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New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4605, 23 December 1875, Page 2

The following tenders were received at the Public Works Office, Wellington, for the Karero contract of the Poxton to Manawatu Railway : Accepted : Wilkio and Douby, Wanganui, £4872. Declined : James O'Mura, Palmerston North, £6300 ; M'Neil and Dunn, Palmerstou North, £6561 ; Anthony Nathan, Wanganui, £7lOl ;A. H. Ihle, Palmerston North, £7391 ; Charles Noes, Wellington, £7534 ; Alexander Stewart, Palmerstou North, £7656 ; Eraser and Roberts, Poxton, £9OOI. It is understood that a criminal action for libel will shortly be brought forward. The plaintiff is Mr. William Hutchison, Mayor of Wellington ; the defendant, Mr Henry Anderson, until recently employed -under the Provincial Government. The alleged libel is contained in a telegram sent by Mr. Anderson to the Wanganui Chronicle, and in part inserted in that paper. The paper has since apologized, and given up the name of its correspondent. There is one matter worthy of note in this connection. The true principle of journalism is to insert nothing but that the consequences of which you are prepared to abide. The adoption of this principle would have prevented the Chronicle's giving up a name. At the adjourned meeting held in the Buckle-street school on Monday, the following gentlemen were elected a committee of management:—Messrs. W. W. Taylor, D. McDougall, H. Gaby, J. S. Smith, and G. R. Russell. In the course ol discussion it was stated that there were in attendance 112 boys and 80 girls. There will be a formal opening of the school on the 24th inst., when it will be endeavored to get up sports. There were no cases for hearing at the Resident Magistrate's Court yesterday morning, but while Mr. Crawford was in attendance the mother of the boy Ramsay, who was ordered to be sent to the training school, made an application for the : youngster's discharge, saying that she was in a position to take care of him. The boy was ordered to be sent home accordingly. By an error in Monday's issue of the New Zealand Times it was made to appear that Mr. Sheriff had received priest's orders. The orders he received were those of deacon. A correction of this error by the evening paper which copied our paragraph, mistake and all, will oblige. An inquest was held in the hospital, yesterday, on the body of the man Steinmuller, who shot himself on Tuesday morning. It appeared that deceased had been lately troubled with: a delusion that porsons were spreading reports of a nature calculated to damage his character,;and this preyedupon his mind. A verdict was returned to tho effect that doceased had committed suicide in a fit of temporary insanity. The deceased once bofore attempted self-destruction, about three years ago, on the passage to England,

