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New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4294, 24 December 1874, Page 2

The Time-ball maybe used'to-day for rating chronometers. The ball drops llh. 30m. in advance of Greenwich time, or a chronometer ti-uo on Greenwich time should then show 12h. 30m. The difference is error, pips or minus, of chronometer. We learn that the s.s. Macgregor, with the incoming English and American mail, via San Francisco, passed through the Golden Gate on the sth of December. She will be due at Auckland about New Year’s Day. That the public have not yet lost faith in the San Francisco mail line may be inferred from the fact that the mail despatched from Wellington yesterday, per the Phoebe, consisted of not fewer than four thousand letters, and two thousand three hundred newspapers. The Wellington Almanack, Directory, Calendar, and Diary for the year 1875, we observe, has now been issued from thepress of the New Zealand Times Company. It forms a very substantial volume of some three hundred pages of information, carefully compiled, and of the greatest value—both to residents and the travelling public. We observe that in place of the usual street directory it contains the burgess roll—a feature which cannot but make the Almanack particularly valuable to the public of Wellington. We shall not attempt to analyse the contents of the volume, but content ourselves with noticing the fact of its issue from the press.

The steamer Alhambra was to sail from Melbourne on the 19th instant for New Zealand, coming by tho West Coast. She may, therefore, be expected off Hokitika on Friday morning, and in Wellington on Saturday night or Sunday. She would bo followed by the Otago, Captain John McLean, which was to sail on the 23rd instant. The Otago on this occasion will be a full ship, so far as passengers are concerned. She was to make Milford Sound, and then proceed along the coast on her usual round of the Middle Island. The Omeo would follow, sailing from Melbourne on tho 30th instant, and coming via the Bluff. Nearly the whole of the sections in the Manchester block remaining unsold from tho auction sale on Tuesday were taken up yesterday at the upset price, the amount realised being about £IOOO. There is little doubt of Feilding- becoming one of tho most flourishing townships in the Manawatu. It is now only a year since the first settlers took up their residence On the block under tho auspices of the Association, and there are now over 1000 people located on the ground. The railway will run through the centre of tho township, and when it is completed Feilding will become the centre of a very flourishing timber district.

We have to acknowledge the receipt of “The Southern Provinces Almanac, Directory, Diary, and Year-book for 1875,” published at the I’imes office, Christchurch. It is well got-up, and appears to bo full of useful information. A new temperance beverage, to which the name, of “Exo" has been 1 given, has been patented by a Victorian manufacturer. It is described as being “most agreeable to the taste, very refreshing, and possessed of excellent tonic properties but, of course, the materials of which it is composed, and their proportions, have not been disclosed. Mr. Mosley’s “ Monthly Price Current ” for the outgoing San Eraueisco mail is again before us. It contains the usual amount of Wellington information and has, besides, a new feature, namely,a returnof the bonded stocks inWanganui, the duties collected 'at Wanganui for the month and a statement of tho principal articles exported from that port during the same period. It shows evidence of a desire to spare no trouble in giving valuable commercial information, and well merits the support it receives. In tho commercial report it dwells on the necessity for a simplification of action in the Vice-Admiralty Court, regarding salvage claims, and this on the ground that tho interests of our growing marine trade require it. One or two'other questions interesting to business men are touched upon briefly but forcibly, and generally tho publication fully sustains tho high character whichit has hitherto earned. A coming visitor is Mr. Andrews, tho Crown Solicitor of South Australia, who has obtained leave of absence from his Government, for six months, to enable him t( visit New Zealand.

