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New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4572, 15 November 1875, Page 2

The deputation appointed at the last meeting of the Wellington Chamber of Commerce will wait upon the Minister for Public Works at 11 a.m. this day, in reference to the much required construction of the railway wharf. The new public school, Buckle-street, for girls, is now in operation under a competent staff of teachers, and should supply a want urgently felt by the inhabitants of Adelaideroad and the neighborhood. The main room is of handsome dimensions, well lighted and ventilated. It is furnished with groups of parallel desks, arranged in the most approved method, and capable of seating over one hundred children. This school was opened on Wednesday last by Mi-. W. Mowbray, head master of Thorudon School, to whom, in the absence of the Inspector, the work of organisation was entrusted.

A person named H. B. Solomon, a commercial traveller for a Dunedin firm, was arrested yesterday -on a charge of forgery, by Sergeant Price. Prisoner was residing at the Empire Hotel, where he was arrested, the alleged forgery having been committed at Wanganui, and he will bo brought before the Resident Magistrate this morning. The cheque supposed to have been forged was for TOO some odd shillings. An unruly criminal was brought from X’akuratahi on Saturday. It appears that William Howell (such is his name) broke a pair of handcuffs before starting from Wairarapa, by dashing them on the wheel of the coach. On arrival here he further distinguished himself by breaking some of the coach windows. His original offence was stealing ss. worth of mutton. When brought before the magistrate, ho appeared to be suffering from drink ; but it is more than probable that he was acting a part, in order to secure a mitigated sentence. He was remanded till Thursday. In the meantime the police have taken effectual measures to prevent Mr. Howell from breaking any more handcuffs or otherwise proving frolicsome. He is a large powerful man, with any thingbut a prepossessing countenance, and at Wanganui, when he was there a report gained currency that he was a brother of the notorious Sullivan, whence Wanganui became too warm for Howell to live in, and he had to go, turning up eventually as above narrated. There was a fair attendance at the Theatre Royal on Saturday night, when “Peep o’ Day ” and “ The Taming of the Shrew ” were repeated. Mr. and Mrs. Darrell will not appear again for some time, but other attractions are to be presented to the Wellington public, in the shape of Mr. Davis, the ventriloquist, and his company, who will be assisted by the stock company now engaged at the Theatre Royal. They will make their appearance for the first time this evening. There will no doubt be a largo attendance, as as the fame of Mr. Davis has preceded him, and curiosity has been excited to a considerable degree. If report speaks truly, those who expect to see something quite novel will not be disappointed. The Auckland Southern Cross has strong notions in the way of the punishment of criminals. Of the case of the foolish young man Mackay who recently broke the windows of Government House, our contemporary says : —“ Is the “ cat" available to punish malicious idiotcy of this description ? If not, it ought to be.” The Cross would punish windowbreakers with cruelty. Perhaps the glass house in which the Cross lives renders it peculiarly sensitive to such offences. The annual Home Missionary meeting in connection with the Molesworth-street Wesleyan Church is to be held this evening, at seven o'clock. Addresses are to bo delivered by the Revs. Smalley, Carr, Law, and others. There were oidy a few criminal oases down for hearing at the R.M. Court on Saturday. Two men were fined for drunkenness, and an assault case was called on, but the parties interested did not appear, so it was struck out. Yesterday, the anniversary of the Primitive Methodist Church, was celebrated by special services. In the morning the Rev. Mr. Ward, pastor of the church, preached, and in the evening the Rev. James Patterson occupied the pulpit. To-morrow evening a tea meeting will bo held in the schoolroom.

A somewhat summary method of proceeding for debt was observed in Auckland lately in the immediate neighborhood of one of its banking institutions. Some time ago a man arrived from the country, and put up at a hotel in Lower Queen-street. Here (says the Cross) ho lived on the fat of the laud, parrying the landlord's polite hints for payment with the assertion that by-and-by he would be able to draw heavily on the bank. Boniface knew him, and was content. The draft arrived, and the “young man from the country” started to cash it. In the meantime, however, his confiding host had received somewhat more than a hint that his customer had fallen “ under the influence,” as Dr. Carr would say, of a damsel possessed of sundry attractions of the Circoan order. Boniface was equal to the occasion, and presented himself near the bank, just in time to find, as he thought, his quondam boarder eloping in the company of the person above referred to. An adroit push sent the fair kidnapper reeling away, and seizing his ungrateful guest in his arras, the landlord by main force popped him into a cab, and Circe was “left lamenting.” It is pleasing to learn that this decisive action led to the debt being paid. According to Dr. Yanco Smith the four Gospels have been completely revised, except two points in dispute yet to be decided. The Acts and small epistles have been revised once, and have to undergo a second revision. The Epistles of Paul came next, and would take a long time. The revisers, who numbered twenty, met for a week once a month during; ton mouths in the year. They had been thus engaged five years, and he estimated that their work would take them five years longer. The travelling expenses only of the revisers were paid from a fund formed by a sale of copyright to the University Press. He could not say whether the new version of the Testament woidd be published in parts. That question had not arisen. But there could be no doubt that the revision in question would, on the whole, be found a great improvement—here improving the expression, and there bringing out the meaning more clearly.

We have been requested to state that the Diocesan Library in Mulgrave-street, will be open every afternoon during the present week for the sale of various articles ex Dilawur, which did not arrive in time to be disposed of at the late Church of England Diocesan Bazaar.

