ACCIDENTS AND OFFENCES.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4483, 2 August 1875, Page 3

ACCIDENTS AND OFFENCES.

The warm rain on July 19tli melted the snowon Tongariro and Ruapehu, causing a heavy fresh in the "river. Some damage -was done at <the railway bridge works. The poor-box in the Catholic Church, Wanganui, was broken openson the night of July 10th, and the contents abstracted.. It had been closed since the beginning of the year, and was supposed to contain a considerabWsum. The magistrates at Temuka, province of •Canterbury, on Friday, July 36th, fined a respectable fanner £2O for shooting a hen pheasant on Sunday. The charge of shooting a cock pheasant, brought by the ranger, was ■dismissed for want of evidence.

The Feilding correspondent of the Herald ■writes that John A. Cameron, a carpenter, whilst drinking heavily with some men and women fell down, and having been carried to his house expired. A great sensation was caused. A friendly association is being formed at Feilding. Opposition was offered by the managers, but no notice was taken of it. Several severe accidents led to its formation. A heavy flood came down the Waiohine at eight a.m. on Monday, 19th July. There is no record of such a flood having occurred in the month of July since the year 1868. At that time the barometer indicated 29 - 15; thermometer, 56. On Monday morning the barometer was at 29'15, the thermometer at 63.

The Christchurch correspondent of the Otago Guardian writes as follows :—The following notice appears in our newspapers : " Notice. —£2oo Reward.—Missed from Avondale Station, at shearing, February, 1875, 2500 sheep from a wether flock; no traces of same discovered up to date. Any person giving information that may lead to the recovery of said sheep will receive the abovementioned reward. The station ear-mark—-both ears slit; paint brand—a circle with four points " This will, no doubt, remind old settlers of the incident which caused the Mackenzie country on the south-west of Timaru to be first opened up. About nineteen years ago the country to the west of the first range of ! mountains had not been penetrated, and was ! entirely, or considered so, terra incognita, j About that time a shepherd missed part of a flock ; in fact, sheep had often been missed, and wild dogs debited with the default. In this instance the shepherd had been out mustering,' when he came across tracks which induced him to continue the search, and followed the trail of sheep through a pass in the mountains into a fine pastoral country. Still travelling on, he at last espied his missing flock quietly grazing, with an attendant. ; This man's name was Mackenzie, and from the route he was taking it was evident that he had been in that direction before, and it was indeed afterwards ascsstaiued, that a resident—since dead—in the south of Otago, knew something about sheep from South Canterbury. I believe, although Mackenzie was caught, that justice failed, per- ! haps partly in consideration of his misdeeds having been the means of a valuable addition being made to the runs of both Canterbury and Otago. His name, however, became, and still is, attached to the district, although not many of our younger colonists may have been previously aware of the incidents attached to the discovery of the "Mackenzie Country." -Under the heading "drunk and robbed" the Auckland Southern Gross of July 10, tells the following story :—"There canbe no doubt that the immoderate indulgence in drink is the cause of much' crime. Many a man is set upon by thieves and robbed when in a state of intoxication, who would not have been robbed had he been sober. A case of this kind occurred last night, about eleven o'clock. At that hour, a seaman, apparently a foreigner, was lying helplessly drunk in one of the doorways near Messrs. Dickey's store, in Queen-street Beside him was one who ap : peared to be a new chum. Several people—amongst them Mr. Thornton, scenic painter at the Prince of Wales Theatre—were standing da front of the Pacific Hotel, watching the drunken man and his companion. The sober man, who looked like a new chum, was hauling at the drunken sailor, and asking him in a loud tone of voice to.come home, and now and again remarking, " You're too far gone." - The spectators were impressed with the idea that the.new chum was stoutly exerting himself to get his comrade home, and did not interfere. On a policeman approaching, his attention was drawn to the struggle between the sober man and the drunk companion. " As soon" as was observed, the drunken man was left to his fate, and the apparent friend took to his heels, and went off down Queen-street at his greatest speed. On examination it was found that the drunken man had been robbed ; all his pockets were turned out, his watch-key was lying on the • footpath, but his watch was nowhere to be found. Pursuit wa3 given to the fugitive, but he managed to make good his escape. A case of sacrilege has occurred at Wanganui. According to one of the newspapers, Father Kirk had occasion on Sunday to rebuke from the pulpit some as yet undiscovered thief, who descended to the base action of robbing the offertory box. At the destruction by fire lately of an orphanage in the other island, the children's collection box was abstracted during the confusion caused by the circumstances. Now, which of these two thieves has descended to the lower grade in the profession, the one who would rob a chapel, or he who would pilfer from _ a home for destitute children ? Who will envy either plunderer his booty or his conscience ? It is to_ hoped, for the sake of society, that the surmises of a few as to the identity of the sacrilegious burglar are correct, that his crime will be exposed, and that proportionate punishment and. disgrace will overtake him. On Monday, July 19th, shortly before 8 a.m., Mr. Garlick, a visitor at Mr. Cawood's, Marton, took up a loaded fowling-piece, and while holding it without sufficient care it exploded. The local paper says that part of the charge struck David Prince (a young boy) on the foot, fortunately only two shot corns penetrated, and also a few fragments of leather from the boot. Dr. Taylor has since extracted them, and the boy is going on as well as possible. An old man named Corbett, eighty years of age, had to give up the tenancy of a house in Taranaki. The incoming tenant (one Marshall) came to help him remove his things, and found the doors of the house fastened (a? it afterwards turned out, slightly.) He looked through a window and saw Corbett hanging with a rope round his neck from a rafter. He ran away and called the police, not, as he said, deeming it necessary to break the door open. On his return in some twenty minutes with a policeman and a doctor it was found that the '-''body had altered its position, thus leading to the conclusion that the unfortunate deceased was alive when first seen, and might have been saved. Marshall's only excuse was that lie was frightened. On Thursday morning, July 22, at half-past six o'clock a man named Alexander Anthony, •engineer on board the s.s. Fairy, was found dead on the beach near Meecb's slip. He was lying on his face just about high-water mark. An inquest was held at 2 p.m. of the same day before tho coroner, Dr. Johnston. It transpired that the deceased was a man of quiet, industrious habits, and was last seen alive by his son-in-law, Mr. Joseph Jamieson, at ten o'clock on Wednesday evening, when he was perfectly sober, and enjoying exceptionally good-health. A post mortem examination was held by Dr. Harding, who stated that the cause of death was serous apoplexy. The jury returned a verdict in accordance with the medical testimony. Deceased leaves a wife, a son eleven years of age, and two daughters, both married.

