has a bearing on the present position of affairs in this colony, and if the policy of the Colonial Office remains unchanged they will not assent to the wishes of the Government to pay on the votes of the Assembly alone. The picture of Moses ha 3 been landed, but requires arranging before it will be open for public inspection. Sir Jno. Coode leaves for England by the San Francisco mail next month. He will furnish his report from Home. Seeps have been taken to defend the Heads against any possible attack. Seveial 9-inch o-uns have been placed iu position, and arrangements made for laying torpedoes across the entrance of the Channel.

The Intercolonial Eight-oared Boat Race takes place on Wednesday the 6th, on the Lower Varra. Three large failures have lately taken place. Berghoff and Touzel were followed by E. Lauder and Co., tobacconists, with liabilities £28,612, assets £24,640. Both estates will b« wound up in the Insolvent Court. "Yesterday Salmon and Co., furniture dealers, filed their schedule ; liabilities showing £36,950, and assets £31,050. One large firm within the last three months has sustaiued losses nearly equal to £40,000. Business is dull, owing to political matters. Sugar is in good demand at advanced rates ; wheat, ss. Bd. Amusements are fairly patronised, the last opera is doing best. Some Ministerial members, as well as Opposition members, have been addressing meetings; but there have been no Ministerial utterances. The Governor, it is understood, has received a telegram in reply to an application for instructions. He is to be guided generally bycircumstances, and to accept the advice of his Responsible .Ministers. The Brisbane Telegraph reports the death of Air. Thom .s Slattery, Inspector of the Queensland detective force. The deceased had been twenty-four years in the detective force of Victoria and New Zealand, and for the past thirteen years had been in Queensland, rismg by merit to the position of Inspector. He was much esteemed by the officers and men of the force, and always carried out his somewhat unpleasant duties with tact and courtesy. Says “aEgles” :—Leatherlegs is one of the fine old type of cattle-owners, the cardinal point in whose squatting faith is a free range over his neighbors’ runs and no questions asked. Backblocks invited him the other day to join him iu fencing the dividing boundary. L. at once looked serious. “ Well, you know,” said he, “ Boyd wants me to fence, and Jenkins, and now you ! Why, the end of it will be, I’ll be fenced all round, and hang it, man, I’ll have nothing left but my own run.” A young man named James Augustus Hall has beeu arrested ou warrant at Willianistown, Victoria, charged with stealing his father’s will. The prisoner, with other mourners, attended the funeral of the late James Hall, who was interred in the Williamstown Cemetery, and afterwards returned home to Cecil-street, where the decease i’s will was read by Dr. Finn. Seeing that all his father’s property was left to his stepmother and a young sister, Hall snatched the document from the doctor’s hand and rushed out of the house. About nine o’clock the same evening the will was found by the police on the premises torn to pieces. Recently, in the Victorian Legislative Assembly, Mr. Mclntyre brought under the notice of the House the case of a young, man in the railway office, who had written to him (Mr. Mclntyre) about some matter. Mr. Mclntyre transmitted the letter to the Minister, and the reply he received was that if the young man wrote to a member of Parliament again he would be suspended. “Yes,” interjected Air. Woods, “ I will sack him next.” “This, gentlemen,” exclaimed Mr. Mclntyre, “ is a specimen of the reign of terror now prevailing. The Civil Service is demoralised. Alen dare not call their souls their own.” Mr. Mclntyre concluded with a remark that Air. Woods should know better, for he had been a civil servant, and had been dismissed himself. The hit was applauded so loudly in the House and strangers’ gallery that Mr. Woods’s retort was, for the most part, unheard or misunderstood. “ Yes,” he said, pointing to ex-Ministers, “those men dismissed me, and I have had my revenge.” Tidings are to hand (says the Melbourne Age) of Mr. C. E. J ones, a wellknown Victorian politician, and formerly Alinister of Railways. We have before us a letter in his handwriting, bearing date 85, South Grace-street, Chicago, 19th December, 1877. It is written in reply to a gentleman residing in this city, who sent a letter of condolence to Mr. Jones’s daughter under the impression that her father was dead. He say 3 “ I am now editor in chief and one-third proprietor of the Western Era, a new paper, which commences almost immediately to be published in this