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New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4399, 26 April 1875, Page 2

Tlio arrival of the s.s. Maegregor, with. the English: March mail, at Auckland yesterday, via California, is a gratifying circunistanee. The Maogregor is known to be the slowest of the fleet, but though she sailed from San Francisco a day behind time, she has been able to make it up on the run across the Pacific, and has brought the mails to New Zealand punctually to time. She also reports having sighted the Mikado, with the mails hence, between! Honolulu and San Francisco, Captain Moore having evidently made good speed. The news by the Macgregor will be found in another column. It is diversified, and unusually interesting. The English mail via San Francisco will come to hand by the Taranaki, which will leave Onehunga this morning for the South, and may be expected to deliver the mail here on Tuesday night.

It will be seen that the election for Rangitikei, to fill the vacancy caused by the retirement of the Hon. "William Ifox, has resulted in the return of Mr. Ballance, of the Wanganui Chronicle, by a majority of seven votes. Mr. Ballance polled 112 votes, while the number recorded for Mr. Watt —who at one time represented the district was 105, ■ Mr. Hutchison obtained twenty-seven votes, and his candidature has probably cost Mr. Watt the election. The result of the polling has not been a surprise, for Mr. Ballance has worked the election with great tact and industry.

We learn that the stock members of the company that for the last five or Bix months have been performing here —including Miss Raymond, Mr. Burford, Mr. Hydes, Mr. Hesford, and others—will occupy the Theatre Royal for the next fortnight—playing, however, only three nights a-week, Tuesdays, Thursdays," and Saturdays, for a Beries of well-deserved benefits, Mr. Burford will take his benefit on Tuesday night first, when a favorite scene from Hamlet will be played, followed by the drama of "The Ticket-of-Leave Man." The next star to visit Wellington will be Miss May Howard, on the fulfilment of her Dunedin engagement; and she will be succeeded by Mr, and Mrs, Hoskina,

Another member of the House of Representatives—Mr. Seymour, Superintendent of Marlborough and Chairman of Committees in the House—is about to visit England, and he will not, for that reason.be present in his place at the approaching meeting of-the General Assembly. Mr. Seymour made the announcement in addressing the meeting of the Provincial Council of Marlborough on Friday. We are happy to learn that the master and matron of the immigration depot have so much recovered that no danger is now apprehended. The fever, is confined to the lower portion of the barracks, and the'drainage has been.seen to and the establishment thoroughly fumigated. The immigrants now on Somes Island, about 70 in number, will pie brought over from the island to-day and located in the higher part of the depot. The next ship with immigrants expected is the Hindostan, which sailed in February. In the account of the archery match between the Thorndan Archery Club and that of Christchurch, lately given, there is an error as regards the number of shots fired by competitors at each distance. On reference to the data furnished us by Mr. WiLnerJwe see that six dozen arrows were fired at each range, which is equivalent to four shots each for the eighteen competitors, whereas the number supplied us should have been three dozen arrows at each distance, which, of course, would give only two shots per head. The new yacht the Flirt, lately built by Mr.. Berg, was launched on Saturday last, and seems a very good specimen of his boatbuilding. One thing specially noticeable was the strong sheer the bows have, which will tend to make her a dry boat in a sea way. As to her sailing qualities it is impossible to speak at present. The contemplated assembly of footballers, who were to open the season on Saturday,' was rendered impossible by the unfitness of the weather for out-door recreation. A disagreeable drizzle, which set in early in the day, exercised a depressing effect upon the members of the clubs, and effectually quenched the euthusiasm generated during the week preceding. The delay, however, induced no discouragement. The clubs have gone to work with a, vigorous intent, a healthy rivalry already exists, and when the weather favors a meeting in the field the contest will probably be the finest yet -witnessed in Wellington. The strength of each club has been added to by the:addition of several members who bring with them a history of their exploits in other fields, and under these circumstances the first match may be looked forward to with great interest. . . , A meeting of the Waste Land Board will be held at the Crown Lands Office, Provincial Government Buildings, on Monday week, May 3, at noon. The annual dinner of the Builders and Contaaetors' Society takes place this evening at Urwin's Hotel. His Honor the Superintendent, the Provincial Secretary, all the architects, and a number of other leading citizens have been invited as guests, and the dinner promises to be as successful as. those of previous years. It is expected that his Honor ■will take the chair. We have to acknowledge the receipt, from Mr. J. A. Wilson, Auckland (a gentleman who has devoted a good deal of attention, to scientific pursuits), of a new book from his pen, entitled " The Immortality of the Universe." We shall notice it at length in a future issue.. Two seamen belonging to the ship Camatic were charged on Saturday, at the Kesident Magistrate's Court, with being absent without leave, and were ordered on board. This comprised the entire business transacted. It will be seen that- the Great Autumn Handicap at Christchurch unexpectedly fell to Mr. Watt's horse Parawhenua. The victory was a great one for the ring, the favorite being Calumny, which was backed for a great deal of money. We are much pleased to learn, says the Qisborne Standard, that Sergeant Armstrong has received a substantial recognition of his services at the hands of Sir Donald McLean, through the representations of his commanding officer, Captain Gudgeon. The efficient state of the Cavalry Volunteers is such as to have called forth an encomium from the Defence Minister, who has testified his appreciation by presenting Sergeant Armstrong with a donation of £lO, a gift well earned and most worthily bestowed. The IlawTce's Bay Telegraph states that his Honor the Superintendent of that province purposes to stand for Hastings at the next election. The same .journal states that the Native Minister is likely to remain in the province for about three weeks.