There was a terrific north-west gale and an extraordinarily high tide at the Thames on the night of Monday, July sth A large amount of damage was done. Grahamstown was flooded, the water being over a foot deep in some of the stores at the shore end. Thompson's timber wharf was carried away, There is a large gap in the Grahamstown wharf. The Tararu wharf is nearly all carried away. It is believed to be damaged beyond rodemption. The gardens along the beach had the soil washed off and many fences carried away. The Grahamstown and Tararu Tramway Company's engine-shed was destroyed, the sea wall having been undermined.

At Wanganui a number of thefts have lately been committed ; also, cases of sticking up have occurred.

Mr. Gilbert Mair, late of the Armed Constabulary, Taupo, met with a serious accident while out shooting ; his horse threw him. He is mending fast. . We hear that fever is making its appearance amongst the Maoris in this province. Within the past few days several deaths have occurred at the Hutt,. and one of the female celebrities resident in Wellington is so severely stricken that on Wednesday she was not expected to live.

We learn from Dunedin that on the nisrht of July 11th some scoundrel broke the lock which secures the switches of the Green Island branch railway, and then placed them so as to turn the morning 7.30 train from the main line to the branch line. The Government have offered a reward of £IOO for information which will lead to the conviction of the offender.

The other evening a robbery was perpetrated at the Pakuratahi Hotel. The landlord, Mr. Hodder, had placed a cash-box in his bedroom, containing a considerable sum, but on going to seek it at a later hour, he found it had vanished. The police are in possession of all information, but it is deemed inexpedient to make particulars public. A man named John Merolem, residing, at McKirdy's lodging-house, reported on the 24th July to the police at the Upper Hutt that he had been robbed of a pocket-book containing £7O. Constable Lyster on making inquiries and instituting a search found the pocketbook containing the money on the floor of one of the rooms in the lodging-house where Merolem lived. The owner had no doubt carelessly dropped it. There was a terrific N.W. gale on the night of the sth July at Auckland. Considerable damage was done to the small coasting craft in the harbor, and a number of fences were blown down. There is no record of any loss of life. Waymouth's, boat-builder, yard was completely wrecked by the gale. Henderson and Spraggon's yard was also damaged. There was other minor damage, but chiefly to small crafts, and very widely distributed. The Zeminio broke adrift, and was driven on

Obley's store, damaging the piles. The essel is not much damaged. James Conley, a waterman, and his wife, son, and a young girl, were at Auckland on Tuesday, the 6th July, remanded on a charge of arson, with intent to defraud the New Zealand Insurance Company. A fire was discovered-in their houss the previous night, having commenced in a box of old clothes saturated with kerosene. Another fire was lit on the top of the drawers, and other combustibles were prepared for lighting in the back room. The fire was eNtinguished after burning the lining of the house. All the accused were absent when the fire was discovered but the little girl, who made contradictory statements as to its origin. The building was insured for £2OO.