The Hon; E. W. Stafford and Mr. T. B. Gillies were passengers by the Phoebe yesterday for the North. We observe that the borough of Invercargill is a borrower in the Melbourne market. Three thousand pounds are wanted, at six per cent. Since Tuesday last the barometer has.risen steadily at all places between Auckland and Dunedin, but has fallen a little at the Bluff and Queenstown. Light winds and fine weather prevailed over both islands on Wednesday. Two drunkards were the only persons who troubled the Resident Magistrate yesterday, one of them being visited with a well-deserved penalty. It seems that during the performance at the Theatre on the previous evening the offender created a great disturbance and had to be taken outside. His Worship fined him 205., as a caution to future offenders. Various opinions, some of them preposterously wide of the mark, have been hazarded as to the cost of the Strathuaver suit. Numbers of people who professed to be pretty well posted as to the expenses of such proceedings fixed the sum at about £SOOO : others, who must have magnified the items considerably, put it down at £15,000. It is stated, however, on very good' authority, that £3500 will cover.all the costs in the case. The team chosen to represent the Star Club in the match' to be played on Boxing-Day against the Pahautanui Cricket Club are as follows, viz.: —Lockett, J. A. Salmon, Russell, Turner, Mason, Mace, Webb, Edmunds, Nation, Bishop, and Howard ; emergency, Macdonald. Fortunately the weather last night was favorable, and the Circus Company were able to give another of their entertainments to a full house. The programme was as excellent as usual. Mdle. Salavario especially distinguished herself; while Mdle. Yoemans also commanded the admiration of the audience in her graceful horsemanship. To-night, amongst other attractions, will be the famous Liverpool Steeplechase. The Central Eire Brigade were suddenly called upon last night, and responded to the call most admirably, to give a show of their readiness in case of fire. The occasion was the presence of Mr. Lee, the travelling colonial inspector of the London and Liverpool Eire Insurance Company. Captain Moss soon had his- men out, and all the mains on Lambton Quay and Grey-street, facing the Odd Fellows' Hall—some nine in all—were soon in play, throwing jets of water that would quickly’have beaten out any fire in the highest building in Wellington. Mr. Lee expressed his surprise and gratification at finding the resources of the brigade so extensive, and the readiness with which they had turned out ; and at the close of the display handed to Mr. Moss a handsome present for the entertainment of the members of the brigade. O’Eerrall, the Melbourne levanter, who has lately been captured in Singapore, is liable on conviction to a sentence of ten years’ imprisonment under the Hist section of the Criminal Laws and Practice Statute. A new concert-room attraction has arrived in Melbourne, in the person of Dr. Sylvester, who is better known as- “The Eakir of Oolu.”' He arrived by the mail steamer Ceylon, and was to make his first appearance in St. George’s Hall in the Christmas week. Mr. Lyell, the absconding bank manager, arrived in Wanganui on Tuesday evening, in charge of the police, and was at once brought before the local bench, and remanded to Marton, where the case will be heard on the 30th inst. Bail was accepted, the prisoner in the sum of £IOOO, and two sureties of £IOOO each.

They tell me, says “ iEgles” in the Australasian, that last Sunday a Church of England clergyman mounted his rostrum (he has no pulpit) and announced that he was not going to preach from a Scriptural text. And having aroused the attention of his congregation, he took its head (figuratively) under his arm, and gave it (metaphorical) fits. The subject was their plentiful lack of charity. They didn’t plank their dollars. There, said his reverence, is the Hon. Mr. . When X asked him for money he wanted to know how much the last tenant in the same house, and who had now gone to Europe, used to give. And thus, with considerable adroitness, the pastor managed to indicate with recognisable plainness the erring lambs of the flock—to the great edification of the others. It was observed that his usual ten minutes’ discourse on doctrine reached fifteen upon the occasion of his trouncing his pewholders. An old Maori canoe, of some traditional interest, has just been dismantled near the East Cape (writes the East Coast correspondent of the New Zealand Herald.) It was wrought out of the trunk of a gigantic totara tree, fifty-one feet long, four feet wide, and three feet deep, some thirty years ago, by six or seven natives who have since gone to their long home. The workmanship displayed no ordinary ingenuity and skill in canoe-making—so much so that it is acknowledged that but very few of the Maoris now resident on the East Coast could turn out such a model walu. Much labor appears to have been expended upon it, especially upon the figure-head, which was at one time unusually large and most artistically carved. It was one of the fastest canoes ever possessed by the tribe (the Ngatiporou) to which it belonged. It could carry between thirty and forty men, including the paddlers, and on one occasion as many as forty-five were conveyed in it between Poverty Bay and Awanui. During the Hauhau insurrection one or two fruitless searches were made for this waha, for the express purpose of_burning or otherwise destroying it—the enemy being most desirous of depriving the Ngatiporous (who were friendly natives) of its use. As a proof of the durability of totara I may state that, with little exception, the canoe, although upwards of a quarter of a century old, is as sound as ever, and will probably be yet utilised by its owners, who seem to have a veneration for it as a relic of bygone days.