The Wanganui Chronicle gives the following as reliable :—" About' twenty-three years ago a gentleman, now a resident in Wanganui, accidentally allowed a pea to slip into his ear, which resulted in considerable pain intermittently accruing therefrom, and also in partial deafness. The pea worked its way to the front of the forehead, over the eye, from which it has been lately extracted." . Several gentlemen assembled last night, says . the Wanganui Herald, at the invitation of Mr. Millar, F.S.A., at the Rutland Hotel, by whom they had been invited to a farewell dinner. Electioneering and other engagements prevented a number unavoidably from attending, who would otherwise have been guests. Mr. Millar contemplates organising another reunion shortly, which shall partake of a more public .character, to which the townspeople will be numerously invited, and at which the late borough engineer will take a farewell of the inhabitants, previous, to proceeding to Nelson to undertake his new sphere of duty. The following notice appears in Te .Waka Maori of the 20th instant ': —" All persons visiting, the, geysers at Rotomahana are requested not to deface them by breaking off portions of the siliceous deposit of the waters comprising the terraces, and pendent fringes which hundreds of -.years probably have been required to form.—Wi Keepa Rangipuawhe, Himiqna Tb Kuha, Wikikiwiii.—Te Wairoa, March, 1875." ■ Captain Blake, who has recently purchased a considerable quantity of grass seed from the Maoris resident in the Ketemarae district, which was obtained from the rich plains of Waimate, will, says the Patea,'■■Mail, divide the sum of £IOOO among the natives during the week. ' The business people resident in that quarter will no doubt find a slight improvement in their business after tho division of tho "spoil." Large quantities of greenstone, in block, have been sent to Mr. Locke, of Napier, by the Maoris of Hawke's Bay, for the purpose of being manufactured into meres, ear ornaments, &o„ Many of the blocks have been in the possession of the natives for generations, but having discovered that Europeans can cut : the stone more expeditiously than can the Maoris, they have deposited with Mr. Locke their treasures. According to native valuation, Mr. Locke has in his possession stone to the valuo of many thousands of pounds, and tho Maoris are collecting money to forward him to cover the cost of cutting and polishing the stone.