A fire occurred on July 4fch at the Kaikora; Otago. Flexman's felhnongery and woolsheds were totally destroyed. The insurance offices are expected to be hit heavily. It is supposed that he was covered to the extent of ,£9OOO, but as the fire occurred some distance from town, full particulars have not yet arrived. It was only on Thursday that the South British reinsured for £SOO with the A ustralian Alliance, so they save themselves a little. The firemen were soon on the spot. There was plenty of water obtainable from the creek running near the works, but no apparatus was available to throw the water on the fire. The glare from the conflagration was terrific, and fit up the whole town. The amount of insurance on Flexman's fire is £BOOO, as follows : Transatlantic, £2500 ; Norwich, £I6OO ; Royal, £IOOO ; Victoria, £IOOO ; South British, £500; New Zealand, £9OO. Flexman's estate loss is £SOOO and over. One office refused to take another £IOOO from him last Friday. On Thursday, July 14th, at half-past four, a man named Paul, a German, was driving a trap and two horses along Manners-street, near the Wesleyan Church, when the horses suddenly shied. _ The driver was thrown out very violently. Dr. Harding, who was passing, examined the man, and finding that he had broken hi 3 leg just above the ankle, had him conveyed to the hospital, under the care of SeTgeant Ready. The horses, after throwing out, the driver, bolted with the trap, which contained four passengers, but were stopped in Majoribank-street. Fortunately none of the passengers were injured. A carter, with his horse and cart, had just taken a load of coals from the barque Malay, on July 9th, when he- incautiously quitted the horse's head for a minute. The animal, however, moved off without Mm, got one of the wheels on the ledge which borders the wharf, and so proceeded, the wheel within half an inch of the edge, for some distance. The carter shouted, and thought his horse, coals, and cart would speedily be in the water. The spectators looked for the same result, but just as it was apparently most imminent, the carter got to hi 3 horse's head and saved a catastrophe. An inquest was held on Thursday, July 15th, on the body of the little girl, Ada Barnes, who was found drowned on the 13th July, in Makara River. The following verdict was returned:—"That the said Ada Barnes was found drowned on the 13th .July, in the river at Makara, but how or by what means she became drowned no evidence did appear to the jury-" The following particulars of the recent floods are from the Wairarapa Standard: —" It is said that the present flood in the Waiohine has cut into the Matarawa bank and shows a tendency to make for the old channel under the Black bridge. It would be as well, when the river is again low, for an examination to be made of the Matarawa side of it, with a view to ascertain if anything can be done to assist the Waiohine in any effort it may be making towards getting into its old channel. We understand that the Waingawa bridge has been injured by the late floods. The main body of water appears to have attacked the bridge ap- ( proach on the upper side of the stream, which has sunk in consequence some two feet. Fresh piles will have to be put in at this end of it, and probably a new breastwork. The Te Ore Ore bridge has been slightly injured, but not materially. On Tuesday and Wednesday last the inhabitants of Greytown had a small excitement in watching the Waiohine River, which, at the north end of Greytown, rushed over the main road. The width of the flood was about five or six chains, and its depth over the road from one to three feet. A tree lodged right across in one part of the road, which formed an impassable barrier for vehicles. When the flood subsided a little on Tuesday, some horsemen attempted to cross, but their horses would not leap the log which obstructed the way, with the exception of a fine animal ridden by Mr. J. Barton, which seemed to jump as readily in the water as on the dry land. Mr. Darrich; the roadman, at some risk waded up to the tree, and with the assistance of Messrs. J. Edy and T. Ingley put it in two and dislodged it. Mr. Darrich deserves great credit for the exertions he made to render the road passable. In the afternoon, a con3ideraI ble crowd assembled to witness the passage through the stream of the coach passengers from Masterton to Wellington and vice versa. They all crossed on horseback, and occasionally got more or less a wetting when any one of the animals drifted off the road lino into deeper water beside it. Yesterday morning the river had gone down very little, and the Masterton coach, about 9 a.m., got stuck in the middle of the flood, the wheels catching in a snag. Additional horse-power was obtained, and tho coach, which was full of passongors, pulled through, the latter having had an opportunity of surveying the flood from a central point for nearly half-an-hour." In the Supreme Court, Christchurch, Frederick Pavitt, late steward and church property trustee, charged with embezzlement of church funds, was sentenced to ten years' imprisonment. Charles James, late treasurer o£ an Odd Fellows' lodge, charged with larceny as a bailee of lodge funds, was acquitted. The Judge said this indictment could not bo sustained, as no instructions had been given prisoner to pay the particular amount mentioned in the indictment into the bank. He said the Crown Prosecutor was not to blame for the acquittal of the prisoner, as in the present state of the law the treasurer of a friendly society could rob such societies without rendering himself liable to imprisonment.