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New Zealand Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 4772, 8 July 1876, Page 2

In the course of the discussion on the motion to read the Levying of Bates Bill a second time yesterday, Sir Julius "Vogel said that in all probability the County Bill would be brought down before the end of next week. In the Legislative Council yesterday the Hon. Dr. Pollen gave notice that he would move at the next meeting, that for the remainder of the session the Council do meet at half-past two, instead of two o'clock. The report of the committee appointed to try the petition of Sir. James Mackay against Sir George Grey, sitting member for the Thames, was brought up in the House of Representatives last night. The committee reported that they had examined into the customs in England, and found that there was no reason why a member elected for one district should not be eligible for election to another seat; and were therefore of opinion that the hon. member was entitled to his seat. Sir George Grey will, on Tuesday next, elect which constituency he will represent—Auckland City West or the Thames. A telegram in another column states that there are signs of more dissatisfaction amongst the employes on the Canterbury railways. This is precisely what was to be anticipated from the fact of the Provincial Government giving in on the occasion of the late strike, and fully bears out the remarks we made at the time on the weak conduct of the Government. The following contributions have been received by the Wellington Benevolent Society : —The Hon. Sir John Richardson, £2O ; Mr. W, Holmes, £1 Is. ; Mr. T. Whitehouse, 10s.; Fancy Dress Ball Committee, £5 ss. Also, for Paul, Beidal, and Young—Bishop Kedwood £1 ; Rev. Father Petitjeah, 10s.; per Everting, Post, £U 10s. 6d. Tho annual meeting of the Wellington Jockey Club is to be held early next week, when a report of the operations of the club for the past year will be presented. It is to be hoped there will be a good attendance of members, so as to keep up the interest in the work of the club, which, although it has been of an up-hill character, has been performed successfully, and good results in the better quality of stock in the province are already to be seen. If not in a position to advertise such rich prizes as arc offered by some other clubs in New Zealand, the club has the satisfaction of knowing that visitors at the last meeting held on the Hut* course spoke highly of the excellent management of the stewards on that occasion. At the Reaident Magistrate's Court yesterday the business was as follows: —Thomas Jones was remanded on a charge of assaulting Constable Buchanan. Alexander Gordon, charged with resisting a policeman in tho execution of his duty, was fined 40s. and coats. Thomas Buchanan and Francis Coyne, charged with stealing from the shop of Mr. Smith a pair of trousers and vest, were both committed for trial ; and a man named McPhce was committed for trial on a charge of brutal assault. Mr. George Dixon has called at this office and exhibited two cancers, one taken from the breast of a female named Styles, of Nelson, and the other from the lip of a man. He states that the disease of cancer has been cured by his wife's family for a century back, the remedy having been communicated to them by a French physician. The cancer is taken out completely by the roots, without cutting ; and in two or three dozen of cases that he has known in Canada of persons operated upon it has never grown again. At the teacher's examination held in the Thorndon school on Wednesday and Thursday about fifty-one teachers of various grades attended. The papers wore duly filled in, and now await the attention of the supervisors.

There was a capital house at the Hibernicon last evening. We hear that Mr. C. Moody has secured a lease of the Crown and Anchor Hotel site for twenty-one years at £5 a foot. A large number of birds were shipped for New Zealand in the Pym, but unfortunately a heavy sea washed a number of the cages off the mainhatch. The birds that weresaved were taken into the cabin of Captain Stapleton and cared for. They arrived in good order, and are intended for distribution in the Patea district. At the Theatre Royal last night the sensational drama entitled "The Angel of Midnight" was produced for the first time in Wellington, to a full house, and proved one of the most apparent successes yet played by any company for a long time past. Pressure on our space prevents a detailed plot. Mrs. P. M. Bates, in the characters of the Angel of Midnight, Love, the Woodcutter, and Death, had an arduous task, which was fulfilled to perfection, and greeted with rounds of applause. Mr. P. M. Bates as Doctor Paul Bernare was immensely successful, and rarely has he appeared to greater advantage. Of the remainder of the characters, Messrs. Stoneham, Deering, Holloway, and Sam Howard came in for a large share of applause, and Miss Jessie Raymond, Miss Polly Leake, and Mrs. Stoneham were all that could be desired in their respective parts. We must not forget to mention the really good scenery that has been painted by Mr. Nicholson, and altogether tbe piece was most admirably mounted. " The Angel of Midnight" will be repeated to-night, when no doubt there will be a crowded house. During the prayers at the evening service at All Saints Church, Sandhurst, recently, the congregation were surprised by the rev. incumbent coming to a dead stop of some seconds' duration twice or thrice. At the close of the prayers the rev. gentleman expressed his regret that some persons present should so far forget themselves and the place they were in as to be guilty of most unseemly behavior, intimating his intention on a recurrence of the offence to request the verger to remove the offenders from the church. Whoever the persons referred to were, they must have felt very uncomfortable under the rev. pastor's severe admonition. The well-known episode in which the Duke of Wellington and a laborer took part, has just been re-enacted in Victoria by Sir George Bowen and a groom. The horses attached to his Excellency's carriage, after doing wonders on the boggy plains of the Wimmera, gave unmistakeable signs of being exhausted. It was imperative that Sir George should reach his journey's end quickly, and an application was made for the use of some horses belonging to the omnipresent Cobb and Co. " Have you got an order from Mr. Cameron?" asked the groom in charge. " No, but the horses are wanted for the Governor, and ." " Can't help it; my orders is not to let 'em go without an order, and they musm't go till you get one." " But I tell you they are wanted for the Governor," said the applicant. " I don't care if they're for the Queen; I've got orders to go by, and you'll have to get an order." No order was forthcoming and no horses could be had, his Excellency enjoying the joke as much as anyone, and highly commending the fidelity of the groom, and the high state of discipline to which the great coaching firm had managed to bring its staff of officers. A late English paper reports that the annual number of wrecks upon the British coast for the last five years has reached an average of five per day, and yet, high as this average is, it is not higher than might have been expected when compared with the enormous amount of shipping—upwards of a hundred millions of tonnage—which enters inwards and clears outwards from the ports of England each year, and when we take into account the intricate and difficult navigation by which many of these ports are approached. A careful study of the wreck charts of the last twenty years shows that these wrecks are very unequally distributed round the island, and, for the most part, they reoccur with surprising regularity on the same spots year after year. A recent investigation has brought to light in England a state of things as regards criminal statistics which has shown that in a great number of cases the causes of crimes are to be attributed to the overcrowding of families in houses, or, as they might perhaps be more correctly termed, "hovels." In a pamphlet which has lately been issued the executive committee of the Howard Institution assert that amongst other incentives to intemperance is the extreme privations to which certain sections of the poorer classes of the people are subjected, and to all appearances practice substantiates their assumption. Special reference is made to the town of Liverpool, where the density of the population is affirmed to be double that of London. 150,000 persons, it is said, reside in single rooms, of which no less a number than 15,000 are cellars, often filthy, dark, and ill-drained. The official, returns of the Glasgow health officer, which, by the way, refer back for a period of some years, give evidence that whereas in the healthy part of the city the mortality per annum is as 40 to 1000, in the overcrowded portion the mortality is 70 to the 1000 ; this is reckoning the population at 300,000. "How much crime," it is remarked, "in addition to death has been produced by this state of things is known only to the Omniscient One." A few years' ago the death rate of Glasgow's worst districts was 100 per 1000. "By great improvements in sanitary inspection and opening up crowded spots the whole death rate of the city has been reduced nearly 1000 per annum, and the cases of crime and disorder from 11,000 in 1867 to 8000 in 1873.