Some curious answers are sometimes returned by witnesses in the courts of law. Very lately, in an assault case, before Mr. Beckham, R.M., at Auckland, in which females were concerned, a man named Pridmore was put into the box, and when the question that invariably follows asking a witness his name was put to him, replied, amid laughter, "The husband of my wife and the father of the child," who was the actual complainant. Mrs. Pridmore was more amusing still. The merriment was most hearty while she was being examined. In one part of her evidence she said ■:—" Defendant had promised to do for her girl; and when she spoke to her on the wickedness of her threat, she looked hard intc her face and called her a 'hussy.' She b lieved there was a dreadful prefix to the term, beginning with a 'D.'" Whereupon his Worship asked what a hussy was, to which innocent question Mrs. Pridmore replied, "that when Bhe was a girl it was something in the Bhape of a little book for the protection of needles." The reporter doeß not say whether the magistrate was satisfied or not. Eggs have now reached the enormous price of four shillings per dozen in Wellington,

The following amusing paragraph appeared in the Wanganui C/iro'nicle on Saturday last : —"Pursuant to advertisement, a quantity of effects, lately the property of the Corporation, but which had been distrained upon at the suit of Millar, F.S.A., on account of rent, were put up to auction yesterday, at noon. : About half-a-dozen persons put in an appearance, and the sale commenced. Mr. J; Chadwick officiated as auctioneer, and after the usual preliminaries necessary in such cases, bids were invited for a variety of odds and ends, some of which, from their respective associations, induced a considerable display of mirth. The articles were of small intrinsic value, but some were quitted at fair prices. The box in which erstwhile tenders were deposited found a purchaser at a small sum, as also the damping brush with ■which the late borough engineer was in the habit of damping his despatches previous to copying, F.S.A. remarking at the time, that cold water had been applied long enough, and that now he purposed'using a warmer application. Several articles in the inventory were not to the fore, and it is supposed that some enthusiastic antiquarian had become seized and possessed of the missing valuables as relics of the past, or as souvenirs of former acquaintanceship. A rammer which would come in handy at Turakina to-day, a big broom, which might also be used with effect, three spades, and a pick, were, ran up as being the only useful articles in the entire collection. ""The mould board for the date inscription which was to have adorned the mouth of the sewer, found a purchaser at four shillings. As a work of art, it fetched a fancy price. An ancient chart, upon which was the following inscription : 'Extraordinary plans, curiosities of attempted' engineering skill, should be deposited in the museum of absurdities, 1873,' was knocked down to an appreciative bystander at seven shillings. The late engineer's hat, ' without the brains,' as he remarked, was dropped at sixpence, the purchaser fancying a prophet's mantle had been cast upon his Bhoulders, as he tried on the ' tile' which erstwhile sheltered from the summer's sun and the winter's storm the hoary headpiece of the illustrious and invincible F.S.A. After all expensea have been deducted, the balance will be devoted to a charitable purpose, probably handed over to the Hospital Committee. This action, we learn, is only the filing of the first volley along the line, and the engagement will shortly commence in earnest, and be continued to the bitter end. None of the members of the Corporation, with the exception of the worthy knight of the hammer who presided, appeared upon the scene during the transaction." Quite a novel swindle is now on foot in Melbourne, says the Town and Country, in the shape of sixpences which have all the appearance of half-sovereigns. A would-be perpetrator of this fraud was detected, and has revealed the following strange fact :—" If a clean sixpence is put into the mouth while smoking a pipe, it will, in the course of an hour or so, acquire a golden tinge, which by gaslight is easily mistaken for the genuine article." -

Mr. Bundle, the contractor for the railwaybridge at Wanganui, is reported as progressing rapidly with the work. The Chronicle of Saturday states that " a large dam has been sunk, and the ground enclosed by it has been excavated to a depth of 18ft. below high-water mark, and this portion of the work now awaits the inspection of the Government engineer, previous to proceeding with the driving of the piles, which have to be driven in for a depth of 33ft. deeper than the base of the present excavation, or in all to a distance of 51ft. below the level of high water. Meantime, pending inspection by the engineer, the progress of that portion of the work intended for the foundation of the pier and abutments is temporarily suspended. The driving of piles for the scaffolding is being rapidly carried on, and as soon as the driving of piles is sanctioned in the excavation before alluded to, the work will begin to make a show. This will be the heaviest piece of work, from an engineering point of view, hitherto attempted in the colony, the magnitude of which few will understand till progress is further advanced. The various buildings erected cause the place to resemble a young township."