city of Chicago, but I fear it won t make much money. I have been editing the Spirit of the Turf, a horseman’s paper. But of course my sympathies are with men rather than with horses, although some horses are better than many men. I have written many books since my departure from Victoria, and am now engaged on two, but my chief delight is to pile up material for lectures on America and its Congress, which may yet tickle the ears of Victorians. If my means would permit I should lecture in this country extensively on Victoria and its people, because I am sure that thousands of men with shekels of silver and gold would migrate across the Pacific if only the truth were known, asking no aid except the information that I could supply.” The intemperate language of Air. Dalor, says a Victorian exchange (an Opposition paper it is needless to remark), has been exceeded by that of two other members of the Victorian Alinistry, who, speaking at Stawell last week on the crisis, answered in these veryextraordinary words the delivered from some pulpits concerning the dismissal of civil servants :—-Air. Patterson said he was reminded of a story he had read of the directions which a father had yiven to his son when permitting him for the first time to go out partridge shooting. “ Don’fshoot that man said he “ that is my banker ; and don t shoot that man—he is my broker. If you shoot anyone, shoot tae parson.” (Laughter.) Ihe latter class was numerous, and had all the emoluments. Besides, they could, as amongst the Wesleyans, have plenty of preaching for nothing. If they were going out shooting today they would not do harm if they shot » parson. Air. Longraore said “The pulpit had interfered in favor of a certain class of civil servants, but the poor were too far down the hill for the preachers. « Let them go to hell—-

l«t them go.’ The Gospel was not now preached to the poor but to the rich, under whese tables the preachers could put their heels.” Then the Minister alluded to the Rev. William Henderson, of Ballarat, as having been, in the early days of that city, a loafer about public-house bars. It would not be well for Longmore to go just now to Ballarat, where Mr. Henderson is so well known and highly esteemed by all classes of the community. The Melbourne Argus in a recent issue says: —Some time after the arrival of the ship Macduff, from London, a few months ago, considerable comment was made on the circumstances of her having run down a small fishing-smack in the Channel, and paying no attention to the cries of those on board, and a charge was sought to be made against Captain Watson for not standing by to pick them up. Letters have been received here by the last mail stating that the small craft had arrived at Dover on the day of the accident with the loss only of the jigger-mast. The vessels grazed each other without doing other damage than that just noted, and the ci'ies heard were those of the men on the fishingsmack shouting and swearing at the larger vessel. A Ballarat paper is responsible for the following grim joke :—“A witty member of the Civil Service, residing in the Ballarat District, made arrangements with a friend some tim* ago to join him in a walking tour through Victoria and Tasmania in January, 1878. Neither gentlemen, however, kept the engagement, and last week the civil servant received a note from his friend, in which the latter stated that a dangerous illness had prevented his fulfilling his appointment. Our civil servant, who had only kept his office by the merest chance in the world during the recent dismissals, replied, * Dear C , don't apologise for not meeting me at Melbourne as agreed upon, for, like yourself, I did not keep tryst. The cause was somewhat similar in both cases ; you were in danger of dying, and I was within an ace of being Berried.” There are smart men of Belial in this community, writes a correspondent of the Geelong Advertiser. A trick by which creditors are wont to obtain an unfair advantage over their debtors came under my notice lately, and deserves exposure and reprobation. The ordinary process of law having been exhausted, a certain creditor hired a dummy to proceed to a shipping office and take a passage for another colony in the name of bis debtor. Thereupon he proceeded to his man of law and represented that his debtor was about to evade payment by quitting the colony, and suggested that the passenger list of the intercolonial steamers should be searched. This was accordingly done, the name duly found, and upon an affidavit thus justified, the unfortunate debtor, who had never entertained the idea of lea ving for an instant, was arrested on a warrant of ca. sa. This scandalous sharp practice is, I believe, cf frequent occurrence.