The annual concert of the Wellington Choral Society will take place in the Manners-street Wesleyan Church this evening, when "The Messiah " will be produced. We remind insurers that to-morrow is quarter-day with the various companies, and that all premiums must be paid before the offices close. A man named Edward Elton was arrested by Detective Farrell yesterday afternoon on a charge of stealing from the till of the Brunswick Hotel. He will appear in the Police Court this morning. Mr. Coker's new hotel, opposite the Theatre Royal, will be opened to-day, and the event will be one of interest to many, as a free lunch will be provided to commemorate the occasion. An alarm of fire occurred yesterday, arising out of a slight blaze in the chimney of Minto House, Te Aro. The fire brigades were promptly in attendance, but their services were not required. At the Theatre Royal last night, "The Bells" was produced for the first time, Mr. Charles Wheatleigh appearing as Mathias, the part in which Mr. Henry Irving first made his name on the London stage. Mr Wheatleigh's performance was witnessed by a good audience, and was received with well merited applause. The late heavy rain has bad the effect ;of washing away great masses of earth from the face of the hills along the road to the Hutt. In some instances the earth has been thrown to the base of the hills, carrying with it trees and shrubs, which have been cut off close to the roots, and removed for firewood. : Mr. Plimmer's new hotel at Te Aro is a very fine house—the best, indeed, in that neighborhood. It is situated at the junction of Clyde-quay and Majoribank-street, and has a frontage of 80ft. Externally the building is attractive-looking without being ornamental, and the interior has been fitted up and generally arranged with a view to comfort. There are about nineteen or twenty rooms, all of them spacious, including the bedrooms. There is a billiard-room, a bath-room, large sittingrooms, and a dining-room. There is also a detached stable, containing four stalls. In every respect Mr. Plimmer's hotel is a credit, and we have no doubt that it will be largely patronised when opened, which will not be until after Christmas. A Thames paper states that it is intended to send a crew to represent that district at the Interprovincial Regatta, to take place in Wellington. In this the Thames people display a spirit for which they have always been remarkable, and especially when compared with those of Auckland, which should be in a better position to take the initiative in all such matters. Mr. Gillon has addressed three meetings of the electors of the Country District tins week. First at Pahautanui, on Monday night, and on Tuesday night at Tawa Flat, a vote of confidence and pledge of support being given at each place. Last evening, a meeting was held at Ohariu, Mr. Dennis McKenny occupying the chair. Mr. Gillon delivered an address of some length, at the conclusion of which Mr. Bryant moved, and Mr. Darby seconded, a.vote of thanks. A meeting of the Caledonian Society was held last night at Mcintosh's Hotel, when the final arrangements for carrying out the programme on New Year's Day were completed. It was formerly decided at a general meeting of the society that all entries for the various events, handicaps excepted, be taken on the evening of the 31st December. At the meeting held last night the directors, after due consideration, wisely rescinded the resolution, and unanimously passed another resolution to the effect that all the entries, with the exception of the handicaps, be post entries. In passing the latter resolution the directors felt that it would add very materially to the success of the gathering, as a large number of country competitors have always been present, and the former resolution would prevent many from competing that will now have an opportunity of so doing. Mr. T. A. Trollope, the Italian correspondent of the New York Tribune, relates the following story of Victor Emanuel in a recent letter from Rome :—" The King, in a mountain expedition, having wandered away from all those who were with him, came to a solitary mountain farm, just after he had shot a hare. The farmer, who had seeu the shot, complimented the stranger sportsman on the excellence of his shooting. The King admitted that he did consider,, himself a pretty fair shot. ' I wish to heaven,' said the farmer, looking at him wistfully, ' that you could shoot a fox that robs my poultry-yard almost every night ! I'd give a motta—an obsolete Piedmontese piece worth eight cents—to have him killed !' ' Perhaps I could,' said the King. ' But you must be here by three in the morning. That's about the time he always comes.' ' Well! a motta you say ! I'll try tor it. I'll be here about that time to-morrow morning.' Accordingly, without allowing any one to know the errand on which he was bound, the King found himself at the mountain homestead at the appointed hour, and posted himself in a favorable position for watching the proceedings of the depredator of the farm-yard. Reynard did not make himself long waited for, but fell dead at the first shot of the royal marksman, to the great delight of the farmer, who, true to his word, came down with his motta on the nail handsomely. The _ King pocketed the coin, and went off to exhibit it with glee, as 'the first money he had ever earnod by the work of his own hands.'" ' " The Cooldown Herald relates that Daniel Conuell, a miner, came into town recently and reported another- addition to the long list of atrocities committed by the blicks in Northern Queensland. This time it is not merely a murder ; but it is feared that the murderwas followed by cannibalism. There can be little donbt but that the body of the poor fellow, James Flannery, furnished the staple of a horrid banquet to the savages. Connell reports that Flannery, a packer by trade, was speared near Hell's Gates by the blacks on Tuesday, November 2, about 10 a. in. The blacks numbered about twenty. Connell was fastening the breastplate of one of the horses when Flannery sang out, 'Oh, Dan, the blacks.' When he sang out, Connell went to Flannery and tried to draw out the two spears with which he was pierced, but could not do so, so he broke them off, and said, ' Jimmy, run.' Flannery said, 'I can't ; the spears are through me.' The blacks were coming up again, so Connell ran for his life for about a mile towards the Palmer, when he met a party of men. They came back, but could not find jrlannery." The following Bad history is from the Mclvor Times: —"A man named Edward Vine, aged thirty-seven years, a native of Cornwall, was brought to the Heathcote Hospital on Friday last in a sad state of destitution and disease, and the latter caused entirely by want of proper food. He had been mining in a gully about three miles from Whroo, and for the last six months his sole diet was tea and damper, the former probably minus both milk and sugar. On this he had worked from day to day, hoping for a change of luck, and unwilling to let his destitution be known. His earnings were unequal to a meal of animal food, of which he said he had not ate a pound for six mouths. At last he became too weak and exhausted to work, and for six days and nights had neither food nor drink of any kind—not oven water. The attention of the police was then called to the case, and he was sent to the hospital, Mr. Welch, of Whroo, volunteering his trap and sending his son with him. When admitted he was found to be suffering from scurvy, the gums being flabby and detached from the teeth ; there were numerous purple spots all over the body ; the sight of both eyes was destroyed, the cornea or glassy part of them being disorganised. On the evening of the day after his admission, congestion of the lungs and bronchitis set in, caused by a cold caught on tho journey, in consequence of the inclemency of the weather. Ho had complained of feeling chilled all tho way down. Ho died on Monday." The Odd Fellows' Hall is announced to be let for the ensuing week. Application is to be made to Mr. Hillsden, at the Theatre Royal,

A Brisbane telegram in the Melbourne Argus of December 2 says : —" The escaped Communists found on Double Island state that they were engaged for nearly three years in malcing; their boat. They made their escape from New Caledonia in daylight, cutting the boat's painter, and setting sail when unobserved ; but they were afterwards pursued by two small steamers, and fired on, which obliged the escapees to lighten their boat by throwing nine out of seventeen sacks of flour overboard. The breeze freshning to half a gale the boat sailed well, and outstripped the steamers. They were without a compass ; but one of the number was able to take rough calculations. On the eighth day out the last drop of water was consumed. They reached land four days later, their feet and legs being much swollen. Yesterday they still remained at the camp of Duke, a timber cutter." As jewel robberies have become so prevalent both in Europe and America, the Neio York Times has been induced to make the following suggestion:—"Let every jewel of sufficient importance be accompanied by a wearable parchment certificate of its value, signed by the goldsmith or jeweller from whom it was bought, and let ladies when they travel leave the jewels in their husbands' or their bankers' safes, and wear the parchment certificates —as the Hebrews of old wore' their phylacteries—bound upon their arms and across their foreheads. If these certificates were made of a becoming shape and color, they would be quite as ornamental as many of the articles that they represent; and for all purposes of crushing rivals, or attracting attention, a certificate of value to the amount of five or ten thousand dollars, or more, signed 'Tiffany and Co.,' would be as effective as the jewels themselves. It is their value which is their chief merit as articles of dress ; for if a woman is not attractive without them, she may be very sure that she will be less so with them."