Speaking of the member for the Dunstan, and his rumored appointment in the civil service the Mount /da Chronicle says:—“Although we consider that Mr. Shepherd as a politician has done all the good that it is now possible for him to do, we are not at all of opinion that he is not entitled to receive a reward for what he had done. Out of all the chaff and abuse Mr. Shepherd has received he lias never been charged with political dishonesty.”

An advertisement in another column notifies the reopening of the world-known Astor House, New York city, as an hotel. The event is of interest here, as no doubt more than one colonist will visit the approaching Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia and will make New York their head-quarters. The following is a description of Astor House, from the New York Sunday Daily News: —“ There are about four hnndred rooms, with a labyrinth of halls, passages, corridors and stairways, that are the confusion of strangers, the convenience of guests, and the safety of everybody if such a tiling as a fire were possible. Bath-rooms, closets and fire apparatus, are found on every floor in different and convenient localities, and over the whole sleeps a pervading air of luxury, reminding one of Aladdin’s Palace. The visitor winds through the corridors, over padded carpets, so noiselessly, that he imagines himself an imponderable ghost. On Wednesday, the Ist October, the hotel was inaugurated under the new administration, with a grand opening. Thousands of persons gave the building a thorough inspection, and partook of an eleemosynary foreshadowing in a modified way of the generous dispensations of the board where the patrons of the Astor House will regale themselves. Nearly all the prominent citizens and many distinguished persons from other places were present at this new baptism. Everybody knows that the Astor House is situated right in the heart of the business part of the city, and within a few minutes’ w T alk of all the principal steamboat and railroad landings and the ferries.

In supporting a motion at the recent annual meeting of the Society of Arts, Mr. Edwin Chadwick was led to refer to the Bessemer, the general steadiness of which at sea, under ordinary and even somewhat extraordinary circumstances, is undoubted. He mentioned that in order to get at the proportion of sea-sickness in that and the regular packet boats during the Channel passage, he had asked Captain Pittock, an ancient mariner who has been the chief commander of the Channel boats for a quarter of a century, what were the number of basins usually provided for the relief of the passengers in crossing, and was informed that the regular provision required was for two-thirds of the passengers embarked, while during the trips of the Bessemer not one was asked for. If Mr. Chadwick is in the habit of frequently crossing the “ silver streak,” this answer, says Iron, will leave him a merrier as well as a wiser man. It involves the most decided testimony to the superior comfort afforded by the Bessemer, even without her ingenious if not very practical saloon. The trials of the new Soott-Moncrieff tramway car at Glasgow seem to have shown results of some importance. The car, which is impelled by compressed air, is rather larger and heavier than an ordinary tramway car, and can be driven at ten miles an hour, but its usual speed in towns is to be only six. At this rate the car can be taken up and down the steepest gradients overcome by the usual tramway-cars, makes no noise, and coats for motive power only IJd. a mile, against 7d. per mile when drawn by horses, a saving which will soon give those who use it a monopoly of the traffic. The invention, if really as cheap as is alleged, will be most useful for cross-country railways, and ought before long to be applied to all threshing machines and other heavy engines which now frighten horses on country roads, while it excites a hope that at some future date we may yet be able to dispense with horses as beasts of draught. The animals have one permanent disadvantage in any contest with machinery—they eat when they are not at work.

A decision of some importance was given by the Chief Commissioner on Thursday last (says the S. M. Herald of the ISth October), in the insolvent estate of Edward Row and Company. The Oriental Bank Corporation sought to prove the acceptance of Row and Co. for £20,000, and the claim was opposed by the official assignee on the ground that the acceptance in question represented the same debt that the bank had proved tor in the estate of Beilby and Scott. The facts of the case were these:—The bank had granted a cash credit to the amount of £20,000 to Beilby and Scott, taking as security the joint and several bonds of Messrs. Beilby and Scott, and three other persons with other securities. The bank also expressly stipulated that the acceptance now sought to be proved upon should be given as additional security, which was accordingly done. The bank had proved on the bond in the separate estates of E. T. Beilby and W. Scott, electing to do so in preference to proving against the firm of Beilby and Scott. It was now contended by Mr. M. H, Stephen, who appeared for the official assignee, instructed by Mr. Rolin, that the bank having elected to prove against Beilby and Scott (whether against the joint estate, or against the separate estate of each), were debarred from proving as against Row and Co., because that firm comprised the names of Messrs. Beilby and Scott. It was, however, admitted that the two firms were entirely distinct and independent, and had quite separate and distinct liabilities and assets. The case of Goldsmidt and Casenauve was cited on behalf of the official assignee as being directly in point ; but it was contended by Mr. James Johnston, who appeared on behalf of the Oriental Bank, that there were several distinctions between the two cases. After hearing argument, his Honor the Chief Commissioner decided that the proof could not be allowed. Two Sisters of the Sacred Heart were charged before the Derby magistrates with a breach of the Vagrancy Act in collecting monies for an institution for the sick poor at Homerton. Canon McKeuta was allowed to address the Bench for the Sisters, but the magistrates said the police did quite right in arresting them. No order was made, on the understanding that the persons in question were not going to proceed further in Derby.

Mr. E. J. Duncan calls attention to his largo and important sale of drapery and clothing at the warehouse opposite Mr. Anderson’s store, Willis-street, on Wednesday and Thursday, the 17th and ISth iusts. The sale is without reserve, and should be largely attended, owing to the quantity of goods to ho submitted.